I always said that we Americans were very selfish in that we think that what happens to us is more important than what goes on in the rest of the world.  We think because we are under attack and we are fighting in several countries that the whole world must be aflame.  One person notes however that no country has actually gone to war against another country for over three years now - "This is the longest episode of interstate peace in more than half a century."

Maybe we're not fighting WWIII after all.

Welcome To World Peace

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By the way - Quit using mercury in your Voodoo rituals

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Kos tells us how proud he is of a Democrat senatorial candidate and the fact that he has a son going off to Iraq, something that "not a single Republican in the Senate has to worry about.".

Not a single one, except Jon McCain (next President of these United States).  "The youngest son of U.S. Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam and a vocal proponent of more American troops in Iraq, will soon report for duty in the Marine Corps, Time Magazine reported on Saturday." - July 29, 2006 Reuters

And Kit Bond, the senior senator from Missouri, whose son Sam served with Marines in Fallujah.

It's a lot easier to argue with the king of liberal blogs when he can't even get his facts straight.  If it's just his style to be flip or use "fake, but accurate" information, it's not funny when the stakes are so high and hos followers believe him.

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The Dog Pacifist - Pack of Lies by Cesar Millan hater Mark Derr.  Cesar Millan is the Dog Whisperer.  If you haven't seen the send-up of him on South Park, it's a must see if you've seen his show.

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This is just frickin' embarassing - it's things like this that make me ashamed to vote Republican and not want to attach myself too strongly to any political party.   Dems: Don't make me link to Joe Biden and his 7-11 comments.

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, whose recent comments have stirred controversy, says the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who "drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night."

Following up on his criticism of Human Rights Watch, Alan Dershowitz takes on Amnesty International.  There's too much good stuff here to pull out a single quote.  In the past, i may have vented and suggested that any Jew who contributes to these organizations should be ashmaed of themsleves.  Now I'll just say that any Jew who is a member and doesn't point out their inconsistencies to the leaders of these groups should be ashamed of themselves.

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After threatening Jews who wanted to protest in front of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires a few days ago, leftist thugs bring their physical threats to the Israeli embassy along with 4,000 others including many Arab-Argentine and Muslim-Argentine support groups.



In other news, the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas) had to denounce anti-Semitic graffiti at the University of Buenos Aires' Departent of Philosphy and Letters. (This is the largest public university in Argentina).  The Dean responded in part by saying "remmeber when you criticize our department that there are other departments that have even worse stuff in their halls".  Aside from Swastiksa, some of the painted comments were akin to "Be a patriot, kill Jews".

I'm starting to fear for the Jewish Community in Argentina.

I'm as Jewish as they come, but there's one particular part of  religion in general that I love more than any other - the music.  There's only one problem.  There's a serious dearth of really good, well-produced modern American music coming from secular, yet  believing Jews.   That's not to say that it's non-existent, but when I turn on the local Christian pop stations I am blown away by the amout of really good rock/pop that comes out.  The fact is that if you take out the occassional mention of Jesus and the Trinity, the themes of love, forgiveness and just wanting life to be better are universal.

I'm working from home today and flipping through the satellite channels and I stumbled across The Gospel Music Channel which had a program with music videos from the newest crop of  young Christian stars.  The first video I saw could have been on MTV - a great teen pop sound from Stacie Orrico.  The song was "More To Life (There's Gotta Be)" - video here.  The track was  The second video was "You Decide" by a group called Fireflight.  The song will play automatically if you visit their homepage.  The video is mostly of the group playing and singing in an abandoned building setting and really shows off the passions of the group (no pun intended).  It reminds me a lot of "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence.  "Save me from the nothing I've become..." - man I love those lyrics. Being a semi-old fart, I'm also impressed with the bands links to their own icons and flickr photos for fans to connect with their own websites.  I'm sure this kind of thing is common, but I hadn't seen it before.  Much of "You Decide" remind me a lot of

"Jesus Take The Wheel" by Carrie Underwood still makes me cry every time I hear it. (Although in this case, I would say listen without watching the video - let your own imagination create the characters in the song).

More commentary from the "blame-the-Jews-fest" at the CAIR-Walt/Mearsheimer presentation yesterday at the National Press Club, broadcast on C-SPAN.

Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby by Dana Milbank in the Washignton Post.  (And Dana is no fan of Bush's Middle East policy, that's for sure).

Walt singled out two Jews who worked at the Pentagon for their pro-Israel views. "People like Paul Wolfowitz or Doug Feith . . . advocate policies they think are good for Israel and the United States alike," he said. "We don't think there's anything wrong with that, but we also don't think there's anything wrong for others to point out that these individuals do have attachments that shape how they think about the Middle East."

"Attachments" sounds much better than "dual loyalties." But why single out Wolfowitz and Feith and not their non-Jewish boss, Donald Rumsfeld?

