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4/17/04 Rantissi Ha'aretz is reporting that the IAF hit a car carrying Pediatrician of Death Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, which would be a cause for great celebration here. I may have to bring candy in to work. It's not final yet (writing this just prior to 2 p.m. EST), but I am hoping beyond hope that this mass murderer is roasting in hell, and that this time, Israel didn't miss. Nothing on CNN or Fox, MSNBC is reporting conflicting information that he was either killed or critically injured. More later if I get a chance. MSNBC now reporting that Rantissi is undergoing surgery but is clinically dead. Update: Fox reports that Israeli radio says that he's dead. It's confirmed. He's an ex-mass murdering terrorist bastard. Sweets all around. permalink | | Here's an interesting article that turns around everything the anti-Powell forces have been saying:
I've never bought the theory that Powell hasn't been on board with Bush for much of his Israel policy. You simply don't accept that kind of position without also accepting the philosophy of the guy that hired you. And if Powell were truly against the Bush plans, there would have been many news articles attributed to "top sources" discussing his displeasure. And if you'll remember, loyalty is an intensely important quality to W. He was the one going around dumping staff he felt were disloyal to his daddy. Now, if Powell quits and writes a tell-all book that completely negates what I just wrote, well, I'll just have to eat my words. permalink | | Yes, really. Fox has this in the "Top News" section. I'd say it's also bottom news and upside-down news and, well, okay, I'll stop. Normally, I'd send this over to Mac with a comment like, "Unprotected sex with multiple partners. Who knew?" Well, actually, I did that. But I'm also putting it here:
$4 billion to $13 billion a year? Quite a range. And, uh, wow. That's a lot of sex. And man, how much does it bite for that poor woman? Three months in, and she's got HIV to show for it. I suppose it's reflective of my state of mind, but I never even thought about AIDS affecting the pr0n industry, when of course it's got to be a major problem. Oh, wait. Silly me. Only gay men and IV drug users get AIDS, right?
Nice sentiment, but lady, I think your industry is a bit of a breeding ground for HIV infections. The barn door is open. permalink | | 4/16/04 Don't buy stock in Google just yet Y'know, the infamous Jew Watch ranking isn't the only reason to be wary of Google. I've long contended that its efficacy as a search engine is often about as helpful as closing your eyes and throwing a dart at an encylopedia. Actually, I haven't long contended that, at least, not with that metaphor. I've just said that they have a long way to go before I consider them a good search engine. But didn't that sentence sound really intelligent? (I feel a huge attack of juvenile scorn coming on; must not mention dead Roman generals; must not mention dead Roman generals, must not mention dead Roman generals; goddamnit! TACITUS! Phew. That felt good.) Anyway. I get referrers from Google Images every day. They're supposed to be referrers for the image to this post, which was a fun day last summer when G. and I became Mighty Snake Hunters. But they're not. Click on this link. The first picture on the left is not my picture, yet it links to my weblog. When you click on the pictures in the top frame, they bring you to the right place. I've got 49 referrers so far this month from Google Image search, 160 last month. And that's only the ones that are counted. My web stats program seems to miss about 10 or 20% of the hits I'm getting. I'm not complaining, exactly. The way I see it, I'm introducing dozens of essay-writing teenagers per month to what is probably a completely different viewpoint on, say, Israel. And for all I know, I have new readers who found me via the search for a picture of Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis. (What, it's a snake so nice they named it twice?) But it is rather amusing when you contemplate how utterly bad search engines can be. So. Who got here via a search for eastern garter snake on Google Images? permalink | | This just in: Captain Euro surrenders to Al Qaeda If you've never read any of Mac's Captain Euro posts, this is a perfect place to start.
