This was buried in a tiny paragraph on page A18 of my local newspaper. I thought we were involved in a war against these people? I guess becuase these victims aren't white or European, they don't deserve our attention.

Group Claims It Blew Up Philippines Ferry

MARIVELES, Philippines - The Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility Sunday for a ferry explosion and fire that killed at least two people, though 180 more were missing, according to a radio report.

Of course I think it would have been a bit more helpful to say "Muslim Extremist Group" in the headline, but who am I to judge those poor, oppressed people. I mean don't they have the right to kill a couple of hundred or couple of thousand people every once in awhile to relieve the pressure they must feel having to live under the thumb of the U.S. and Israel.

This is something that should never have to be read in a truly just world:

Rima Novikov, 25, and her husband Eitan Kukoi, 30, are survived by their 2-year-old.

Especially when it's done on purpose...

PFLP, Al-Aksa Martyrs claim shooting attack

Nah, I take that back - they would have killed the two year old too, but didn't fulfill their mission of killing ALL the Jews.

Even though this article in the NYT Magazine doesn't tell us anything we don't already know (except perhaps a new way to insult Jews), I feel obligated to link to it.

A Frenchman or a Jew?

Not that I wanted to go, or anything.

Saudis: No Jews Welcome

Interesting update from the Congressman that brought this to light:

Last night, the Saudis’ official tourism website said that travel visas would not be issued to “Jewish People.” In response, Weiner sent a letter to President Bush, urging him to deny travel visas to Saudis until their policy towards Jews is clarified. As of this morning, the Saudi tourism website had removed any mention of Jews.

Here's the original webpage with no No Jews Allowed remark.

Wherever am I going to go to satisfy my dirty, disgusting mind?

Howard Stern Show Taken Off Clear Channel Stations

Has the King of All Media been dethroned?

Roger Ebert, my favorite critic gives it 4 stars and a big thumbs up....

This is the most violent film I have ever seen.

My own feeling is that Gibson's film is not anti-Semitic, but reflects a range of behavior on the part of its Jewish characters, on balance favorably. The Jews who seem to desire Jesus' death are in the priesthood, and have political as well as theological reasons for acting; like today's Catholic bishops who were slow to condemn abusive priests, Protestant TV preachers who confuse religion with politics, or Muslim clerics who are silent on terrorism, they have an investment in their positions and authority. The other Jews seen in the film are viewed positively; Simon helps Jesus to carry the cross, Veronica brings a cloth to wipe his face, Jews in the crowd cry out against his torture.

Gibson has not made a movie that anyone would call "commercial," and if it grosses millions, that will not be because anyone was entertained. It is a personal message movie of the most radical kind, attempting to re-create events of personal urgency to Gibson. The filmmaker has put his artistry and fortune at the service of his conviction and belief, and that doesn't happen often.

NYT Review of The Passion is now online.

Is "The Passion of the Christ" anti-Semitic? I thought you'd never ask. To my eyes it did not seem to traffic explicitly or egregiously in the toxic iconography of historical Jew hatred, but more sensitive viewers may disagree. The Pharisees, in their tallit and beards, are certainly shown as a sinister and inhumane group, and the mob they command is full of howling, ugly rage. But this on-screen villainy does not seem to exceed what can be found in the source material.

In most movies — certainly in most movies directed by or starring Mr. Gibson — violence against the innocent demands righteous vengeance in the third act, an expectation that Mr. Gibson in this case whips up and leaves unsatisfied.

Hmmm....

Not likely - but a funny joke. From Normblog via Not a Fish

A Jew was walking down the street when he was attacked and beaten up by a Christian. The Jew asked why on earth he had been beaten. The man replied,
"The Jews killed Christ!"
"But that was 2000 years ago!"
"I know, but I only heard about it today!"

As much as the Bush-haters criticize his lack of ability to speak off the cuff, let me know if you find John Kerry the least bit intelligible as he was interviewed on 9/11 by Larry King regarding how we should respond:

KERRY: There are three ways to pursue it, Larry. One is multi- laterally, which takes more time. That's the way George Bush, the father, did it in the Gulf War. You can do it bilaterally, you and another nation. You can you reach an agreement. You can work together. And you can do it unilaterally when the circumstances call for it.

