Here’s something you will never see in a Muslim nation. Israel’s going to get its first gay political party.

A number of friends plan to set up a party for gay people that would contend for Knesset seats in the next general election.

The party will be called Magi, a Hebrew acronym for Gay Party in Israel, the Tel Aviv magazine reported Thursday.

Gay groups stepped up their campaign for more civil rights when their plans to hold a gay pride parade in Jerusalem were cancelled by the police for fear of confrontations with the city’s strictly religious residents.

Say, Queers for Terrorists: What do you think about this? Whoops, you’re still too busy blaming the Israelis for every bad thing in Israel and the terrortories to notice. Never mind.

I have an idea of who reads my blog and why, but only an idea. You guys have been driving me crazy lately, because you’re simply not commenting, and it’s hard to tell which of my posts are working and which are not.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I go through periods where I try to find out what keeps bringing my readers back every day. I’m willing to change some things at your request, if those requests fit into what I like to write about, or my vision of this weblog. If they don’t, I pull the “This is not a democracy; it’s a dictatorship” card and overrule you. But I can’t make those decisions if you’re not speaking, so I’m going to try to figure out what to do by giving you some census questions to answer.

Please let me assure you that I have no access to any data other than the results of the poll, just like you. And please, please, please—answer the questions. Take a minute or two. Especially my “invisibles,” the vast majority of my readers who come here every single day, and never email, or comment, or do anything but read. (”Invisibles” is my term for what other people call “lurkers,” but I don’t understand why there should be a negative connotation for people who only read websites, but none for people who never write letters to the editor or call TV stations to complain.) You “invisibles” are the ones I want to get a bead on, so I can continue to keep you around. And maybe get you to bring your friends along.

Let me tell you, it isn’t easy figuring out what you guys want when you never say a word. My mind-reading capabilities are taxed to their utmost in your cases.

First question: Seniority.

Next: Why you’re here.

Next: Who you are.

Next: Who are my Christian audience? (Please don’t take offense in any way, I’m just really, really curious about my demographics.)

Next: What kind of Jew are you?

Now, your politics:

Next: Why don’t you comment? (This is not for my regular commenters. Please skip this question.)

Next: What else would you like to see?

I know many of you are going to complain that some questions require more than one answer. I tried to make the answers varied enough so that you can choose one that’s at least close to what describes you. But if you insist, I can make multiple-choice answer polls for some of the questions, but not until a whole bunch of you have taken this poll.

You can cheat if you want to. All that will do is make me not bother to find out what my readers want in the future. Ruling by fiat. Yeah, I can deal with that. I’ve always had a hankering to be dictator of the world. If only.

The boycott fever consuming the fair island of Albion has erupted again yesterday.

Delegates at the first conference of the new University and College Union in Bournemouth voted by more than three to two to recommend boycotts in protest at Israel’s “40-year occupation” of Palestinian land and to condemn the “complicity” of Israeli academics.

There are some strings attached to the boycott resolutions, which will become clear as time goes by.

The 158 UCU members who voted for the motions are by no means a homogeneous group and there were several motivating factors that caused them to vote this way. I am not even trying to suggest anti-Semitism as a main factor, although it is definitely one of them. The problem with this specific subject is that the usual crowd will drag out the usual straw man “Jews always cry anti-Semitism”, and the resulting brawl will lead to a dead end.

Of course, sheer ignorance and indifference of the majority made it that much easier for the shrilly group of anti-Israeli lobbyists to pass the resolution. And the best proof of it is the fact that hardly anybody of the pro-boycott crowd ever tried to answer one simple question: why it is Israel that is singled out? And hardly anybody of the indifferent “pro” voters ever asked this question.

But all this is a subject for in-depth analysis of the whole story that will inevitably follow as the dust settles. I would like to focus on an example of a “grass-root” pro-boycott scientist, which example is courteously provided by that linked Guardian article.

During the debate, which lasted well over an hour, Michael Cushman, from the London School of Economics, said: “Universities are to Israel what the springboks were to South Africa: the symbol of their national identity.”

I don’t know from springboks and South Africa (interesting choice of imagery, by the way - kinda indicative of the trend). However, I am also not at all sure that universities are that symbolic. What about, you know, Jerusalem, the Western Wall, Ben Gurion, gefilte fish, “never again” and all this stuff?

Israel wanted to claim it was a normal democratic state and universities were integral to that, Mr Cushman said. “[But] it is not a normal state. They are not normal universities. “Senior academics move from universities into ministries and back again,” he said.

Only Mr Cushman knows what is the meaning of the above. How Israel is different from a “normal state” in these movements of academics is a mystery that shall remain unresolved without an investigation, and the question is hardly worth investigating. Anyway, here comes the main point:

“Regularly, lecturers take up their commissions in the Israeli Defence Force as reserve officers to go into the West Bank to dominate, control and shoot the population.”

This is really the essence of the primitive black and white vision so typical of the learned discourse one can easily find on the talk-backs and discussion forums of British press. This is the rotten fruit grown in a mix of ignorance, indifference and, in case of Mr Cushman who seems to be Jewish, an ardent desire to distance himself from the bloodthirsty Zionists.

Yes, Mr Cushman, you have succeeded admirably. You shall never be required by your dean to bring several fresh scalps of Palestinians from your reserve service, unlike your less fortunate brethren in Israeli universities. So rest assured that your “not in my name” was heard loud and clear and the next time they come for you, they will see that “Pass Over” sign on your door.

To end this long post, I have found another example of the mind-boggling sloganeering idiocy that shows the depth of analysis a scientist is able to display - when he/she wants to:

Is it unfair to single Israel out? It is not clear that there are other heavily militarised, nuclear-armed, expansionist apartheid states with extensive illegal settlement, land seizure and wall-building activity.

