Where is the Syrian Goldstone Commission? The massacres go on every day, and yet, there is no world outcry of the sort we saw during the Gaza war in 2006. Syria has been using artillery on defenseless civilians every day, killing thousands, and now there’s word that chemical weapons are up next. Two words for the human rights crowd: White Phosphorous. No, three words: You’re all hypocrites. Just for kicks and giggles, I searched news releases by country at HRW’s site. Fourteen for Syria between 1997 and yesterday. For Israel: 33 during that same time period. Jeffrey Goldberg points out that Syria has now killed more of its own citizens civilians than Israel did during both Palestinian intifadas. (That’s why I keep reading–and liking–Goldberg, even though many think he’s too soft on the Palestinians and too hard on Israel. He’s nothing like the others on the left. He keeps reminding the world that Iran really does mean to destroy Israel, and it’s not just a game of words.

To get back to my original point: Of course there will be no Goldstone Commission for Syria, in spite of Bradley Burston’s hope for one. Oh, you’ve got Navi Pillay talking about war crimes trials for Syrians who ordered the barrages on civilians, but that’s about it. The UN is a toothless, anti-Israel organization that lives off taxpayer dollars and exists to extend its own [anti-Israel] agenda. Iran and Hezbollah are helping Syria murder its own citizens.

Jackson Diehl said it, and a chorus is beginning to emerge: The fall of Syria could bring the Iranian regime down with it.

By borrowing far more heavily than what they could afford, they were also gambling that housing would keep rising in value, defying basic rules of economics.

Now they’re being rewarded for their mistakes. Ironically, even the government officials who were part of the deal have privately conceded that, with few exceptions, more than 95 percent of the so-called victims weren’t victims at all; they faced imminent foreclosure because they were delinquent on their mortgage payments — often for a year or more.

Or as banking analyst Dick Bove put it: “What this settlement did was to help 1 million people who were deadbeats.”

And why is there a settlement? A technicality being used to demonize evil bankers.

Why are these deadbeats getting bailouts? Aside from election-year politics, at issue is the foreclosure practice known as “robo signing” — a procedure in which low-level bank employees, without direct authorization, approve perfectly legal foreclosures on a bank’s behalf.

The foreclosures themselves were legal; the only apparent illegality is that the banks streamlined the foreclosure process, with clerks signing the bank officer’s name on legal documents.

Just as “Cash for Clunkers” destroyed the used car market, this bailing out of the undeserving–I’ll bet you only a tiny fraction who get the bailouts will be people who actually have problems due to the economy screwing with their job–is going to continue to depress the housing market. So good to know that I’ve played by the rules, worked hard, saved until I could buy my own home–and then get to pay the government to pay for the houses of others who have done the complete opposite.

In each of my interviews, my military experience obviously came up and it was evident that it was an issue. Not that my experience meant little but the fear of my being called up again and my availability came into question several times. I found this odd but even more so, discouraging. After the last interview, I really started thinking as to why I would not be considered for one of the open positions. I was told that I had the qualifications, experience, and that they were sure I could handle the job but my availability was in question due to my commitment to the Navy Reserves. They weren’t sure they wanted to hire me because I may have to leave unexpectedly. From a business standpoint, I understand their concern; who wants to hire someone who may have to leave due to a national crisis? They do have a business to run after all. However, the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I am but 1 reservist in a sea of thousands of others who, especially since 9/11, have found themselves in this exact situation at least once in the last 11 years. My experience cannot be that uncommon to that of my fellow reserve/guardsmen and of those who have recently separated from active duty; I can’t be the only one who has experienced this opaque form of discrimination.

[...] In speaking with a fellow Veteran recently, maybe the onus isn’t on the 1 percent but the other 99 percent. Why is it that military members receive extensive training in the fields of electronics, medicine, mechanics, aviation, and administration yet we can barely get a nationally accredited university to grant us little more than three credit hours towards physical education (because we were smart enough to complete boot camp). While we are able to apply for and received certifications in some career fields, they are either not enough, or are not recognized, by many employers. We can continue to write resumes and attempt to translate our skills into civilian terms yet without education that is nationally recognized, we’re back at square one. The GI Bill is an outstanding benefit and most service members take advantage of it in some capacity but many Veterans should be at least 50 percent completed with their degrees simply by the amount of education and experience they’ve received through the military. At the very least, they should be allowed to test their competency without having to re-take formal classes. How can we not grant the required qualifications necessary to obtain employment in the civilian sector to deserving Veterans? How do we tell a military police officer that while he is qualified to carry a weapon and serve in a combat zone that he is not qualified for employment with his hometown police force because he has not gone through their training academy? How is he good enough to go to war but not good enough to respond to 911 calls?