"I could have mentioned non-Jewish people like John Bolton," Walt allowed when the question was put to him.

Israel Critics: Israel Planned Lebanon War

Stephen Walt of Harvard University’s Kennedy Center and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago spoke Monday at a Washington forum hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, expanding on their paper “The Israel Lobby” in the wake of the Lebanon war.

“They came up with a plan and they briefed it to the United States in the weeks and months before July 12,” when Hezbollah rocket attacks and a cross-border raid precipitated the 34-day war, Mearsheimer said.

Asked to produce evidence, Mearsheimer said “everybody understood” that Israel was waiting for a pretext for war.

I'm still a little confused as to why a supposed civil rights organization is involved in sponsoring a press conference that is trying to limit the free speech influence of people who don't support their political view.

Twenty years ago (maybe twenty-five or thirty?), I used to love listening to Larry King on the radio because he really was just a guy who loved asking questions of influential people.  Today on the internet, we have people like Michael Totten who just go to interesting places like Lebanon and Israel, on their own, and take pictures of interesting things and ask people the kind of questions that you or I would ask.

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Be sure to watch C-SPAN this afternoon for what is sure to be an Israel love-fest.  Not.

A panel discusses the influence lobbyists for Israel have in the United States and how this may have affected attitudes toward the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The panel features Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who wrote an article in the March London Review of Books that raised questions about the power the Israel lobby wields over U.S. foreign policy, saying that the lobbyists try to prevent criticism by claiming anti-semitism. Their article was also the cover story in the July-August issue of Foreign Policy Magazine.

The panel also includes two members of CAIR.  No doubt these four will be complaining about how their views are silenced by the Jews supporters of Israel.  I imagine they'll have a replay.

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Today it's been raining all morning - thank G-d!  We've had around 40 100 degree days this summer, almost all in a row.  It's actually in the upper 70's now and isn't supposed to move past the 80s for the next few days.  What a relief!

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Two items of note via Israellycool.

Conan O'Brien at the Emmys - "Alec Baldwin has a new show on NBC, James Woods has a new show on CBS and Mel Gibson has a new show on Al-Jazeera."

Saddam forced to watch himself in old episode of South Park.

Spent most of the afternoon reading Everyman, the latest Philip Roth novel. I have to admit to never having read any of his books even though many call him America's best living novelist and all that. Also, most of his material would be of interest to me because a lot fo it has to deal with being Jewish in America.  This story doesn't, but I found it at times revelatory and frustrating at the same time.  Revelatory because for me it confirms my belief that a strong belief in G-d and a "reason" for living will help you deal better with the unavoidable tragedies of life.  Frustrating because it makes me wonder if my fellow human beings, the "everymen", really are as seemingly shallow and selfish as the main character in the book.

Sure, I enjoy reading about another man's sexual escapades as a voyeur as much as the next guy, but they make me distinctly uncomfortable as well.  The way the story (and others like it) is written make me wonder - am I the one who's not normal for wanting a stable family life and rejecting my basest desires to protect that life?  If these works are so celebrated, is it becuase they are based on "real life", and if so, is my version of life better or worse?  Or is it simply because it's enetertaining? There is of course, no definitive truth available to us, but if my wife and kids think I'm special because I'm not the "everyman" in Roth's book, I'll take that as a positive.

I do recommend this book highly.

After reading through some of the linked reviews I searched for on Nextbook, I really think I should read Portnoy's Complaint.

And one other thing.  Early in the book, the main character mentions a time in the past when prices in stores ended in .50 (not .99 as they are today).  I'm not that old, but that sounds right.  I wonder what the story is behind that change - inflation?

Fantastic article on the Israeli policy of targeted killings in the Washington Post.  They intersperse the story of a particular attack with backup commentary on how the decisions are made based on how many civilians may be killed and what other conditions need to be satisfied.

 In Israel, Leaders Struggle with Targeted Killings.

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Is the Plame leak case finally resolved? The Man Who Said Too Much

The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

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I watched the Italian made movie Private yesterday, a story of a Palestinain family whose home is commandeered by a group of Israeli soldiers.  Even though the film comes across as coming from the Palestinian point of view and provides no real context as to why the Israelis show up in the first place, it is not so heavy-handed that one can't appreciate the real terror that must be experienced by families that do have to go through this trauma.  It does happen.  The Roger Waters song with some female singer screeching about "The Germans kill the Jews and the Jews kill the Arabs" doesn't help.

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The Emmy Awards will be given out tonight.  I don't really care so much as I don't watch much TV, but's it's always fun to see who shows up half-naked.

Red-State Jews

Monday, August 21, 2006 By: Thane Rosenbaum
This is a soul-searching moment for the Jewish left. Actually, for many Jewish liberals, navigating the gloomy politics of the Middle East is like walking with two left feet.

