11.30.2005 | Good news for a change

Progress is made, with tiny, baby steps. But, as big things are often changed by a sufficiency of small things, this is important. Received this morning via e-mail from American Friends of Magen David, the news that Magen David Adom and the Palestine Red Crescent Society have agreed to cooperate:

Magen David Adom and Palestine Red Crescent Society Sign Memorandum of Understanding:

Magen David Adom in Israel (MDA) and the Palestine Red Crescent Society have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Geneva which top officials said should help end a decades-old dispute and ease Israel's entry into the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.. Signing the agreement was Noam Yifrach, Magen David Adom Chairman and Younis Al-Khatib, President of the Palestine Red Crescent Society. It was witnessed by Philippe Cuvillier, member of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Standing Commission, President of the ICRC Jakob Kellenberger and Bengt Westerberg, ICRC Vice President. The signing was held under the auspices of Swiss Federal Councillor Micheline Calmy-Rey, head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

The agreement between Magen David Adom and the Palestinian Red Crescent amounts to formal mutual recognition by the two groups. Monday's signing ceremony in Geneva comes a week before a conference of the 192 signatories of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, on December 5-6, 2005, that is widely expected to formally recognize a "Red Crystal" alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols already in use. This “Third Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions” is expected to pave the way for Magen David Adom in Israel’s inclusion in the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Some background on that "Red Crystal" may be found in this story from the (U.K.) Telegraph. The thinking man might just wonder: why, exactly, is it acceptable to have a crescent, but not a Star of David in place of the "traditional" red cross?

The correct answer is, "it is not acceptable." To allow any other symbol than the red cross shows that it (the cross) is not sacrosanct. Once this door to multiple symbols has been opened, to disallow another symbol, which stands for one of the world's great monotheistic faiths, smacks of anti-semitism.

Hopefully this shameful denial of full rights for the Magen David Adom is a harbinger of fuller acceptance of Israel.

11.29.2005 | Rudy, Rudy, Rudy

Can't you almost hear the roar of the crowds for their hero, Rudy Ruettiger, as he is carried off the field by his Notre Dame teammates? Oh. Wrong Rudy. But some of the same character traits may get Hizzoner Rudy Giuliani on the Republican ticket in 2008.

Rudy Ruettiger showed that with enough heart and determination, he could earn a varsity letter in football at one of the strongest football schools in the known universe. No mean feat. Rudy Giuliani showed that with enough heart and determination, he could clean up New York's subways and dramatically reduce crime. And make New York, once again, a city in which to live, and not merely visit.

Rudy G. has two problems that might hurt him as a Republican presidential candidate. The first is his personal life, which has some rocky spots. To say the least. They are only ugly bumps in the road, however, and only insurmountable to those who are without sin themselves. You know who you are, Pat Robertson.

The second problem? Rudy G. is, gasp, soft on abortion. There's a goodly portion of the Republican base, the social conservative wing, who will not be terribly enthusiastic about a Giuliani candidacy. To say the least.

But here's the nub of it: where else are they going to go? Vote for Hillary? Stay home and watch a Hillary get elected? Don't think so. Rudy G. is a social moderate, fiscal conservative, tough on law-and-order, and showed that he is a natural-born leader during 9/11. If he runs with Condi Rice as his veep, I say he'll walk all over The Hillary and whichever de-balled cretin agrees to be her running "mate."

11.28.2005 | What a waste

In more ways than one. Here's what happened in my town some months ago. A guy takes his 9-year old son away from his mother, in violation of a court order. Oh, should also mention this small fact: he abducted the boy at gunpoint.

This man then took his son to his house, and resisted all attempts by the police to let the boy go peacefully. Remember, this man is armed. During a 20-hour standoff, the guy becomes more and more hostile, and drunk, and verbally threatens to shoot the police. Finally, he comes out, waving his gun in the air.