· John Chalcraft is a lecturer on government at the London School of Economics

Now - should we be surprised by the education level of some graduates with teachers like these?

Feh…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Meryl to Jordan: Eff off, you hypocritical bastards.

A tradition of three millennia, tenaciously preserved and reinvigorated by living presence until 27 May 1948, when the Jewish Quarter fell, could not be destroyed by the Jordanian conquest or edict. The “refugees” from the Old City awaited their return, which began the very moment Israel’s army liberated it from Jordan’s hands in the Six-Day War of 1967. What they found as evidence of Jordan’s attempt over 19 years to erase every memory of Jewish presence was monestrous scene of wanton destruction.

The following is a photographic record that is but a sample of the destruction. All but one the thirty five houses of worship that graced the old city for centuries were in shambles. Such was also the state of the revered Jewish graveyard on the Mount of Olives, a graphic testimony of callous, insensate sacrilegious profanation.

It is the story of hundreds of Scrolls of the Law, reverently preserved for generations, plundered and burned to ashes; of thousands of holy books committed to the flames; of synagogues razed to the ground or covered into hollow shells of their glorious former selves, there interiors used as hen houses and stables, filled with dung-heaps, garbage and carcasses, or as sites for latrines and sewage canals; of tens of thousands of tombstones torn up broken into pieces or used as flagstones, steps and building materials; of large areas of the cemetery leveled and converted into parking lots and a filling station; of graves ripped and skeletal bones scattered to the four winds, and an asphalt short-cut through the pitiful remains to provide as short-cut to a new hotel built incongruously upon the Mount of Olives.

Click on the first link to see what the Jordanian Muslims did to Jewish cemeteries. Or click on this link. Or this one, to see an ancient synagogue destroyed by the Jordanians.

Now listen to this hypocritical, lying asshat.

A Jordanian official called on Israel Wednesday to stop archaeological excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, the official Petra news agency reported.

[...] “Israel must stop its continuos practices and measures to Judaize the city and change its Arab and Islamic characteristics,” said Abdullah Kanaan, the head of Jordan’s Royal Committee for Jerusalem’s Affairs.

Children, cover your eyes, because Meryl is angry and tired of pseudo-swears: Fuck off, you hypocritical, lying bastard. There is no need to “Judaize” Jerusalem, because the city was built by Jews. You stole it from us. Its Arab and Islamic character is, quite frankly, anathema to the Jewish character of what was once the City of David. And Israeli archeologists keep finding more and more proof that the Torah isn’t blowing smoke.

The greatest scientific and public interest was focused on more than 100 seals and signet rings, used as a means of authentication for written papyrus documents, from the time of the reigns of Kings David and Solomon. The seals bear various markings that, when deciphered, indicate the sender of the document and his or her location. The large number of such seals, archaeologists explained, indicate that the City of David area was a commercial and trading center.

[...] In 2005, a Hebrew University archaeologist and a leading authority on ancient Jerusalem, Dr. Eilat Mazar uncovered a clay seal in what she claimed served as the residential palace of Jewish kings from King David until the destruction of the First Temple, for a period of 450 years. That seal, dated from about 580 BCE, bears the name Yehuchal Ben-Sheleimiya, who is identified as a royal envoy and court minister sent by King Zedekiah to the prophet Jeremiah (in chapters 37 and 38 of the Bible’s Book of Jeremiah).

The Arabs and Muslims are trying their damnedest to cover up the Jewish roots of Israel.

They are failing. And they will always fail.

But don’t worry, posts have been scheduled.

I am going to Northern VA to return my loaner computer. Which I’m starting to like better than this one, because it’s tiny. And light. Well, but it doesn’t have a 17-inch screen.

Which is why it’s tiny. And light.

Sigh. Can’t I keep ‘em both?

Wow, Hamas must be shaking in its sandals at this outpouring of condemnation. First, the Quartet.

The Quartet expressed its deep concern over recent factional violence in Gaza . It called for all Palestinians to immediately renounce all acts of violence and respect the ceasefire. It called upon the Palestinian Authority government, in cooperation with President Abbas and regional actors, to do everything necessary to restore law and order, including the release of kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston.

The Quartet strongly condemned the continued firing of Qassam rockets into Southern Israel as well as the buildup of arms by Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza . It endorsed PA President Abbas’ call for an immediate end to such violence, and called upon all elements of the PA government and all Palestinian groups to cooperate with President Abbas to that end. The Quartet called for the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit.

And of course, there’s the usual call for “restraint” from Israel.

The Quartet urged Israel to exercise restraint to ensure that its security operations avoid civilian casualties or damage to civilian infrastructure. It noted that the detention of elected members of the Palestinian government and legislature raises particular concerns and called for them to be released. The Quartet noted its support for the May 30th Security Council Press Statement on the breakdown of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Next, the UN Security Council, which issued a statement—not any kind of real action, mind you, because the Security Council almost never issues any kind of action against the Palestinians—and hoo-boy, is it harsh.

The members of the Security Council expressed their grave concern at the breakdown of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the resulting increase in violence. The members welcomed the efforts of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to establish a ceasefire, and expressed appreciation for the active support of the Government of Egypt in this regard. They urged all parties to join the members of the Council in supporting the call of President Abbas for an immediate end to the violence.

“Deep concern” from the Quartet. “Grave concern” from the UNSC. Wow. If this keeps up, the world community might just manage to frown on all of the kassam launches into Israel.

You know, the ones that have been happening for the past six years.

You know, the ones that have been happening for more than a year since Israel exited Gaza and Hamas took charge.

