Meryl’s new sheets, decorated with cats.

First, Mr. Tig, who found something to do while I was in the shower yesterday.

Then Miss Gracie, who wants you all to know that she looks even more beautiful on my new sheets than does Mr. Tig.

That’s the chiropractic foam pillow I got. Apparently, it works for cats as well as people. (Works really well, too, since I got my foam-topped mattress. I don’t wake up with a neckache any more.)

My new bed is really working out for all three of us. But I wish they’d paid their fair share.

Oh, okay. Tig plays on the bed and makes me laugh every day. Gracie jumps up for her evening or morning bellyrub (though she’s not quite there yet; she lies down and then gets up immediately). And I suppose I can’t count getting woken up by Tig playing with my feet this morning. After all, I apparently moved under the covers while sleeping. Silly me. Either that, or he found the ping-pong ball I took away from him at midnight last night and stowed under the blanket.

But it’s okay. I get even. I wake them up when they’re sleeping. It’s only fair.

Obama is using the Holocaust to score rhetorical points. Mind you, he’s not the only person ever to have done so, but I’m calling bullshit on this quote:

“I am always taken back to sort of the core question of humanity that the Holocaust raises. That is, on the one hand, man’s great capacity for evil, and on the other hand, our ability to come together to stop evil.”

Stopping the Holocaust had absolutely nothing to do with the Allies coming together to stop Hitler. People who think that WWII happened to stop the Holocaust are either fools or liars. Allied leaders had the reports. They knew what was happening. They did nothing. No, wait. Some encouraged it, by refusing to take in Jewish refugees from Hitler’s advances (we’re looking at you, Britain).

STFU, Obama. This Jew isn’t buying your bull. Especially when you said you’d rather bring our troops home from Iraq and let the Iraqis suffer the consequences, instead of keeping them there to finish the job and prevent more civilian deaths.

Nobody stopped the Holocaust. It ended because Germany was defeated, and even in defeat, Germany managed to murder hundreds of thousands more (cf: Death marches).

The NYT makes this sound like a bad thing: Mideast Sees More of the Same if Obama Is Elected

“What we know is American presidents all support Israel,” said Muhammad Ibrahim, 23, a university student who works part time selling watermelons on the street in the southern part of this city. “It is hopeless. This one is like the other one. They are all the same. Nothing will change. Don’t expect change.”

Across the border, in Israel, Moshe Cohen could not have agreed more. “Jews there have influence,” Mr. Cohen said, as he sold lottery tickets along Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. “He’ll have to be good to Israel. If not, he won’t be re-elected to a second term.”

And of course to the NYT, that’s a bad thing.

Mr. Obama, who will be here on Tuesday, has promised change. He has offered to begin dialogue where the current president has refused, in places like Syria and Iran. But when he stepped into the Middle East, he walked into a region where public expectations were long ago set. The Bush years have supercharged those sentiments, especially in the Arab world, where there is little faith that the United States can ever again serve as a fair broker between the sides.

How about a different reason for supporting Israel: it actually has more in common with the United States than any Arab state or nation.

For example there’s an effort to pardon Ahmad Dakamseh in Jordan.

In the wake of Israel’s release of despicable murderers of Jewish children, prominent Jordanians are asking King Abdullah to do the same.

And we know that even the reformist March 14th coaltion in Lebanon welcomed back Samir Kuntar - with honors.

The “March 14″ movement is a political vehicle for Lebanon’s liberals, democrats, free-market capitalists, human rights activists, and those who want an exit from the seemingly endless war with the “Zionist entity.” Unfortunately, that is not all it is. It’s also a political vehicle for hard-line Sunni Arab Nationalists and other political retrogrades who only oppose Hezbollah and the Syrian Baath regime because they hate Shias and Alawites as much as they hate Jews.

And of course the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas also sent a congratulations to Kuntar’s family and condolences to Hezbollah. And his government. And his “moderate” Fatah faction named a summer camp after a terrorist whose body was returned last week.

In the meantime an Israeli soldier who didn’t kill an Arab but violated the army’s procedure for dealing with suspects is being investigated by Israeli authorities.

