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This blog is a no-Israel-bashing zone (click for explanation)
11/12/04
Friday blawns: I'm working on about five hours' sleep. I worked all day at The Job From Hell, where, of course, my boss was a dick half the time. My brain is rather mushy. There's a lot of news, but hey, you can get it from LGF or some of the other sites that cover my same beat. Sorry, folks. I have to go to synagogue in a bit for a bar-mitzvah. The current b'nai mitzvah class has 17 students in it, about half of whom I like/know well enough to show for their big day, and David W.'s big day is tomorrow. But it's traditional to also go on Friday night, and, well, I haven't been to services in a few weeks, so I'm going. And his younger sister is in my class, so I think I'd hear from her if I missed her brother's day.
Shorter version of the above paragraph: I won't be posting much today.
Too
furry to come in out of the rain: It's pouring out here. It's been
raining all day, and the rain got harder for the commute home. As soon
as I got home, Tig wanted out. He's mostly Maine Coon, and his coat is
nearly impervious to rain. So he likes it outside. But I don't like him
coming in soaking wet and shaking it off on my kitchen floor, or having
him, say, go into the litterbox with wet paws, what with my using clumping
litter and Tig then getting the litter clumped up between his toes. Maine
Coon cats have very hairy toes, by the way, and fur in between each one
of them. When Tig's toe fur gets dirty, his favorite thing to do is lie
in my bed and clean his toes, usually resulting in disgusting, dirty cat
hair all over that side of the bed.
I let him out twice, then I stood my ground. He's taking a nap right now. Tough life, y'know. I'm betting he's curled up on The Chair That Swallows You Whole, lying on my bathrobe.
Yup. I'm right.
I know my Tig. He's not lying on his side. That's the view from above, taken so he wouldn't move and destroy the evidence of his perfidy. Of course, I could move my bathrobe and kick him out of the chair.
Uh-huh. I will. Honest.
Dead Arab Terrorist/Dictator Fund: I think we're well over five hundred dollars on that one. Many of you have been emailing me that you've doubled your donation, and many others told me you'd joined in even though you hadn't when I first announced it. If you feel like it, put your tally in the comments to this post, and if you don't want to give your name, you don't have to. Just change your vitals before you hit the save button. The meme has spread; I think other bloggers were doing it as well.
Kewl.
I must go make myself dinner now. Services in two hours. Rain, rain, go away. permalink | |
11/11/04
I just watched Arafat's "legacy bio" on MSNBC, which will doubtlessly be played again tonight on the nightly news. It mentioned briefly his terrorism, and ignored any ties to terror after the Oslo meetings. It represented him as a "freedom fighter." The article linked above doesn't even mention the word terror.
Kofi Annan called his death "tragic" and said he'd be remembered "for having led the Palestinians, back in 1988, to accept the principle of peaceful coexistence between Israel and a future Palestinian state."
If you feel the need to cleanse your palate of those who ignore Arafat's legacy of death and destruction, go to Honest Reporting. Here's a video that shows his legacy of terror. And here's Honest Reporting's link-filled biography that tells the world the truth about the mass-murderer of Jews who brought terror into the mainstream of "legitimate" political struggle, thanks to the tenuous morals of the EU and the world's moral equivocators.
The world leaders are getting it wrong. Arafat did not lead the pals "to an historic acceptance of the need for a two-state solution." More than fifty percent of pals support attacks on Israel from Gaza even after withdrawal of Israeli forces. Palestinian groups are accusing Israel of poisoning Arafat. The message is clear: No peace, now or ever. Arafat made sure of that, and in fact, never really meant his "peace of the brave." Not when he consistently told Arab audiences that he meant to replace Israel with a palestinian state.
Does knowing that the Vatican praised Arafat as "a leader of great charisma who loved his people and tried to guide them towards national independence" make you ill?
Then know also that Australian Prime Minister John Howard says Arafat's legacy will be one of terrorism and failure.
And know that Arafat's legacy of death will be his footnote in history, not the emergence of the palestinian state. He failed at his greatest goal. He could not destroy Israel, and he could not lead his people to independence. Alex Bensky said it perfectly in his latest email to me:
Five hundred years from now the only people who will remember this wretched murderer will be Jews, because he will be added to the long, long list of those who not only in the time of Pharaoh but "in every generation have they risen up against us to destroy us." And centuries from now the only epitaph Arafat will have is "Am Yisra'el Chai [the people of Israel live]."