I would know. For six years I was the literary editor of Tikkun magazine, a leading voice for progressive Jewish politics that never avoided subjecting Israel to moral scrutiny. I also teach human rights at a Jesuit university, imparting the lessons of reciprocal grievances and the moral necessity to regard all people with dignity and mutual respect. And I am deeply sensitive to Palestinian pain, and mortified when innocent civilians are used as human shields and then cynically martyred as casualties of war.

Yet, since 9/11 and the second intifada, in which suicide bombings and beheadings have become the calling cards of Arab diplomacy, and with Hamas and Hezbollah emerging as elected entities that, paradoxically, reject the first principles of liberal democracy, I feel a great deal of moral anguish. Perhaps I have been naive all along.

And I am not alone. Many Jews are in my position--the children and grandchildren of labor leaders, socialists, pacifists, humanitarians, antiwar protesters--instinctively leaning left, rejecting war, unwilling to demonize, and insisting that violence only breeds more violence. Most of all we share the profound belief that killing, humiliation and the infliction of unnecessary pain are not Jewish attributes.

However, the world as we know it today--post-Holocaust, post-9/11, post-sanity--is not cooperating. Given the realities of the new Middle East, perhaps it is time for a reality check. For this reason, many Jewish liberals are surrendering to the mindset that there are no solutions other than to allow Israel to defend itself--with whatever means necessary. Unfortunately, the inevitability of Israel coincides with the inevitability of anti-Semitism.

This is what more politically conservative Jews and hardcore Zionists maintained from the outset. And it was this nightmare that the Jewish left always refused to imagine. So we lay awake at night, afraid to sleep. Surely the Arabs were tired, too. Surely they would want to improve their societies and educate their children rather than strap bombs on to them.

If the Palestinians didn't want that for themselves, if building a nation was not their priority, then peace in exchange for territories was nothing but a pipe dream. It was all wish-fulfillment, morally and practically necessary, yet ultimately motivated by a weary Israeli society--the harsh reality of Arab animus, the spiritual toll that the occupation had taken on a Jewish state battered by negative world opinion.

Despite the deep cynicism, however, Israel knew that it must try. It would have to set aside nearly 60 years of hard-won experience, starting from the very first days of its independence, and believe that the Arab world had softened, would become more welcoming neighbors, and would stop chanting: "Not in our backyard--the Middle East is for Arabs only."

It is true that Israel has entered into peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan that have brought some measure of historic stability to the region. But with Israel having withdrawn from Lebanon and Gaza, and with Israeli public opinion virtually united in favor of near-total withdrawal from the West Bank, why are rockets being launched at Israel now, why are their soldiers being kidnapped if the aspirations of the Palestinian people, and the intentions of Hamas and Hezbollah, stand for something other than the total destruction of Israel? And if Palestinians and the Lebanese are electing terrorists and giving them the portfolio of statesmen, then what message is being sent to moderate voices, what incentives are there to negotiate, and how can any of this sobering news be recast in a more favorable light?

The Jewish left is now in shambles. Peace Now advocates have lost their momentum, and, in some sense, their moral clarity. Opinion polls in Israel are showing near unanimous support for stronger incursions into Lebanon. And until kidnapped soldiers are returned and acts of terror curtailed, any further conversations about the future of the West Bank have been set aside.

Not unlike the deep divisions between the values of red- and blue-state America, world Jewry is being forced to reconsider all of its underlying assumptions about peace in the Middle East. The recent disastrous events in Lebanon and Gaza have inadvertently created a newly united Jewish consciousness--bringing right and left together into one deeply cynical red state.

You know, after the black kids to the back of the bus incident I posted the other day, and this report of a small church not wanting to pray with any black people, I'm beginning to think we have a problem.  A good start in fixing it would be to have Spike Lee do a film blaming these people for racism instead of President Bush.

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I went out last night to the local "upscale" Wal-Mart to see what kind of kosher meat I could pick up for dinner.  I wasn't in the mood for the ground beef or turkey they had on display and I was about to walk away when I noticed a package of organic skinless chicken breasts from Aaron's Best.  I almost passed it by becuase the packaging was different than for their other products and I had never seen it before.  I'm sure I paid through the nose for it, but it was quite tasty.  I'm hoping the chicken I ate had a happier life than his neighbors in the refrigerator unit without the fancy new packaging.  There was an article on kosher organic meat in the Jewish Chrionicle of Pittsburgh recently.  I have to check and see if Whole Foods has the Wise brand here in Texas, but I doubt it.

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Gee, President Bush, you seem much taller nicer in real life!  The camera/media really does put 10 pounds an evil aura on you!