By the way, I’m kinda wondering: Where is the mention of kassam rocket launches in the UNSC statement? Because I’m seeing a Rorschach test, not an actual, meaningful statement:

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Gillerman said in response to the statement, “This is a clear call for the Palestinians to cease fire.” Gillerman described the rocket attacks as “unrestrained and brutal Hamas fire at Israel, “saying, “Israel responds just as any democracy would in order to defend its citizens. The bloodshed can stop only after a the Palestinians decide to end the Qassam fire at Israel.”

Riad Mansour, the Palestinian observer to the UN, told reporters that he would have liked to see a more decisive and balanced statement, but that this may have been a first step towards a Security Council intervention in the situation in Gaza. Mansour also reiterated the Palestinian call for the UN to send a multinational force to the Strip.

Yeah, whatever. If the world community starts shaking its finger, we might have to actually notice that they’re doing something.

Lair links to a Rachel Lucas post where she gives advice to would-be online dating service success stories. The part that bothers Lair, of course, is where Rachel says not to put up photos of your cats.

Well. These are for you, Rachel.

First, we have the cutest picture ever taken of Gracie, who is all curled up and happy in her tissue-paper nest. You can see that her belly fur is finally growing back.

Next we have Gracie in the window, posing for me as I return home and letting me know she missed me.

Then we have the Tig greetings. This is what I come home to about ninety percent of the time now. I open the door, and the kitty condo is right there.

And here is the view from my kitchen window on a hot, sunny day. While I am cooking, or washing the dishes, or doing any manner of kitchen task, I can look out and see this:

Why on earth would I be ashamed to publicize the fact that I own cats? It’s obvious that my cats are happy, healthy, and loved. A person who knows how to take care of an animal quite often also knows how to take care of another person.

Love me, love my cats. It’s that simple.

Would I put a cat picture in an online dating service profile? Beats me. I’ve never tried it.

Besides, if I decided to post a picture of, say, me holding Tig while not wearing a top, I’m guessing that would generate a hell of a lot of positive buzz. (He’s big enough to cover my entire torso, but still—you know people would link. I’m still getting hits every single day from the Blog Chicks Pix on whatshisface’s Beltway blog.)

Really. If a guy doesn’t want to pick me because he doesn’t like a picture of my cat, I’m thinking I don’t want to have anything to do with him in the first place.

Here’s a shock: Iran is supplying weapons to Syria, which in turn supplies them to Hezbullah. And Iraq, of course.

Turkey appears to have foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons from Iran into Syria, the Lebanese newspaper A-Nahar reported Wednesday.

The report said that security forces in Turkey’s southern Diyarbakir province busted open one of the cars of a train traveling from Iran to Syria, and found rockets and American-made rifles.

Say, isn’t there a UN resolution forbidding weapon transfers to Syria or something like that?

America trains Palestinian terrorists: We’ve been pointing this out for years, and yet, the U.S. continues to pour money and training down the terrorist toilet that is Fatah, even after Israel gives proof after proof that the training, and the American weapons, are being used to murder Israelis. And, in some cases, Americans.

According to Israeli and Palestinian security sources, Shawish, as a member of Force 17, received US training in 1997 at an American managed military base in the West Bank city of Jericho. The base continues to train Force 17 members. Multiple other Brigades members who also double as Force 17 officers previously received US training.

[...] Shawish doubled as the Ramallah chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group. He previously boasted of involvement in a West Bank shooting attack in December 2000 that killed Israeli ultranationalist leader Benjamin Kahane and Kahane’s wife, Talya.

Way to go, CIA! Another notch on your belt for the murderers of the world.

Well, that’s a no-brainer: A Palestinian collaborator says the only way to stop the kassams is the use of overwhelming force.

Qadia said that the short breaks are not a real solution for the anxiety brought on by the Qassams. “It’s only getting worse and with no end in sight, unfortunately I see no real leadership here, it’s every man for himself. Nothing else will work, we just need to go into Gaza, full force, and pound them, erase them completely, until it’s over. That’s the only language they understand and believe me – I know what I’m talking about. After all, I lived with them.”

Speaking of kassams: Yeah, they’re still falling. Another apartment hit, but luckily no serious damage to the residents.

Yeah, we knew that, too: Hezbullah has been completely re-armed, thanks to Syria and Iran.

Transportation Minister and former defense minister Shaul Mofaz said Wednesday that the Hizbullah has returned to its combat strength prior to the Second Lebanon War, Israel Radio reported.

Speaking at the local government summit at Tel Aviv University, Mofaz warned not to be fooled by the lack of Hizbullah outposts in southern Lebanon since he claims the group has bunkers underground near the the border with Israel.

Wonderful. Coupled with the news that Iran is revving up its activities in Europe, this is going to be a very, very hot summer.

Ha’aretz, the Israeli paper that is the darling of the left, trashes Great Brtain’s policy of constantly trying to delegitimize Israel as a nation.

Britain has become in recent years the battlefield in Israel’s fight for its existence as a Jewish state.

The number of British organizations calling for the boycott of Israel, their public campaigns, and their constant comparisons between Israel and the apartheid regime of South Africa have made the battle for British public opinion particularly significant.

On Wednesday, representatives of the new British University and College Union (UCU) will be meeting in Bournemouth. On the agenda is another proposal to boycott Israel’s academic institutions. These proposals have become as regular and as predictable as Qassam attacks on Sderot. The fact that studies at the Sapir Academic College in Sderot are not taking place because of the constant rocket fire from Gaza, even though the college is not in occupied territory and Gaza is no longer occupied, apparently does not bother British academia. The fact that Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Authority, does not recognize even pre-1967 Israel, and commits acts of terror against civilians, does not matter either. These nuances did not stop one boycott initiator from saying last week that justice in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is entirely on one side.

That is some serious trash-talking from Ha-aretz, the paper most willing to blame Israel for her problems with the Palestinians. This is the newspaper that all serious lefty (and anti-Israel) bloggers quote, and link to in their sidebars.

