I'd like to try and get back into the habit of commenting on the torah portion of the week, but I haven't been able to come up with any profound thoughts as yet. This shabbos we will be reading the first half of the story of Joseph. This is my favorite story in the whole torah, mostly I think becuase I got hooked on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat when I was a kid. Aside from the brilliant idea of each song being written in a different style (country-western, middle eastern, rock 'n' roll, etc.) the lyrics could be cheeky:

I look handsome, I look smart..I am a walking work of art!

There's one more angel in heaven, one more star in the sky
Joseph we'll never forget you..it's tough but we're gonna get by!

Or profoundly moving:

Close every door to me, Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel are never alone

If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world

From the Chabad website (link on the right), I learned a lesson about the importance of engaging our fellow human beings in conversation, especially when they seem troubled. While Joseph was in jail in Egypt, instead of feeling sorry for himself, he asked Pharoah's baker and cup bearer why they seemed so upset. It was based on this unselfish desire to help them that led to the chain of events that made him the number two man in all of Egypt.

This comment is for my brother-in-law. And you know who you are! :-)

This is of course relating to the Palestinian man who was shown to be playing a violin at an Israeli checkpoint, apparently at the request of the soldiers. The words used in most of the articles I've seen is "forced to play" although I have yet to see any proof that there was any physical or verbal confrontation before the playing began.

Wildly inaccurate, not to say glib, historical comparisons like the one made by the befuddled Horit are evidence of something worse than liberal stupidity. Horit’s analogy is morally perverse. Asserting moral equivalence between Israeli border guards, under the fear of attack, with German Nazi officers, ordering Jews to their death at their leisure, reveals a one-sided analysis of the conflict that infects the thinking of Western liberals.

Just in case some of you have forgotten your history, before you compare a stupid one-off violin playing incident, or any other checkpoint inconvenience to the Holocaust, or Israelis to Nazis in general, let's remember all the things the Israelis are NOT doing to the Palestinians, a people whose ELECTED leaders have openly called for Israel's destruction and support the idea of blowing up innocent civilians solely for political gain.











Remember, this is why the Jews are in Israel in the first place - cut them some slack! It's certain that all Israelis aren't saints, but they sure as hell aren't all neo-Nazis.

This is going to be a really big deal...it's all about the largest kosher meat seller in the U.S., Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa.

Videotapes Show Grisly Scenes at Kosher Slaughterhouse

"...a spokesman for Shechita UK, a British lobbying group that defends ritual slaughter against the protests of animal-rights activists, said after watching the tape with a rabbi and a British shochet that he "felt queasy," and added,"I don't know what that is, but it's not shechita."

If you can stand it, watch the video and get more information here:

http://www.goveg.com/feat/agriprocessors/

I never thought that the slaughtering of animals would be a pleasant sight and for all I know the animals don't feel anything once their throat is cut, regardless of how they thrash around.

On the "Is it good for the Jews scale" this is a negative ten regardless of whether the accusations of cruelty are false or not.

Strange goings on at my synagogue. Mysterious letters have gone out to members from the President's office in the past explaining the situation, but I had no idea what was really involved.

Plano synagogue, ex-member do battle

Jonathan Rosenblum has some very interesting points to make in the Op-Ed section of Ma'ariv.

God fearing or fearing God

Eli Valley, the author of a recent Jerusalem Post piece, who works for Jewish philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, warns that President Bush’s evangelical supporters are bent on “converting the Jews and ending the Jewish religion.” Given the phenomenal success of American Jews themselves in ending the Jewish religion through intermarriage and assimilation it is unclear why the evangelicals should cause shudders.....

The consequence of this disdain and scoffing at people of religious faith and the determination to keep any taint of religion out of the public square is to convince is to convince Jewish kids that belief in G-d – and certainly the view that any consequences might flow from that belief – is simply not intellectually serious.

As a Brooklyn-born Jew, and a fan of The Amazing Race, I was pretty bummed out when Avi and Joe were eliminated in the first round.

That being said, in the above referenced interview with TV Guide, Avi remembers something that can probably only be understood by a native...

TVGO: Was there an interborough rivalry going on between you and the Queens girls, Maria and Meredith?

Avi: We got along great with them. Remember that scene in the premiere where we pull up next to them in the car? What they didn't show is that Maria gave me the finger. It was cool, because that's how New Yorkers are. It's almost like saying hello.

Jesus Christ, that's huge! With video.

42-Foot Jesus Draws Attention Along I-75

I am usually the first person not to believe such a horrendous experience could be possible, but I can find no reason to think the author has any kind of agenda.

The Line of No Return

There is a steady hum of talking around the room, but it dies down when a white woman comes in, with short hair that sticks up on her head like brush bristles. She is the director of the visa section, the philosophy professor tells me. She holds a loudspeaker to her mouth: "Raise your hands if you are here to renew a student or a work visa! Raise your hands high! I can't see! High!"

Her tone makes me feel like I am in primary school again.

"Keep the hands up! O.K., down!" She is wearing a multicolored caftan with jagged edges - the sort of thing a foreigner will wear to look African but an African will never wear. A child has walked up to her and is holding onto the caftan, looking up at her and smiling. He wants to play.

"Get this kid off me! Get this kid off me!" she says. She gestures wildly and for a moment I am afraid she will hit the child with the loudspeaker. The little boy is laughing now; he thinks it's some sort of game. There is the rumble of laughter through the room. "Oh children," someone says.

But the woman is not amused. "Who has this child?" She shakes her caftan as if to shake the child off until his mother goes and picks him up. "He just likes you," she tells the woman. The woman glares at us. "You think it's funny? O.K., I won't tell you what I wanted to tell you about the interview process. Go ahead and figure it out for yourselves."

I will be sending our consulate in Nigeria an e-mail asking for a response to be sent to the NY Times for publication. Their e-mail is:

lagoscons2@state.gov

This is what I sent to them:

To Whom It May Concern,

You may be aware of the story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian women who wrote of her unnerving experiences at our embassy in Lagos in the New York Times on Monday, November 29. It is disturbing to think that anyone who wants to visit our country has to suffer the indignities as reported in the column, especially children.

I realize that you may only be able to control the atmosphere inside your building and therefore don't blame you for much of what Ms. Adichie had to go through, but the total lack of respect as reportedly shown by one of your employees is sickening.

"Get this kid off me! Get this kid off me!" she says. She gestures wildly and for a moment I am afraid she will hit the child with the loudspeaker. The little boy is laughing now; he thinks it's some sort of game. There is the rumble of laughter through the room. "Oh children," someone says.
But the woman is not amused. "Who has this child?" She shakes her caftan as if to shake the child off until his mother goes and picks him up. "He just likes you," she tells the woman. The woman glares at us. "You think it's funny? O.K., I won't tell you what I wanted to tell you about the interview process. Go ahead and figure it out for yourselves."