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Following up on my story on how a violent group stopped the Jewish community from protesting in front of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, representatives of the Jewish community met with the Minister of the Interior to voice their concern and denounce the Quebracho organization.  More here.  The first English account of the event that I've seen can be found here.

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Tell me if I'm wrong here.  Now that Plan B will be made available to any woman who just likes to use men to satisfy their sexual needs and up their ho factor, will any woman ever be able to claim paternity rights?  If I was a still in the fly-by-night sex game (OK, so I never was), I would give every woman I slept with $10 for Plan B and tell them to get the hell out of my life.  Or slip it into their coffee the next morning.  Next!

Also, since any woman who is raped can take it (and I imagine any decent rape crisis center would have this stuff available for free), the whole "in the case of rape or incest" argument against a wholesale ban on abortions could fall apart.  You would still have "health of the mother" exception to deal with, but I'd like to think that's common sense even to rabid pro-lifers.

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The local mega-church is branching out - they've only got about 50 times more congregants than my synagogue which is probably the biggest in town.

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident - How the Media Legitimized an Anti-Israel Hoax

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In Argentina this evening, a group of leftist militants from "Quebracho" prevented members of the Jewish community from protesting in front of the Iranian embassy to denounce their support of Hezbollah. Several dozen young people were waiting for the Jewish community with their faces covered by keffiyehs and holding thick pieces of wood to use as weapons against anyone who dared approach. Articles and video in Spanish can be found here at Clarin and La Nacion. I do not see any references to this yet in the English press and I'm not sure the incident will be covered internationally. Quebracho has a long anti-Semitic statement proclaiming the "Zionist defeat in Buenos Aires". Of course of you look at their photo section, they're proud to show themselves protesting in front of the Israeli embassy several weeks ago unimpeded

I am disgusted and sickened. I hope that I never see such a thing in the US and I doubly hope that someone in the Argentine government has something to say about a group of thugs taking away other people's right to free expression. It's especially ironic considering that the Iranians are accused of being behind the bombing of the old Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires pretty much right down the road in 1992.

My fellow Jews, people on the Left are not your friends. Hell, we have very few friends period between those that want ed us dead 60 years ago, those that want us dead now and those who want us dead tomorrow. Wake the f*ck up!

When I was a little tyke, I was already a news junkie. I have vivid memories of being allowed to walk the several blocks by myself to get the newspaper at Cappy's in Co-op City in the Bronx. Just the smell of newsprint off a cold newspaper in winter brings back memories. My mother still brags that I was reading the New York Times when I was 5.

Well, my oldest girl just turned 6 and I don't want her to have anything to do with the news. Was the world so peaceful back then (can you say Vietnam?) that it wouldn't warp my mind to read about all the hate and craziness going on in the world? I still remember (I really do) asking my dad what a P.O.W. was when I saw it on a bumper sticker on the Lower East Side. Inflation, boycotts, Watergate, the Yom Kippur War - I absorbed it like a sponge, even if I didn't quite understand what was really going on.

Is it right to keep my child from world events? Sure they'll get to this stuff in school eventually, but since I get all my news from the internet, the TV evening news isn't on at all so she doesn't even get that stuff in passing. Also, in suburban America, even newspapers aren't really prominently displayed anywhere.

Reading in general isn't the issue, in fact she is assigned homework to read at least 10 minutes every night, which she does very well. Also, I could only wish to have had such well-stocked libraries and Barnes & Nobles when I was a kid.

Will she be less interested, less smart or less aware of everything around her in general without all the attention to world events that I got as a kid? I just don't know. but I hope not.

When will I tell her that daddy saw the worst tragedy in American history with his own eyes? Or that anything like that could even happen? We'll tackle the Holocaust in sixth or seventh grade according to her teachers, so I've got a ways to go there yet.

Alan Dershowitz on Human Rights Watch:

"Who will guard the guardians?" asked Roman satirist Juvenal. Now we must ask, who is watching Human Rights Watch, one of the world's best-financed and most influential human rights organizations? It turns out that they cook the books about facts, cheat on interviews, and put out pre-determined conclusions that are driven more by their ideology than by evidence.

These are serious accusations, and they are demonstrably true.

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Definitely not to be confused with are Jews supporting Kinky Friedman, I present KinkyJews.

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Browsing YouTube the other day I found a whole series of home videos of a huge, golf-ball-size-hailstorm that happened in Buenos Aires last month. So far, I've only had to drive through one hailstorm here in north Texas - the hail was not that large, but it was really scary stuff as I was stuck in traffic and couldn't pull over to find any cover.

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For those in North Texas having foundation problems with their homes - this is a good start to understanding the problem. A home inspector I trust has recommended me to Advanced Foundation Repair which is mentioned in the article.

