I think it’s time for some different news items.

You’ll never get me to talk, Copper: A lost parrot wouldn’t talk to the cops, but he talked to a vet.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor’s roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

“I’m Mr. Yosuke Nakamura,” the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

Get your ass out of jail: In America, we jail Mexicans. In Mexico, they jail donkeys.

A Mexican donkey has been freed from jail after doing time for assault and battery. The Televisa network on Wednesday showed “Blacky” gobbling food from a bucket after spending three days in a jail that normally holds people for public drunkenness and other disturbances.

Blacky was jailed for biting and kicking two men near a ranch outside Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas state.

Officials freed the donkey after its owner paid a fine of $36 and the $115 hospital bill of the men, who suffered bites to the chest and a broken ankle. Authorities say he also must pay $480 to each man for missed work days.

Zimbabwe economics: How to get a million the wrong-way. Ready for this? Inflation in Zimbabwe is now at one million percent. How do you even manage to set prices when inflation is that high? Can you imagine being the price-setter in a grocery store? Talk about your nightmare job!

Now there’s a headline you don’t see every day: Kasparov silenced by unidentified flying penis.

Yes, really.

While making a public plea for unity against nemesis Vladimir Putin, a mysterious dangling object from the ceiling distracted the room: an airborne penis with a helicopter attached to its testicles [video via sharenator].

Pictures at the link.

Yes, really.

Penis museum gets new members: Hey, don’t blame me. They wrote the headline. Apparently, you can find a lot by putting the word “penis” into the search box at Google News. Hell, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a penis museum. Pictures at the link.

Yes, really.

The Jew-hating bastards on yet another Holocaust denial site (based in the U.K., there’s a surprise) have linked to one of my old teaching posts (and not in a good way). And they don’t like my No Israel-Bashing Zone policy, either. Aww. My heart bleeds. Jew-haters are unhappy because I won’t let them pour out their filth on my blog.

The Purim mentality is not confined to Zionist opinion formers, but would seem to be shared (and passed on) by many ordinary Jews such as teacher and blogger Meryl Yourish, who under the heading Teaching Little Jews to be Big Jews, tells us:

I’m a Jew-hater’s worst nightmare: I teach little Jews to be big Jews. I may not have children of my own, but I’m doing my part to propagate the Jewish nation. That knowledge gives me great satisfaction.
…I pass it on to my students. I’ve taught them that one way to piss off a Jew-hater is to chant “Am Yisrael Chai” (”The people of Israel live”). I’ve noticed that if you start that chant at an anti-Israel protest, it really torks off the anti-Israel protesters. This always leads my students into chanting the phrase for a minute or two in class, which they love. They also like it when I say things like “Purim is the holiday where the Jews kicked the crap out of the Persians.”

Don’t even think about debating with the like of Ms Yourish, since she tells us that her website is a No-Israel Bashing Zone.

I’ve no doubt that she and her students will be cheering on the bombs and missiles, if and when they start falling on Tehran.

So, should I consider it an honor that I’m on the front page of a Holocaust-denying, Jew-hating site? Or should I just laugh at them and continue to do what I’m doing, as it’s obviously working.

I think I’ll just laugh. Poor, pitiful people. Their feelings of inadequacy are so large, they have to blame someone for their failures. And hey, why not blame the people who have the largest per capita representation in Nobel prizes, in the arts, literature, and science in the world? Why not blame the people who have invented the cure for polio, instant messaging, drip-irrigation technology, and a thousand other things that helps humanity thrive? Why not blame the people who have defied the odds to remain not just in existence, but thriving in every nation they comprise a significant population?

Clearly, the Jew-haters have issues. Psychiatry might help. But their hatred is so deep, I suspect it’s incurable.

Like I teach my children: They tried to kill us. They failed. Let’s eat.

Am Yisrael chai.

Or, to put a more modern turn on it: In your face, assholes.