That’s interesting, because my nephew is currently learning communications in the Marines. From my understanding, he’ll learn about the most modern networking systems, 3G, 4G, etc., and will be setting up communications at FOBs in Afghanistan if necessary. To know now that his education will be meaningless if he chooses to go to college is unbelievable.

Read it all.

There is also the fact that when I set foot into a Ryan Homes office on July 3, 2007, I was given the hard-sale pitch, told I could effectively buy a condo with little or no money down, and that my debt wouldn’t be a problem, because a quick credit check showed that I could afford one up to, oh, $400,000. And if I acted now, they’d throw in several thousand dollars off the price. But I’d have to act soon, because the townhouses were going fast!

I walked out of that office without signing through sheer strength of will, knowing that I was being sold a load of goods and that I didn’t have to sign anything without thinking it over at length. I waited a year before buying my condo, paying down significant chunks of my debt in the meantime. When I finally did get a mortgage, I took advantage of the $7,500 home buying loan, which is a loan that I am paying back to the government each year on my 1040. A few months after I bought my condo, that loan became a credit.

Now the government is trying to work the housing market by making banks give money to people whose houses are underwater and who can’t make the mortgage payments. The article does not say whether it covers people who bought houses they could not afford with ARMs that they hoped would never take effect because they were trying to flip the house for a profit. It doesn’t say whether it covers people who didn’t care that they were buying a house they couldn’t afford, because they were betting on being able to get a better job, or something. All it says is that the big five banks are going to help homeowners who are about to be foreclosed on for whatever reason.

And you and I will ultimately be footing the bill for this.

My condo is currently underwater. It’s lost around 15% of its value, I think. I’m a little afraid to compare the current assessment with the original assessment. But I refinanced my mortgage last year and always had one that I could afford. I’ll never be a moocher. I’m just a stupid working stiff who thinks part of being a grownup is being responsible for your own actions, and waiting until you can afford the house that you bought. Go figure.

Then go here and see the behind the scenes videos.

Hilarious.

1. Jewish history. Given the legacy of the Holocaust, no Israeli leader wants to be remembered as the one who let Iran build a bomb and did nothing to stop it. Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he will not let Iran become a nuclear-armed state on his watch. Some Israelis say it would be better to carry out an attack, even if it’s not successful, than to not take action against a state that has called for Israel’s destruction.

Note how the writer turned the most important decision a political leader can ever make–whether to attack anothe country–into an issue of personal pride for Bibi. It isn’t the fact that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Israelis will die in a nuclear attack by Iran. It isn’t the fact that the Jewish people will have a significant portion of their number wiped out–again–in less than a century. It’s the fact that Netanyahu is thinking of his legacy. Right. Because when he reads the analysis from the Mossad and discusses an Iranian attack with his ministers, the first thing on Netanyahu’s mind is, “How will I look as the leader of Israel if I do this?”

I think the writer is confusing Netanyahu’s leadership with Obama’s.

Snark aside, this is an utterly despicable statement. The primary focus of the leader of Israel is on the survival of the State of Israel. Iran threatens that survival. It has nothing to do with how Bibi wants to be remembered. Backing it up with “Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he will not let Iran become a nuclear-armed state on his watch” gives it the imprimatur of being fact-based. That is such an important statement because it is an existential statement, not because you can use it to back up your contention that Bibi is thinking of his legacy.

This is what I’ve been writing about for nearly a decade: The subtle ways Israel is delegitimized by the media. Even their fear of a nuclear holocaust is put down to personalities, instead of a realistic approach to an enemy that threatens their destruction.

Your objective media, at work.

Check the skies for flying porkers: The AP profiles Israeli peace moves toward Iran. Of course, being the AP, they tell you this:

Before the revolution, Israel and Iran were close allies. Some 100,000 Jews of Iranian descent live in Israel today, many with fond memories and still strong ties to friends and relatives in their homeland. An estimated 25,000 Jews still live in Iran.

But they don’t tell you this:

On the eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, 80,000 Jews lived in Iran. In the wake of the upheaval, tens of thousands of Jews, especially the wealthy, left the country, leaving behind vast amounts of property.