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I want to welcome co-religionist Shawn Green to the New York Mets! I hope we get to shep lots of nachas from him. Luckily for Shawn, if the Mets make it to the playoffs he won't have problem. "Green made headlines two years ago when, while playing with the Dodgers, he chose to play in one of two games on the holy day of Yom Kippur. This season, Yom Kippur begins on the evening of Oct. 1, the regular-season finale in Washington, and will not intrude on the postseason."

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I don't know if I'd agree with this or not if I thought about it more, but when first read, it's a pretty need observation. From Ted Koppel:

The networks are experimenting with broadcasting their evening news on the Web. Your thoughts?
The single message that has survived throughout the millennia, and has as much impact today as it did at the time it was delivered, was allegedly carved into two stone tablets by the finger of God. Lousy medium, great message. I sometimes think we place so much value on the medium that we ignore the importance of the message. Media doesn’t survive. Messages do.

From Overheard in New York.  Admit it, you would just smirk and shake your head at their stupidity if you heard it.

Hipster girl: What's up with all the Jews for Jesus stuff everywhere?
Hipster guy: I don't know. I think Jews just try to adopt whatever's mainstream and will make them money.

--A/C/E underpass, Times Square station

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Hey - you never know.  Plano to hire homeland director.

"It's one of those things where you hope that you really never have to do your job."

I need something like that.

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Canadian Jews are beginning to come around to realize that the Liberal Party ain't what it used to be. 

Many in the Jewish community are reassessing their Liberal party loyalty and looking upon the Conservatives under Stephen Harper with fresh eyes, writes Leslie Scrivener

"Harper made his pro-Israel views known quickly, issuing a statement the day after Israel sent its forces into Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Liberals' perspective remained unclear. Five days passed before interim Liberal leader Bill Graham said the government's position was a "grave error," one that threatened Canada's reputation as a peace broker and mediator."

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Anyone catch today's "die-in" by Jews Against Israel outside of Penn Station in NY?  OK, so that's not their real name, but might as well be.  I much prefer the views of the Orthodox community that think Israel now needs to change it's moral code used in war - "Our traditional sensibilities tell us that it is not right to risk the lives of our soldiers to minimize civilian deaths on the other side," he said.

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I have slightly over two weeks of vacation left to take in 2006, yet my wife who has a new teaching job will only have one week off from school around Christmas/New Year's.  Do I go somewhere without them for a week (maybe a photography seminar, volunteering in Israel...), or do I just sit at home and veg?  The funny thing is that my company has asked me to stop travelling for business which means that the 8 or so 2-3 days trips that I might otherwise have taken this year, I will not be taking.  So why do I feel guilty about being away from them just once.  What was my therapist's number again?

Just wondering...if liberal Democrats are so up on the idea that we need to negotiate with our enemies (Iran, Syria) instead focusing on regime change, why are they so excited about regime change among their own party in Connecticut, instead of trying to get Lieberman to change the one or two positions he has which don't toe the party line?

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I hate people who come into an elevator, go into one of the front corners and stand sideways, so that the people in the back have no choice but to stare at them (or if you're on the other front corner, be stared at).  The fewer the number of others in the back elevator already, the more uncomfortable it is.  A minor thing, but a human behavior, I don't understand.

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I downloaded Sunday's Meet The Press onto my cellphone and listened to it as I went for a walk yesterday evening.  Right now, I'm all for McCain '08.  He sounds so absolutlely reasonable as he walks the fine line between criticizing Rumsfeld and our mistakes in Iraq and the fact that we can't afford to leave.

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I had to start using soaker hoses to water the foundation of my house last night.  Apparently, they're very popular around here.  We already have cracks in one of the bathroom floors and in a wall upstairs.  We're hoping that the soaking will prevent further damage - at least that's what one of the neighbors suggested.  I do feel kind of guily running the water for several hours each night during the drought restrictions, even though soaking is allowed for any reason during the evenings.  That being said, I'd feel worse if I had to pay 30 grand to repair my foundation, and it ain't covered by insurance.  I never heard of soaker hoses before this year....

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The NY Times rips into France.  I'm still not big on their saying that we're overstrectched in Iraq - that's a throwaway line from a paper who sided with generals who were willing to send a couple of hundred thousand additional troops into Iraq for the inevitable occupation.  That and we just augmented our force in Iraq by the entire amount of the proposed Lebanese peacekeeping force without anyone seeming to notice.

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Snopes has the scoop on the letter my rabbi read Friday night which claimed to be a rant by Steven Spielberg against Mel Gibson.

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The wife and I saw (at different times) The Thing About My Folks which is sort of a father-son road movie.  We both liked it a lot, although it's nowhere near being a great.  Seven stars out of ten.  That being said, I felt Peter Falk gave an Acadamy Award worthy monologue about what it meant to be a good father 40 years ago.  Real hurt and anger from someone known generally as a comic presence.