As they say: Read the rest. Start from the beginning of the Captain Euro files, and you won't be disappointed. And don't be drinking while you're reading. In fact, Captain Euro has met the Hulk (and lived to tell the tale) right here on my blog. I really must bring the Hulk back for a guest post. permalink | | Al Jazeera: Would you like lies with that? For those of you who need proof that Al Jazeera is a completely untrustworthy network (and that would be many on the left), I present these facts from Zeyad:
This is what Michele was talking about when she got slammed for it the other day. I would have to say those MeFi denizens should just eff themselves, but then I might [gasp!] get slammed on MeFi for it. I should warn you: I'm working on a post on why I like to fight. And I have a much thicker skin than my pal Michele. (Wish I could give her some of mine, but I never have figured out how to do that.) permalink | | 4/15/04 Omri has a great bunch of posts, as usual. You simply have to laugh at the headline to this one. And get angry enough to hit something when you read this post. And Omri, I wasn't gloating. I was patting myself on the back. Huge difference. Another female suicide bomber, caught on her way into an Israeli village. She is a mother of six. I have words, but then Tacitus would get all pissy with me again. She said she was just carrying the explosives for someone else. Nice lady. Bound to raise some beatiful suicide bomberser, children. Expect more attempts in "revenge" for the Bush-Sharon agreement. Michele's hanging up her politiblogging shoes for a while. Whatever it takes, Michele. I'm going to bed. It's been a long day. permalink | | I must maintain my reputation as a sensitive, fragile woman in response to this comment on the post about LGF. So here's a picture of Gracie, who frankly doesn't deserve the publicity after being so annoying yesterday. But Rahel likes her, so there you have it. Yeah, Lair, this will be this week's entry for the Carnival of the Cats (which I think I forgot to link earlier this week). permalink | | My files have been moved over to Hosting Matters. I think I may have some image link problems. But everything else seems to be working. There shouldn't be any trouble, but the DNS changeover is never a simple thing. Here's hoping they don't choose to do it while I'm out today. permalink The world according to Google News Once more, via Google News, the tally:
Even taking into account the major change in policy announced today, Israel news apparently trumps every other single piece of news on earthagain. We haven't yet reached the Yassin assassination mark of 5700 articles, but hey, there's still time. This post was written at 1:30 a.m. Let's see where we are in about eight hours. Update: The Iraq news has caught up to the news from Israel. 2548
stories vs. 2727. But it's below the fold. 4/14/04 I trimmed my inbox this evening. Spent hours on it, actually, and freed up about 25 megs of space. Then something weird happened afterward, and I lost every single piece of email since October 21, 2003. Everything. It's a good thing I already moved my Hosting Matters information into a separate folder. (Say, does anyone know how to recover email from Netscape? It's an older version, and I've been meaning to switch over to Mozilla, but I needed to free up my space on my hard drive first, and does anyone else see the irony of the Tech gods in this?) Anyway, if you've sent me email in the last, oh, six months or so, and I never responded, and you think it's because I was too overwhelmed, now you have a second chance to see if I'll answer your email. And yes, that means people who tried to get me to link to them. Wow. All of my email conversations for the past six months are in the ether. That kinda sucks. Update: Oh, that's just weird. It's all back now. permalink | | The prize of appeasement: Nada John at Iberian Notes has translated to English the transcript of the videotape the terrorists madethe ones who blew themselves up on April 4th rather than face culpability for the Madrid bombings.
So much for voting in the party that will remove Spanish troops from Iraq. We are at war. Time for the rest of Europe to understand that. permalink | | Today, Gracie has been playing a game. Over and over and over again. It's the "I'm bored" game, and it goes like this: Walk up to patio door. Sit looking out. Yowl like you want to go out. Wait until Meryl opens patio door. Decide that it's too overcast and rainy to go outside. Run away. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I am going to murder my cat. She is now yowling from the living room. If I were to get up, she'd charge upstairs, run into either the bathroom or the bedroom, and demand that I pet her. In the meantime, just to complete the role reversal, Tig is quietly asleep somewhere. On my chair, I think. Cats. permalink | | A sea change in the Bush Administration's Israel policy President Bush made some very important statements after today's meeting with Ariel Sharon:
Without stating it verbatim, Bush just said that the palestinians can forget about their "right of return," and that Israel should not be forced to accept the 1967 borders (which are essentially the same as 1949's armistice lines). The President also affirmed Israel's right to keep Jerusalem and the suburbs that have grown out of it over the past 37 years. By recognizing "facts on the ground," he's agreeing that the Jews have a right to live in the West Bank (which used to be known as Judea and Samaria) as well. Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of palestinians in 1948, and hundreds of thousands of Jews forced out of Arab nations over the next decade. Time for the pals and the Arab nations to return the favor, and place their refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, or some other Arab state. And gee, where did I read recently about a sea change in Bush's policy towards Israel? Oh, yeah. Right here. permalink | | Toast for breakfast. Ahhhh. Go ahead. Laugh. You try going eight days without eating any bread at all. And don't tell me how hard the Atkins diet is. You have to substitute dry, hard, bland oversized crackers for your bread, and also make all your cakes and cookies taste funny, and while you're at it, you can't eat legumes, or corn, or a host of different things that make food wonderful. I really do like Passover. It's my favorite holiday, and the Seders are my absolute favorite festivals. But man, the food sucks. At the Oneg after services yesterday, I saw the tables covered with kosher-for-Passover food and said to Julia P., who is fourteen, "Oh, just what I wanted. More matzoh." She then joined me in sarcastically oohing and aahing over the delights of the snacks. "Well," someone else said, "at least there's fruit." Yeah. And now there's toast. permalink | | 4/13/04 What makes this speech different from all other speeches? Last night, President Bush spoke openly of something that he's only hinted at in the past three years. He has connected palestinian terrorism to the global terror movement. The President has publicly connected the dots. Granted, Bush has mentioned palestinian terrorism before, but always in general terms, not in the same breath as Al Qaeda. If you didn't know it was the President's speech, you'd think it was taken straight from the Weekly Standard, or a Victor Davis Hansen column, or Daniel Pipes' website.