Put yourself in the shoes of a policeman on the scene. What would you do at this point? If you're sane and don't have a death wish, you pop the guy with as many rounds as it takes to kill him, to ensure that innocents don't die as well. This is exactly what happened.

Well, that should have been that, except for the sadness that the guy's boy will carry for the rest of his life: his dad was such a loser that he couldn't even die with dignity; his demons got the better of him. What a waste of a life.

Now, according to this story in the WaPo,

Alexandria Police Chief Charles E. Samarra has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to review the fatal police shooting of Lewis Barber...The request comes after the police department's Internal Affairs Division presented a report to the Alexandria Human Rights Commission recently that clears two officers involved in the shooting of Barber, who had abducted his son at gunpoint. The commission voted 13 to 1 to accept the internal police investigation.

Truly, we live in soft, hyper-sensitive times. Where the police and the criminals they stop are equally guilty. Actually, the police are the only ones presumed guilty. Perps are presumed innocent under our Constitution, but, of course, police don't quite have the same rights.

Let's review the bidding. Drunk moke waving a gun at police, after having kidnapped a child, is killed. Police internal investigation clears the officers involved in the shooting of wrongdoing. The investigation is vetted by some do-gooder police overlords, who also clear the officers. But now, the chief wants to have the Feds on the case, just in case his own officers are all lying scumbags, as is the civilian review board.

So, our sensitive police chief, not having much better to do (been down in the projects, lately, chief?), just has to waste more taxpayer dollars on a totally unnecessary investigation. No one wants cops who blow innocents away. But all citizens should likewise demand that the police pay full attention to what should be their sole priority: stopping bad guys.

Which very much include drunks who kidnap children and hold them at gunpoint. Real fathers don't do that. And real police chiefs don't second, and triple-guess their officers. Perhaps the Alexandria chief should find work more suitable to his mentality. Like social worker.

11.26.2005 | "no specific qualifications"

...For the post of Secretary General of the Untied Nations. No, that's not a typo. It seems there are quite a few worthies from around the world who would like to be in the final swimsuit competition at Turtle Bay. From the lengthy story in one of the MSM's UN cheerleaders:

There are no specific qualifications for secretary general. Officeholders have been drawn from the international diplomatic corps or, in Annan's case, from the U.N. bureaucracy. The U.N. charter states that the chief is to be appointed by the General Assembly at the recommendation of the 15-nation Security Council.

In practice, the five permanent veto-wielding members of the council -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- ultimately select the secretary general by secret ballot. Hopefuls have hailed from relatively powerless countries that have few regional rivals, and typically have never done anything to offend the five permanent council members...

Speaking as but one American, my vote is that no one be the next Secretary General. As in, abolish the stinking pile of dead fish that now fouls up my native town of New York.

We don't need the UN Secretariat; we certainly don't need another blind thief at the helm. Get us out of there; get them out of our country. Let the nation that wants to provide the next Thief-General also host the mess -- preferably in a swamp loaded with crocodiles, or on an island in a river that runs with piranhas. Lots of them.

11.25.2005 | M&M's Happen

Just when you thought it was safe to enjoy M&M's, this: a baloon depicting one of my favorite snacks in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade went askew, and...oh, the humanity...one girl needed stitches, and another girl got some bruises. I've been to the Parade, in person, and, I can tell you, it's scary out there. Helmets and flak vests for all, is what I say.

The story, which was featured on Fox this morning, is here, in all it's front-page glory, at the New York Post. The accident, the first in eight years, is, somehow, considered worthy of the Mayor's attention:

He [Bloomberg] said the city would investigate the cause of the mishap, and review whether more safety changes are needed. The probe will delve into whether the light fixture - which was among those that had been redesigned - was properly secured.

No one wishes that little girls get injured. Well, except for terrorists who routinely bomb locations with women and children. Accidents do happen; the world can never be made 100 per cent safe for human habitation.

To the girls who were injured: thankfully you will recover quickly. To those who are pushing for perfect safety: get real. M&M's happen.