Taking off the gloves in this debate involves knowingly foregoing the kudos that British academia lavishes on all who are willing to express anti-Israel stands. The UCU has even had the termerity to proclaim that Israeli lecturers who disown the policies of the Israeli government will not be boycotted. It is British academics who should lose sleep over this McCarthyistic demand. Academic freedom means first of all an open exchange of opinions, without coercion, and not shutting people’s mouths. Moreover, the British boycott is directed at Israel’s academic institutions that in any case are a bastion of opposition to the occupation.

That’s telling them, Ha’aretz!

On the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, British academia should look realistically at peace efforts in the Middle East: Over the past decade, Israel has elected governments that have expressed the desire of a majority of Israelis for a bilateral solution of two states for two peoples and a withdrawal from most of the settlements. The withdrawal from Gaza was to have been the first stage. The victory of Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, cut off the process.

The anti-Zionist winds blowing in Europe, mainly in academia and in Britain, strengthen the position that the very birth of the Jewish state was a mistake. The European hard left regards the Law of Return as the root of all evil; however, without acknowledging the Jewish character of the State of Israel, there is not even a basis for dialogue. British academia is in fact demanding that Israel democratically cease to exist as a Zionist entity, and that it be swallowed up in the non-democratic region in order to pander to the latest trend.

One would be tempted to call those “anti-Semitic winds,” if one weren’t Ha’aretz. The current meme, that Israel’s existence was a “mistake,” is yet another way to tell the Jews that they are less deserving than the rest of the world. Sure, we gave you a country, they say (and they do say “gave” us a country, never mind that Israel was ours, and that we are the indigenous people, not “colonists”) but now that it’s turned out to be such a pain in the ass, we’re taking it back. Oh, you can stay there, they tell us, but only at the whims of the Arabs we declared indigenous, even though many of them came from the surrounding countries once Jews started to make the desert bloom again. And never mind that continuous Jewish presence in Israel all these centuries. They were the minority, so they don’t count. You left. It isn’t yours any longer.

That, they say, is democracy in action: Removing the world’s only Jewish state from the world stage, to add yet another Islamic dictatorship ruled by thugs and murderers, with Jews as second-class citizens in the nation they envision. Funny how these same people didn’t give a damn about “Palestine” when the Palestinians were being ruled by Jordan in the West Bank, and the Egyptians commanded Gaza. Funny how the sacred sites of Jerusalem weren’t a problem when Jordan was destroying Jewish shrines and holy sites, but they’ve become a problem now that the Israelis want to maintain the Western Wall and its environs.

Funny.

In a “Gee, something smells funny” kind of way.

Go get ‘em, Ha’aretz. Not that it will make a difference. The Brits have hated the Jews for centuries. They need no excuse to continue.

I keep getting pop-up windows telling me I’ve got all kinds of system infections and I should click to download Errorsafe. Of course, I do not click to download, and in fact, am leery of closing the pop-up window until I’m sure it’s not scamming me into clicking “yes” somewhere.

The thing is, I can’t figure out where they’re coming from. I’m not sure I have Errorsafe or not, and Symantec insists that it’s preventing Errorsafe from infecting my system.

And yet, twice today, I have had an Errorsafe pop-up window asking me to d/l their annoying program. The first thing that happens when something like that occurs is my reaching for the cable modem and immediately disconnecting from the internet. Then I try to figure out what, exactly, I’m looking at.

Anyone have any ideas where this sucker is coming from? It hit me after I was surfing a Hot Air story, but that may be sheer coincidence. Then again, I went to some site called the Epoch Times, which may have been the source of the window.

If anyone else has had this problem, I’d love to hear about it.

I thought I could not possibly loathe the ICRC any more than I already do.

I was wrong.

I was really wrong.

I’m sure the apologists will say that Eichmann just “slipped through” somehow.

That’s not good enough.

The passport used by high-ranking Nazi Aldolf Eichmann as he escaped to Argentina after World War II has been turned over to the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires after a judge stumbled upon it in a musty court file.

Eichmann, a leader of a campaign of mass deportation of Jews to extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe during the war, fled to Argentina in 1950 under the alias “Ricardo Klement.”

I’m really not fond of Argentina, either. It astonishes me that even now, so many nations protect their Nazis, using the excuse that the survivors are now old and infirm. Yeah. They weren’t old and infirm when they were murdering Jews, though.

My new hosting service is Bluehost, a service that I have been extremely happy with. Here’s the main reason why:

In the last month with my old hosting service, I received a link from Instapundit. The resulting traffic caused my old hosting service to redirect most of the referrers from Glenn away from my site. No, I am not kidding. They forced a redirect error to reduce server load. The traffic was only several hundred hits per hour, according to Sitemeter, but I can’t tell if that was before or after their little miracle cure.

Well, I am currently undergoing about twice the amount of traffic with another Instalink. As far as I can tell, my site is unaffected by the extra load, which is just under 1,000 hits per hour.

Another great service from Bluehost: If I can’t get to my site due to server load from someone else on the shared server, I can go to a page to check my server. Every time this has happened, within about a minute, the message is changed to “An administrator is checking the server load,” and shortly thereafter, my site is back to normal.

If you’re looking for a new hosting service, I’m recommending Bluehost. They don’t believe in ignoring their little guys and only making sure the big guns have excellent service. Big or little, they’re treated the same.

And no, I won’t name my old hosting service. I’d rather not play that game. I’m not going to get into a nasty blogwar. I’d much rather pay a compliment to Bluehost. They rock.

And thanks to a reader, I’ve just become a Bluehost affiliate. If you sign up through this link, I get cash.

And a banner.

Or maybe this one. I can’t decide.

Here it is again.

