Ami Iseroff wants us to get the haters off the Google Zionism search links. One of the top searches is to your typical anti-Semitic loonie site.

Zionism (Jewish Virtual Library)

Zionism (Mideast Web)

Zionism Israeli Foreign Ministry

Zionism & Israel

What is Zionism?

Zionism and Israel On The Web

There. I’ve done my part. Click the links, and if you’ve got a blog, put ‘em up on your site. Copy and paste them from here.

A judge in Washington tried to bully a family-owned dry cleaning shop by suing the owners for $54 million in damages because they lost his pants. He lost the case. Score one for the common man against a jerk who tried to abuse the legal system because he didn’t have to pay for a lawyer.

WASHINGTON—A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city’s consumer protection law by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson’s expectations of the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign once displayed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

“A reasonable consumer would not interpret ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer’s unreasonable demands” or to agree to demands that the merchant would have reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.

Pearson, an administrative law judge, originally sought $67 million from the Chungs, claiming they lost a pair of trousers from a blue and maroon suit, then tried to give him a pair a pair of charcoal gray pants that he said were not his. He arrived at the amount by adding up years of alleged law violations and almost $2 million in common law fraud claims.

He still managed to cost the family thousands of dollars.

The court costs amount to just over $1,000 for photocopying, filing and similar expenses, according to the Chungs’ attorney. A motion to recover the Chungs’ tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees will be considered later.

But there’s good news ahead. The jerk judge may lose his job over this.

The Washington Examiner reports D.C.’s chief administrative judge has written to the three-person commission that will decide whether Roy Pearson is reappointed — and said Pearson does not deserve another 10-year term. That reverses his earlier recommendation in favor of Pearson.

A D.C. government source tells the paper: “My sense is that the commission will not reappoint him.”

Pearson’s job as an administrative law judge pays more than $100,000 a year

Here’s hoping he does lose his job. While there are many, many decent judges out there who wouldn’t dream of misusing the system to screw the little guy, this judge deserves to be put out to pasture. I’m thinking he’s already there… reports of the trial had him literally breaking into tears while describing his missing pair of pants. Uh-huh. Sure. (Back away from the nut.)

If I were those dry cleaners, I’d get an order of protection from this nut.

The AP sent out a story with this despicable headline, which some headline writer presumably thought was a clever turn of phrase:

Iraq: Surge Of Suicide Blasts Kills 27

Get it? U.S. surge of troops, terrorist surge of suicide bombings. Get it? Are you laughing yet? Catch the irony?

Me neither.

And then there’s the lede:

(AP) A suicide bomber who penetrated layers of security blew himself up in the busy lobby of a leading Baghdad hotel on Monday, killing at least 12 people, including a U.S.-allied tribal sheik, police reported.

The attack, in which 21 others were wounded, was just one in a surge of five suicide and other bombings Monday that killed at least 32 people across Iraq.

The story has since been updated with a different headline and angle:

Iraq Bomber Strikes U.S.-Allied Sheiks

But the “surge” comparison remains in the lede, in the third paragraph—where it will stay firmly within the average daily newspaper’s “International” section, which prints only the first three to five paragraphs of a story.

BAGHDAD (AP) - A suicide bomber apparently targeting a meeting of U.S.-allied Sunni sheiks penetrated layers of security and blew himself up in a hotel lobby on Monday, killing four tribal leaders and at least eight others, police reported.

The sheiks were associated with the Anbar Salvation Council, which had taken up arms to help drive extremists of al-Qaida in Iraq from the western province of Anbar.

The attack was among a surge of five suicide and other bombings Monday that killed at least 45 people across Iraq. In an unrelated incident, the U.S. command reported a U.S. soldier shot to death Monday in south Baghdad or its outskirts.

Just to be clear, this is a deliberate attempt by the AP to use the imagery of the U.S. Army fighting terrorists—to save civilians from bombing attacks—when describing those same terrorists responding to the Army’s attempt to stop them.

Despicable.

I know I headlined this post a “surge” in AP bias, but frankly, it is not. It’s simply the status quo.

Color me shocked. I thought he was dead, and frankly, still think he may be. I don’t trust Hamas at all. But Hamas released a tape by Gilad Shalit.

An Israeli soldier captured a year ago by militants from Gaza asked for medical treatment and urged Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, in an audio tape posted on the Internet on Monday.

Except for a handwritten letter to his parents in September, there had been no sign of life from Gilad Shalit since the tank gunner was spirited into the Gaza Strip by gunmen who tunneled across the border into Israel on June 25, 2006.

“I have been in prison for an entire year and my health is deteriorating. I need lengthy hospitalization,” Shalit, speaking in Hebrew, said on the tape.

“I regret the lack of interest of the Israeli government and military in my case and their failure to meet the demands.”

Shalit’s father, speaking to Israeli television, confirmed the voice was that of his son, a conscript now aged 20. He was promoted to sergeant from corporal while in captivity.

Hamas, one of three militant groups that claimed responsibility for the joint operation in which Shalit was seized, said earlier it would release the tape to mark the first anniversary of his capture.

And let us point out once again that Hamas is the supposed democratically-elected government of the Palestinians, and so the democratically-elected government of the Palestinians, with whom former president Jimmy Carter thinks the world should negotiate, are acting like the band of criminals and murderers they are, trying to extort concessions from Israel, instead of trying to, say, negotiate in good faith, like real governments do. But Hamas has never been a real government. Real governments don’t murder the opposition party.

By the way, the above is from Reuters, who call the attackon Shalit “a cross-border raid.” So does the AP.

Shalit was captured on June 25, 2006, in a cross-border raid by militants from Hamas and two allied groups who tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip. Negotiations for his release, mediated by Egypt, have repeatedly broken down and been complicated since Hamas took control of Gaza two weeks ago.

Let’s take a look at what the AP wrote a year ago about that “cross-border raid.”

KIBBUTZ KEREM SHALOM, Israel Jun 25, 2006 (AP)— Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip infiltrated Israel through a tunnel early Sunday, lobbing grenades and bombs at a military outpost and killing two Israeli soldiers and seizing a third.

The ruling Hamas group said its fighters participated in the attack, calling it an act of revenge for Israel’s recent killing of militant leaders and civilians. Militants said three of their fighters were killed in a gunbattle with soldiers.

[…] Militants crossed under Israel’s border fence with Gaza through a tunnel and lobbed bombs and grenades at an Israeli tank and an armored personnel carrier at the border post, the military said. Simultaneously, anti-tank missiles were fired at both vehicles from inside Gaza, the army said.

Two other militants, meanwhile, attacked a 25-yard high observation post with assault rifles, touching off a gunbattle with soldiers in which several militants were killed, the military said.

Some little raid, huh?

And in a man-bites-dog angle, B’tselem has accused someone other than Israel of war crimes:

Meanwhile, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem accused the militants holding Shalit of war crimes.

“International humanitarian law absolutely prohibits taking and holding a person by force in order to compel the enemy to meet certain demands, while threatening to harm or kill the person if the demands are not met,” the group said. “Furthermore, hostage-taking is considered a war crime.”

Someone check the sky for flying pigs.