From an email I received today:

Philippe Karsenty gave the following statement regarding his victory:

“Today a French court ruled that I did not defame France 2 when I said that its news report was a staged hoax. Because I refused to be brainwashed, I was sued for defamation.

“Our victory today was a victory for freedom–the freedom to think and to speak one’s mind; the freedom to question what one is told; and the freedom to disbelieve the solemn pronouncements of others when the individual concludes that his reasoning is correct and that the state and the state-run media–and all of the institutions they represent–are wrong.

“The Al Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and, finally, to reject information–especially the right to reject information on which we base our most cherished assumptions. One of Europe’s most cherished assumptions is that Israel is a viscious Nazi-like entity that deliberately murders Palestinian Arab children. Moreover, polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. The Al Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely.

“It is ironic that I, a private individual, had to lecture one of France’s most influential TV stations in order to demonstrate that a child cannot move, lift his head, arm and leg, stare at the camera and still be considered “dead” a good 10 seconds after the newscaster tells us… ‘the child is dead.’ One need only look at France 2’s own footage to realize that the ‘death’ scene was faked.

“My only objective was to correct this error. However, on the part of the French media, it turned into a titanic battle against critical thinking and freedom of thought and expression. On my part, it became a battle for the right not to be brainwashed bythe French media. Only a few weeks ago, a French television station produced a documentary ‘proving’ that the Al Durah story is authentic. First, I was compared to a Holocaust denier, and then to the fringe elements that insist that 911 was an inside job. I, and others who share my opinion about the story, including Richard Landes, were labeled dangerous extremists and fanatics. All the while, viewers observed the ‘dead’ boy move exactly as I just described it. I can only conclude that, in France, it is critical thinking that is either dead or dying. Every French citizen should be complaining about this insult to our intelligence. In fact, very few complain because mass brainwashing works. Where are the angry letters to the station for its absurd documentary? Do the citizens of France now believe that a “dead” boy can move? Or have they merely forgotten how to think and draw their own conclusions?

The right to think, to speak, to evaluate, to accept and reject the conclusions of others goes to the very heart of what it means to be free.

Now it is time for France 2 to acknowledge that it created and is continuing to perpetuate the worst anti-Semitic libel of our era. It’s the responsibility of the French government and ultimately, the responsibility of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is, for all practical purposes, the chief executive of French public television, to finally reveal the truth.”

I agree, but I don’t think the world media will correct their mistake. Ever.

A source has told me that Philippe Karsenty has won his case against France 2. I’ll post further information when I get it, but this is a pretty well-connected source.

This is huge.

Update: Carl has more.

Knowing that the verdict in the Karsenty-Enderlin trial is due today, I looked for some news. But when I googled “Karsenty” I got precisely one result in the news section. It had to do with a talk Phillipe Karsenty gave a few weeks ago.

However when I did a blog search, there were plenty of results.

Israel Matzav explains why the MSM is so uninterested in the verdict:

The bottom line is that the mainstream media outside France is ignoring the case because they know that they are guilty of the same fraud of which France 2 is guilty: They use ‘Palestinian’ stringers rather than their own real reporters in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and in other ‘war zones’ like Iraq.

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Neil Netanel wrote in a similar vein a few weeks ago:

The kind of media manipulation to which the al-Dura incident points is all too common in reporting from the region. Recall the initial Palestinian reports in September 2000 of an Israeli massacre of 3,000 Palestinian civilians in Jenin, broadcast without question by CNN, NPR, the BBC, and others, while the truth turned out to be 52 Palestinians killed, most of whom were armed combatants. (See here and here.) More recently, Hamas has staged and Western media reported electricity shortages in Gaza, replete with candles purporting to provide needed light while, as it turned out, screens blocked sunshine from streaming in through the window.Certainly, some media outlets seem all too eager to transmit reports of Israeli atrocities. But the problem is far broader and deeper than that. Both broadcast and print journalists face tremendous pressure to produce under a highly competitive 24/7 news cycle. At the same time, many news organizations have sharply reduced their staff of foreign correspondents. As a result, they are increasingly reliant on local stringers and camera operators to report on local stories. In areas of conflict, it is inevitable that more than a trivial percentage of local reporters will be partisans and that video footage will be designed or doctored to favor one side or the other.