I hope you have the opportunity to respond to this report in the NY Times or elsewhere.

As a witness to the 9/11 attacks in New York, I do appreciate the difficulties that you face in trying to make sure that people who want to do us harm don't get into the U.S. I am hopeful that the experience of Ms. Adichie does not reflect common practice.

If you haven't been following Juan Cole's tin-hat complaining about MEMRI, this is a good post where you can catch up.

You would think that more information about Islam would always be welcome given the war we are currently waging against it's most extreme adherents (as long as it's accurate). However, it seems as if anyone who dares to let us know what the Arab media and religious leaders are broadcasting to the masses are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Rob Nordlund of Newsweek feels that we aren't getting enough bad news from Iraq "because there are fewer Western journalists here than at any time in the war so far". That's a pretty sad commentary on "Western journalists" with regards to both their bravery and their objectivity.

I guess he's the only one capable of getting the truth out to us. Nice ego Rob.

Seven Days of Hell

This is another case of the type of logic that says that anytime we go on the offensive, by definition we are losing the war because there is more violence. He even uses the American body count as a measuring stick to show how "bad" things are. I guess if we hadn't gone onto Fallujah we'd be losing, but not quite as badly (we're never winning according to these reporters).

Jack Straw, Britain's Foreign Secretary, pays his respects to the father of modern terorrism.



Jack Straw is to Tony Blair as Colin Powell is to George Bush.

France has officially become a third world country as far as I'm concerned.

France: Arafat was born in Jerusalem

Israel's ambassador to France has criticized the French government for issuing a death certificate for deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stating his place of birth as Jerusalem.

One of France's well known national slogans is Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity), however they seemed to have left out Verite (Truth).

From this latest round of falsehood from the French bureaucracy to the number one bestseller claiming that 9/11 was planned by the American government, to their denial that an oil-for-food scandal exists at the UN, the French can no longer be taken credibly.

I am proud to live in a country where the first thing on our best known superhero's list of things to defend is TRUTH.



Does France even have a superhero? I mean, when an alien guy with a beard shows up at Jacque Chirac's presidential palace and says "Kneel before Zod!" is there anyone who would bother to defend the nation?

This is way off topic, but after what happened and searching the web for personal experiences, I found little so here it is.

12 days ago, my father had a cerebral hemorrhage. Thank G-d he not only survived, but should be as good as new after a week in intensive care and a few days recuperating in a standard room.

I am not a medical expert and am only trying to recall as best as I can the important points of what happened. I will link to other more technical sites where I can.

One day at home, my father experienced a severe headache, neck stiffness and nausea. After calling his doctor, he asked my mom to come home from work and take him to the local hospital's emergency room. After various tests (MRI, CAT scan, etc.) they determined that he had had a cerebral hemorrhage and ultimately they transferred him by ambulance to a hospital that specializes in neurosurgery. The symptoms of a cerebral hemorrhage are similar to those of viral meningitis.

For the first several days, based on the "pattern" of where the blood settled in his brain, the neurosurgeon thought he had an aneurysm. Here's where I got my biggest education. I and most of the people I spoke with thought that an aneurysm was what the bleeding in the brain was called, however this is not so. An aneurysm is actually a ballooning of the blood vessels inside the brain often caused by a weakness in the walls of the blood vessels. Apparently this is a congenital problem and 5% of us are walking around with them and nothing ever happens to us.

It is when an aneurysm bursts that a cerebral hemorrhage occurs. Apparently, hemorrhages can also occur from a slight tear in a blood vessel which is what seems to have happened to my father because they never did find an aneurysm. While my dad was in ICU they continued to take daily CAT scans and MRIs, but it was the second arteriogram done on day six which was convincing enough to give the all clear inasmuch as he didn't have an aneurysm. The only way to treat an aneurysm that has bled is to perform brain surgery which obviously has it's own serious risks. Thank G-d again that we didn't have to go through that.

After the bleeding in the brain had stopped, there was still a concern that a stroke could occur. This happens when "a blood clot blocks a blood vessel or artery, or when a blood vessel breaks, interrupting blood flow to an area of the brain" which can result in brain damage or even death. The way this was prevented in my father was basically by keeping his blood pressure and heart rate steady to make sure that there was a strong flow of blood going into and out of his brain. In addition, after a "bleed", fluid tends to build up between the skull and the brain until the body can effectively begin to "recycle" the blood back into the body. If the fluid build-up begins to put too much pressure on the brain, a stent needs to be inserted in the patient's head in order to drain the fluid. The doctors made it sound as if this were a relatively common procedure in this type of case, but again my father luckily didn't need that done as the amount of fluid that he had built up was not a cause for immediate concern and eventually it disappeared naturally during the healing process.

When he finally was ready to get out of the ICU after a week, the doctors detected a mild case of pneumonia, but this could have simply been a result of his immobility and hospital stay. This was quickly resolved with some antibiotics. He also wound up getting a slight infection in his arm from all the ins and outs of all the IV needles. This is also going away after taking the appropriate antibiotics.

During his time in ICU, my dad could barely keep his eyes open, mostly because the hospital staff needed to wake him up every hour in order to monitor his speech and physical capabilities to make sure that a stroke wasn't occurring. This of course does not include meal times, pill taking, IV inserting, blood testing, sugar testing, etc. I'm sure he felt like a laboratory animal after a while! He also had a strong sensitivity to light at first which they say is normal for someone who has suffered any kind of cerebral hemorrhage - that and sensitivity to noise.

My dad came home yesterday and we are so thankful to have him home for Thanksgiving.
His one true love (aside from my mother) is reading and I hope he can begin to read again soon as it is still hard for him to concentrate on any written materials for too long.

Many thanks go to the medical staff at Zale-Lipshy Hospital who we heard were the best in the field and gave me no reason to think otherwise.

If anyone out there is reading this because they are going through a similar situation, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Although not every situation can turn out as well as ours, I believe that an optimistic outlook on the part of the patient and the family is extremely important. I did see a number of people on the "recuperation" floor of the hospital who seemed to be doing very well after having had surgery performed, so if it has to be done, the end results can still be positive. As the doctors told us in their special, non-committal way - "we always expect a full recovery after surgery". Most of the self-help books out there say that visualizing a positive end result actually helps you get there. Amen to that.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

Last night I went to the Dallas Mavericks game with my brother-in-law from Argentina, my sister and a friend of hers.