I think this indicates a sea change in the way palestinian actions are treated. I've been wondering how Ariel Sharon has managed to get so much of what he wanted approved by Bush. Now I see why: The President agrees that there is no difference between Hamas, Hezbullah, Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Al Qaeda. Expect Sharon to come out of his meeting with the President with a rubber stamp on annexing parts of the West Bank. Oh, they won't use the word "annex." But it looks to me like Sharon doesn't have to worry about that no-confidence vote. As for the pals being stuck in with Al Qaeda: I say about damned time. My long-term prediction: Syria is in our sights after the election, probably starting with Syrian-occupied Lebanon. Assuming W. wins, that is. If he loses, watch Kerry try for yet another Camp David-type agreement, and watch it fail, miserably. permalink | | Just another random act of vandalism That's the view in my synagogue's sanctuary when you face east. We face east at least once during services, sometimes more than once, as we pray in the direction of Jerusalem. Between 10:30 p.m. on Friday night and 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning, someone, or several someones, came onto the grounds of my synagogue, found a brick in the pile of bricks fifty yards from the sanctuary, and expended a great deal of effort to break the window of the sanctuary. One of the other members, a longtime Richmond resident, was telling me that it was probably teenagers walking through on their way to the Burger King. I don't think so. There aren't any sidewalks between here and there. I think someone drove around inside the parking lot, looking for something to trash. They found the pile of bricks, and deliberately chose the sanctuary over the social hall. Let's parse who might have done it. If they were Christian, they spent the evening of Good Friday, the weekend that Christians hold to be the most important days of their year, throwing a brick through the window of the prayer sanctuary of the descendants of those who Jesus prayed with every Friday. If they were Muslim, they spent the evening of their Sabbath, the holiest day of the week, damaging the prayer sanctuary of, well, the evil Zionist sons of dogs and pigs, I would expect. If they were atheists, they went out of their way to deface a holy place. Perhaps they were local college students, angry at the Zionist Entity, and figured they'd take their revenge out on a Jewish site in Richmond. And if they were simply teenagers, acting out on their lesser impulses, I would have to point out that in order to get to my synagogue you have to go out of your way. It isn't on any cross streets or thoroughfares. The bricks are fifty yards away from the sanctuary, near the trash bin. The bricks, by the way, are commemorative bricks. There's a space near the sanctuary, off the sidewalk, with the ones already dedicated. It's a fundraising technique. The windows are extremely thick. The brick probably bounced off the lower pane (which is cracked), and you have to expend a hell of a lot of effort to shatter the glass. It wasn't random vandalism. You can't miss that this is a Jewish synagogue. There's a great big Star of David on our door, and one on the sign visible from the street. So if you want to say it isn't anti-Semitismwell, it is. permalink | | 4/12/04 The Israeli security forces are doing their jobs.
So what's the total?
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Well, my day turned rather tiring. Got snagged by my boss to work after M. and I climbed for a couple of hours, and so I am exhausted, and realized that yes, it's true, if you don't climb for a week, you lose a lot of the muscles you painstakingly built up. I will also be working much of the rest of the week, both at the gym and on the website. Big changes ahead that you ought to be seeing in a couple of days. I sure do see a lot to write about. This "crackdown" on indecency in television and radio is a softball waiting to be hit out of the park. permalink | | You must go here for Michele's Peep Protest Marches. But first, put down that drink. Lair's weekly Carnival of the Cats is up. And now, off to climb some, then buy some Peeps. Me and my Peeps, we have a special relationship. Of the Hannibal Lecter kind. permalink | | Judith Weiss sent me this story: Seems that a Johnny Peepleseed struck in Albany and Peeped a whole bunch of cars downtown. It's quite amusing, and the Albanians (can I call them that?) really liked the new car decorations. There's a video. Have fun. permalink | | 4/11/04 You know what? Screw all the naysayers. Screw all the people who bash Charles Johnson. This is why Charles does what he does. This is why LGF is so valuable.
Start from this comment, and keep reading, and remember what it was like that day two years and seven months ago. They want us dead. Charles points that out. MeFi and all of the anti-LGF
idiots ignore that, and concentrate on the comments of the few, while
missing the gems like these. In the words of a famous left blogger: Screw
them. Happy Easter, to all of my Christian readers. And I send you, once more, to that wonderful place of Peeps on the web. You may not want to eat your Peeps until after you check out the experiments in solubility. (That one is my favorite. The eyes slay me.) Then again, we eat hot dogs, don't we? permalink | | What's wrong with this picture? Easter greetings from the Pope:
Because all those Jewish Christians living in Israel and speaking only Hebrew needed to hear that greeting. Can you say, "Insensitive?" I knew you could. By the way, Reuters, perhaps the picture is one of the bleakest in 26 years because this is one of the bleakest springs in 26 years. But it'll get better, as soon as the wars are won. permalink | | Last week's blogs are archived. Looking for the Buffy Blogburst Index? Here's Israel vs. the world. Here's the Blogathon. The Superhero Dating Ratings are here. If you're looking for something funny, try the Hulk's solution to the Middle East conflict, or Yasser Arafat Secret Phone Transcripts. Iseema bin Laden's diary is also a good bet if you've never been here before.
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