One hopes that major news organizations are able and willing to weed out the vast majority of questionable reporting, just as CNN refused to broadcast the al-Dura footage. But there are, of course, no guarantees. And, as I emphasized in an ealier post, fact-checking, like quality original reporting, costs a lot of money.

For their part, bloggers do an admirable job of exposing media failures. At the same time, for better or for worse, the Internet serves as an unfiltered outlet for the stories and footage that media organizations deem insufficiently trustworthy to carry.

(BTW, the Jenin libel occurred in April 2002, not Sept 2000.)

It’s not just the general problem of relying on notoriously unreliable (truthwise) stringers, it’s that most of the media was complicit in spreading the al-Dura libel.

The media’s ignoring the Karsenty-Enderlin case shows their lack of accountability for their own actions. They refuses to divorce itself from their “rough draft of history” fantasy; that all they’re doing is acting as stenographers in good faith. But they’re not; they are agenda driven, interested only in advancing causes to which they are sympathetic.

In the al-Dura case the narrative of an Israeli overreaction was too compelling to ignore. They swallowed the story whole, without a second thought. Even now they are too convinced of their on righteousness to have second thoughts nearly eight years later.

The MSM lives on its arrogance. Its declining fortunes is one of the reason for its continued decline.

So why not challenge Clark Hoyt ( public@nytimes.com ) or Deborah Howell ( ombudsman@washpost.com ) to get their papers to cover the trial and take a long overdue look in the mirror?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Sen. Lieberman on what’s wrong with the Democratic Party:

By contrast, in 2000, Gov. George W. Bush promised a “humble foreign policy” and criticized our peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.Today, less than a decade later, the parties have completely switched positions. The reversal began, like so much else in our time, on September 11, 2001. The attack on America by Islamist terrorists shook President Bush from the foreign policy course he was on. He saw September 11 for what it was: a direct ideological and military attack on us and our way of life. If the Democratic Party had stayed where it was in 2000, America could have confronted the terrorists with unity and strength in the years after 9/11.

Instead a debate soon began within the Democratic Party about how to respond to Mr. Bush. I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework the president had advanced for the war on terror as our own, because it was our own. But that was not the choice most Democratic leaders made. When total victory did not come quickly in Iraq, the old voices of partisanship and peace at any price saw an opportunity to reassert themselves. By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.

(This is adapted from the speech he gave at the Commentary Fund Dinner.)

John Podhoretz, yesterday, explained why Sen. Lieberman is not - as some of his critics assert - a hack:

By remaining steadfast on the war in Iraq when others in his party fled their vote and then blamed their inconstancy on the supposed “lies” of the administration. And by refusing to join the jackal-like feast on George W. Bush’s reputation, Lieberman earned the hatred of many fellow Democrats. That hatred caused a hugely rich man in his state to spend millions of his own money to oust Lieberman from his own party’s nomination after serving three full terms as senator.And yet there he remained, and remains, unbending. This is the opposite of hackery. It is the antithesis of hackery. It is the quality everyone says he yearns for in Washington — principled consistency, a willingness to work across the aisle in a bipartisan fashion, and a refusal to kowtow to the loudest voices merely because they are so loud. Last night, at the annual dinner of the Commentary Fund, Lieberman said he remained a Democrat precisely because he believes the strong foreign policy he espouses must have a bipartisan foundation.

California Conservative adds his thoughts. One nitpick though: He casts Clinton with other pacifists. Clinton, at least in the case of the NATO war against Serbia was willing to go to war to spread freedom. It was a stance that Sen. Lieberman praised in his speech.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Now, I am far from an expert on Lebanon, and I’ve been reading Tony Bey and the others who know a lot more than I do, but I have a suspicion that this cannot be at all good:

Hizbullah strikes another achievement at the end of a particularly severe round of violence in Lebanon : Arab mediators have announced a breakthrough deal between feuding Lebanese factions struck after five days of talks in Qatar to end Lebanon’s 18-month political crisis.