Ayalon, 61, has pledged to lead the centrist Labor out of its year-old partnership with Olmert if the prime minister’s Kadima Party does not choose a new leader.

Notes: The AP has not yet given Kadima an adjective. But they’re warming up the “hard-right” for Likud (which they already call “hardline”).

Opinion polls forecast the Likud Party, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would win handily if elections were held today. Likud takes a hard line against concessions to the Palestinians, whereas both Barak and Ayalon are willing to cede large chunks of land in a final peace deal.

Say, remember that Soviet Mig-21 fighter pilot who landed in Israel and defected to the west? The one responsible for America getting the information we needed about the Soviet Mig-21?

It was an Israeli Mossad operation, not a spontaneous defection, as he told the press back in the day.

For the West, this was a dream come true. The Mig-21 was considered the number one fighter plane during the Cold War, and the United States had no clue as to how it was built, what its weaknesses were and what weapons should be developed against it.

Captain Munir Redfa, the Iraqi fighter pilot who flew the jet to Israel, said that he decided to defect to the West because of the remorse and guilt he felt over attacking Kurdish villages with napalm bombs.

But Redfa’s defection was not spontaneous, but rather the result of a comprehensive and bold Mossad-initiated operation, which was named “The Blue Bird – Operation Diamond,” and which ended a 20-year long US embargo on Israel.

[...] According to the film, the idea to try and obtain a Mig-21 was first raised in 1965, when then IAF commander Ezer Weizman asked Meir Amit, who was head of the Mossad at the time, “Get me a Mig-21.” Rehavia Vardi, who passed away last year, was appointed to command the operation.

[...] After a month in Israel, the Mig-21 was transferred to the American Air Force for testing and intelligence analysis. Thanks to this Israeli “gift,” Israel was finally able to replace its French Vautour and Mirage jets with the excellent US-made Phantoms.

And they all lived happily every after. Well, no, they didn’t. There are some in the U.S. intelligence community who are actively anti-Israel (if not actively anti-Semitic), who don’t realize that America’s partnership with Israel is still yielding immense advantages (U.S. troops have been trained by the IDF in house-to-house urban combat, such as they have to face in Iraq).

They made a movie out of it. I’d love to see the film. I wonder if it will make it to the U.S.

Glenn links to an article about the Creation Museum, which has dinosaurs roaming the earth with Adam and Eve. Feh. Mark Twain beat the Creationists by a century, with the Diary of Adam and Eve.

MONDAY NOON.–If there is anything on the planet that she is not interested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I am indifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no discrimination, she takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new one is welcome.

When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move out. She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a good pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eight-four feet long would be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the best intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the house and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it was absent-minded.

Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn’t give it up. She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to help milk it; but I wouldn’t; it was too risky. The sex wasn’t right, and we hadn’t any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the scenery. Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like a fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken; when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and would have hurt herself but for me.

Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration; untested theories are not in her line, and she won’t have them. It is the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the influence of it; if I were with her more I think I should take it up myself. Well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could stand in the river and use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty tame enough–at least as far as she was concerned– so she tried her theory, but it failed: every time she got him properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her around like a pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.

A person’s power of self-persuasion is nothing short of miraculous. Watching the comedy unfolding in the Hay festival with the new darling of the British press, one Ghazi Hamad, I really do not know whether to laugh or to cry. The miraculous power that makes apparently intelligent people believe any outrageous lie and disregard the truth they are facing is really the best builder of mental walls. Read the report by Katharine Viner who is the features editor of the Guardian and, incidentally “the editor of the award-winning play My Name is Rachel Corrie” (nothing wrong here, it is all about art after all). The report deals with a momentous event - appearance of the above mentioned Hamas’ luminary on stage at the Hay festival for an interview.

In the beginning of the article Ms Viner goes out of her way to show how excited she is by that rare treat. She does not forget to mention that Hamad spent five years in Israeli jails, as his proof of authenticity, obviously (well, she didn’t tell why, so it is your guess), on the other hand she forgot to mention that he spent the same amount of time in Palestinian Authority jails. All around guy, so to say.

But then the report becomes just a recording of the guest speaker highlights. I shall skip most of it, including some pearls like “Arafat was poisoned by the Jooz”, “10 months of constant shelling of Gaza after the election” etc. Let’s focus on one item only:

He stated what is becoming the increasingly familiar Hamas position that Israel’s withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders would effectively mean the end of the conflict.

So, Ms Viner has detected a growing peaceful tendency of Hamas. Interesting, and quite a pity the people of Sderot are not up to date on this one. But let’s leave Sderot for a while, what about Mr Hamas… sorry, Mr. Hamad himself? After all, according to Wiki, his opinion is quite different:

“Israel should be wiped from the face of the Earth. It is an animal state that recognises no human worth. It is a cancer that should be eradicated.”

And how about another, quite important official of the same outfit, already quoted here:

Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, declared during a Friday sermon at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans “to the very last one.”

Oh, but it was all told in Arabic, which Ms Viner does not know, probably.

But no, I do not really think that Ms Viner (and too many others like her, unfortunately) is a fool. She just wouldn’t see, wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t believe anything that interferes with her desire to accept and to embrace one Ghazi Hamad and to encourage his burning desire for peace at all costs. Including the cost of wiping out that animal state.

She and others of her persuasion would believe this as well:

Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent who was seized more than two months ago in Gaza, is healthy and unharmed and efforts to release him are “continuous”, a Hamas member of the Palestinian government said. Ghazi Hamad, the government spokesman, said he knew the group holding Mr Johnston and added that he was dealing with them personally as part of efforts to secure the correspondent’s release. “It is a small group which is holding Alan,” he told an audience at the Guardian Hay literary festival. “It is not secret, I met with them, what I know is that Alan is healthy, well and in a very good situation - this is my certain information.”

