Cleaning out the emailbox gives you time for lots of Saturday links that you didn’t get around to putting up when you got them.

It’s the The Chosen Team, or, the team of baseball’s best Jewish players. Go forth and argue. It’s what we do, as Jews and as baseball fans.

Players I recognize: Ken Holtzmann, Al Rosen, Sandy Koufax, and Hank Greenberg. The rest, well, I’m not the biggest baseball fan around, and have fallen away from the sport in recent years. I don’t even have a sports category on this blog, which shows you how rarely I post about the topic.

HT: Longtime reader Ted.

What really happens when you move your mouse.

Hint: Make sure you move your mouse around the center of the screen. HT: My pal Gerard.

More from Gerard: Great commercials. 1) Shadow Plays. 2) 250,000 bouncy balls in San Francisco. Definitely check the behind-the-scenes to see how it was done. You just knew, watching the commercial, that those cars were in trouble.

The AP ran a nice little fluff piece about how the Mad Mullah might accept some moves forward for women in Iran. Of course it’s all crap, but the AP never lets the facts get in the way of pretending that Iran isn’t the backwards, theocratic, misogynistic, insular little state that it is.

Iran Leader Signals Flexibility on Women
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran’s supreme leader has signaled a willingness to reinterpret Islamic law more favorably to women’s rights - but not by following Western conventions, state media and his official Web site reported Thursday.

“Some issues about women, which exist in religious jurisprudence, are not the final say. It is possible to interpret new points through research by a skillful jurist,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Web site quoted him as saying Wednesday during a speech to commemorate national women’s day.

The comments by the Shiite cleric, who has final say over all state matters, came amid international rights groups’ criticism of Iran for giving prison sentences to several women’s rights activists.

Yeah, those prison sentences? They’re not just prison sentences. They include whippings.

On Monday, an Iranian court sentenced a women’s rights activist to almost three years in jail and 10 lashes for attending a banned rally, her lawyer said on Tuesday.

Gateway Pundit quotes an Iranian blogger on the sentences:

This is not silliness, this is not making order. This is BRUTALITY, pure brutality. I know Delaram VERY closely.

She is a volunteer teacher for Afghan children who do not have the right of going to school in Iran. She is going to spend three years of her life in prison and be tied to somewhere and be whipped for 10 times in her back just for believing in “women should be equal to men”. This tyranny is Unbelievable.

This is on top of the beatings the women got last year for having the nerve to protest on International Women’s Day—for women’s rights. And this is how those rights are portrayed in the AP piece:

Iran’s interpretation of Islamic law imposes tight restrictions on women, such as requiring them to have a male guardian’s permission to work or travel. Women are not allowed to become judges, and a man’s court testimony is considered twice as important as a woman’s.

Yet Iranian women have more rights than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and some other conservative Muslim countries. They can drive, vote and run for most public offices.

Oh, so that makes it all better than. Because Iranian women aren’t as oppressed as the Saudis, they should celebrate this? Eff you, AP, for even implying that. But wait, because the AP is an important propaganda arm of the Khameini regime in this article:

Khamenei praised the role of women in Iran and said the emphasis on their maternal role in Islam “does not mean opposition to the presence of women in various aspects of social life at all,” the Web site reported.

He also said Westerners had “discredited” women by using them to fulfill “illegitimate” sexual desires, apparently referring to prostitution and premarital sex, which are banned by Islamic law.

And thanks for that explanation. Damn those Westerners and their refusal to go back to the laws and ways of the seventh century!

And damn AP for writing a puff piece on the cruelty that is Iran.

Say, that organization that Jimmy Carter says Israel should deal with because it’s the democratically-elected government of the Palestinians? They just fired rockets at Israeli civilians.

Hamas claimed responsibility Friday for firing two Qassam rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip earlier in the day, for the first time since the militant group seized power in Gaza from Mahmoud Abbas’ rival Fatah movement.