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11/10/09
Tuna for terrorists; money for MDA
Those of you who are taking part in the Dead Dictators Dead Pool Matching Fund, please donate $25 to Magen David Adom. Feel free to put something like Dead Pool in the comments, and I'll see if I can't get MDA to track our donations.
I'm giving Tig and Gracie their tunafish in celebration that Yasser Arafat is now wormfood. Rotting. Decomposing as we speak. Gone. Dead. An ex-terrorist. Go ahead, you think of more phrases for him, and try not to swear too much.
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Arafat is an ex-terrorist: Who had today in the dead pool?
Oh, I'm sorry, was that not respectful enough?
Arafat, the biggest mass-murderer of Jews since Hitler, has been officially pronounced a corpse, though he's been one for several days.
Shed no tears for his death. Arafat failed his people, and brought terrorism into the cachet of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. He lied. He murdered. He stole. Don't read the whitewashed obituaries. Remember Munich. And Lod Airport. Read the history of the murder organization that was the PLO. Don't fall for the crap that the media is going to throw at you.
And remember this: He did not die a hero. He lived his life ostensibly for the cause of palestinian nationalism. There is no state of Palestine. He died before he could see the fulfillment of his dream: The destruction of the state of Israel, and its replacement with a palestinian state.
He tried to kill us. He failed. Let's eat. permalink | |
Too much information! Too much information! There are far too many news pieces rolling around today. I feel overwhelmed. So instead of talking about the world, I shall talk about myself. Perhaps even in the third person, thus making you feel that Meryl is a Supremely Important Person (SIP, for short, which is better than VIP, because, like, we can get personalized straws made and then offer people a SIP straw, or a SIP SIP, and don't you wish you were a SIP, huh? Huh?)
Baby, it's cold outside. For the third year in a row, I am extremely disappointed with the Richmond winter. Okay, autumn, since technically, it isn't winter yet. But the temps hit freezing last night and earlier this week, and it's not even my birthday yet, and trust me on this one: It's generally warm in NJ until right around my birthday, then it gets cold. Well. There was frost on my windshield this morning. Once again, to whom do I direct my complaints?
One of the things that's been bothering me since the weather turned cooler is that it's been quite chilly upstairs. Normally, it's too damned hot in the wintertime (and the summertime, for that matter), as this is a townhouse, and it has crappy air circulation. Well, when I got up today for yet another too-cold morning, I decided to try to figure out why it was so cold. I checked the air vents, made sure they were all open and uncovered, checked that the closet in the spare bedroom was closed, and while standing in front of the vent in that room, suddenly felt a cold breeze on my legs.
Because I left the effing window wide open. Since last week. When it was hot out. And when I glanced in at the window a few days ago, I thought it was closed.
I closed the window. It's nice and warm upstairs now.
Thanksgiving turkey alert: I'm going to be in New Jersey for Thanksgiving. I was thinking that Sunday would be my best day to travel to NYC. I was also thinking I really, really, really want to have lunch at Katz's. I'm alerting my NY/NJ-area readers now so we can maybe plan a blogger get-together in New York on the 28th of November. (No, Michele, I don't expect you to come. Perhaps we can discuss privately a smaller get-together the night before, like, in your neck of the woods.)
The Lost minute: So I finally watched my tape of last week's episode of Lost a few days ago, and I lost the last minute of the tape. Let me guess what happened: Charlie threw the drugs into the fire. Anything else I missed?
By the way, Treacher, you can have whatshername. I'm in lust with Daniel Dae Kim, and have been since I first saw him on the post-B5 series. In a contest between Matthew Fox and Daniel Dae Kim, there is no contest. I melt over that epicanthic fold.
No, you scan it. The stores down here are all installing "U-Scan" counters at the supermarkets. I have figured out why these are evil and must be stopped: They prevent me from reading the soap opera magazines while standing in line at the checkout counter.
Oh, wait. I can still read them at Barnes & Noble. Never mind. Carry on.
Mastery skills: My students have to master a certain number of skills in religious school. One of these is being able to describe at least six of the eighteen Jewish holidays. I've been warming them up for this all year by saying, "Tell me three things about [insert holiday here]." I've taught them all the difference between three-line holidays and regular ones ("They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!"), so well that during parent-teacher conferences, one of my parents said, "Oh, that's where he got that from." Last week, I tested them on the mastery skill. They had to get six holidays. Most tried for, and got, at least nine (extra points for that).