It is not a secret that Hamas knows perfectly well where Alan Johnston is kept and is, in effect, orchestrating the whole kidnapping business. So, one of the kidnappers is being interviewed by the kidnappers own - and nobody gives a damn about it.

No, it is not the gullibility of fools - it is just that Ghazi Hamad provides a perfect answer for those who wish to be duped. Although - I strongly suspect that even while being duped they know the truth in the hearts of their hearts…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

An interesting analysis in Ynet:

“Hamas’ intoxication with power” – that’s how sources in the Gaza Strip explain the difficult blows sustained by the organization in recent days at the hands of the Israeli Air Force. On Saturday, five members of Hamas’ special security force were killed in an air force attack on a Gaza post, and sources reported that special force members were abandoning their positions in wake of the attacks.

When Hamas was still a guerilla group with cells operating secretly, Israel was only able to eliminate a few activities here and there through missile strikes and targeted assassinations. Yet following Hamas’ election victory, and after the organization’s special security force was established by former Interior Minister Said Siam, Hamas’ military wing, or at least part of it, became part of the establishment.

[...] Today, the Hamas force threatens any Fatah activist in the Gaza Strip, ranging from the lowliest activist to commanders and officers

in the PA’s official security organizations. Yet this intoxication with power led Hamas to become more established, and this led to the abandonment of guerilla tactics.

Hamas’ security force started setting up above-ground posts, headquarters, training bases, and lodgings – in short, it has become a much easier target for detection by the Israeli Air Force.

And so, instead of a desperate pursuit for cells operating underground, the brawl between the IDF and Hamas is increasingly taking on the qualities of a war between two armies, where Israel enjoys much greater strength than Hamas. In such war, Hamas has no chance.

May it be so.

It’s a no-confidence vote by members of his own party. Say buh-bye, Amir.

Ehud Barak won the first round of the battle for the Labor party chairmanship. As of 5 a.m. Tuesday, with all votes tallied, he led Ami Ayalon 35.6% to 30.6 percent. But Barak can’t declare victory quite yet.

Since he failed to break the 40 percent bar necessary to win Labor party primaries, a run-off between the two top contenders will be held on June 12.

Voter turnout for the primary elections reached 65.2 percent. Amir Peretz, the current chairman, came in far behind, with 22.4% of the votes. The other two candidates, Ophir Pines-Paz and Danny Yatom, had slighting more than 10% of votes combined.

He’s such a loser he can’t even tell when he’s a loser.

Peretz, despite his loss, said he still has a strong camp of supporters able to make waves within the party. “My camp is an obedient one that will go in the direction I will choose,” he said in a closed meeting, after election results came out.

Dude. Put a giant “L” on your forehead. Stick a fork in him. He’s done.

I’m not very good at this part, having never been in the service, nor lost any member of my family who served.

But Blackfive’s pretty good at it. Especially here, in this post.

And there’s always this:

And these.

And this.

Got a big Al Aqsa fish in Ramallah today, one who was hiding behind Arafat’s skirts for years.

A senior commander of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades who is responsible for the deaths of several Israelis was arrested in a joint IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Services) operation in Ramallah on Monday.

Officials said that Khaled Shawish, head of the Tanzim in Ramallah, was behind the shooting attack that killed Rabbi Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane, son of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and his wife Talia in December 2002.

Shawish was also responsible for dozens of other attacks, including suicide bombings in Jerusalem as well as other shooting attacks on roads in the area, that left a total of five Israelis dead and dozens wounded.

Officials said that Shawish, 26, has been wanted by the IDF since 2000 and has spent most of his time in hiding near the Mukata. In 2001, Shawish was wounded during clashes with the IDF.

And because there is no death penalty in Israel except for Nazis, this man will be used as a bargaining chip for a prisoner release at some future date. Oh, well. At least he can’t plan any more terrorist attacks.

Did you know that the Labor party is centrist?

The AP sure thinks so.

Polls showed the five-way race being a tossup between former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and political newcomer Ami Ayalon, a dovish former internal security agency head. Both have said they would work to oust the embattled Olmert, who has been discredited by his handling of last summer’s war in Lebanon.

Ayalon has pledged to lead the centrist Labor out of its year-old partnership with Olmert if the prime minister’s Kadima Party doesn’t choose a new leader. Barak says he would serve in an Olmert government, while working within parliament to topple the Israeli leader and call early elections.

They said it here, too, at the end of the article detailing the cabinet okaying a limited ground push into Gaza.

The violence comes as Israel’s Labor Party opened its leadership race Monday. The outcome could impact the stability of Olmert’s government and the embattled prime minister’s future.

The centrist party is the largest of three junior partners in the ruling coalition with Olmert’s Kadima Party. But both front-runners in Monday’s race have said they would work to topple the prime minister.

Three parties: Labor, Kadima, and Likud. If you reframe the debate by calling Labor centrist, you can push Kadima out of the center (where it was born, with members of Labor and Likud joining Ariel Sharon to create it), and to the right, and then you can begin to call Likud the “ultra-rightist” or “far-right” party—which is what will happen next. Bookmark this post and come back to it when you see it. Then send me an email, because you know I’m right.

Wikipedia calls Labor “center-left.” Then Wikipedia says this:

It is a social democratic and Zionist party, a member of the Socialist International and an observer member of the Party of European Socialists. Since 1999 the party has been allied to the small left-wing, religious zionist Meimad, in an agreement whereby Meimad gets the tenth seat on Labor’s list.

Any organization with the word “socialist” in its name is not a centrist organization. It leans left.

Mark my words. You will soon be seeing “the far-right Likud party” in AP news articles, then picked up by everyone else.