As part of the deal, 11 of the 30 ministers in a national unity government in Beirut will be Hizbullah members, giving the Shiite organization the right to veto any decision. This was one of the main demands made by Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah during the recent crisis.

In other words, Hezbullah seems to have gotten everything it wants since sending its goons into Beirut to terrorize the non-Shia residents.

This is the way of the Arab world. Osama said it years ago: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.”

Sixteen of Lebanon’s current ministers will serve in the new government, and another three will serve on behalf of the president. Hizbullah agreed to compromise on its demand to establish an interim government and hold elections, and had refused at first to settle for only one-third of the government members.

The sides also agreed to appoint Lebanon’s army commander, General Michel Suleiman, the next Lebanese president.

Suleiman ordered the army to stand by as Hezbullah goons burned down opposition TV stations and murdered Sunnis.

Iran has more of a foothold than ever. Syria is supplying Hezbullah with weapons. So what is Israel doing right now?

Talking with Syria.

The Prime Minister’s Office announced Wednesday that Israel and Syria have launched direct negotiations in Turkey.

Ynet has learned that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s associates, Yoram Turbowitz and Shalom Turgeman, have been meeting with senior Syrian officials in Ankara since Monday.

A dramatic statement issued simultaneously in Jerusalem, Damascus and Ankara said that “Israel and Syria have launched peace talks mediated by Turkey.

“The two sides have declared their intention to hold the negotiations in good faith and openly, and hold a serious and continuous dialogue in order to reach a comprehensive peace deal in accordance with the framework set at the (1991) Madrid Conference.”

Following the announcement, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said that Israel had agreed to fully concede the Golan Heights.

Sources at the Prime Minister’s Office told Ynet in response, “The negotiations are being held on the basis of the Madrid Conference principles. We do not recall an Israeli commitment at the conference to fully cede the Golan Heights.”

The Madrid principles are land for peace. So far, land for peace has proven to be the exact opposite: The Gaza Strip is no longer under Israeli control, and Israel is under daily rocket attack from the Strip. Palestinians in the West Bank still plot and attempt terror attacks on a daily basis, from tossing rocks and molotov cocktails at Israelis in the West Bank to trying to blow up soldiers at checkpoints.

Syria supplies weapons and material to Hezbullah. Syria has treaties with Iran, including a defense treaty. When Syria had the Golan Heights, they were used to bombard Israeli towns.

But that’s not all of it. The Olmert government is also ready to agree to the “truce” with Hamas, giving the terrorists a breathing space and room to re-arm.

Ceasefire in Gaza? Israel has accepted the principle of a proposed truce in the Gaza Strip, a senior official from Egypt, which has been brokering the negotiations, told his country’s official MENA news agency on Tuesday.

“Israeli leaders (have informed us) of their support for and understanding of the Egyptian proposals for a truce,” the news agency quoted the official as saying without giving his name.

Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman - who has acted as go-between in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas - conveyed the news to a delegation from the Islamist group which controls Gaza earlier in the day, the news agency added.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli government spokesman neither confirmed nor denied the Egyptian report.

“As far as we are concerned, we can only indicate that contacts are continuing,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

So let’s recap: Hezbullah invades Beirut, causes the deaths of 70 Lebanese, destroys opposition TV stations, and gets what it wants: The man it wants for president, the representation it wants in the government, and veto power over any decisions made by the rest of the Lebanese ministers. Syria supplies Hezbullah with weapons, keeps Hamas headquarters in downtown Damascus, regularly holds terrorism get-togethers to plot Israel’s destruction, sends terrorists into Iraq, and is partners with Iran. Hamas refuses to end its terror attacks against Israel and intends to destroy the Jewish State.

And yet, all three warmongers are getting—exactly what they want.

Terrorism works. Violence works. This proves it.