Best description of all of them: One of the students was trying to describe Shavuot, the holiday where we celebrate receiving the Torah, and wrote, "Moses brought the Torah down from Mt. Sinai but dropped it."
Heh. I think he was thinking of the story of the Ten Commandments. By the way, Mel Brooks' story of the Ten Commandments from The History of the World, Part I, goes over very well with nine-year-olds. Goes over fairly well with grownups, too.
There. I'm taking a dinner break now. permalink | |
11/09/04
The feel-good article of the day
Julie Burchill, who stopped writing for the Guardian and left with a zing or three at the anti-Semitic tone of some of her former colleagues, visited Israel, and wrote about it for the Times. (Hat tip: Greg S.) What did she think?
The Jews say that there is no heaven — but on this occasion, I would beg to differ with this splendid people.
Because from what I’ve seen, albeit in the short space of a week, there is a heaven. And its name is Israel.
Read the rest. Makes me want to go. Sigh. I need money. But I swear, I'm going to get there soon, and visit Imshin, and Tal, and Allison, and everyone else I've only read or emailed. permalink | |
As promised:
Hoist on their own petard: (And it's their word, too!) Suha Arafat is using French privacy laws to keep Arafat's health secret, long after the Frogs wish they'd never let the old murderer into their hospital. Folks, he's dead. They just haven't unplugged the machines yet.
That's far too much credit for a pair of ordinary thieves and murderers: Suha Arafat: Ramallah's Lady Macbeth. Except this isn't a Shakespearean tragedy, just a pathetic farce.
She is so popular: Suha's Outburst Infuriates Palestinians. And yet, she will walk away from this with millions. Watch. My take on the matter: She's thrown her lot in with the Arafat cronies, who have promised her millions if she says that Arafat told them to take over once he was gone. Watch her try to marginalize Abbas and Qurei. And by the way, did anyone else notice that in a supposedly democratic election, ex-Prime Ministers don't get to just step up and take power? It'd be like Bill Clinton taking over upon the exit of President Bush. Excuse me? Hello? World?
Oh, right, what was I thinking?
More on Suha, the Incredible Shrieking Woman: Suha Triggers Power Struggle. Actually, her "husband's" death triggered the power struggle, but hey, she's doing her best.
Quick, bet on November 19th: Looks like Aravegetable is going to officially die on the 19th, which is some kind of big whoopdedo day in the religion he picked up after it was useful to the cause, er, I mean, Islam.All I can say about this is, thank God it isn't going to happen November 15th. That's my birthday. Come to think of it, please, God, don't let it happen on my birthday. Please. Because if it does, I'm changing my birthday. Update: Nope, it's supposed to be today, not the 19th. So far, it hasn't happened. And it's already tomorrow in France and Israel. Guess it won't be today.
On the other hand, it would be a nice present. Okay. Never mind.
There, now I've given my antagonists more reasons to hate me. My morning is complete. permalink | |
My, there's an overabundance of interesting news today. Aravegetable is going to get a linkfest all his own.
Why they'll lose: Jihadists love death, and Americans love life. Hey, morons, in a war, the side with the most deaths lose.
Dressed alike, the men were as different as their accents, a new generation of the jihad diaspora, arriving in Fallujah from all over the Arab world: five Saudis, three Tunisians, a Yemeni. Only three were Iraqis.
"I had a vision yesterday that tomorrow I would finally be granted the martyrdom," said the latest arrival, a thin man in his early twenties. He had come from his home in Saudi Arabia just a week ago.
"This is not fair," replied the Yemeni, making a joke. "I have been here for months now."
Iran's proxy war on Israel: Iranian scientists built the drone that Hizbullah sent into Israel two days ago. And Iran sent its people to make sure the drone worked.
What makes the drone incident unusual is that Iranian military experts from the Revolutionary Guards sent their people to a third country to act against Israel. Their support for Palestinian terror groups was usually done with money or weapons. In this case, Iranians were involved directly in launching the drone and preparing it for its mission.
Lebanon also cannot wash its hands of the affair and pretend innocence. It is possible the Lebanese did not know about the activity and the preparations and did not know about the Iranian involvement, but since it took place on Lebanese territory, the Lebanese government is directly responsible for the act of aggression. Its arguments won't hold water if Israel decides to react to similar incidents in the future.
The drone was Iranian made. It was developed and built in Iranian plants in the 1990s. The aircraft is considered technologically very simple, with a pre-programmed route that is installed before launch. During the flight, a camera sends images back to a ground station, which was supposedly manned by Iranians, and the plane is apparently supposed to land by parachute.