My bro-in-law and I got there early and there were what seemed like a few hundred volunteers collecting money to fight hunger. So as we were making a donation, someone snapped a picture of us. Turned out it was for the Mavs website.

Fascinating.

Holocaust Victim's Novel Finds a Readership at Last

PARIS, Nov. 19 - At first glance, the novel might be considered just another in the spate of new World War II books recounting stories of love and heroism and offering lessons in brutality and cowardice.

In reality, "Suite Française" by Irène Némirovsky is very different. Written in German-occupied France in 1942 shortly before its Ukrainian-born Jewish author was sent to her death in Auschwitz, it has taken 62 years to be published.

Yet what most distinguishes this two-part novel is not its long journey from scribbled notebook to France's best-sellers' list. It has been acclaimed because it is a finely made work of fiction that portrays occupied France with both severity and sympathy. It is also written with extraordinary detachment by a woman who seemed to know that her own days were numbered. This month it won the Renaudot literary prize.

A high point of France's fall literary season, "Suite Française" has already sold 120,000 copies here, while foreign rights have been sold in 20 countries. American rights were acquired by Alfred A. Knopf, which plans to publish it in English late in 2006.

Like chicken soup for the soul.

Germany: Muslim group stages march against terror

Someone please tell me when the media will start calling the Iraqi "insurgents" and "rebels" something more along the lines of "murdering bastards" or "scum of the Earth".

They already feel comfortable calling our soldiers "war criminals" so I don't see how that would cause a double standard.

GIS UNCOVER UP TO 20 'ATROCITY SITES'

U.S. forces say they have found nearly 20 houses in the Iraqi city of Fallujah where they believe foreign hostages were tortured and killed — including one with the wire cage where a British hostage begged for his life before being beheaded.

Just a little international co-operation led by the U.S. Nothing to look at here...just move along.

Major Creditors Agree to Cancel 80% of Iraq Debt

And yes, this includes France.

As a Jew, I'm embarrassed that this Jew wrote in to the Dallas Morning News regarding school uniforms.

"As a Jew, I can't help but feel that a mandatory uniform policy harkens back to the days of Nazi Germany."

Oy vey again.

Just a general commentary - the left seems to have already legitimized the Palestinan elections to be held in January although there is no contiguous territory, millions of refugees outside of "Palestine" who will not vote and no constitution. Forget that the territories are teeming with terrorist organizations who practice street justice and there is no international oversight.

Yet in Iraq, holding elections in January is supposed to be some kind of pipe dream even though they have a constitution, an internationally recognized government and tens of thousands of international forces to keep some semblance of order. Just because people get killed every day in Iraq does not mean elections cannot be held. I'm curious how many people were murdered in America on election day, even if it wasn't for political reasons.

Just for fun....

Yiddish with Dick and Jane.

Oy vey.

I just love this story. This is the mensch I voted for.

Bush Pulls Top Bodyguard From Scuffle

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials who barred his bodyguards from entering an elegant dinner for 21 world leaders Saturday night.

Several Chilean and American agents got into a pushing and shoving match outside the cultural center where the dinner was held. The incident happened after Bush and his wife, Laura, had just posed for pictures on a red carpet with the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his wife, Luisa Duran.

As Bush stepped inside, Chilean agents closed ranks at the door, blocking the president's agents from following. Stopping for more pictures, Bush noticed the fracas and turned back. He reached through the dispute and pulled his agent from the scrum and into the building.

The president, looking irritated, straightened his shirt cuffs as he went into the dinner. The incident was shown on APEC television.

The coolest thing you wish never had to be invented...

Yad Vashem to launch on-line list of Holocaust victims

After a decade of planning, Yad Vashem on Monday will inaugurate an Internet database listing the names of three million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

The on-line "Central Database for Shoah Victims' Names" – which will be accessible free of charge via a link on Yad Vashem's Web site, www.yadvashem.org – will be the largest database of Holocaust victims in the world, the chairman of Yad Vashem's directorate, Avner Shalev, said.

I wonder if I can find any family members - I don't know how many great aunts and uncles of mine died in the Holocuast.

Meanwhile in Buenos Aires...

Rash of anti-Semitic incidents leaves Argentine Jews rattled

And this...

Bombs Explode at Three Argentina Banks, Guard Dies

Being a Jew who works for Citi, I can't wait to go back in March to visit my in-laws.

The NY Times reports on Fallujah:

Almost all of the city has been pulverized, and the biggest question facing American and Iraqi officials is how residents will react to seeing the vast swaths of destruction. Residents of the city were generally supportive of the mujahedeen and did not want the Americans to enter.

Where did this reporter get his information? Did he take a poll?

What about this?

Mujahidin terrorised Fallujah, residents say

And this? Even in an article focusing on complaints of suspected insurgents, USA Today could find this to say.

Other news reports have found many who welcomed the U.S. attack as a liberation from tyrannical terror groups who had imposed harsh Islamic law and beat and killed those considered disloyal.

And this from Knight-Ridder

Foreign fighters now reviled by Fallujah residents

I'm not saying I know what the residents were thinking before the American-led offensive, but I can be pretty sure that if Fallujah is indeed part of the planet Earth, there were varied opinions. To make a blanket statement like the NY Times did is propaganda pure and simple and cannot be called "reporting" by any objective standard.

The New York Times is caught not letting the facts get in the way of their editorial opinions. Eevn when it conflicts with it's own reporting.

Time-Saving tip: Run NYTimes Editorials on Corrections Page

How embarrassing.

Things that make you go hmmm...

One of the election lessons for Democrats is that while the Left doesn't understand the Right, the Right can't help but understand the Left, because the Left is in charge of pop culture. Urban blue staters can go their entire lives happily innocent of the world of church socials and duck hunting and Boy Scout meetings, but small-town red staters are exposed to big-city blue-state values every time they turn on the TV.

I think I can honestly say that I understand much more (but certainly not all) about the challenges of life as a homosexual or African-American without knowing what it's like to want to go hunting or attend a Christian parochial school.

I don't know if I should be glad or depressed that this blog may turn back into diary of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism again (as opposed to election crazy), but there is just some obnoxious stuff going on out there in the world.

The Associated Press rewrites history in Rockets Fired From Lebanon Toward Israel

During the Israeli occupation, Hezbollah guerrillas fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel in response to Israeli attacks on civilians in southern Lebanon.

If you don't get it after reading this, you will never get it.

Re: Marine now being investigated for unlawfully killing the enemy.