I personally believe this is a circumstance because of the nature of it. As Dianne says, many have said today this is an act of war. The difficulty is, unlike Pearl Harbor, this is a stealth enemy.

Japan was identifiable. We knew where to find them ultimately, you know, after chasing around and we could identify. Here, we know pretty much. I mean, there's had a great certainty among many people about where the fingers point. But ultimately, we don't want to be a terrorist ourselves.

We have to do what we do with the knowledge and the certainty that we can determine, but we must be prepared, absolutely, to move unilaterally if we need to, to protect the honor and the civility that we stand for. And I think everybody in this country would support that based on the proper response with the proper information.

P.S. I'm still trying to figure out if Kerry ever visited Ground Zero. I'm assuming he has, but I'm having an awful hard time finding any record of it on the internet.

I'm still having trouble understanding why Senator Kerry's having served in Vietnam and been awarded some medals has anything to do with his ability to be president given that there are millions just like him who served and there have been numerous successful presidents without any war medals.

After arriving in Atlanta to campaign for Georgia's March 2 primary, Mr. Kerry said, "I don't know what it is that these Republicans who didn't serve in any war have against those of us who are Democrats who did."

And why does he think he's immune to criticism on his political views on defense in 2004 because he served in a war 40 years ago as a 20 year old? Do I want to see Kerry and Bush both debate how stupid they were back then? Kerry does because he was a "HERO".

Senator Kerry challenged Mr. Bush to a debate on the Vietnam era and "the impact of our experiences on our approaches to presidential leadership."

Read all about it here in the Times.

Oh, and a special thank you to Ralph Nader. Almost-President Gore sends his love.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times is so disgusting that I can't even bring myself to provide a link. Suffice it to say that she compares President Bush to Ken Lay of Enron for no logical reason, just to put their names together in a sentence. She claims that Bush needs to use his wife to defend himslef against the AWOL charges when he himself faced off with Tim Russert on meet the press just a couple of weeks ago. What garbage.

President Carter blames YOU, my dear American readers, for the lack of peace, freedom and health in the developing world. Speaking on behalf of all of us, he says "we don't really care what happens to them".

Oh, please teach us of the white man's burden, Mr. Ex-President, liberator of the peoples of Iran, Afghanistan and Nicaragua!

And talking about helping the people's of the world - haven't we created more wealth through free trade and our economic success than anything else in the world? If we have such a huge trade deficit, isn't that in and of itself a form of aid? Giving anohter 10 or 20 or 30 billion dollars in aid will do one tenth as much for the future of the world as all the jobs we "lose" overseas and all the goods we purchase. If the Africans and the Arabs can't get their acts together, there is nothing we can do short of overthrowing their governments and starting from scratch like we're doing in Iraq. In short, democracy and trade better lives, not throwing money at corrupt governments.

Jews are upset with the utter ineptness and ridiculousness of Jewish groups claiming to represent them. And Mel Gibson is the squabble's benefactor. See the article at Jewsweek.

I absolutely agree - I am totally embarrassed by the actions of the Anti-Defamation League with regards to this movie. As I may have mentioned before I live only a few blocks from the "Dallas" multiplex mentioned in the article. In fact I just got a postcard invitation to join a local church in the mail with "Jesus Is Lord" stamped on the back. And people wonder why I want to send my daughter to a Jewish Day School when the evangelical Christian community is subtly pushing their religion on children like so many trench-coated strangers offering candy.

To get to my original point, that doesn't mean I think there's going to be a pogrom in my town - just more pamphlets and postcards in the mail which is annoying enough.

How can you not like this t-shirt, even if you're a Mets fans like me?

I'd like to make a twist on a famous quote by saying that "good news is no news", especially when it come to Iraq and the mainstream media. That's why you never get to here about stories like this one about an Iraqi who previously had a hand in making staues of Saddam Hussein, now honoring the Americans who liberated his country.