That's an act of war, but don't hold your breath waiting for the UN to do more than tepidly declare that both sides should cease violating the blue line. As Den Beste used to say, they're frowning terribly. permalink | |
11/08/04
Ann Althouse is asking readers to vote on a new car. The vote is between a Beetle, an Audi, and a Corvette.
Dump 'em all, Ann, and get a Jeep.
You want a car that's fun to drive and a hell of a lot more interesting to look at? Get a Jeep.
I've had one for four years. Not only do I love it to death, but I have had exactly zero mechanical problems with it since November of 2000, when a badly-made factory seal blew on the radiator about two months after I bought it. I've done nothing but tune it up and have the oil changed regularly. Oh, and I put new tires on, and it needs a coolant system flush. 55,000 miles and nothing to fix.
And if you need a better reason, here's one: At Camp Jeep this year, a vendor's Hummer got stuck on a stump.
And just try driving around a Wisconsin winter in a Corvette. Ha! Ha, I say. Jeep. Four-wheel drive. Snow? What's that?
No contest. Get a Jeep, girl. I've got a yellow one, and I love it to death. permalink | |
The whitewashing of a terrorist, cont'd
The New York Times published an editorial on Saturday that appears to be critical of Arafat. But there's something buried deep within that negates the very subject of the editorial. First, the criticism:
Mr. Arafat embodied the Palestinian national movement, from the campaigns of terror through exile and the promising rise, and dismal demise, of the peace process. His unique stature made him the only Palestinian who could have signed the Oslo accords, with the recognition of the Jewish state they entailed, and for this he was awarded a shared Nobel Peace Prize.
He has had as many faces as his movement: to the Palestinians, Mr. Arafat will always be Abu Amar, the leader who stares down from every wall in his checkered keffiyeh and military tunic; to Israelis and to many Americans, a terrorist, pure and simple; to the Europeans, a national leader; to ordinary Arabs, the hero of a national liberation struggle; to most Arab leaders, a nagging, unavoidable problem. Still, he became the only leader unequivocally recognized by all Palestinians, in the West Bank, in Gaza and in the diaspora.
Mr. Arafat was also the only Palestinian who could have prepared his people to accept the glass as half full at Camp David, but there, he failed. He may have accurately gauged the grass-roots reaction to an agreement that would have offered the Palestinians far less than they had been taught to expect. But it was Mr. Arafat more than anyone else who was responsible for their distorted vision of reality. The hardest and most important responsibility of a leader is to prepare his or her followers for the pragmatic direction in which they must move; the worst failing is to abandon reality for oratory.
As with so many other revolutionary leaders, Mr. Arafat mastered only one style of leadership: when he entered Gaza as the head of the Palestinian National Authority, he added only the pomp and ceremony of bagpipes and honor guards to his authoritarian, secretive, patronage-ridden rule. He worked at night; he controlled the purse, down to the cents; he wore only his military tunic. Worse, he made no serious attempt to build a competent government below him or to prepare his people for the required compromises of a peace deal or the responsibilities of statehood. To him, disagreement was disloyalty, and aides who gained too independent a posture were abruptly pushed into the background.
There's the bulk of the editorial: Arafat failed. He was the only one who could have brought peace, and he didn't. He was the only one who had the stature. The Times whitewashed the way Arafat "sidelined" those who disagreed with him by not pointing out that most of them were murdered.
But here's the paragraph towards the end that negates utterly what they're saying:
For the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, it must have been a moment of some satisfaction when his lifelong Palestinian nemesis departed for what many suspected would be a final flight to seek medical treatment in Paris. But for so long now, Mr. Sharon has dodged responsibility for creating a climate for potential peace by saying that there was no Palestinian negotiating partner so long as Mr. Arafat was in charge. Mr. Sharon may be running out of excuses.
The Times has just written eight paragraphs explaining how only Yasser Arafat could lead and negotiate for the palestinians. And yet, the editorial writer still manages to blame Ariel Sharon for failing to negotiate a settlement.
Asshats. And to think I used to greatly admire the Times editorial page, and in fact, nurtured the theory that Gail Collins was made editorial page editor because her writing was so good it made Maureen Dowd look like the incompetent that she is. Now I realize I'd probably loathe Collins just as much if she were still writing op-ed columns.
The newspaper of record is no longer my newspaper of record. Though I must admit, I'm anxiously awaiting their obituary of Arafat. I'd like to see if they have the guts to be honest for a change. 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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