Let me be very clear about this issue. I have looked around the web, and many people get this concept, but there are some stragglers. Here is your situation Marine. You just took fire from unlawful combatants shooting from a religious building attempting to use the sanctuary status of their position as protection. But you’re in Fallujah now, and the Marine Corps has decided that they’re not playing that game this time. That was Najaf. So you set the mosque on fire and you hose down the terrorists with small arms, launch some AT-4s (Rockets), some 40MM grenades into the building and things quiet down. So you run over there, and find some tangos wounded and pretending to be dead. You are aware that suicide martyrdom is like really popular with these kind of idiots, and like taking some Marines with them would be really cool. So you can either risk your life and your fireteam’s lives by having them cover you while you bend down and search a guy that you think is pretending to be dead for some reason. Also, you don’t know who or what is in the next room, and you’re already speaking english to each other and its loud because your hearing is poor from shooting people for several days. So you know that there are many other rooms to enter, and that if anyone is still alive in those rooms, they know that Americans are in the mosque. Meanwhile (3 seconds later), you still have this terrorist that was just shooting at you from a mosque playing possum. What do you do?

You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that’s what.

What about the Geneva Conventions and all that Law of Land Warfare stuff? What about it. Without even addressing the issues at hand you first thought should be, “I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.” Bear in mind that this is a perpetual mindset that is reinforced by experiences gained on a minute by minute basis. Secondly, you are fighting an unlawful combatant in a Sanctuary which is a double No No on his part. Third, tactically you are in no position to take “prisoners” because there are more rooms to search and clear, and the behavior of said terrorist indicates that he is up to no good. No good in Fallujah is a very large place and the low end of no good and the high end of no good are fundamentally the same... Marines get hurt or die. So there is no compelling reason for you to do anything but double tap this idiot and get on with the mission.

If you are a veteran then everything I have just written is self evident, if you are not a veteran than at least try to put yourself in the situation. Remember, in Fallujah there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now. Right NOW. Have you ever lived in NOW for a week? It is not easy, and if you have never lived in NOW for longer than it takes to finish the big roller coaster at Six Flags, then shut your hole about putting Marines in jail for war crimes. Be advised, I am not talking to my readers, but if this post gets linked up, I want regular folks to get this message loud and clear. Froggy OUT.

First they came for the cross-over pop artists, but I was not a cross-over pop artist....

Linda Ronstadt explains to USA Today (and therefore the whole world) what life is like in the U.S.

"It's like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers."

I think I still prefer them over the "old bunch".

Honestly, I don't know that I'm terribly offended by the Desperate Houswives spot that's got Red America all in a tizzy.

For those not in the know, this was shown at 9PM/8PM/7PM/6PM to kick off Monday Night Football a couple of nights ago.

Regardless of what I think, I would have thought that network TV execs would have learned to stay far away from partially naked women and pro football. (There's a "grandfather clause" for the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders though).

This reminds me of one of my favorite country songs...

God Blessed Texas with His own hand
Brought down angels from the promise land
Gave em' a place where they could dance
If you wanna see heaven brother here's your chance
I've been sent to spread the message.....
God bless Texas

This is just silly - I needed a little silliness today.

Outback cowboys must wear helmets

The headline is a little misleading, but then again, what good headline isn't?

Most importantly, common sense will eventually rule the day.

Ex-cowboy Hayden Bostock said it might be difficult to persuade riders to wear helmets, no matter how safe they might be.

"The stockman's hat is an icon of Australia," he said. "You can't replace it with an ice-cream container on the head.

"Being a bushman myself, we're not going to wear anything that doesn't look any good."

I am outraged that anyone would question the actions of the marine who shot one of the "insurgents" dead even though he may have been wounded.

U.S. probes shooting at Fallujah mosque

Where are the stories about the 38 or so American troops that were killed trying to take Fallujah? Why is this terrorist bastard the focus of sympathy from our own press?!?

I'm only sorry that our guy had to waste a bullet.

I still don't understand this crap about sticking to the Geneva Conventions against an enemy that doesn't abide by them. It is known that the enemy forces sometines fake death and surrender in order to kill American troops that approach them looking to treat them or take them prisoner.

All of the "insurgents" are volunteers who had plenty of time to get the hell out and unlike the troops of civilized nations, they have the ability to just disappear. There would be no court martial waiting for these people. They chose to stay and having stayed, they chose to die. Good riddance.

As one commentator said this morning, the reporter who sent this directly to his newsroom should now be forced to check all supposedly dead bodies for booby traps.

Today's NY Times Editorial is so insulting to Colin Powell that if I were him i would never speak to the paper again.

Good Soldier Powell

"...this imposing figure - who once personified the dignity, integrity and promise of government service..."

Obviously the Times believes he now lacks these qualities. With a little Monday morning quaretrbacking, they can claim that Powell "lied" to the United Nations about Iraq's weapons capacity and this is supposed to negate four years of service to his country.

"But it's now clear that Mr. Powell long ago chose loyalty over leadership..."

This is why the Times won't ever support the military where loyalty is THE most valued principle in the command structure during a time of war which is exactly the state that we have been living in.

Taking a step back, the editorial also seems to be saying that a president should only have "Yes men" around them becuase anyone who disagrees with the president should "resign on principle".

I'm not sure that Arafat got such a negative sendoff. "A former hero turned obstacle" is the harshest thing I can find.

I will quickly post this article:

CIA plans to purge its agency
Sources say White House has ordered new chief to eliminate officers who were disloyal to Bush

More of the same on the Bush as Nazi meme. Those who do not raise their right arm and swear loyalty are doomed.

It seems that Bush is taking more after Clinton than Hitler.

Senior managers of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI) -- the arm of the Agency responsible for analysis -- held an unusual emergency meeting with their analysts on the afternoon of 1 July, just before the start of a long holiday weekend. The purpose of the meeting was to announce plans for a complete reorganization of the Central Intelligence Agency.
[...]
By April 1994, Administration displeasure with CIA had turned into indignation. Faced with a growing number of foreign policy debacles , Clinton officials -- notably several on the staff of the White House and National Security Council -- grew increasingly furious at CIA intelligence assessments which suggested that Administration policy in North Korea, Somalia, Bosnia, China, and Russia was in trouble. Administration officials started to argue that CIA was not providing them with "the proper support." Some officials implied that if CIA had done a better job analyzing the world, Mr. Clinton’s foreign policy would not be in trouble.
[...]
In private meetings with other senior DI officials, MacEachin -- who is said to have claimed that he is acting on behalf of Director Woolsey -- laid down the real objectives of his reorganization plan:

Consolidating and institutionalizing changes already made.

..."purging the culture of the 1980s" at the CIA. ...

Assuring that CIA briefings coincide with Administration policy and cannot lead policy makers to accuse the Agency of "disloyalty." MacEachin was quoted as having actually said in a recent meeting with senior CIA officials: "Analysts must recognize that if they give a briefing which deviates too much from official policy, they may be accused by Clinton Administration officials of being disloyal."...