This latest news on the new dimension of freedom of speech has made a serious impact on my understanding of Politically Correct evolution of our species. Up till now I have always imagined the political correctness mechanism as a kind of a noose that is getting tighter and tighter around our larynges, reducing our ability to utter certain words and/or sentences.

However, this imagery could not be farther from the glamorous reality. Here comes and eye-opener:

A jury in northeastern Colorado has ruled that a pile of dog doo left in the entrance of the office of U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., was protected political speech, acquitting a critic of the congresswoman who admitted dumping the load.

According to a report in the Greeley Tribune, a Weld County jury found Kathy Ensz, a 64-year-old retired university professor, innocent of charges for depositing, the, well, deposit.

I am not going into the political allegiance or, indeed, gender of the two heroes of this saga, both are irrelevant (I am sure) to the main thrust of this post. Main import is that of the new way of freely expressing your political platform in the framework of the PC speech.

By the way, I don’t know whether you have noticed, but the same PC envelope does not include a permission to name that material that was delivered by the professor to the doorstep of the congresswoman.

Which, if my memory of inglorious pre-PC days does not lead me astray, was called just dog shit once…

P.S. I cannot wait for a derivative of this new ruling that will allow slinging the stuff at opponents in the Congress and/or Senate sessions.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Nine Ten Eleven more rockets today. I’m awaiting the UN condemnation of the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, including children, by the Palestinian terrorists. Okay, no, not really, but I like to say that to point out the vast difference in the way Israeli and Palestinian civilians are treated by the world media.

Nine Qassam rockets were fired at the western Negev since early morning Monday. One man was lightly injured and several others suffered from shock.

Additionally, a group of female soldiers suffered shock after one of the rockets landed near them. Magen David Adom paramedics treated the soldiers at the scene and evacuated them. All IDF troops stationed in Sderot are required to wear helmets at all times.

[...] Only 811 out of the 3,000 pupils in Sderot arrived at schools Monday morning, as studies resumed. Some 161 preschoolers out of the 900 children in Sderot’s kindergartens resumed their activities, in sheltered locations.

Every time there is a closure in the West Bank, the wire services are full of quotes from Palestinian children who can’t complete their exams due to Israeli army interference. I don’t expect to see the same from the media, because we all know better than to expect fairness.

This is a man who really loves his cat:

A Negev resident woke up early Monday morning to find a leopard in his bedroom.

The wild animal had been chasing Arthur Damush’s beloved cat around the house, and when the two animals entered his bedroom, Damush did not hesitate, and knew exactly what he had to do.

The Midreshest Ben-Gurion resident instinctively jumped out of his bed and caught the wild creature with his bare hands.

There’s a picture.

He saved his cat.

Wow. He grabbed a leopard by the scruff of the neck. Now that’s either very foolish, or very brave. But he’s alive, and so is his cat, so I’m going to chalk it up to brave.

Brian’s back on SNN. The feature interview is with Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch, the organization that gives us the scoop on how the Palestinians indoctrinate their people in Israel (and America) hatred.

My contribution this week analyzes Sarkozy’s election, and attends to the critical issues of whether or not it’s safe to stop calling them “freedom fries.”

Damian goes after the left’s reaction to Falwell’s death. Sorry, but Lair’s Falwell screed was simply the cream of the crop, so I really don’t care what the left had to say. But Damian does.

I give this one two thumbs up. Go and listen, and pass the URL along to your friends.

I missed this one, what with no longer watching the Simpsons. But it’s quite funny.

In the heated debates between pro- and anti-Israeli folks there is a lot of illogical and plainly ridiculous arguments, each of the parties bringing in his/her own load of prejudices, knowledge (or the lack of it), sectarian fervor, etc.

Quite frequently you can see a drone - either pro-Israeli or anti-Israeli one, repeating ad nauseum the same tired slogans, sometimes of their own manufacture. Trying to argue with a drone is a useless and a thankless enterprise - anything you throw at one in the way of logical argument will be simply ignored, the stream of slogans continuing uninterrupted.

Sometimes the incredible stupidity of a drone gives birth to an especially entertaining statement that will leave you agape for quite some time.

I was reading a passage in an excellent post by DrMike of BlueTruth:

2007: A Palestinian refugee camp is the target of indiscriminate shelling by the army, in its attempt to root out a band of fanatical Islamic terrorists. Civilians flee for their lives and condemn the terrorists. The Arab League itself blames the terrorists for threatening the country’s security, safety and stability. However, the United Nations remains strangely silent and the world media have not run the blazing headlines about atrocities and massacres.

Could it possibly be that the world only cares about protecting terrorists if it’s the Israeli army that’s attacking them? The Arab League statement made it very clear why it can condemn Fatah al-Islam: the group “has no relation to the Palestinian question or Islam”.

And then I remembered an exceptional in its slack-jawed imbecility (but relevant to the above) passage by a commenter that figures under the nickname Goodfairy in the gutters of Commentisfree:

As for “they can be pounded ruthlessly and mercilessly by the Lebanese army and the entire world remains silent”. Well, for starters I doubt you are comparing like with like; this isn’t the democratically Hamas, this is 200 cultists who have taken over a Palestinian Camp and (according to Robert Fisk) are shooting the fleeing Palestinians in the back. So they are probably CIA controlled.

Yep. You see, dear DrMike, you cannot win them all. In fact, you cannot win a single one of them, and their name is Legion (of imbeciles, but still).

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Here is a fine example of your tax dollars, and the Army Corps of Engineers, at work: There are unexploded WWI munitions in the sand at Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

Many of the beach towns on Long Beach Island, one of New Jersey’s most popular summer vacation spots, have laws prohibiting people from digging deeper than 12 inches in the sand. They stem from an accident several years ago in which a teenager died when a deep hole he was digging collapsed, burying him.