11.24.2005 | Thanks for the Malls

Richard Cohen has a column today which, I hate to admit, I agree with. Mostly. It's about one of my pet peeves -- the loss of meaning in many of our national holidays. They've become just another excuse to go the the mall and spend, spend, spend.

When I was growing up in the Bronx, my Irish "friends" (I'm ethnically Jewish) would taunt us around Christmas time. Nasty words, to the effect that it was all of those "Jew merchants" (you know, the pushcart pedlars who owned the big department stores in Manhattan) who had stolen Christmas.

What I never noticed were the guns pointed at the heads of all the nominal Christians who complained about this, making them go and buy buy buy...

One quibble with Cohen's column, though. He wrote "if it [the Declaration of Independence] were introduced into the current Congress, Republicans would bottle it up in committee." Actually, given the way the Declaration begins with all those references to God, I think that it's the Democrats who would kill it before it's birth.

After all, Congress has the right to choose...it's their body.

11.22.2005 | Where not to shop...

...when in Braintree, Massachussetts. From the Boston Herald, this sad little story of a shlub who needed help in deleting kiddie porn from his digital camera -- so he went to the local Best Buy. From the Herald:

Quick-thinking employees at a Braintree Best Buy stunned by a customer’s graphic photos stalled the suspect while flagging police. The customer, police say, turned to Best Buy for help in deleting the alleged child pornography from his digital camera. The employees distracted the suspect while police making a drug bust in the parking lot were alerted.

What a great store. Their customers are would-be kiddie pornographers who are too stupid to know how to delete pictures from their cameras. And their other customers, only marginally less degenerate, are in the parking lot getting busted for drugs.

Yeah, I know. Unfair to Best Buy. One of my favorite box stores. But, hard cheese.

Way to go, Best Buy. Open at 5 am this Friday for drug deals. At least in Braintree, Mass. Close to John Kerry's home turf, no?

11.20.2005 | Rent this

The latest fad isn't quite so recent. It's Rent, about to be released in a "hey-let's celebrate people who kill themselves with sex and drugs and then moan about how unfair life is" movie. Sort of like a hipper "Angels in America", another celebration of depravity, all dressed up as treacly compassion.

The problem with these we-love-AIDS epics isn't that we shouldn't have pity on people who suffer. But here's the thing: we all suffer. What is missing from this cultural phenomenon is much sense of personal responsibility. As in, you stick your dingus where it doesn't belong, or do drugs, you just might reap the benefits of an early death. But you'll be blessed, don't you see, because you'll be among today's favored "victim" groups.

The horrible truth about AIDS is that it would not propogate if two things took place: there was no homosexual sex, and no intravenous drug use. I realize that these things are not likely to happen anytime soon. But that's the harsh truth.

Well, there's always a silver lining: at least, if you get AIDS, in its final stages, you'll be as thin as you always wanted to be.

11.18.2005 | The other Adams

Scott, by name. Creator and brainiac of Dilbert, who is Dogbert's pet human. Looks like Scott is attempting to become another Douglas, may he rest in peace. Well, today, Scott Adams is offering you a free download of his widely praised, cursed, and ignored non-Dilbert opus, God's Debris: A Thought Experiment.

From The Dilbert Blog, Scott Adams writes:

Many people have told me that God's Debris is the best book they've ever read (really). About an equal number say it's in [sic] insult to literature and a disservice to humanity (really). But more important, it's FREE.

The hard cover version of God's Debris was a solid financial success. But it's such a strange little piece of work that it was hard to market it. People don't even agree about whether it's fiction or non-fiction, religion or science fiction or philosophy or just a good old fashioned mind-%*$#.

If you couldn't be inspired to pay real money for such a thing, I get that. But just think about how much more you enjoy a crappy movie if it's on a long flight and it's free. This is exactly like that, except without the peanuts. How much could you regret having a free book that downloads in seconds?

A sampling of the widely-ranging reader comments at Amazon.com:

• Want to have your brains spun around inside your skull?
• piece of crap
• you must buy this book

Well, now we need not actually buy it. Looks like fun; I'll give it a tussle.