Apologies for the limited blogging, but unfortunately my father suffered a serious trauma last Thursday and we are awaiting word on whether he needs surgery later this week. Thanks to those who know about this and are offering their prayers and well-wishes. Perhaps if all this turns out OK I'll write about the experience, and perhaps if it doesn't I'll write about it as a form of therapy. Until then there may be little to read here.

Then again, if my dad doesn't need surgery this week, my wife is taking the kids to see her family for awhile and I may have a lot of time on my hands.

Only Time, that miserable bastard, will tell.

If you want to know about the best kosher eats in NYC, Newsday has a roundup.

Cutting edge kosher

From Arafat the Monster in ther Boston Globe:

YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

Actually now I realize that the talk radio host I mentioned in the previous post was most likely reading the end of this article on the air.

I was just listening to a talk radio program and the host said he was angry that everyone knows Yasser Arafat's name but his victims are quickly forgotten, like the schoolchildren, who were slaughtered at Ma'alot in 1974. This was the original Beslan, but then again Arafat is the godfather of all terrorists.

Then, after apologizing in advance for possible mispronounciations, he began to slowly read the names of the 21 children who died.

I cried.

Ilana Turgeman
Rachel Aputa
Yocheved Mazoz
Sarah Ben-Shim'on
Yona Sabag
Yafa Cohen
Shohana Cohen
Michal Sitrok
Malka Amrosy
Aviva Saada
Yocheved Diyi
Yakov Levi
Yakov Kabla
Rina Cohen
Ilana Neeman
Sarah Madar
Tamar Dahan
Sarah Soper
Lili Morad
David Madar
Yehudit Madar

Nice headline at the NY Times on the article about Arafat's death.

"State for Palestinians and Peace With Israel Left Unrealized"

To claim that peace with Israel was one of Arafat's life goals is a disgusting piece of revisionism. The headline should read as follows:

"State for Palestinians From the Mediterranean to the Jordan Empty of Jews Left Unrealized"

As a caller to a talk show said this morning, the reason why Arafat took so long to die in that Paris hospital was becuase The Devil had to spend some extra time stoking the fires of Hell to welcome him.

ARAFAT DEAD!

Of course there are those like Jacque Chirac who hail Arafat as a "Man of Courage". And after all, he did win a Nobel Peace Prize.

Others will have more time to link to the list of his hideous crimes against humanity. I will just speak to my general viewpoint.

I grew up in the 1970's and Yasser Arafat has always been THE symbol of anti-Zionism and the denial of the right of my people to a place to live in the world. It was barely a generation after the Holocaust when he was calling for all the remaining Jews to be driven into the sea and he began his history of killing civilians all over Israel and Europe to make his point heard. Airline hijackings are a plague to be feared principally because of this man who pretty much invented the practice. Think of all hundreds of billions of dollars spent on airport security around the world - it is principally becuase of this one man's "vision" for his people which made hijackings an acceptable stage in negotiations. Before the rise of global militant Islam in the 1990's, the words "PLO" and "terrorists" were inseparable.

My sincere hope is that now that this symbol of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has passed, there will be less of a unifying force for this kind of sentiment and therefore a decreasing motivation to use violence and hatred as a means to achieving an end.

I sincerely hope that the Paelstinian people can overcome the years of hatred and indoctrination and rise up to become a respected, free and peaceful people.

Most people hope that when they leave this world, they leave it a better place than when they found it. Here then, is the legacy of Yasser Arafat.











I finally urge you to link to the hundreds of pictures of Palestinian children at Little Green Footballs. This is Yasser Arafat's legacy.

What was it again that the Arab culture has created to benefit mankind in the last 800 years? While you're thinking about it, Israelis are creating modern marvels.

Israeli flying car to provide revolutionary rescue tool

Up in the air - is that a helicopter? A bird?

How about flying car?

An aviation vehicle is currently being developed in Israel that can fly amid skyscrapers and park inside buildings. Its purpose is not to find that elusive parking place in New York City, but rather to become the most effective life-saving rescue feature since the ambulance.

I think the Democrat leadership may finally be starting to "get it". I happen to like Applebee's and Cracker Barrel, although Denny's is still firmly at the bottom of the list of chain establishments at which I would take a meal. It's only just above Waffle House.

Of course it would help if they actually liked these places instead of announcing to the world that they're really going to try to eat there without holding their noses.

Is Democrats’ solution on the menu at Applebee’s

One veteran Democratic strategist, Clinton White House political director Doug Sosnik, sums up the answer in one word: Applebee’s.

For Sosnik, the chain of modestly priced restaurants (more than 1,600 in 49 states), symbolizes precisely what is wrong with the party’s Washington-based elite.

Democratic leaders are out of touch with the American people, Sosnik said in a panel discussion Tuesday sponsored by the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

“The leadership of our party has a cultural disconnect,” Sosnik said. “Our leaders — particularly Washington, D.C.-based — don’t really have the same life, day to day, as all those people out there in those red states. We don’t eat at the same restaurants. I don’t know how many politicians in town that are leaders of our party who voluntarily go to Applebee’s, unless it’s for work. You look at the swing voters out there, what their sporting events are, the music they listen to, the celebrities, the television programs, it’s just not what the East Coast leadership (watches) — it’s not quite where we are.”

"Talk about Applebee's, we don't even go to the Cracker Barrels and the Denny’s as well," added Donna Brazile, who served as Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000.

The problem with Nicholas Kristof is that you get the feeling that he is dead serious, even when he writes ridiculous things.

In his editorial for tomorrow's NY Times (Our Not-So-Free-Press) he writes about freedom of the press and tries to scare people into thinking that right-wing judges are taking away your rights and that things are better in Iran. I quote:

In May, Iran's secret police detained me in Tehran and demanded that I identify a revolutionary guard I had quoted as saying "to hell with the mullahs." My interrogators threatened to imprison me unless I revealed my source. But after a standoff, the Iranian goons let me go. Imprisoning Western journalists for protecting their sources was too medieval, even for them. Let's hope the U.S. judicial system shows the same restraint as those Iranian thugs.



Compare this to the following report in his own newspaper just yesterday.

Iran has continued its crackdown on journalists, with two arrests in the past week, and has moved against pro-democracy Web sites, blocking hundreds of sites in recent months and making several arrests.

Mahboubeh Abbas-Gholizadeh, the editor of the magazine Farzaneh and an advocate of expanded rights for women, was arrested Nov. 1 after she returned from London, where she had attended the European Social Forum.

