Besides the wealth of information, there are the comments. Fred’s aren’t the only funny ones. (But they are the funniest.) All this, and classic movie stars (mostly women, but he added Cary Grant when I requested it).

This is my friend Sarah, whom I met a little over seven years ago. She looked at the picture of Jenny Tonge I wrote about yesterday (she’s tough; figured she could take it) and while we were discussing that we thought she looked like Keith Richards, she said, “You know, she looks more like one of those apple dolls.” Then she wrote a post about it, complete with comparison pictures.

Yep, I have weird friends. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Only nine years ago, I voted for Al Gore and the straight Democratic ticket in New Jersey—line A all the way, as the slogan went. (Funny how even though the position of Line A was a coin flip, the Dems had Line A almost every single year I voted in NJ.)

The question is, who changed: Me, or them?

Well, I’ve changed. I have become more centrist, and less willing to part with my hard-earned dollars because a politician says he can spend my money better than I. I’m definitely tired of state-run charity programs for the perpetually unemployed. Or the state wanting to run my healthcare. (Or, for that matter, auto companies and banks.)

But there were two major turning points in my march towards the center. The first came on September 11, 2001. The second came in the bloody Israeli spring of 2002. That was when I realized that the left-leaning crowd that I ran with didn’t think that Israel had the right to use military means against the Palestinians to stop the terrorists. That was when I realized that the left-leaning crowd that I ran with were justifying Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis by using the excuse that the Palestinians were oppressed. That was when I realized that the left-leaning crowd I ran with was full of anti-Semites who call themselves anti-Zionists.

They didn’t really change, though. Their thoughts on Israel were always there, just never in evidence, as it wasn’t an issue until Yasser Arafat waged his terror war after turning down the Clinton peace proposals. That was Israel’s fault too, of course. Just like many people thought that we brought 9/11 down on ourselves. I couldn’t stand that line of thought.

So I started frequenting the right-leaning blogs, because at least there, I found people who were willing to call a terrorist a terrorist, and who don’t think that Israel is to blame for all the world’s ills.

I was embraced by the right, even though I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m still pretty much a social liberal, and even though I am an avowed feminist. But I have more in common with Michelle Malkin these days than I do with Al Gore, and I do not agree with everything Michelle says. I don’t think she has a problem with my disagreement. The crew at Michelle’s and Hot Air have been linking my posts for years, and have given me access to The Green Room. My liberal blogger friends are mostly gone, still horrified that I’m a Zionist and that I voted for George W. Bush in 2004. And especially that I haven’t come back to the fold, and returned to voting Line A all the way.

Yeah, not gonna happen. I don’t want my taxes raised. I don’t want socialized healthcare. I don’t want more regulations. And I don’t want this nation turning into a nanny state. The status of the U.K., with its 24-hour surveillance cameras and lack of individual rights, horrifies me. You are not even allowed to defend yourself against an intruder in your home in Great Britain. A year and a half ago, watching the neighborhood I lived in go to seed, I bought a handgun for protection. I couldn’t do that I’d have to get a permit for it in New Jersey, but Virginia is a much more sensible state. No permit required.

I’ve gone against my New Jersey upbringing on about gun control, too. And I’ve moved toward the center on so many issues that I no longer consider myself a liberal. So let’s just say it’s Line B for me, unless the Dems have a revolution and move towards the center and give me reason to vote for them again.

I won’t be holding my breath.

Cross-posted on Hot Air.

Awesome carving of a cat. Well, they’re all pretty good. The turtle eating a sandwich was Max’s request. He loves turtles. We didn’t ask him about the sandwich.

Next, if you have children who believe in Santa, do not click this link until after they’re asleep. It’s rather traumatizing for the little ‘uns, but funny as hell for the rest of us.

Both via Sarah, the woman who has the privilege of listening to me bitch when I’m really, really, really crabby due to flu and sinusitus and menopause and HulkMS all thrown into one week. I should probably link to Dogs in Elk for her, as it’s something you need to read at least once a year.

It’s certainly news that Human Rights Watch’s critics were able to get a former HRW chairman to slam the organization for having the temerity to hold Israel to the same standards of international humanitarian law to which it holds every other country. But Bernstein doesn’t appear to have any arguments to make that any of the instances of human rights violations HRW has documented didn’t take place. Instead his view is basically that Israel ought to be exempt from criticism because its enemies are mean:

No, Bernstein’s argument is that HRW is spending far more time and effort portraying Israeli violations than it is the human rights offenders that surround Israel. And Yglesias’ ever-astute commenters (the ones that aren’t slamming Zionism as racism) are comparing search result pages with number of reports, and declaring that since Israel and Egypt have the same number of pages, they have the same number of HRW reports. Argument over.

Except, well, let’s take a look by date, shall we? And include news releases as well as reports. For Israel and the Territories, we have the following press releases dating back to July. I’m going to put in bold those releases that do not concentrate on Israel:

Hamas: Investigate Attacks on Israeli Civilians   Oct 20, 2009
UN Security Council: Demand Justice for Gaza Victims   Oct 12, 2009
Israel: Stop Blocking School Supplies From Entering Gaza   Oct 11, 2009
UN: US Block on Goldstone Report Must Not Defer Justice   Oct 2, 2009
UN Human Rights Council: ‘Traditional Values’ Vote and Gaza Overshadow Progress   Oct 2, 2009
UN: US, EU Undermine Justice for Gaza Conflict   Sep 30, 2009
US: Endorse Goldstone Report on Gaza    Sep 27, 2009
EU: Demand Justice for Victims of Gaza War   Sep 25, 2009
Any chance for justice for victims of the Gaza war?   Sep 11, 2009
Israel: Gaza ‘White Flag’ Deaths Inquiry a Step Forward   Sep 10, 2009
‘Better than’ is not always good enough   Sep 9, 2009
Gaza: Rescind Religious Dress Code for Girls   Sep 4, 2009
Human Rights Watch plays no favorites in probes   Sep 3, 2009
Right of Reply: Don’t Smear the Messenger   Aug 25, 2009
False Allegations about Human Rights Watch’s Latest Gaza Report   Aug 14, 2009
Israel: Investigate ‘White Flag’ Shootings of Gaza Civilians   Aug 13, 2009
Gaza/Israel: Hamas Rocket Attacks on Civilians Unlawful   Aug 6, 2009
Will Arab States help end the Scourge of Cluster Munitions?   Aug 6, 2009
Israel: Ensure Improved ‘Attack Warnings’ to Civilians Are Effective   Aug 3, 2009
Palestinian Authority: Lift the Ban on Al Jazeera   Jul 17, 2009

The total: One release a month on the Palestinians. All the rest about Israel. Now, let’s take a look at the press releases about Egypt from July through the present.

Nobel Spotlights Need for Obama to Act on Rights   Oct 9, 2009
Egypt: Stop Killing Migrants in Sinai   Sep 10, 2009
US/Egypt: Obama Should Highlight Rights at Meeting With Mubarak   Aug 17, 2009
Will Arab States help end the Scourge of Cluster Munitions?   Aug 6, 2009
African Civil Society Urges African States Parties to the Rome Statute to Reaffirm Their Commitment to the ICC   Jul 30, 2009

Now let’s look at the totals. Twenty press releases under the category “Israeli and the Occupied Territories” since July. Four concern the Palestinians. Eighty percent of the HRW press releases in that time period concern Israel. Was Hamas firing rockets at Israeli civilians during that time? Yes. Was Hamas torturing Fatah prisoners during that time? Yes. Was Hamas killing “collaborators” without trial during that time? Yes. Was Hamas shooting at Israeli civilians on their farms during that time? Yes. What does HRW consider newsworthy? Lifting the press ban on Al Jazeera in the West Bank.

Look at the press releases concerning Egypt. Only one of them directly concerns Egyptian human rights abuses—the killing of migrants trying to get into Israel. Egyptian border guards have killed dozens of Africans fleeing over the border, and they’ve been doing it for years. A million African immigrants are poised along the Israeli border, so many that Israel will be building a fence to keep them out. And yet, there is only one news release about the deaths of civilians trying to make a better life for themselves than they can find in the Egyptian refugee camps. Why is that?

The commenters at Yglesias cite the number of pages in a search result as evidence that the reporting is equal. Clearly, their research skills need a little brushing up. HRW released three reports on Israel so far this year. HRW also released two about the Palestinians, one regarding the rockets from Gaza (in August, the first in two years about the nonstop rocket attacks on Israel), one regarding Hamas’ human rights abuses against Fatah and others in Gaza. HRW wrote zero reports about Egypt this year. That’s right. None.

In other words, Matthew, Robert Bernstein’s main point—that Human Rights Watch spends far more time on Israel than it does on the human rights abusers in the neighborhood around her—is true. Bernstein never said that Israel should be exempt, only that HRW should pay more attention to the human rights abusers in the countries without a free judiciary and laws on the books preventing such abuses. It’s a point I’ve been making for years. But when the founder of Human Rights Watch makes it—well, then one would have to think that there’s some validity to it. And if not, there’s always the evidence I’m citing in this post. But why would Yglesias let a little thing like facts get in the way of his opinion?

I just love the beard contest. My money’s on the girlfriends/wives winning this one. I mean, it’s bad enough that so many men out there are utterly unaware of the fact that their facial hair is fugly, but to deliberately create fugly facial hair and see who can make it last the longest? Well, if I drank beer, I’d raise a beer to this one.

Reading that blog almost makes me want to post a girly post. Ooh, maybe I’ll start talking about my perimenopause again. I’m sure they’d be interested in hearing about HulkMS.

Yaacov is busy, but not too busy to note the hypocrisy of the world media regarding the war against the Taliban, and the war against terrorists in Gaza.

Does this website make my pet look fat? Via Lair Simon, whose Edloe pic is there.

Soccer Dad has a lot more posts over on his place than he does here. So does Snoopy. And Jack. Go check them out.

And let me say that the people who design CSS themes for the web, thinking they are oh-so-creative, and know nothing about typography are morons. It is NOT READABLE when you letterspace a font so closely that ALL of the letters start to blend together, not just the ligatures.

And the fact that most of the non-typographers reading this are going, “Huh? Ligatures?” makes my point exactly. If you are one of the people who designs style sheets for blogs, pick up a book on typography before creating a font that makes your readers’ eyes hurt.

/type rant for the day

Do not click that unless you have a broad (or maybe grim) sense of humor. Oh, and if you’re a PETA person, you really don’t want to click.

(Okay, I know he hasn’t really been gone, but there’s an awful lot of activity over at the Craphole lately. Plus, he actually commented here for the first time in a long time. Twice, even.)

Well, any which way you cut it, more Lair Simon means more laughing in my world. Spit-monitor warning for the link above.