Does anyone else find this photo of Hizbollah fighters in baseball caps ironic?



Just give them hot dogs and apple pie and they'll be as American as you or I.

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Info on the Jewish Arts Fest on Sunday, August 27 in the Dallas area. Always a fun place to spend an afternoon. Sadly for us, the kids are too little to sit still for one of the music events - I'd love to see these acts.

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MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The National Hurricane Center's latest forecast for the 2006 season calls for more Atlantic hurricanes than usual, but not as many as seen over the past three years and fewer than predicted in the NHC's initial estimate in May.

NHC director Max Mayfield said he expects 12 to 15 named storms, with seven to nine gaining hurricane status. Of those, three or four will grow to Category 3 strength or greater, Mayfield said.

A Category 3 hurricane is classified as a major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of 110 mph or more.

The 2005 season saw a record 28 named storms, including 15 hurricanes. Three named storms had been recorded by mid-August 2006. (Ed. - and they were weak storms at that.)

As I read it, that's about a 60% dropoff. What happened Hurricane Al? DId we reverse global warming last year? As you can tell from his movie poster, huricanes should be our biggest worry - unless of course you think he was using the tragedy of Katrina to spread his political message - but we all know that Democrats wouldn't use a tragedy in that way.

Just saying - I'm tired of reading how "Hezbollah gives cash to rebuild" and "Lebanese signing up for Hezbollah aid". Perhaps it escaped me, but I wasn't aware that Hezbollah was a government that collected taxes.  Where DO they get there money from?  Iran of course.  It is Iranian aid not "Hezbollah" aid.

I say look at the bright side, Israel is forcing Iran to spend an untold amount of money to help rebuild southern Lebanon and (try to) re-arm Hezbollah.  Then again, others believe that Iran is making a huge profit from Hezbollah's actions which more that covers any expense from the war.

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I'm also tired of the media telling us that Hezbollah was created by Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 as if history started with some sort of unprovoked attack by imperialist Israel.  There was a small matter of the PLO being based in Lebanon at the time.

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I'm reading Cobra II, which seems like a relatively dispassionate accounting of how the armed forces were prepared (or not) for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  It's a very sobering look at how screwed up things can get when theory meets reality.  It's sometimes a little difficult to plow through for non-military folks like me who can never remember the exact difference between a brigade and a division or a sergeant and a lieutenant colonel, but it's extremely instructive.  The thought that I keep taking away is that if we were so unprepared even though WMDs were not found, how much worse would it have been had Saddam actually had them, or G-d forbid used them?



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Last night, our rabbi, gave a sermon at Friday night services about l'affaire Gibson and the power of forgivness at this time of year, read a genrally nasty letter to Gibson excoriating him for his history of anti-Semitism and demanding that he donate $1mm to Israel to make up for it.  He said the letter was "signed...Steven Spielberg.  Now, I'm pretty damn sure that letter wasn't from Spielberg even if it was a real letter and not some general internet prank.  However, the Rabbi has read a fake letter like this once before and it bothers me that he would take this stuff at face value.  Even though the point of the sermon was that the "letter" was not acting according to our traditions, and he was preaching forgiveness, I didn't like him associating a supposedly negative behavior with Spielberg.

I'm still looking for proof that it was fake, but given that I can't seem to find a news story on the internet talking about it leads me to believe that it's fake.

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We're invited to a pool party for one of my 6 year-old's Jewish school classmates - our youngest also goes along on play dates and so is invited too.  Aside from the fact that I don't know the family well and hate little kid's parties, there's one other thing that ticks me off.  Although we're Conservative and the kids go to a Conservative Day School, families are asked not to have their parties on Shabbos so that any observant kids can attend.  This pool party is being thrown from 8-10PM tonight because it's"after Shabbos". Not really, since Shabbos ends at 8:47PM.  I don't know if it's general ignorance about keeping Shabbos or what, but there's a lot of very un-learned parents at the school and it's depressing.  The other day one of the parents seemed perplexed as to why a cheese pizza (with no meat) from any old pizza place wasn't kosher enough to bring into the school.  The school is very good about having "parent education" courses for those who want to learn more, and I'm not claiming to be the ultimate source of Jewish knowledge, but it's still depressing to me.

The latest outrage from Jimmy Carter from an interview in Der Spiegel.

Carter: ...as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.

SPIEGEL: But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?

Carter: I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no.

How sad is it when Israel depends on the German mainstream media to defend it against an American ex-president. Jimmy Carter sat in the box of honor (with Michael Moore) at the last Democratic convetnion. The same party which is itching to jettison the most well known orthodox Jew in American politics and whose rival proudly stands arm and arm with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Be afraid Jewish Democrats. Be very afraid.