This year, the prohibition is for a different reason: More than 1,000 pieces of unexploded World War I-era military munitions were unwittingly pumped ashore during a winter beach replenishment project decades after being dumped at sea. Authorities say they’ve removed everything they could, but can’t guarantee more munitions don’t remain hidden.

“How can you tell a kid not to dig in the sand?” asked Faith O’Dell, who lives near the beach in Surf City, where most of the fuses were found. “It’s their nature, it’s what kids do. And when your kid says, `Why, Mommy, why can’t I dig in the sand?’ what do you tell them, that they could blow themselves up?”

This information was buried in an AP story on the crazy rules set by NJ beach towns. But I found a bit more on the story:

The 1.4-mile stretch of sand on Long Beach Island was declared safe Wednesday following a three-month cleanup by the Army Corps of Engineers.

But officials could not guarantee that all munitions had been removed, and warning signs posted at beach entrances stated that digging more than one foot deep and the use of metal detectors were prohibited. Pictures of the munitions were displayed for emphasis.

And people are still stupid.

“We’re going to go dig for some,” Surf City resident Lance Wimmer said with a laugh as he and his wife, Marilou, approached the beach at North Third Street. “I want one for my own.”

[...] The all-clear for the beach opening was a relief to local merchants, who said a delayed opening could have been devastating, if not fatal, to their businesses.

“Eighty percent of my business comes from Memorial Day weekend, Fourth of July week and Labor Day weekend,” said Joe Muzzillo, owner of Exit 63 WearHouse, which sells shirts, stickers, mugs and other items bearing Jersey Shore slogans.

A popular new addition to Muzzillo’s shop this year made light of the munitions scare. On the back wall hung T-shirts with such phrases as “Surf City — Our Beaches Will Blow You Away” and “Surf City Bomb Patrol.”

Muzzillo said he had sold more than 300 shirts in the past few weeks but would remove them if anyone were injured by munitions.

“If something serious happens, the joke is over,” he said.

So. Anyone up for taking the chance of digging for bombs in Beach Haven?

I know I’m not. I’m planning to play “pot luck” for a Duck vacation weekend.

The war by Hamas against Israel continues.

A man was killed Sunday morning in the southern town of Sderot after a rocket landed near the car he was sitting in.

The man, 36-year-old Oshri Oz of Hod Hasharon, crashed into the wall with his car after it was hit. He managed to get out of the vehicle and take a number of steps before collapsing. He was evacuated to the Barzilay Medical Center in Ashkelon, where he died of his wounds.

Oz was a computer technician who used to visit Sderot often as part of his work. He was survived by his pregnant wife and a 2-year-old daughter.

The AP continues its policy of never naming Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks.

Another rocket slammed into the southern Israeli town of Sderot early today, killing a 36-year-old computer technician as he was driving. It was the second fatal rocket attack in less than a week.

Olmert continues the big talk.

“There will be no immunity for anyone involved in terror,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stressed at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, adding that Israel would “act without a time limit and will not be subject to conditions from any outside source.”

“We have instructed the IDF to continue operating against the terrorists. In the past few days many dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad men have been hit. The operation was meant to hit anyone involved in the shooting, anyone providing means to commit the attacks, and everyone involved,” the prime minister explained.

Responding to expected international pressure and criticism, Olmert said, “We are not subject to any timetable dictated from external bodies. We will decide when, where, and how we act.”

And the Shin Bet says that Hamas is ready for an IDF ground attack, if the war continues to grow.

“They’ll be waiting for us with explosive tunnels, snipers, road bombs and anything else they can think of, just in case we decide to go in,” said Diskin.

The Shin Bet, he stressed, recommends, in agreement with the IDF, to continue the ongoing operation “in order to avoid hurting any civilians. We mustn’t believe any fabricated calm,” added Diskin. “We must keep hurting Hamas on a daily basis.”

[...] “As much as I appreciate the efforts, the problem isn’t with fortifications,” said a livid Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. “The equation needs to be changed. We need to make it clear to the world that we have reached the end of our tolerance, and we should respond harshly.

“I don’t mean ground invasion. I’m talking about focusing heavy fire on the launch sites. We need special unit activity based on quality intelligence. This is the only way we can change the equation, not through fortification,” he added.

“The way we operate has made things very difficult for Hamas,” said Diskin when asked about IDF actions in the last few days.

“Rival Palestinian factions are talking to each other, trying to reach a ceasefire, and that shows us just how hard up they are,” he added. “Hamas and Khaled Mashaal are very concerned by the despair and misery among the Palestinian public.

[...] The ministers pushed further, asking if Hamas was capable of increasing the amount of missiles launched at Israel. “They can make such an effort, but for no longer than a few days,” said Diskin.

“They are limited by the difficulties in moving rocket launchers around, they can’t make as many rockets as before and they have an increasing amount of casualties,” he added.

“It’s no coincidence they’re not firing at Ashkelon. They may have the technical ability, but they know that would mean things have escalated further.”

To be continued.

The Keen Grasp of the Obvious Award goes to: Hamas.

Israel is trying to weaken Hamas and not just respond to Qassam attacks, members of the movement said after IDF destroyed at least ten outposts of Hamas’ special forces Satuday. Seven rockets were launched at Israel from northern Gaza during the day, one of them hitting a Sderot house directly.

Directly after this rocket attack, the Israel Air Force launched a series of strikes against Hamas’ special forces. The first outpost hit was one in the Sheikh Raduan neighborhood in Gaza.

Shortly afterwards, the IAF targeted a Hamas compound in the Jabalia refugee camp. According to the sources, the post attacked is near the home of Hamas Special Forces commander, Abu Obaid al-Jarrah. At least two Palestinians were injured in the attack.

Later Saturday, the IDF attacked a Hamas outpost in Rafah.

Five members of Hamas’ security forces were killed earli