And of course, whatever the Times reports about perceptions in the Arab street and how disappointed they are with the United States belies the fact the the United States is pushing Israel to make more and more concessions even in the light of undiminished Arab enmity and threats:

And then there is Israel. We learn today from Haaretz
that U.S.-Israel relations are being strained by the State Department’s busy-body routine on behalf of all manner of Palestinian complaints, such as Hanan Ashrawi’s daughter’s desire to receive special treatment from the Israeli government over her residency paperwork (Ashrawi’s whining to Rice apparently caused David Welch, the assistant secretary of state, to snap to attention and harass Israeli officials).
. . .
Ah, so the American general doesn’t like the security posture that the Israeli military has determined it must assume in order to protect Israeli lives. And he doesn’t like it that the IDF doesn’t take seriously the Palestinian Authority security services, which are dangerously incompetent, but which the United States has been deeply involved in training. Question for General Jones: Would you put the PA security services in charge of protecting American lives from Hamas?

(That’s a rhetorical question, but as I recall the U.S. sent troops to Ramallah to protect the president and didn’t rely only on the PA security services.)

This leads Daled Amos to comment:

The US is so used to trampling over Israeli interests and needs, that apparently stuff like this is becoming second nature, while still maintaining that everything is normal.

Over and over again we hear from the Arabs and their cheerleaders that the United States can’t be an “honest broker” because it favors Israel even while the Arabs show an undiminished level of hostility to Israel. The United States finds some pretext to pressure Israel in the name of “confidence buliding.” Israel, unwilling to buck its main benefactor relents and allows concessions that are often inimical to its security.

Israel and the United State end up on the defensive, unwilling to justify their alliance.The Arabs get their way without paying a price or giving any credit. And the media (and assorted peace processors) act like an injustice has been righted and that peace is now closer at hand.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Do they have to use that stupid word? (It’s earlier in the article.)

Ynet has eyewitness accounts, plus video, of the shooting of the terrorist. Doubtless the BBC won’t show this one on the news, what with all the highly offended Brits calling in for their daring to show (can’t really see much) the death of the first terrorist.

There’s nothing shocking in this video. Just puffs of smoke and gunshots. But this label is much, much better:

The camera then shifts to a religious man who is asked for his name by the photographer. The man replies “Yaki Asael” and the photographer replies “Yaki, you were the first one to fire. Way to go.” Asael gives the thumbs up signal and walks away modestly, without taking credit for shooting the terrorist.

Officer Ganem, who is Druze, said later that as opposed to the previous bulldozer attack he refrained from climbing on the vehicle and instead fired from several feet away. “The lesson from the previous attack was not to mount the bulldozer…I improved my position and fired at him,” he said.

“After I fired and saw that he was neutralized, I attempted to open the bulldozer’s doors, but apparently the terrorist also learned some lessons from the previous attack and locked the doors,” Ganem added. “I then mounted the bulldozer, broke the windshield, and opened the door. I saw that he was no longer alive, so I didn’t fire again.”

Once again, an armed populace is a safer populace. Proof positive that guns save lives.

This is a first, for me at least. I was already inured to Allah fishes and even Allah tomato caused only a moderate reaction in my stomach, having nothing to do with this fashionable salmonella strain that seems to inhabit some US vegetables.

What looks like the Arabic word for God and the name of the prophet Muhammad were discovered in pieces of beef by a diner in Birnin Kebbi.

The name of the file that carries the photograph of the holy meat in the linked BBC article includes a string “mysterymeat”. I think that some interested Islamic parties should sort it out with BBC. I detect a whiff of disrespect here.

But all in all, the whole issue is very encouraging, at least for me. Since the beef was blessed by Allah, I guess it is safe to say now that it will put paid to the vegetarians trying to enforce their creed on the rest of the world.

“When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind,” he said.

Yes, I see the light now! As long as my burger and my T-bone and my fried chicken are blessed, I am totally with it!

Lead me, oh chef chief of all kabobs!

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.