Fereshteh Ghazi, a journalist for the daily newspaper Etemad, who also writes about women's issues, was arrested four days earlier after she was summoned to court to answer questions, said her husband, Ahmad Begloo.

I can't tell what drives Kristof's column more, his ignorance or his ego.

Liberals of the world, rejoice!

Attorney General and Commerce Secretary Resign From Cabinet

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans resigned Tuesday, the first members of President Bush's Cabinet to leave as he headed from re-election into his second term.

But will the cure be worse than the disease? Only The Shadow (Karl Rove) knows.

Wouldn't it be funny/sad if Arafat doesn't die, but becomes a "vegetable"?

Shaath, referring to reports that Arafat might be removed from life support, said the possibility of euthanasia has been "ruled out."

Questions that need to be asked:

Will the Palestinians live leaderless until he stops breathing which could be years from now?
Is France or the EU paying his hospital bills?
Does the money come from the funds he's stolen over the years?
Wouldn't it be a surprise to the world if he were buried in his native land, Egypt, which is not "Palestine"?

By the way, shouldn't the French, who invited Arafat for treatment, be embarrassed over the Palestinian leadership's constant claim that they still don't know what's wrong? Whether they really know or not, the French medical establishment is being advertised as worthless.

As for when he does finally kick the bucket, I do hope that my fellow Jews "celebrate" in a low-key manner. Our religion does not allow us to be joyful as a result of someone's death, even an arch-enemy like Arafat.

That being said, maybe I'll do an extra drop of wine in his memory at my next Passover seder.

Wow. If you're a Democrat and really want to win the Presidency in 2008, this is a must read. Read the whole thing. I myself hereby promise to vote Democratic if that party heeds this call to reason.

Open Letter To The Democratic Party

So, if you want my vote next time, and the vote of all my close friends, and the millions more like us that you refuse to believe exists, it's pretty simple: take positions and don't waffle on them. Stand up for America, especially with regard to terrorism. Shut up about what Germany and France think. Stop pretending that the only way to become wealthy in America is to cheat, for the sake of those of us who still want to get there. Treat the President with at least as much civility, if not respect, as you would've wanted right-wingers to give a President Kerry. Most importantly, please, please please, please, please, please stop abusing me. No more verbal and psychological and emotional savagery. Treat me like a voter whose vote you would actually appreciate getting, and you will get it.

Arafat family plot in Gaza an unkempt dump

KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Unkempt, ankle deep in rubbish and the air thick with flies from the stinking market next door, the Arafat family plot could not be a more inauspicious burial place for the icon of Palestinian nationhood.

As Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) fights for life in a Paris hospital, Israel has made clear that it will not accede to the veteran Palestinian leader's wishes to be buried in Jerusalem and instead wants his final resting place to be in Gaza where his father and sister are already entombed.

Less than 100 square metres (yards) with two dozen tombs already in pride of place, a minimum of mourners would be able to crowd the site, stumbling over the the roughshod ground to pay their last respects.

Hidden behind a cement wall and accessible through a solitary white, metal door encrusted with mud, nothing could be less imposing or more humiliating for a man who is now unlikely to achieve his dream of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.

Bin liners, a child's T-shirt and a traditional red keffiyeh (headdress of the type favoured by Arafat) are ground into the dust. Empty crisp bags, milk cartons, plastic bottles and broken glass are strewn across the burnt grass.

Overgrown scarlet and white bougainvillia do nothing to sweeten the nauseating stench of rotting fruit and meat, laced with dung from half-dead donkeys tied up in the adjacent market.

While liberal truths come crashing down left and right, the conservative view of the world is reaffirmed. The French should not be considered allies. Their values are just too different from ours.

Poll: French see Arafat as hero

The French regard Yasser Arafat as a hero rather than a terrorist, according to a new poll.

Asked to choose whether the Palestinian Authority chairman is a "hero of national resistance" or a terrorist, 43 percent chose the former and 27% the latter.

Ten percent said Arafat fit into both categories, while 9% said he was neither.

The poll, published Monday and commissioned jointly by the Lib ration newspaper and a national public radio station, also found that three times as many French people hold Prime Minister Ariel Sharon more responsible for Middle East violence than hold Arafat.

In addition, 34% said they had more sympathy for the Palestinians, as opposed to 13% for Israel.

Another liberal "truth" gets debunked.

Freedom squelches terrorist violence

A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom.

This is what the problem is that Democrats refuse to understand. There are underlying beliefs, social not religious, that result in opposing political beliefs. For every liberal who thinks that terorrists attack because we are depriving them of wealth, a conservative looks in his own backyard and says that's ridiculous, I live surrounded by trailer parks and no one has blown anything up around here.

God Bless Them All

G.I.'s Open Attack to Take Falluja From Iraq Rebels

American jets bombed targets in Falluja this morning and explosions and heavy gunfire thundered across the city as American troops seized control of two strategic bridges, a hospital and other objectives in the first stage of a long-expected invasion aimed at the center of the Iraqi insurgency.

Wow. I'll be staying about a block away from here for the next few days, as I always do.

Man commits suicide at Ground Zero

Distraught over the re-election of President George W. Bush, a Georgia man traveled to New York City, went to Ground Zero and killed himself with a shotgun blast, police said yesterday.

The suicide victim, Andrew Veal, 25, was discovered just before 8 a.m. yesterday when a worker for the Millennium Hotel looking at Ground Zero from an upper floor saw a man lying atop the concrete structure through which the 1 and 9 subway lines run.

Anti-semitism comes to the town where I grew up - Orangeburg, New York. All of this takes place in the suburbs of New York City.

Hate literature also found in Westchester, Bergen

The same anti-Jewish literature recently distributed in Orangetown also was left in a New Jersey community and two Westchester County villages, police and a hate-monitoring group said yesterday.

A four-page booklet containing the 1930s Nazi-era children's story "The Poisonous Mushroom" also was left anonymously during the Halloween weekend in Tenafly, N.J., and Dobbs Ferry and Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester.

Police and the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League believe the same person or people distributed the hate literature in the communities.

Neighborhoods in Blauvelt, Nyack, Orangeburg and Upper Grandview were left with racist literature, and a swastika was spray-painted on an Orangeburg garage door.

David Brooks doesn't want to let the liberals have their "essential truths" remain unchallenged. You know the one about how Bush only one because he turned out the bible-thumping homophobes.

As an aside, I heard about a half-hour of Al Franken's show yesterday. I enjoyed Al's commentary which seems pretty informed and middle-of-the-road, but all his callers and guests could talk about was how ignorant everyone else who disagreed with them were.

The Values-Vote Myth

Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.

In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.

This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.

Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

Read the whole thing.