I can't believe we have to find out about this on a website that confirms or denies stories that seem so unusual that it bears digging deeper to see if they're true. My bet is that this is not as unusual as it appears, but we have become accustomed to hearing "quagmire", "growing insurgency", etc.

This picture of the statue was made by an Iraqi artist named Kalat, who for years was forced by Saddam Hussein to make the many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam that dotted Baghdad. This artist was so grateful that the Americans liberated his country, he melted 3 of the fallen Saddam heads and made a memorial statue dedicated to the American soldiers and their fallen comrades.

It seems that in the latest large exchange of prisoners and bodies between Hezbollah and Israel that a mistake was made and the body of a dead Jewish man was transferred by accident to Lebanon instead of an Arab. So, does Hezbollah politely ask to send the right body? Of course, not - they're terrorists, remember?

The paper reports that when Biro’s [the Arab's] family received the body, they discovered that it was actually a “religious Jew with a beard”, in their words. They hastily reported the mistake to Hezbollah officials. At first Israel denied it but later admitted that there had been an error and Biro’s body was still in Israel. Hezbollah is now demanding 30 additional bodies in return for the Jewish body that it received

U.S. official: Uranium enrichment parts found in Iran

No Kidding. Bombs away!

Found this on Instapundit - Michael Duff looks at Bush's post 9/11 strategy at the 30,000 foot level and it all makes sense.

Basically, now everyone knows for certain that someone's gonna git it if there's another attack on our soil. And I would hate to think of the weapons we'd have to use if we ran out of soldiers to place on the ground.

Although it is said that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree", it is also said that children should not be punished for the sins of their fathers. Nevertheless, Mel Gibson's dad is not an educated man, to say the least. Here are his thoughts about the Holocaust.

"It's all -- maybe not all fiction -- but most of it is"

Jews are out to create "one world religion and one world government"

Many European Jews counted as death camp victims of the Nazi regime had in fact fled to countries like Australia and the United States

Needless to say he's even less smart for saying these things a week before his son's filmed passion play opens.

I think I'm beginning to like this John Edwards guy. OK, so I don't know what any of his stands are on any of the issues, I just think what he said here after the Wisconsin primaries was funny.

"The voters of Wisconsin sent a clear message," Edwards said. "The message was this: Objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear."

According to the Jeruslaem Post, thousands of haredi (orthodox) teenagers are turning to the dark side.

Haredi punks

Only time will tell...

Hicks: Deal aids Rangers' youth movement

The Texas Rangers, my adopted hometown team should still suck, although Soriano is a great player to watch. I wish I had had ore time to watch A-Rod before he was traded to the Evil Ones.

Well, since it's President's Day it wouldn't be right to speculate about the past lives of potential presidents.

4 days after the Drudge report (see below), John Kerry's alleged intern says "I never interned or worked for John Kerry."

Yet there is a strange double standard as the major newspapers try desperately to find out if Bush was AWOL for National Guard service 30 years ago.

"Both the New York Times and the Washington Post, for example, have written about whether President Bush actually carried out his duties as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in 1973.

That has public importance given that trust and national security issues are major campaign themes. John Kerry's record as Senator and the support he has or has not received from lobby groups are also obviously fair game.

But neither paper has covered the John Kerry story which has engaged the attention of websites, radio and TV talk shows, some of the tabloid papers and elements of the foreign press."

And this from the same article according to the Washington Post's London correspondent:

"In any case, nobody would be too shocked if Kerry lied about an affair. Even if someone came to us with photographs we still wouldn't run it."

Dear friends - going on a nice vacation for about a week. If a can log on somewhere for awhile I will, but my goal is to relax. See you next week!

Finally, a lamp that you can turn "on" and "off" on Shabbos! The Kosher Lamp!

Hat tip to Protocols.

JUICY! From Drudge - of course.

CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN

Is it possible to accuse terrorist groups of war crimes when their whole rationale for being (genocide/suicide bombing) is a crime against humanity? Let's not quibble over semantics. Some things are just plain wrong.