11.17.2005 | Kazakhs

With a tip o' the fedora to yesterday's WSJ Best of the Web, we find some wizard, minister, imam, or whatever from Kazakhistan whining that his "nation" is being made sport of. I couldn't find a picture of this minister, so I used a reasonable approximation, with no offence meant towards the Elbonians.

Appears that the Kazakhs (sounds like hocking a loogy, you ask me) were offended by a Saturday Night-Live type of skit sending up their nation. From this untrustworthy MSM source:

Sacha Baron Cohen, who portrays a spoof Kazakh television presenter Borat in his "Da Ali G Show," has won fame ridiculing Kazakhstan, the world's ninth largest country yet still little known to many in the West, on British and U.S. channels.

Cohen appears to have drawn official Kazakh ire after he hosted the annual MTV Europe Music Awards show in Lisbon earlier this month as Borat, who arrived in an Air Kazakh propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a vodka bottle.

Go, Sacha. As for the Kazakhs, they were not amused:

"We do not rule out that Mr. Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way," Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news briefing.

"We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind."

Ooh, be scared, Sacha. If the Kazakhs can gather enough shekels or pigs snouts or whatever they use for currency, who knows, they might show up in London. England, if they get lucky. Ontario, Canada, if they don't.

Seriously, Kazakhs: we in the West call it freedom of speech. Try it, you might like it.

11.16.2005 | Ya drink too much coffee...

...I drink too much stout. From Flogging Molly's Black Friday Rule. Flogging Molly, although the boyos are all living in SoCal, have that rough Irish sensibility that translates into a fine combination of Irish, punk, and plain old rock and/or roll.

These are songs to drink by. These are songs to start fights by. Mostly, these are songs to raise your energy level and let you remember why you're in the human race. For that is the one word that best describes Floggy Molly: energy. They can play frenzied songs, loud songs, sad, even mournful songs. At the end of a set, you know you've been listening to something a little different than the ordinary.

And about as far as you can get from the pasteurized pap that passes for pop music these days.

11.14.2005 | Yes, it's not nice...

...but every now and again, don't we all wish we could be like Greg House, M.D.? As in the character played by Hugh Laurie on the excellent Fox show, "House, M.D."

The eponymous (love that word, don't you?) show's lead character is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon. He is nasty. He is cruel to patients. He has the bedside manner of a bull in a china shop. But, because he is portrayed as a brilliant diagnostician, he is allowed to keep his job.

Who would you rather be treated by, should you, may God forbid, come down with a mysterious, debilitating, or life-threatening condition? A kindly country doctor type who really, really cares about you as a patient, or someone who will be able to diagnose and treat what's actually killing you? If that's the real-world choice, give me Dr. Curmudgeon any day of the week.

In a typical vignette from last week's show, House greets an EMT tech who is trying to give the best medical information he can to House as a patient is wheeled in on a gurney. House growls at the well-meaning EMT, and says something like, "If you had knuckled down harder in high school, you might have become a doctor. Let me diagnose this patient."

To which the offended tech says, "Bite me." Which I can respect. But how many of us wish we could go through life saying exactly what we think, 24/7? And not caring what people may think of us? And, best of all, being good enough, or indispensible enough, at our jobs to get away with it?

11.12.2005 | Dear Pat...

...put a sock in it, already. That's Pat Robertson, evangelism's clown prince of darkness. Pat has apparently decided that God will no longer hear the prayers of the citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, population 1,914.

Why so, we of a skeptical, or a more Christian mind than perhaps Br'er Robertson, might ask? Well, here's what Pat said (via WBAL; that's in Balmer, Hon):

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city. And don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for his help because he might not be there."

Well, that's the spirit, Pat. God won't forgive the people of Dover, PA. And, is it just me, or has Pat confused a political decision on the controversial "intelligent design" with rejection of God?