I'm just in a bad mood this morning. Maybe it's because my vacation in North Carolina is about to end.

I wrote the following to the NY Times late last night regarding the murder of Theo van Gogh.

Your November 5 editorial "Deadly Hatreds in the Netherlands" places the blame for two politically motivated murders squarely on the shoulders of the Dutch people and their government as opposed to those that committed the acts. It appears that you are promoting the right not to be offended above the right to free speech. Also I cannot reconcile your misgivings against both the violence against women as reported by Theo van Gogh, and his decision to bring attention to the problem.

While I may have sent it too late even to be considered for today's edition, the final statement of the letter they did publish is so ridiculous, I can't believe it made it in to print.

To the Editor:

Re "Deadly Hatreds in the Netherlands" (editorial, Nov. 5):

Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker whose recent short film criticized the mistreatment of Muslim women, was killed on Tuesday on an Amsterdam street. The police have arrested an Islamist extremist and eight other suspected Muslim militants in connection with the murder.

As an American living and working in the Netherlands, I can attest to the incredible impact that the murder has had on the Dutch.

The Netherlands has been a beacon of religious, social and cultural tolerance in the world since before America even existed. The Dutch know and cherish this.

I'm confident that their response to this assault on their way of life and everything they hold dear will stand in stark relief to ours.

Rahul Sen Sharma
Amsterdam, Nov. 5, 2004

As if the U.S. went to war and passed the Patriot Act over a simple case of murder instead of an attack on it's financial and military centers resulting in the deaths of thousands with threats of more to come.

And if there are more Muslims in the Netherlands who profess the desire to kill anyone who says anything against Islam they do deserve a harsh response, not "understanding".

Jacques Chirac is a disgusting human being. In his quest to have France/Europe be a counterweight to the U.S in world affairs he is willing to show respect to a comatose terrorist rather than meet with Prime Minister Allawi of Iraq to help better the situation there.

Chirac sees Arafat in hospital

French President Jacques Chirac briefly visited Yasser Arafat in the Paris military hospital treating the gravely ill Palestinian leader and offered his wishes for a speedy recovery.

This is who John Kerry wanted to reach out to for "help".

At least the New York Times editorial board is being consistent on the most important issues of the day even after election. Of course that means I still disagree strongly.

Deadly Hatreds in the Netherlands or, No Such Thing as a Bad Muslim

Something sad and terrible is happening to the Netherlands, long one of Europe's most tolerant, decent and multicultural societies. The latest warning sign is this week's brazen murder of Theo van Gogh, a daring filmmaker and columnist descended from the same family as Vincent van Gogh. This summer, Dutch television showed a 10-minute film by Theo van Gogh calling attention to the horrific violence that Muslim women can be subjected to by family members in the name of religion. The chief suspect is believed to be an Islamist extremist, as are eight other men also arrested in connection with the case.

The Netherlands used to be a country where artists and politicians dared to raise even the most controversial issues without fear of physical retaliation. But the screenwriter who worked with Mr. van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who was elected as a member of the Dutch Parliament, is now under police protection. It's just been a little more than two years since a Dutch extremist shot Pim Fortuyn, a rising populist politician who portrayed Muslim immigration as a grave threat to the nation's traditions of tolerance.

Urgent efforts are needed to better manage the cultural tensions perilously close to the surface of Dutch public life. The problem is not Muslim immigration, but a failure to plan for a smoother transition to a more diverse society. One very real danger is that the public trauma over the van Gogh murder may lead to a clamor for anti-Muslim policies that could victimize thousands of innocent refugees and immigrants.

The challenge for Dutch political leaders is to find ways to reverse this disturbing trend of politically motivated violence without making it harder to achieve cultural harmony.

The Times is still playing the game of blaming the victims of terrorism - in this case for simply exercising what we would call the right to free speech. This is morally offensive and repugnant.

You can't say this isn't true...from Victor David Hanson

But the fact is that the Left was united, well-funded, and ran the most vitriolic campaign in the Democratic party's history — and still lost, taking all branches of power with it.

I think the saddest chapter of the Democrat's election campaign has yet to take place. Barring some unexpected economic catastrophe in the next four years, George Bush will not be the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs. In fact, there's still a decent chance that you won't be able to say it about the first term either which has another three months to go.

Labor Market Snaps Out of Lull to Add 337,000 New Jobs

The labor market snapped out from its summer lull to add 337,000 new jobs in October, the biggest increase since March, the Labor Department reported today, raising hopes that businesses are overcoming years of intense caution and beginning to move aggressively to hire workers....

The employment report surprised Wall Street economists, who had been expecting an increase about half as large. It also portrayed a much more vigorous labor market than that previously indicated over the past three months, as the Labor Department increased its earlier estimates of job growth in August and September by 113,000.

On average, it said, the economy has been adding 225,000 jobs every month since August, substantially above the 150,000 needed to absorb new entrants into the labor force because of simple population growth...

Democrats pointed out that there are still 371,000 fewer payroll jobs outside of the farming sector than there were when President Bush took office nearly four years ago.

Remember when Kerry was saying that the number was 3 million?

Yup.

Striking a characteristic New York pose near Lincoln Center yesterday, Beverly Camhe clutched three morning newspapers to her chest while balancing a large latte and talked about how disconsolate she was to realize that not only had her candidate, John Kerry, lost but that she and her city were so out of step with the rest of the country.

"Do you know how I described New York to my European friends?" she said. "New York is an island off the coast of Europe."

Here's a summary of the Jewish vote from the Jerusalem Post.

Jews still vote Democrat, but GOP gains among Orthodox, Russians

Also, I've heard every conservative pundit claim that they accurately predicted Bush's victory on Tuesday, so I might as well throw in my own claim.

In this post - Let's Do The Math - I showed how looking at the polls of minorities and women it seemed obvious that President Bush would win since he had better numbers in all these groups than he did in 2000.

This sounds like good advice.

If you're a Democrat, here's my advice. Do what the Republicans did in 1998. Get simple. Find a compelling salesman and get him ready to run for president in 2008. Put aside your quibbles about preparation, stature, expertise, nuance, and all that other hyper-sophisticated garbage that caused you to nominate Kerry. You already have legions of people with preparation, stature, expertise, and nuance ready to staff the executive branch of the federal government. You don't need one of them to be president. You just need somebody to win the White House and appoint them to his administration. And that will require all the simplicity, salesmanship, and easygoing humanity they don't have.

He tried to tell them. Zell Miller on the election.

I tried to tell you . . .

This election outcome should have been implausible, if not impossible. With a litany of complaints — bad economy, bad deficit, bad foreign war, bad gas prices — amplified by a national media that discarded any pretense of neutrality, a national opposition party should have won this election.