Terrorists sending children on reconnaissance

And if this doesn't make you sick, here's some more lovely photos of how Palestinain freedom fighters use camouflage in order to safely battle those bastard Israelis who mercilessly kill children who are just walking to school or to their friend's homes.

A masked Hamas militant sets up a makeshift mortar launcher against Israeli forces, unseen, as Palestinian youths try to cover him from the sight of the forces during an incursion in a Gaza city's neighborhood, Wednesday Feb. 11, 2004.

What type of respect do we owe Islamic terrorists who are freaked out about touching non-Muslims? And if these people were ever caught and convicted for a crime (instead of killed), how do they not get off by having themselves declared insane?

AP Enterprise: Saudi-Born Leader Reflects Increasing Influence of Radical Islam on Chechen Rebels

"...many midlevel commanders initially refused to accept Abu Walid, said the rebels' liaison in southern Russia.

"But his attitude to the war and his faith won him a lot of respect," the liaison said.

He recalled a telling encounter at one meeting of rebel commanders when Abu Walid - who adheres to the conservative Wahhabi strain of Islam - embraced a journalist, convinced by his beard that he was a good Muslim. When he learned otherwise, he retreated from the world for two days, praying night and day to cleanse himself after touching an infidel.

That extreme piety, the liaison said, has won supporters."

I'm not exactly sure what the issue is here. Maybe because I grew up going to a modern Orthodox shul I don't see a problem with a mechitza at the Kotel.

Conservative rabbis protest segregation at Western Wall

Just like the old song - the Catholics hate the Muslims, and the Muslims hate the Protestants, but everybody hates the Jews.

Anti-Semitism infuses French debate on scarves

I'm glad I've already been to France to sightsee a couple of times, because I'm not really sure I want to go back.

Scary - Sex offenders found at extended-stay hotels. I was considering staying in one with my family on our next trip. Now I'm not so sure I would consider it. Could be a one-off case, but it's something to think about.

Quake rocks Israel, neighbor countries

little damage was done, so somebody's out of a job....

10,000 could die if earthquake were to hit Israel, Knesset panels told

There were some on the right who used to make jokes about the prisoners at Guantanamo saying that they probably were better off in an American prison without a right to a lawyer than they would have been living "freely" at home. Nice weather, consistent food, access to imams, etc.

Maybe it wasn't a joke?

I had a good time at Guantanamo, says inmate

I know it's just "kids", but it's still obnoxious. I hate kids who taunt other kids. I couldn't stand it in high school and I can't stand it now that I'm 20 years past high school. And all this at an elite Manhattan school to boot.

Fans' Anti-Semitic Slurs Incite a Flurry of Reaction at Schools

Can you believe that this has been going on for 2 1/2 years now?

Al Qaida planned airliner attack on Israel

U.S. Terror Expert Warns of Dirty Bomb

Arab Newspaper Says Al Qaeda Has Ukrainian Nukes

Which of these stories exactly does John Kerry think that President Bush is making up and pushing like crack in order to exaggerate the threat of terrorism?

Kerry says threat of terrorism is exaggerated

I am posting this in part to show that I am not opposed to airing out really stupid comments made by Israeli officials:

Israeli Minister Urges Christian Missionaries to Convert Muslim Militants

I'm telling you we Jews have it all wrong. We keep sending millions to Israel when other religions in the U.S. receive support from their "home" countries. The Catholic Church is supported by Rome, mosques are supported by the government of Saudi Arabia, etc.

To a point I made earlier, if radical Islam is supposed to be a small, not-widely-accepted version of Islam, how come it's so popular in the largest mosques here in the U.S.?

This from Chocago - Hard-liners won battle for Bridgeview mosque

An film made by a young Argentine Jew about an Argentine Jewish family was selected to be shown at the Berlin Film Festival. It's called "El Abrazo Partido" which is translated to "A Lost Embrace". I've seen this director's work in "Waiting for Messiah" at a Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center in NY a couple of years ago. It was a very good picture. I always love to see movies about Jewish life in other parts of the world, expecially Argentina where I spent quite a bit of time and met my wife.

It's one thing to be trapped while test driving an automobile with an evangelical Christian salesperson (which did in fact happen to me just after I moved to Texas). It's worse to be trapped in a speeding aluminum tube with said person as your pilot.

I better brush up on my bible as I'm planning to fly a couple of round trips on American later this month.

Just wanted to point people to a well-written article about why the Christian churches single out homosexuality as a sin becuase it's in the Old Testament, yet ignore other traditional laws like kashrut and death penalties for certain other acts, etc. The byline is from someone at my local daily newspaper, but I caught it on the online site for the Grand Forks Herald.

The New York Times, and possibly most other newspapers do not print responses to letters to the editor, but I just have to do it here. Lisa Rubin, who is probably a nice Jewish upper-middle class mommy, just like my wife writes the following about the War in Iraq:

Reading "The Administration's Scramble" (editorial, Feb. 6) and "Get Me Rewrite!," by Paul Krugman (column, Feb. 6), just reinforces the poor example the Bush White House is setting for children.

My son is 6 years old and already interested in politics. We talk about major news stories every day, and closely follow the election campaigns.

How does a strategy of pre-emptive war play out to children? If they told us, "I hit him because he was planning to hit me," that would never fly. Even my 6-year-old believes that self-defense is the only rationale for a fight, and even then we must try to use words first to resolve differences.

I think Ms. Rubin is raising her child rather stupidly - I hope he turns out OK. Let's say the bully in question goes to another school. The bully kills a bunch of his classmates, starts fights with a couple of nearby schools where your son's friends go and kills a bunch of kids there and then tries to kill your husband when he goes to visit the area. Your son goes over to the other school, takes out a bunch of the bully's friends and then captures the bully to be tried by law, in a manner agreed upon with the bully's classmates. Some more innocent children are hurt or killed in the process, but only a tiny fraction of those who the bully has hurt and killed in the past and most likely would have in the future.

Now Ms. Rubin, you've just taught your son to do the right thing and is a hero instead of a walking potential victim who chooses to spend his life debating with monsters.

And by the way, there's a man named Joe Smith in Florida who Ms. Rubin should "talk to". By herself. Maybe if she gets him to give up his car or other weapons he might have, he won't kill anyone else again. Or maybe not. But why should she care - he lives far away and never hurt her son.

And by the way, how would Ms. Rubin's son plan to stop the bully with "words". And what if it hadn't worked for 12 years while the killings continued?

I was watching a John Kerry speech on C-Span tonight which took place in Michigan. He came out with a line that was something like this - "We should not be builidng firehouses in Iraq and closing therm here" which got big applause from the crowd. I thought that was really appealing to the lowest common denominator - selfish desire for government funds and ignoring the world around you.

I figured he'd used it before, and sure enough it's an old line. See this Salon related blog from last July.

Here it is on Kerry's campaign site as transcribed from a speech last August.

Since I've been surfing the net, I don't think I've ever seen such an graphic description of a Jewish person taking a beating by bigoted assholes. Even more stunning was that it was a German guy in New York beating up a non-Jewish woman wearing a Jewish star.

I hope that this brave woman gets well quickly and the Nazi bastard gets sent back to his country of origin.

Link found at KesherTalk.

When the local evangelists come by with tickets for the Passion, show this woman's picture to them and then give them a history about real suffering.

Now that the latest unemployment figures are out, let's look at Bush's jobless recovery. While it is true that under President Clinton unemployment went down from 7.5 to 3.9 percent, it did take 8 years. In the best year of those years, unemployment was down 1.2 percent from Feb. 1994 to Feb. 1995 when the rate went from 6.6 to 5.4 percent. And that didn't happen until the economy had already been growing for 3 years!

Just in the last seven months, the unemployment rate is down 0.6 percent which seems to be a pretty steep drop, shaping up to be equal to Clinton's best year. And this is happening only 2 years after the last recession ended. Patience my friends!

In fact if you look at unemployment at the beginning of 2002 when Bush's first budget took affect, it's about the same now or a little lower and heading downward. That's after dealing with the post 9/11 recession, a bear market on Wall Street and a couple of wars. Seems like the Bush plan is working to me.

And by the way about the deficit/debt - percentagewise it was much worse under Reagan and everyone was screaming that future generations would have to suffer for it. Well, it's 20 years later the next generation has been born and I don't see us as being much worse off.

I'm more than happy to have someone show me numbers to convince me otherwise, because as they say, "figures lie and liars figure". And we all know BUSH LIED! Don't we?

The New York Times has once again used lawyerly language and subterfuge to alter the debate on Saddam's WMDs. This is from today's editorial - The Administration's Scramble

Mr. Rumsfeld told Congress that it was "possible, but not likely" that Iraq had not had weapons of mass destruction at the start of the war. He suggested that weapons might have been shipped to another country, destroyed just before the invasion or buried somewhere in Iraq. Those possibilities have largely been discounted by Dr. Kay.

Yet here is a quote from a January 2004 interview with Dr. Kay as reported in the Times-owned International Herald Tribune:

‘‘But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.’’

How the words "we know" turns into "largely discounted" I'm not exactly sure. I think what the Times wants to say is that we are discounting Dr. Kay's statements since we do not have exact details as to the WMDs that went to Syria.

As much hatred as I have for radical Islam, I still consider myself fairly ignorant about the religion in general. Therefore, I still have faith in the "religion of peace" description, co-Abrahamic faith and all of that good stuff that will eventually win out in the end.

Just to show my ignorance, even after everything I've read about the hajj and Eid al-Adha this week, I thought Muslims were commemorating the potential sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. It turns out that at least part of Islam teaches that it was not Isaac under the knife, but Ishmael and that the Jews surreptitiously changed the Old Testament so that they could claim the covenant with G-d given to Abraham's son.

Here's on of the more in-depth defenses I saw from the standpoint of Islam. If you just "google" Isaac and Ishmael you'll find a lot more.

Does everyone who follows Islam think that the Jews stole what was rightfully theirs and lied to cover it up?

Now that my anger and disgust is back up - let's read about how some Palestinians "celebrate" this holiday (the attached photo is presented with the story but I don't know that it's from the event described below):

The holiday commemorates the story from the Quran when God told Ibrahim to sacrifice his son as a test of his faith. As Ibrahim raises the knife to carry out the command, God replaces the child with a sheep, which Ibrahim slaughters instead. In the Quran, Ibrahim is about to sacrifice his son Ishmael. The same story in the Bible has the man, known as Abraham, about to sacrifice another son, Isaac.

Muslims throughout the world slaughter a cow, camel or sheep to mark the feast. Freshly killed animals hung upside down from doorways across Gaza on Sunday so the blood could drain out. Some men carried plastic bags filled with meat.

In past years, Baha Nakip, 36, would slaughter a sheep. But this year, he said he and five friends each pitched in $245 to buy the cow to have more meat.

They tied it up to a post in an empty garage. Ashraf Abu Karish, a local butcher the men hired for $65, circled the frightened animal, occasionally jabbing it in the neck with a small, sharp knife.

About 20 friends, family and small children huddled in a doorway to watch - and Nakip pulled out his video camera to tape - as the cow struggled and slipped in its own blood before dropping dead.

Karish hoped to slaughter five or six cows by the end of the day, with each one taking about one and a half hours.

Nice



Good for a laugh - A Palestinian boy laughs, backdropped by handprints made by youths from the blood of a freshly slaughtered sheep, on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha

There's an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about some apparent contradictions in how some Muslims choose to celebrate Eid al-Adha:

Both in Mecca and Erbil, Eid al-Adha was marked by an inversion of traditional intent: to celebrate the sanctity of life. The bitter irony of this year's holiday speaks to an erosion in respect for human life in large parts of the Muslim world.

The thread that connects the recurring stampedes in Mecca, the suicide bombings in Iraq, and the lopsided exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah is the deficit of respect for the individual in the Arab world. This erosion has occurred in a political context, where too many governments in the region deny their citizens basic individual rights in order to maintain a tight grip on society. When societies trample over the individual, human life is debased.

Eid al-Adha offers a message of redemption, that a near child-sacrifice can be transformed into an appreciation of human life.

Amen.

Read the whole thing here.

Are you among the "unsaved"? If you see someone walking around with a pin that has Aramaic writing on it - don't ask.

Some Christians See 'Passion' as Evangelism Tool

I took this test from AOL News and Time Magazine and it told me that I should vote for Kerry, then maybe Edwards. Even Dean ranked ahead of Bush. Either my personal political compass is way off base or these guys have an agenda.

This game will keep you busy for awhile. Who needs an X-Box?

You gotta love this story:

PITTSBURGH - A second-grader was suspended for a day for telling a classmate he would go to hell for saying, "I swear to God."

Brandy McKenith, 7, was suspended for swearing for saying the word "hell," but her family says she was referring to the biblical location of fire and brimstone.

But that's not the funniest part - read her father's reaction:

"I said, `Hell? She got suspended for that?"' McKenith said.

You can't make this stuff up. Second grader suspended for swearing warning

I sure hope this guy represents Iraqi mainstream thought. Also from the Wall Street Journal.

'Battered But Not Bowed'

Here's a very interesting twist on the usual post 9/11 "Why do they hate us"? soul-searching. Bernard Lewis says we're asking the wrong questions.

“More generally ... you can’t be rich, strong, successful and loved, particularly by those who are not rich, not strong and not successful. So the hatred is something almost axiomatic. The question which we should be asking is why do they neither fear nor respect us?”

And here's another question from yours truly. Why do they think it's a zero sum game? Why can't we all be rich, strong and successful?

You can read the whole story in the Wall Street Journal here. Hat tip to LGF.

Aside from the pure revulsion that I felt when I read this story, it made me think. If one person heckles you, it's annoying. If thirty people heckle you and think you deserve to die, it's scary. Especially for a young woman.

And another thing - I think these hoodlums felt they could do what they did because in France they feel comfortable doing it - notwithstanding government statements that someone will "look into it".

French singer heckled as 'dirty Jew'

It looks like the Gaza pullout may actually happen and has the backing of the majority of Israelis and Sharon's opposition in the Knesset. Isn't it always the hardliners that wind up giving up land?

Olmert: Gaza evacuation to commence in June or July

Is there a punishment harsh enough for this crime?

Techie Names First Son Version 2.0

HOLLAND, Mich. - Tacking Jr. or II onto a boy's name is too common, a new father decided, so the self-described engineering geek took a software approach to naming his newborn son.

Jon Blake Cusack talked his wife, Jamie, into naming their son Jon Blake Cusack 2.0.

Version 2.0 was born Tuesday at Holland Community Hospital, and the proud parents took him home Friday.

"I wanted to find something different to name him besides Jon Blake," Cusack, who is self-employed with Westshore Design and Cusack Music, told The Holland Sentinel.

Umm, how about Jeffrey or Justin?

Sharon Tells Israeli Daily He Plans to Remove Israeli Settlers From Gaza

I'm all for this personally, I don't really see how Jews will ever we welcome there and I'm not particularly educated about any historical significance attached to Gaza. Normally, I think this kind of thing shows weakness, but this one really isn't worth it.

Perhaps it will make a good test case for what I think will eventually happen in the West Bank. First, the Jews pull out. Then the terrorists swarm in and attack Israel proper more frequently with rockets, missiles and such. Then the Israeli Army goes in and forces the Palestinians out of Gaza altogether into the Egyptian desert.

Is there another scenario that's even remotely likely?

By the way, if anyone thinks that peace is coming anytime soon, check out this cover of Life Magazine from 35 years ago, posted at LGF:



These are the parents (or even grandparents) of today's Palestinian death cult.