Appears as he has. Pray for Pat; perhaps one day he'll see the light.

___
Truth in blogging: Yeah, I'm a Christian...
apparently just not Pat's kind.

11.10.2005 | You can't make this stuff up

The latest horrific news from Jordan, following the only slightly less horrific news from the Paris 'burbs, could lead a serious man to drink. And to stocking up on some of Dr. Smith and Dr. Wesson's products to avoid the effects of jihaditis. In a classic bait and switch move, the evil toads in Tehran, via something called the tehrantimes, now inform us that "Zionist power stems from West's belief in "Holocaust" myth."

Right. Those pictures taken by our troops who liberated the death camps, all those personal statements, the evidence produced at the Nuremberg trials, all fake. Because some asshat from, yep, France, tells that the Holocaust simply did not take place. Worse, this licker of mullahs' butts tells us

the more the Western public believes in the "Holocaust" the more Muslims will be killed.

Well, yes. Everyone knows that we Christians go out and kill Muslims for the sheer joy of it, anyway. Our "religious" belief in the Holocaust just makes it ever so much more pleasurable to take it out on those poor, helpless followers of Mohammed. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?*

Our Holocaust-believing zeal to kill Muslims is apparently not fast or effective enough to prevent the publication of the kind of pig dung (yes, hopefully offensive to religion-of-peacers out there) found at the not-so-terrific-at-fact-checking "tehrantimes."

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your crotch, oh purveyors of anti-Semitic filth. Just putting it in words that the mullahs and their asslicking friend might understand.

____
*Military Phonetic Alphabet; use your imagination or ask someone who's been in
the service. This is (sort of) a family blog.

11.09.2005 | riding the rails

Took the train down to Savannah last weekend; all the way from Alexandria Virginia. There's something to be said for train travel, especially these days, when because of airline bankruptcies and tightened security, airline travel has become much more tedious and unfriendly.

Spending a lot of time in a half-full Amtrak passenger car is an antidote to the cattle-car scrum that most airports, and flights, have become. Start with the security measures, administered by barely-conscious minimum wagers, in response to the (real) threat posed, virtually without exception, by Middle Eastern males between the ages of 18 and 45. Nevermind that, Granny, take off your shoes -- you could be a terrorist.

This politically correct nonsense has added at least one hour to the real-world time for any flight, with essentially zero effect on actual security. On Amtrak, so far, sanity prevails. You show your ticket, you board the train. All you need to do is show up one minute before scheduled departure. One. Minute. Oh, and if you check your bags (we did), that takes exactly one minute. It did, however, take us four or so minutes to reclaim them.

But the actual trip takes oh so much longer, you say? Well, it is longer. But we happen to live five minutes from Alexandria's Amtrak station. And our destination was 15 minutes from the Savannah station. It did take us 11 hours going down, and 10 on the return, due to some delays en-route. When the actual door-to-door times for flying and riding the rails are compared, Amtrak probably takes about four hours more than flying.

Here's the secret for success, however: it isn't just about the door-to-door time. It's about comfort and convenience along the way. It's about feeling like a human being, and not just a piece of meat being squeezed into a seat with 200 of your new best friends on a flying sardine tin. And, no, I'm not overweight, but I am over five feet tall, and airline seats just are not comfortable. Amtrak seats are much more so.

On the train you can read, eat, sleep, walk about -- all whenever you want, not when the captain turns off the fasten seat belt sign. On Amtrak, there are no seatbelts. And for those few station stops that last more than two minutes, you can get out and greet the sun.

Price? Our business class seats (more room; free beverages) were less than coach airfare. All in all, unless you're so important that those four or so hours mean life or death, going by rail is the way to go.

And for once I wasn't on the wrong side of the tracks.

11.03.2005 | Dave can do it

"Dave" is one of my favorite "political" movies, ever. Political is in non-scary scare quotes (hey, Halloween's over; on with your boring, humdrum lives...) since it is clear that "Dave" is not meant to be taken as a serious statement on politics. Anyway, it dates from 1993, the first year of Bill Clinton's first term -- before we realized the truth about Mr. and Mrs. President.

Well, Dave Kovic really does feel your pain in the movie. The Kevin Kline character (Kovic) runs a temp agency, and Dave makes it his noble goal to make sure that everyone who wants a job finds one. Even when, as in a scene from the movie's beginning, the prospective employer can't afford to pay for another worker. Economics be damned; that's real compassion.

Well, in this fun fantasy, Dave Kovic is a dead ringer for the soon-to-be dead president. So, he's basically kidnapped on the orders of Bob Alexander, the president's mean-spirited Karl Rove (so Donks might wish), Bob Alexander, played just right by Frank Langella. Well, Dave's a good guy, as defined by Hollywood. As the stand-in president, he saves a homeless shelter, and then goes completely ape and announces a jobs program whereby any American who wants a job should have one.

Even Hillary would not dream so large. But then, "Dave" is a fantasy, and, I trust, was not taken too seriously -- then, or now. Oh, just in case I didn't mention it, although it isn't stated in so many words, the nasty president that Dave Kovic doubles for is almost certainly a budget-balancing Republican. You know, balancing the budget on the backs of the poor, yadda yadda yadda. Hey, it is a Hollywood production, after all.

But here's the serious thing that I'd like all hard-hearted, budget-balancing, green-eyeshade-wearing folks to reflect on: it's when Dave as president waxes about the simple yet profound human dignity of someone who has, finally, found a job, and done a decent day's work for wages. Anyone who has ever been out of work, or even only threatened with being out of work, knows this feeling. I do.

Yes, I know. Businesses can't stay in business if they simply pay people for showing up and it has no positive effect on the bottom line. But it's usually not that simple. There's all sorts of things that can be adjusted. Perhaps the CEO cuts his salary by a few million? Perhaps the school district finds a way to make do without repainting the teachers' lounges? And on, and on...there's always ways to save.

The message? More like a question than a sermon. What price should we put on human dignity? Does everything in life have to be reflected in a set of balanced books? Perhaps I'm getting soft in my old age, but if we can afford millions for a useless bridge to nowhere in Alaska, not to mention billions for useless pork and a lot of corporate welfare, surely there's something we can reprogram in the name of human dignity?

11.02.2005 | "We ♥ Cindy"

That's Cindy Moonbat. According to the always fun Village Voice, anti-Semite and all-around moonbat Cindy Sheehan sounds like a politico and should run for Prez. Or at least senator from New York.

Hey, Hillary's not any kind of a New Yorker, yet their she and her carpetbag sit in the Senate. Of course, the evil spawn of the gangster Kennedy clan, Robert F. Kennedy, did much the same thing forty years ago. Between the two, I think that Bobby was much less of a moonbat, and he wasn't too much of an anti-Semite. leastways not like his evil daddy, Joseph Moonshiner Kennedy.

Best outcome for New Yorkers? Someone like Cindy run against The Hillary from the left, and force Hillary to show her true colors. Which are pink verging on red.

If you doubt this, please remember her failed attempt as co-president with Slick Willy to force socialized medicine down our throats.

11.01.2005 | Candy hangover

Well, happy All Saints' Day, fellow believers. Oh, just the morning after the night before to you? Heathens. As usual, I bought far too much candy for the pathetically few number of trick-or-treaters who actually darkened our door.

In other words, my plan to have a stealth supply of Snickers and other things not on the government's food pyramid (what do those morons know about the pleasures of a Snickers bar or three?).

I have learned at least one truth about my gluttony, however. And, no, it's not that I'm overweight (I am not) or have any serious health issues (I do not so far, knock on wood to bring out the good wood sprites). It is that too much chocolate gives me a headache. Invariably, if I eat more than three or four ounces of chocolate goodness I get what feels like a whisky-fueled hangover headache.

Call it the wages of sin. Now, where did I put the leftover candy?