But the Democratic Party is no longer a national party. As difficult as the challenges are — both real and fabricated — Democrats offered no solution that was either believable or acceptable to vast regions of America.

Tax increases to grow the economy are not a solution that is believable or acceptable. Democratic promises of fiscal responsibility are unbelievable in the face of massive new spending promises. A foreign policy based on the strength of "allies" such as France is unacceptable. A strong national defense policy is just not believable coming from a candidate who built a career as an anti-war veteran, an anti-military candidate and an anti-action senator.

The BBC has provided a link for people who voted for Bush to comment as to why they did so. I submitted the following. Obviously if I had the space to write down all my thoughts it would take several pages. I'm curious as to whether it will appear or not - it has to cross paths with the editors first.

I voted for President Bush becuase I saw the attacks on the Trade Center on 9/11 with my own eyes. I did not need Republican ads to instill fear of another attack in me - the terrorists implanted that fear in my dreams.

John Kerry has been against every important military action the U.S. has engaged in - right or wrong. I just don't see how he can possibly be considered for the role of commander in chief. Ghandi was a great leader, but I wouldn't select him for head of the armed forces in wartime.

No one seems to want to say it out loud, but it seems to me that the fact that there have been no attacks on Americans or their interests overseas outside the theater of war since 9/11 is an incredible, unexpected accomplishment. And I'm taking my chances that it hasn't been dumb luck.

My brother-in-law spent what must have been an incredible amount of time posting a long list of worthwhile organizations that you can join to make a difference in this world. This is especially useful for those who are feeling the need to do something more than just vote and go back to their barcaloungers.

How Can We Change the World?

Come on...come on....

Palestinian officials: Arafat loses consciousness repeatedly in French hospital, condition serious, Palestinian officials say

Yasser Arafat has lapsed into a coma in French hospital, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday, a day after the Palestinian leader was rushed to intensive care following a sharp deterioration in his health.

The official would not say when Arafat lost consciousness. Two Arafat aides denied he was in a coma, but the senior Palestinian with close access to the medical team insisted the Palestinian leader was comatose.

Remind me not to by the Daily Mirror on my next trip to the U.K.



To quote one of their opinion pieces:

A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity.

A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides cover for a power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to increase America's grip on the world's economies and natural resources.

And in foolishly backing him, Americans have given the go-ahead for more unilateral pre-emptive strikes, more world instability and most probably another 9/11.

Why else do you think bin Laden was so happy to scare them to the polls, then made no attempt to scupper the outcome?

There's only one headline in town today, folks: "It Was Osama Wot Won It."

Things like this only make me prouder that the American people were able to see through the invective and false accusations of the left.

Come on already! Stop teasing!

Arafat Takes Turn for Worse, Aides Say

Yasser Arafat's condition has deteriorated significantly over the past day, and doctors treating him at a Paris hospital remain unsure what has caused the 75-year-old Palestinian leader's illness, Palestinian officials said early Thursday.

The Palestinian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed an Israeli TV report that Arafat was in very serious condition. They said details would be disclosed at a previously planned news conference scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. EST

Well, it seems like it's finally over. If the Democrats decide to contest any of the results they will seem infinitely more petty than the Republicans who have a much clearer mandate than Gore did via the popular vote. President Bush is the first president in awhile to win the popular vote with a majority and not a plurality. I have too many thoughts going through my head and today's the wife's 40th birthday, so gotta run! I will link in some articles for posterity's sake.

With Echoes of 2000 Vote, Ohio Count Is at Issue



VOTERS CHOOSE DOUBLE DUBYA

Bush camp claims certainty of victory - Kerry camp not conceding Ohio

Bush Camp Convinced of Win

I really do want to do a sore loser section - maybe later when I have more time. Here's a good start from Nicholas Kristof...

Living Poor, Voting Rich

Late fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains from the rear balcony of the Biltmore mansion in Asheville, NC.

There haven't been one of these in a long time...thank God.

Teenage Suicide Bomber Kills 3 in a Market in Tel Aviv

A 16-year-old Palestinian blew himself up on Monday in an outdoor market here, killing 3 Israelis and wounding 32 others, three days after Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, left the region for medical attention in France.

The scene at the Carmel market was grisly, with scattered cartons, bits of metal and crushed fruit in pools of blood, the pungent sweet odor of guavas mixed with the rusty tang of blood and explosive.

One of the dead was the owner of a clothing shop, who was filling in for her sick husband; another was a young woman who had recently gone to work selling cheese. At the clothing shop, wire hangers were bent, and a blouse still hung above the wreckage, with holes from shrapnel. The third fatality was identified as Shmuel Levy, 65, of Jaffa.

The attackers mother was only upset in that his handlers didn't wait a couple of years to send him.

The attack was also condemned by Mr. Far's mother, Samira Abdullah, 45, who said: "It's immoral to send someone so young. They should have sent an adult who understands the meaning of his deeds."

Not to criticize the Times' reporting, but that is hardly a condemnation of the attack. Needless to say..

Police officials say they believe the bomber got his explosive belt in Ramallah, and crossed into Israel at a point where a barrier Israel is building had yet been finished.

One last note for all my Kerry voter friends from Michael Moore - this may be what you want, but it's nice to see someone on the left agree with a conservative talking point for once.

To My Friends on the Left:

Okay, Kerry isn’t everything you wished he would be. You’re right. He’s not you! Or me. But we’re not on the ballot – Kerry is. Yes, Kerry was wrong to vote for authorization for war in Iraq but he was in step with 70% of the American public who was being lied to by Bush & Co. And once everyone learned the truth, the majority turned against the war. Kerry has had only one position on the war – he believed his president.
President Kerry had better bring the troops home right away. My prediction: Kerry’s roots are anti-war. He has seen the horrors of war and because of that he will avoid war unless it is absolutely necessary. Ask most vets. But don’t ask someone whose only horror was when he arrived too late for a kegger in Alabama.
There’s a reason Bush calls Kerry the Number One Liberal in the Senate – THAT’S BECAUSE HE IS THE NUMBER ONE LIBERAL IN THE SENATE! What more do you want? My friends, this is about as good as it gets when voting for the Democrat. We don’t have the #29 Liberal running or the #14 Liberal or even the #2 Liberal – we got #1! When has that ever happened?
Those of us who may be to the left of the #1 liberal Democrat should remember that this year conservative Democrats have had to make a far greater shift in their position to back Kerry than we have. We’re the ones always being asked to make the huge compromises and to always vote holding our noses. No nose holding this time. This #1 liberal is not the tweedledee to Bush’s tweedledum.