Israel Radio on Saturday quoted the group as saying that the attacks were in response to Israel’s “occupation in Gaza and the [West] Bank,” and were also a warning “to the enemy” over its “aggression.”

One of the rockets hit an intersection and a second fell in an empty field, but no one was hurt, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Say, what exactly were those rockets in “retaliation” for?

Israel sent infantry, tanks and bulldozers into Gaza on Thursday while militants laid mines and fired mortars at soldiers at the Erez passenger crossing between Israel and Gaza.

Nine militants were killed in clashes in and around the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, hospital officials said. Hamas identified six as its fighters, while three remained unidentified. Among the dead was Mohammed Siam, 37, the Hamas field commander in central Gaza, Hamas TV said.

Later in the day, missiles launched by Israeli aircraft killed two more Hamas men, the group said.

Ohhh. The IDF was clearing out terrorists with rocket launchers. Go figure.

Okay, Jimmy Carter, now what should Israel do? Ask Hamas to pretty please stop sending airborne bombs at innocents? Because talking has worked so well in the past. Well, no, it hasn’t—but your side pretends that it has. The only thing that seems to work is, well, exactly the operation that pissed Hamas off: Go in, clear out the rocket launchers (the metal and the human ones) and get out. The next best thing: A Hellfire missile up the asses of a car full of rocket launchers. Either one works for me.

It’s no longer anarchy. It’s archy. No, really, Hamas has restored order and justice.

About 30 armed men from a Hamas-led security force entered Gaza City’s Al-Azhar University on Saturday and seized 80 bags with chemicals from the agriculture college, the dean said.

It was not immediately clear why the chemicals were taken. The spokesman for Hamas’ Executive Force militia was not immediately available for comment. The dean, Jawad Wadi, said he called the office of the Hamas ruler of Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, to file a complaint. (AP)

Well, it could be for a fertilizer bomb. Or it could be for resale on the street, what with money being short and all that. But it’s a perfect example of the lie that is Hamas. When the thugs are the police, the police steal you blind. It’s a no-brainer.

Even the EU has figured it out.

The EU is scaling back its monitoring mission at the Gaza-Egypt border, which has been closed since the start of bloody factional fighting that led to Hamas’ takeover of the coastal strip, a spokeswoman said Saturday.

The cutback in personnel signals that the European monitors don’t expect the Rafah terminal on the border, Gaza’s only gateway to the world, to reopen anytime soon. The monitors were deployed under a November 2005 agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, following Israel’s pullout from Gaza. Under the deal, the border was controlled by Palestinian and Egyptian security forces, with European monitors deployed on the Palestinian side to prevent smuggling of weapons and militants. (AP)

Mind you, this won’t stop them from blaming Israel for keeping the crossing closed.

Last night, around midnight, once again I heard fireworks in front of my apartment. Once again some morons were lighting off fireworks in the parking lot. This time, I opened the door and shouted, “How is that safe? There are cars all around. Find an open field!” To my amazement, a man’s voice responded, “She’s right.” I closed the door, got my shoes on, intending to continue my argument. When I went back onto my porch, I saw a crowd of people and said, “Have you ever seen a car fire?”

A Hispanic man, evidently the leader, told me to shut up. “You’ve said your piece, and we’re leaving.”

They filled two huge SUVs and left.

And oh, yeah. The man who told me to shut up? Hispanic. Probably illegal. My apartments are filling up with illegal immigrants, most of whom can’t speak English, and all of whom refuse to take any part in Neighborhood Watch. They’re too afraid it’s got something to do with the police and they’ll be deported.

But boy, did I love getting my share of Mexican machismo when I had the nerve to complain that I didn’t want my car lit on fire by an errant firework lit by some macho illegal immigrant with no brains.

Six to eight months is what it will take for me to be out of here. Can’t wait. Gee. Living in a neighborhood where people don’t feel entitled to make noise at any hour of the day or night. A neighborhood where people drive cars that don’t have a bass in their cars that can shake the paint off the walls. What a change that will be.

Buh-bye, southside Richmond. Hello, suburbs.