Riddle me this?  Isn't the definition of news something that is "new" or noteworthy.  And if something is reported as news even when it's not, doesn't that mean that there could be some sort of ulterior motive for making readers think it IS news?  Case in point.

Bold letters, upper left on the NY Times home page (that's the journalistic equivalent of using an exclamation point) is an article titled Israel Plans to Remain in Lebanon Until Force Arrives. The sub-header is "Israel will keep troops in the area “until the multinational force arrives, even if that takes months,” the Israeli general said."

Since we need to assume this is "news", that must mean that this is an unexpected move on Israel's part, no doubt blocking the process of getting things back to normal.  Those warmongering stiffnecked Israeli bastards!

Except that would be wrong.  The text of the recent UN cease fire resolution says the following:

Upon full cessation of hostilities, calls upon the government of Lebanon and Unifil as authorised by paragraph 11 to deploy their forces together throughout the South and calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment begins, to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon in parallel.

Given that the deployment of Lebanese and Unifil has not begun, Israel is not expected to leave any part of captured territory.  Therefore, there is no news, but the Times wants you to believe that there is - so much so that it's the most important story in the world at this point in time.

No word in the Times to let us know that no one believes that either the UN or the Lebanese government is actually going to disarm Hizbollah given that another key cease fire provision is "that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon". 

*sigh*   Character actor Bruno Kirby dies of leukemia.  He was 57.



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Accused murderer/terrorist in Seattle pleads "not guilty".

Why do I call him a terrorist?  Not becuase I think he's part of any organized terror outfit, but becuase he is alleged to have committed the murder/attempted murder of civilians to bring light to a political cause.

Does he deserve the death penalty?  Even though I am not opposed to the death penaly, I'm pretty sure this guy is deranged and should not get it.  His lawyer's arguments that he is rational isn't going to help his case though.

"Haq is accused of opening fire at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle offices July 28. Police say he killed Pamela Waechter, director of the charity's annual fundraising campaign, and wounded five others as he ranted about Jewish people, the U.S. government and the Middle East."

I'm all for "innocent until proven guilty" and I don't like people to be hanged in the press before their trial (especially in a he said/she said situation), but come on now - is their any real doubt as to what happened?  "Police say"?!?

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Get it while you can at www.borowitzreport.com -FAA Bans People From Flights - 'Zero Tolerance for People,' Chertoff Says

In a move aimed at further tightening airport security, the Federal Aviation Administration announced today that it would ban all people from flights leaving or entering the United States, effective immediately.

The FAA, which has in the past banned such objects as toenail clippers and hair gel, took the extraordinary step of banning people after the Department of Homeland Security conducted a thorough investigation of previous terror plots.

"We looked at terror plots of the past, and in each and every case, people were involved," said Homeland Security Michael Chertoff at a Washington press briefing. "These new rules send the strong message that the FAA has zero tolerance for people."

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I was 15 when I went on my first trip to Israel in 1982.  israel had just invaded Lebanon and I remember getting speeches from the locals about how the Western media (Time Magazine was always mentioned) twisted their reporting, and especially their photogrpahic reporting to make things in beirut seem worse than they really were.  For example we were told that publications would print the same street corner from different angles to make it seem like entire neighborhoods were destroyed.

Powerline provides various links here to the excellent work done by Little Green Footballs to debunk the crap that's being fed to us by the major reporting services.  There have been some criticisms that are inaccurate, but by admitting the fraud perpetrated by Adnan Hajj, Reuters opened the floodgates.

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I just had about half a dozen people in my office going through my vacation photos from the Northwest  oohing and ahhing.  One person actually insisted that I sell her my night shot of downtown Seattle.  I love that.  I don't know why I don't do photogrpahy for a living.



OK, maybe it's the fact that  I have a family to support and it's not a stable income. *sigh again*

After breezing through a practically non-existent security line yesterday afternoon in the DFW airport, I laughed it up watching CNN before my flight with the correspondents talking about how miserable it was at the nation's airports.  Hell, my plane even left a few minutes early. 

I wasn't laughing on the other side.

I don't know if  it was because of the added volume of checked baggage but it took an entire hour to get my bag at JFK at 10:30PM.  Then another half an hour to wait for a cab since everyone from several flights seemed to all get their luggage at the same time.  It took a little over two hours to get from the plane to the hotel.  The flight from Dallas to NY is a little over three hours.  From now on, I'm buying my toiletries at my destination.

Then again, maybe it was all f*cked up because it was NY and sometimes it's just like that.

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Mike Wallace's 60 minutes interview with Ahmedinejad of Iran here.  I actually heard a caller to a talk radio show Sunday night say in all seriousness that he felt a lot more comfortable criticizing Bush policy on Iran and didn't know how we could be against such an intelligent, reasonable guy as the Iranian President.