That second paragraph, of course, is why there is such a large population of Iranian Jews in Israel.

You just can’t stop the haters from making hateful asses of themselves: A columnist in the Las Vegas Review wrote about the special post-Shabbat caucuses in Nevada on Saturday night. She called out the Jew-hate code words (“New York Lawyers”, for one) and accused some of Ron Paul’s followers of being anti-Semitic. In the comments to the article, they prove her right.

AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Pull the other one: How can you tell Hassan Nasrallah is lying? His lips are moving.

Iran will not ask Lebanon’s Hezbollah to retaliate if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, the leader of the militant group said Tuesday.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told thousands of supporters by video link that in case of such an Israeli attack on Iran, his leadership would make a decision about a response. Hezbollah is funded by Iran.

The One Is Not Happy: Shmuel Rosner, no fan of Benjamin Netanyahu’s, points out that Bibi is going to be around for a while yet, perhaps longer than the Obama Administration, which has tried so hard to get him kicked out of office. Cue world’s smallest violin.

And just for kicks and giggles: Ha’aretz is publishing the hacked emails of the Syrian administration. Georgie-Porgie Galloway is seen slobbering over the dictator’s murderous feet in the hopes of keeping his money coming in.

And that is from just one week in February, 2008.

It’s why I can’t stand posting some days, and so, I don’t.

I think it may be time to do a 180 and go back to making this a personal blog that occasionally discusses current events. I can only take so much bad news before I need a dandelion break.

Smash.

The new NBC series about putting on a Broadway play.

Yeah, it’s well-titled.

Smash is a smash.

I am STILL humming the tunes. Now THAT’s Broadway. (I’m sure it will be, after the TV series.)

Since the clip is not translated, here is its synopsis from Israelity:

That’s the case anyway with the current TV ad campaign by cable provider HOT, which is promoting its ‘on-demand’ episodes of the popular spy-comedy show ‘Asfur’ by offering a free Samsung Galaxy tablet as enticement for prospective customers to sign up for the on-demand package.

In the ad, a bored Mossad agent stationed in Iran, apparently to monitor Iran’s nuclear development, meets up with three characters from the show who are also clandestinely in the country dressed as women. Sitting in a café, the agent shows off the Samsung Galaxy, explaining that he used his downtime to use the on-demand option to watch episodes of ‘Asfur’.

At the end of the clip, one of the three Asfur accidentally pushes an application on the tablet over the frantic efforts of the agent, and a nuclear reactor is detonated in the background.

Well, as David from Israelity says, “Typical Israeli sophomoric, whistling in the dark, hilarious humor.”

However, some moron (or several morons) in the Iranian Majlis (parliament) decided not only to take offense, but to (mis)direct his displeasure at Samsung, whose tablet is used as enticement in that ad.

The sheer stupidity of that Iranian act of indignation is mirrored by Tehran’s overseas branch Press TV article:

Meanwhile, Samsung’s Dubai office has issued a statement condemning the production of the teaser by the company’s Israel office.

Of course, poor Samsung and its Israeli office have nothing to do with that ad, the fact that escapes understanding of Tehran lawmakers and Press TV, although Samsung has stressed that point – if you care to read the next paragraph in the linked piece:

Samsung’s public relations official in Tehran, Elaheh Taheri, told reporters on Thursday the clip had nothing to do with the South Korean company and that it had been produced by an Israeli cable TV station, Hot.

However, the iron will of Ayatollahs will not be distracted by minor details, and Samsung was chosen to bear the wrath. Perhaps as a lesson to others:

Fat’hipour said Samsung’s apology to the Iranian nation, though necessary, would not be enough and that the company must be held accountable for producing the teaser.

Of course, I understand that by boycotting the Israeli cable provider HOT Majlis is not going to achieve much in the way of retaliation, but choosing Samsung?

I have almost made my mind to compensate Samsung for the unpleasant incident in my own small way, fixing to purchase one of their new products. You should too.

Next: President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud (the Mad) Ahmadinejad decides to boycott the Swiss shoes manufacturer Bally, since a person unknown pissed in his shoes while he was praying in his favorite mosque.

Update: thanks to Sabba Hillel, here is a link to a version of the same clip with English subtitles and some preliminary info. With one mistake, however: the bug that is swatted at the end of the clip is called “khumeni” in Hebrew slang, however the name stems from its color (“khum” means brown) and not from a similarly sounding name of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews