Prolonged Feline

Cooling off

2010-05-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

According to the BBC:

"The Icelandic volcano which has been disrupting air traffic for more than a month is showing a marked drop in activity, new measurements suggest."

All good things must come to an end. According to anonymous sources, the volcano was tired of being followed around everywhere by papparazi, and the last straw was seeing her name linked to Ashton Kutchner.

Quoth the Volcano: "Nobody deserves this kind of treatment from bourgeois pigs who cannot understand art. What does anyone see in that drip?"

The Volcano has let it be known that she is moving to a commune in the South Pacific, to "reconnect with herself and think some things through", and "perhaps write a book".

She was last seen boarding a plane, wearing a fabulous purple blouse, with some lovely Vuitton luggage. It is not known if she is travelling alone.

UNADULTERATED EVIL

2010-01-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

The following list of people have certain things in common.
[This 'constitutionally protected expression of an opinion' is cross-posted here: http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2010/01/unadulterated-evil.html
As they say on South Park: "bite me!".]

Fatemeh Abdollahzadeh
Ervand Abrahamian
Ali Abunimah
Gilbert Achcar
Dirk Adriaensens
Amir Afrassiabi
Moji Agha
Michael Albert
Tariq Ali
Khadouri Al-Kaysi
Sima Aprahamian
Anthony Arnove
Hani Y. Awadallah
Barbara Aziz
Afshin Babazadeh
Nellie Hester Bailey
Brian Barraza
David Barrows
Medea Benjamin
Tony Benn
Sharon Black
Hamid Bonyadi
Jean Bricmont
John Catalinotto
Ed Childs
Noam Chomsky
Ramsey Clark
Jeremiah Cohen
Michel Collon
Gerry Condon
Heather Cottin
Tiphaine Dickson
Kelly Dougherty
LeiLani Dowell
Jack Edmonson
Gregory Elich
Nawal El-Saadawi
Eve Ensler
Jodie Evans
Elena Everett
Leslie Feinberg
Lenora Foerstel
John Bellamy Foster
Eduardo Galeano
George Galloway
Peter Gilbert
Steve Gillis
Jim Goodnow
Thomas Gumbleton
Teresa Gutierrez
Samia Halaby
Denis J. Halliday
Bagher R. Harand
Klaus Hartmann
Jesse Lokahi Heiwa
Imani Henry
Sherif Hetata
Connie Hogarth
Larry Holmes
Eric Hooglund
William Hughes
Berta Joubert-Ceci
Charlotte Kates
Nada Khader
Rashid Khalidi
Dal LaMagna
Beth Lamont
Dustin Langley
Camilo Mejía
Robert Merrill
Polly Miller
Monica Moorehead
Gael Murphy
Milan Neuberg
Sara Nichols
Erik-Anders Nilsson
Michael Parenti
John Parker
Pam Parker
Harold Pinter
Rostam Pourzal
Ralph Poynter
Minnie B. Pratt
Anne Pruden
David N. Rahni
Milos Raickovich
Sami Ramadani
Arundhati Roy
Gloria Rubac
Bonnie Rubenstein
Nader Sadeghi
Roudabeh Shafie
Andy Shallal
Cindy Sheehan
Reza Shirazi
David Sole
Nana Soul
Joan Stallard
Johnnie Stevens
Lynne Stewart
Brenda Stokely
David Swanson
Mark L. Taylor
Filipe C. Teixeira
Nadje Tesich
Tony Van Der Meer
Saeed Vaseghi
Paul H Verduin
Michael Viers
Dave Welsh
Walter Williams
Howard Zinn

Some of them are members of academia, some are of the cloth, a few are writers.
They come from diverse backgrounds, and represent differing fields of endeavor.
All of them, however, share one significant and thoroughly repulsive passion.

Palestine TV is a light unto the nations

2009-08-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Palestinian politics is all about perks and cushy jobs. Sometimes, rank warlordism.
If the collapse of Fatah in Gaza was due to inefficiency, corruption, and the gangster politics typical of fiefdoms of the Arab world, the eventual social collapse in the West Bank may be due to a combination of limpness, and mis-applied inter-Palestinian force.

Fatah, at times, seems not so much moderate as simply opportunistic.

Consider the recent shenanigans at Palestine TV.

Quote:
"Abed Rabbo lost his temper last week when Palestine TV failed to dispatch a crew to film Fayad during a ceremony to inaugurate a village water project. [cut] Dahoudi and news editors have long been under heavy pressure from Abed Rabbo to devote much of the news bulletins to Fayad's activities and statements."
End quote.

Not just any temper tantrum, Abed Rabbo's hissy fit erupted into the abrupt dismissal of
Muhammad Dahoudi, director of Palestine TV.

Quote:
"......said that the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, was also under immense pressure from Abed Rabbo and his staff to give more prominence to Fayad in its news coverage."
End quote.

Apparently Mr Dahoudi is not accustomed to being treated like a dog.
Hence his disobedience, and Yasser Abed Rabo angrily firing him.

But it could've been much worse. Much, much worse.

Quote:
"This was not the first time that Abed Rabbo has made a controversial decision regarding Palestine TV. A few weeks ago, he issued an order banning the station from covering news related to Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and a top aide to Abbas. The row between Abed Rabbo and Abdel Rahim later escalated to an exchange of gunfire between their bodyguards and aides. "
End quote.

Source (Jerusalem Post, article by Khaled Abu Toameh): http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251145116597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251145116597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter]

As an example of 'Freedom of the Press', the soap-opera-like tumult at Palestine TV is not in the top ten. Unless under the file-heading of 'Banana Republic'.
As an illustration of "how not to advance the cause of modernity", however, it is absolutely in keeping with the traditions of many of the neighboring Arab countries.
Positively orthodox, in fact.

Stay tuned to this channel for frequent updates on the cheerful bumbling, zany highjinks, and 'boys-will-be-boys' romantic comedy over at Ramallah's favourite television station.
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll swoon!

Amnesty International's Gaza War

2009-08-28T02:00:00.000-07:00

Just about two months ago, Amnesty International issued its own proforma condemnation of Israel, in the form of a predictably biased and unreservedly pro-Palestinian report on Operation Cast Lead.

If you expected Amnesty International to condemn indiscriminate rockets at the civilians of Sderot, you would have been disappointed. If you expected a balanced and open-minded view followed by incontrovertible conclusions backed up by solid evidence and reason, you were disappointed.

If you expected a dense block of bafflegab critical of Israel and supportive of the revolutionary types so beloved of Europeans and citizens of the People's Republic of Berkeley, your guess was spot on, and you win the grand prize!

Quote:
"On 2 July Amnesty International published the most comprehensive report to date, titled Israel/Gaza - Operation 'Cast Lead': 22 Days of Death and Destruction. It suffers from a number of flaws, like neglecting the context of the war and the nature of the Hamas regime in Gaza, an uncritical approach to Palestinian witnesses and sources, selective use of Israeli sources and disregard for sources which contradict the opinions of the investigators, and a disputable view of ambiguous international laws and conventions. "
End quote:

Source: http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000707.html

Quote:
"Amnesty's definition of a civilian is rather broad. For instance, police officers are part of the Hamas control apparatus in the Gaza Strip and its military infrastructure, and many were also involved in armed groups like the Al Qassam Brigades. The entire armed branch of Hamas, including the diverse security and guerrilla forces, should be considered a legitimate target in a war, as are its political control apparatus, propaganda institutions and infrastructure.As a matter of fact Hamas censured the media for reporting about the death of Hamas fighters, so the number of reported deaths from Hamas' side may be lower than the real number of their casualties."
End quote.

Commissars, interrogation officers, torturers, goons, strong-arm Johnnies, religious extortionists, bomb makers, and every other badly dressed erratically armed functionary of the Islamic Revolution is perforce a civilian - only people wearing acknowledged military uniforms and pointing something heavy caliber at another person wearing a uniform is a 'non-civilian'.
I mention this because it is symptomatic of the thought processes of all the Europeans and citizens of the People's Republic of Berkeley when they condemn Israel.

And just so you know, wearing a kippah is an act of naked aggression, and marks the kippah-wearer as a member of the Zionist-Imperialist Aggressor - a legitimate target, in other words. As so often blandly stated by Europeans and citizens of the People's Republic of Berkeley.
[And, just as in Ramallah, Cairo, and Gaza City, wearing a kippah in Europe and the PRofB may get you killed. Or at least revolutionarily roughed up.]

Quote:
"It is unfortunate that an organization as renowned as Amnesty International, which engages in defending human rights worldwide, publishes a report as biased and unfair as the one discussed here. "
End quote

Unfortunate, yes, but surprising, no. It was entirely predictable that they should do so, and it is likewise certain that whenever the cause requires it, they will publish more. What is lamentable is that an organization which, on paper at least, has such a laudable purpose, has become the reserve of the usual crowd of armchair - coffee shop - lectern revolutionaries.

======================================================
All quotes taken from : http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/
From this article: Gaza War: Reviewing Amnesty International's Report on Operation Cast Lead
Authors of that article, Ratna Pelle and Wouter Brassé, can also be read here: http://www.israel-palestina.info/gaza_war_amnesty.html, or here: http://www.israel-palestina.info/english_section.html , where there is also an excellent and informative selection of backgrounders on the Arab/Israel conflict.
===================================

Trip across the Sinai

2009-08-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

So here I am on my porch, enjoying the cooling of the evening with a nice cup of tea, when I chance upon a lovely item forwarded to me be a concerned friend. She knows that I am due a vacation, and that work has been wearing me down.
So she e-mails me a lovely notice of a journey that surely I, of all people, should enjoy.

Vi azoy:

CODE PINK
GAZA FREEDOM MARCH

Itinerary:
Sunday, December 27 Orientation meeting in Cairo at 7 pm.
Monday, December 28, Leave Cairo for Al-Arish at 9 am; overnight in Al-Arish.
Tuesday, Dec 29, Enter Gaza from Rafah border.
Wednesday, Dec 30, Visit areas most devastated during Israeli invasion.
Thursday, Dec 31, Meet with civic organizations and community leaders, evening peace event.
Friday, January 1 - MILE LONG MARCH FOR FREEDOM.
Saturday, January 2 Return to Cairo (arrive Cairo 11pm).

All of this and more at www dot gazafreedommarch dot org.

[There are several other groups and individuals on board with this ridiculous adventure, not just Code Pink. All the usual suspects, in fact. Including the Corries, Chomsky, and several veterans for peace keen to revisit the Middle East. I do not know if they will all be wearing pink - it may not be the best idea in the Sinai, even during the cool season. Ruffled pink just stands out too much, and makes you a target, besides looking very silly.]

Wow! For just $250.00 I can stay in a camping in Gaza, or for $400.00 I can enjoy the comforts of a modern hotel, probably with airconditioning, pool, roomservice, and a lovely sunset view of the beach.

What should I do? What should I do?!??!

Should I tell her that my people have ALREADY made the journey through Sinai? Been there, done that, it was rewarding at the time, but has been the source of several silly movies since.
Should I tell her that I doubt that any hotel in gaza has a reliable Hechsher? Or tofu?
Should I tell her 'no thank you, the hummus in Tel Aviv is MUCH better, and doesn't come with a side of kalashnikov'?

Should I tell her that bunking with a bunch of ferkrampte antisemitische Berkeley earthmother types and butterfly huggers would drive my tension level through the friggin roof, even if they didn't find out that I was normal (ie, not "selfloathing twisted pro-terrorists coz they're really like innocent little children oh those fluffy huggable third-worlders in touch with nature waaah!"), which would force them to hand me over to the local goombas for re-education and a bonfire?

Or should I let her think that I am really a patsy, and encourage her to send me more interesting stuff from her mailing-list buddies?

Hmmmm. I think I'll do the sensible thing.
My, this tea is good! Time for another cup.
Pink isn't flatteing, by the way. It makes the skin look flat and sallow.

A view to kill for

2009-08-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

From the garden in the hills you can see the fog covering the city. How strange, the sun here is bright and warm, and San Francisco is shrouded in mists, but NOT mystery - I shall not be guilty of so glib and plastic a phrasing.

Nor will I make any metaphoric attempts at eloquence regarding the various bridges visible from this vantage point. The bay Bridge, Golden Gate, and S'Rafael are NOT, and I repeat that, NOT spider-webbing, nor fairy necklaces, nor at night garlands of glittering light.
They are bridges. They do not "gird", they merely connect.

This view does not inspire me to poetry nor song. Whatever romance might be intrinsic to such a sight is negated by the realization that that bump over there, the one overlooking the road, would make a lovely machine-gun emplacement. This is a very defendable position.
And that corner in the shade needs a bunker. Plus sandbags. Oh, the beauty of it all!

Shabbat shalom

2009-08-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

I found a tin of his tobacco which he had not finished. After so many years the smell has gone away, but I remember it. I went on to the internet to see if it is still available - for some reason, and I cannot clearly explain why, I need to smell it in full strenght again.
Perhaps I'll burn little bits of it on a plate.

His mother always made beef chunks in a paprika sauce for him when she visited. That was one dish I fund utterly repulsive. And those little boiled pasta gobs in lieu of potatoes that she insisted upon! That, too, is a remembered smell.

The bone of contention between us having disappeared, I get along better with the old cow now. Especially as she is in San Diego. Still not good and nice, but, better.
Maybe I'll send her a tin of tobacco one of these days.

Have a good Shabbat, you old cow.

Berkeley Daily Planet: Anti-Semitic fishwrap

2009-08-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

Another blogger who is also part of the Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers collective mentioned the Berkeley Daily Planet.

THE BERKELEY DAILY PLANET
Published on a weekly basis.
Distributed FREE
Worth every penny of it

The Berkeley Daily Planet is probably one of the worst excuses for journalism ever, run by a woman who imagines herself a writer of stature. Though that presumption is based on the flimsiest of pretexts. Lets face it, Becky O'Malley is a shoddy editor, a lousy editorialist, and pretentious in either role.
She is, in many ways, a typical Berkeleyite. Revolutionarily ignorant. Vainly so.

I used to read the Berkeley Daily Planet fairly regularly. Nowadays I read it at best sporadically, and only when I want to get my dander up.

Signable letter of outrage at the Berkeley Daily Planet's anti-Israel bias here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/fight-anti-semitic-rhetoric-at-the-berkeley-daily-planet/signatures.html

Daily Planet Watchdog, which critiques the BDP here:
http://dpwatchdog.com/

Blog posting that excerpts the most egregious crap from the BDP here:
http://deathbynoodles.blogspot.com/2009/07/daily-planet-watchdog-and-bitter-bitch.html

And a posting about the BDP here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/08/berkeley-daily-planet-hatreds-own.html

Given that the Berkeley Daily Planet is little more than an advertising freebie, and thus publishes what the advertisers will approve of, you can no doubt figure out what point of view rules in Berkeley. It is a tragedy that a place once known for intelligent discourse, innovation, and the free-speech movement, is now a pretentious middle-class burb, with little to boast of other than being in the forefront of comfortable arm-chair extremism.
The Berkeley Daily Planet perfectly evokes the stodginess and mental cowardice that has overtaken the left.
They are liberal only in their self-righteousness. Not in their intellectual processes.

------------------------------------------------------

This is not germane to this issue, but it really highlights what Becky O'Malley is all about:

Berkeley Daily Planet Reporter Quits Over Paper’s "Lack of Journalistic Integrity"
By Will Harper
Wednesday, Sep. 24 2008 @ 10:54AM

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2008/09/berkeley_daily_planet_reporter.php

Quote: Berkeley Daily Planet reporter Judith Scherr abruptly resigned from the paper last week after a dispute with editor and owner, Becky O’Malley, over journalistic ethics.
“After 2.5 years of being insulted, berated and lied to by the Daily Planet’s executive editor – and having my stories distorted by the deletion of quotes from persons Becky O’Malley hates and the addition of her nasty remarks about such people – I have left the Planet,” Scherr said in an email she sent to friends last Thursday.
----------------------CUT----------------------
“I could no longer be part of a newspaper with such a lack of journalistic integrity.”
End quote.

I never would've presumed journalistic integrity in the first place.
It is Berkeley, after all.

British media bias

2009-08-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

One of the key facts left out of most British news articles about the Palestinian families evicted from the houses in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood is that they were very much arrears on their rent.

Like many countries, the rights of renters are safeguarded to a large extent in Israel - as long as they maintained payment of rent, eviction would not have happened. Twenty eight families continue to pay rent - the Ghawi and Hanun families, however, didn't do so.

This seems like a germane detail.

Not to the British press.

The legal battle to reclaim the property, which had been seized by the Jordanian government, took years. This, too, seems a pertinent detail.

Not to the British press.

The Guardian described the evictions as "the ugly face of ethnic cleansing".

The Guardian, of course, represents the worst of le journaille-jaune Anglaise.
I suspect that if the Guardian were to write about the American revolution today, they would paint the rebels as fascists and criminals repressing the legitimate rights of upstanding British citizens, and the redcoats as pure unsullied gentlemen fighting against the forces of barbarism and chaos.

Oh wait. That is precisely how the Brits describe the American revolution. Never mind.

Palestinians want war

2009-08-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

The Palestinians have decided to push the envelope. And, given the envelope they have chosen to push, they have upped the ante, and guaranteed no peace in our time. All of this seemingly with the blessing of the quartet.

"Fatah's sixth General Assembly on Saturday approved a resolution saying Jerusalem is an "integral part of the Palestinian homeland and political entity""

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418552346&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

"The new resolution says that Fatah considers Jerusalem a "red line" that no one could cross. It defines Jerusalem as the "eternal capital of Palestine, the Arab world and the Islamic and Christian worlds." "

Also in Ha'aretz.
See here: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106050.html

"the Fatah general conference, which convened in Bethlehem for a three-day gathering, adopted a position paper which also states that the Palestinian national enterprise will not reach fruition until all of Jerusalem, including the outlying villages, come under Palestinian sovereignty. "

--------CUT---------

"the paper does not make a distinction between the eastern and western halves of the capital"

All of Jerusalem. Not only the parts that Jordan ethnically cleansed of Jews in 1948, not only the neighborhoods that they stole from the rightful owners during the two decades of Arab misrule, but all of it. They demand all of it BEFORE there will be a continuation of negotiations.

This represents the moderate side of Palestinian leadership? This is what Mahmud Abbas holds as a precondition for talks?

This is not moderate - it requires that the Jewish people to commit national suicide. If any American politician still supports the Palestinians, they prove themselves no friend of Israel.

Giving up Jerusalem in favor of the unwarranted and a-historic Palestinian claim cannot be done, will not happen.

Perhaps it is time for Israel to take out all of the Palestinian leadership. Wipe them out. Shoot the old guard. And let the young guys take over, with the example of the corpses of Mahmud Abbas and his henchmen, all of whom have Jewish blood on their hands, as a warning.

If Fatah does not accept that Jerusalem is Jewish, and that Arabs have no claim to the city, then they choose war. Given the cowardly and ineffective way that Arabs wage war, they will loose.
At which point, the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians may find themselves disappearing from the pages of history.

Sheikh Jarra? - No, Shimon HaTzaddik!

2009-08-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

Last week the Israeli government evicted several dozen Arab squatters from houses in East Jerusalem that had been purchased by and for Jews over a century ago. The Arabs had been plonked there by the Jordanian interim authority before all of Jerusalem reverted to Israeli control.

Sad for the Arabs - they had lived there for half a century. But some compensation money changed hands, and the court-case took ten years.

Here in San Francisco an eviction takes far less time than that. And we LIKE tenants here.

But now note: NOT ALL OF THE EVICTED SQUATTERS WERE ARAB - many of them, if not most, were Western European Anarchists. Swedish activists had turned the buildings into fortresses. It is both a testament to the professionalism of the Israeli police, and the essential cowardice of pampered Swedish provocateurs, that nobody was injured during the eviction. Things are not so smooth in the cities of Western Europe when radical thugs and criminals need to be thrown out of buildings they have occupied.

Nearly every month there are news reports of squatters' collectives fighting pitched battles with the cops in Europe. Often the riot police or swat are involved.

It took FORTY TWO YEARS to return these buildings in the Sheikh Jarra / Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood to their legal owners. No broken heads.

And yet...... Europe is critical; they should talk - their treatment of Arabs is far worse than anything Israel has done to her Arab population, and their treatment of all minorities makes what goes on in the 'occupied' territories look like candy.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is critical; who is she pandering to?
And the Arab world is critical; Jews could invent a cure for cancer, and Arabs would claim that it was poison, a Zionist plot, and stolen from the Arabs in the first place.

What can we learn from this?

Primarily that we should ignore the world. OR beat the crap out of Swedish leftwingers. Your choice ..... (but I definitely want the latter part of the program).

Israeli government morons

2009-08-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

This was stupid:

"Israel's consul-general in Boston sent a blunt and extremely critical letter of Israel's policies toward the US to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Channel 10 reported Thursday, saying that Israel's policies were causing damage to strategic ties with the US.
In the three-page letter, entitled "Sad passing thoughts on Israeli-US relations," Nadav Tamir wrote that the perception of a conflict between Israel and the Obama Administration was harming American public support for Israel, and causing it more damage than the Second Lebanon War or Operation Cast Lead. "

THE JERUSALEM POST
http://www.jpost.com
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418544513&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"The Israeli consul went on to say that narrow political considerations were contributing to the deterioration of the ties. "There are people in the US and Israeli politics who ideologically oppose [US President Barack] Obama, and are willing to sacrifice the special relationship between the two countries in order to advance their political agenda."

He also took the government to task for making differences with the US public, while Washington was trying to downplay them. "There have always been differences in the stances of the two countries, but the governments were careful to make sure they were coordinated," he reportedly wrote. "

----------CUT-------------------

"confrontation between the Israeli government and the Obama administration puts the American-Jewish community, which is so important to us, in a difficult position," he wrote. "Many of them are distancing themselves from the state of Israel because of this conflict." "

----------CUT-------------------

And of course, where was the published? In Israel. Who leaked the letter? Someone in Israel.
There are morons in high places in Israel.

Does it smell familiar?

2009-08-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

It's been five years, but I can still smell his tobacco in my dreams. He never was the most considerate of men.

I'm still eating off the plates we bought together, and I still add extra paprika to his favorite dishes, like his odious mother insisted I do. These are the things that I am far too accustomed to, and will not change.

His shirts are still in the closet; I wash them every few months. His kippot are on the shelf next to the smaller tallis. The larger one, well, you know. Occasionally one of the members of his shul calls, especially around rosh hashana. I've had more contact with them since then than while he was still around.
His friend Aaron called this morning. I can't remember Aaron's face. But his voice comforts me. Sort of. He mentioned the smell of the pipe. That's why.