From the American Jewish Committee:

Freedom of the press is one of the golden virtues of American society, a fundamental value totally absent in Iran. But there is a line between a respected journalist and media outlet exercising that freedom and succumbing to the trap of becoming a mouthpiece for a foreign government, a dangerous adversary. In this interview, the line was obliterated by Wallace, and President Ahmedinejad owes CBS a debt of gratitude.

Anything for ratings.

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I always thought that one day, Israel will withdraw from all contested terorritories and then when the Arabs strike, Israel will receive the backing of the entire international community in a final effort to defeat it's enemies and secure it's borders.  I do not believe that anymore.  If  any Israelis ever believed it, I'm sure they don't anymore either.  A lot more people are going to die in the not too distant future and I don't see any way out - the world has backed Israel into a corner.  Attacks on the civilian population in israel proper are treated as legitimate tactics and the perpetrators are rewarded, while every attack to disable and disband Hezbollah ( a legitimate armed force apparently) is treated as a war crime.

For all the worries some Americans have about "not recognizing" their own country under Bush, I'm not sure I recognize the whole world I live in under everyone else. That's why I'm willing to take a dose of castor oil (Bush) as a tonic.

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A picture of Bush at the "real" CTU.  Doesn't look that much different than the set of "24" if you ask me.  It sure as hell doesn't look like my workplace.

Sure, we're used to seeing signs at anti-Israel/U.S. policy rallies showing that Israel = Nazi Germany, usually shown using the Star of David and a Swastika.  But have Isral's crimes grown in stature so much that Israel is now considered actually worse than the Nazis?  See photos below from this weekends rallies in the U.S. and Canada.

Mark Steyn points out the obvious to a knee-jerk press. From a Reuters report...

"Britain has been criticised by Islamist militants for its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prime Minister Tony Blair has also come under fire at home and abroad for following the U.S. lead and refusing to call for an immediate cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas."

Is there a software program at Western news agencies that automatically inserts random segues in terrorism stories? The plot to commit mass murder by seizing up to 10 U.K.-U.S. airliners was well advanced long before the first Israeli strike against Hezbollah. Yet it's apparently axiomatic at Reuters, the BBC and many other British media outlets that Tony Blair is the root cause of jihad. He doesn't even have to invade anywhere anymore. He just has to "refuse to call for an immediate cease-fire" when some other fellows invade some other fellows over on the other side of the world.

Then there's the old neocon talking point that 9/11 happened quite some time before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq....does anyone really think his wouldn't be happening if we ONLY invaded Afghanistan?

From Senate minority leader Harry Reid - "This latest plot demonstrates the need for the Bush administration and the Congress to change course in Iraq."

As if.

I wish I could write like this...Steyn continued:

Pan-Islamism is the profound challenge to conventional ideas of citizenship and nationhood. Of course, if you say that at the average Ivy League college, you'll get a big shrug: Modern multicultural man disdains to be bound by the nation state, too; he prides himself on being un citoyen du monde. The difference is that, for Western do-gooders, it's mostly a pose: They may occasionally swing by some Third World basket-case and condescend to the natives, but for the most part the multiculti set have no wish to live anywhere but an advanced Western democracy. It's a quintessential piece of leftie humbug. They may think globally, but they don't act on it.

The pan-Islamists do act. When they hold hands and sing "We Are The World," they mean it.

First of all, a big thank you to everyone in law enforcement in the US, UK and Pakistan who unearthed the plot to explode up to 10 American jumbo jets in mid-air over the Atlantic Ocean or heavily populated cities.

The good news:

1. We got them this time.
2. Our efforts were well co-ordinated both internally and externally.
3. Muslim tipoff 'led to arrests'
4. Al Qaeda or not, the plan was basically the same as a plot hatched 12 years ago which means they may or may not have slightly more volunteers, but not more ideas.

The bad news:

1. The bad guys are still plotting and planning.
2. It's going to suck sitting out on a 100+ degree runway for three hours during a flight delay without being able to take a drink of water.

Like it or not, the folied plot should favor the Republicans politically. While the Democrats are focusing on pulling out of Iraq, inspecting cargo ships and making sure no one is inconvenienced by an unwarranted search or tighter immigration laws, their opponents continue to push for fewer restrictions on surveillance and closer relations with "lapdogs" (Blair, Musharraf) that have actually proven effective in stopping large-scale attacks.

To those that criticize politicians who take advantage of such situations, they should remember that our governement is structured so that the commander in chief of the armed forces is also our most successful, highly placed politician. You can't separate war from politics and as long as the opposition wants to argue about tactics in the halls of Congress and the Supreme Court, the stump remains a legitimate place to do battle.

Some more shots from vacation on the West Coast (Oregon)...

Pictures from vacation on the northern West Coast.