Here are 100 memorable movie clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch_
The line above this one is a live link to click on.
.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Hollywood Moments
Here are 100 memorable movie clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch_
The line above this one is a live link to click on.
.
Zionist Goes Down the Toilet
[After the crash]I am going to spend the day cleaning the house in preparation for tenants who will be here tomorrow afternoon. Usually I have Karina, an illiterate Mexican cleaning lady, come and clean the house for me for bubkes. I both didn't think to call her in time and also am loath to spend the money.
Which is a mark of how much I have come down in the world. In 2005 I had a nice apartment in Paris and a house near San Francisco. In 2009 I am competing with a Mexican cleaning lady for work.
As a good Zionist I should perform every role in society, not just traditional Jewish ones like being a small business owner. Israel-haters talk about the "dark side" of Zionism. Little do they know it means cleaning toilets oneself instead of paying someone else to do it.
Will I do it again next time? Hell NO! Screw Ben-Gurion.
My task is lightened by my having figured out how to record music onto an iPod from CD's. Then I set it to shuffle play and have got it to play through the stereo. Wynton Marsalis playing trumpet is a joy. He is soooo good!
I recorded in Apple Lossless format so the music on the iPod should be exactly as good as on the CD. But it still has to go through the iPod's earphone amplifier which has analog output. I have sent for an inexpensive iPod dock that will send the unaltered digital signal instead. And it comes with a little white remote control. How cool is that?
Which is a mark of how much I have come down in the world. In 2005 I had a nice apartment in Paris and a house near San Francisco. In 2009 I am competing with a Mexican cleaning lady for work.
As a good Zionist I should perform every role in society, not just traditional Jewish ones like being a small business owner. Israel-haters talk about the "dark side" of Zionism. Little do they know it means cleaning toilets oneself instead of paying someone else to do it.
Will I do it again next time? Hell NO! Screw Ben-Gurion.
My task is lightened by my having figured out how to record music onto an iPod from CD's. Then I set it to shuffle play and have got it to play through the stereo. Wynton Marsalis playing trumpet is a joy. He is soooo good!
I recorded in Apple Lossless format so the music on the iPod should be exactly as good as on the CD. But it still has to go through the iPod's earphone amplifier which has analog output. I have sent for an inexpensive iPod dock that will send the unaltered digital signal instead. And it comes with a little white remote control. How cool is that?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Fort Hood Terrorist Turns Out to Be Muslim. Surprise! Surprise!
[Hajjis at the Great Mosque at Mecca with the Kaaba stone]Let's see, a doctor finds G_d, becomes an enthusiastic believer and proselytizer for the faith. What is his next step? Does he do charity work in a hospital for the poor? Missionary work in Africa? Volunteer his time at Hadassah hospital handling specialty pediatric eye surgery cases from all over the world? If he is a Christian or a Jew, yes. If he is a Muslim, he buys a semi-automatic pistol and ....
Major Nidal Hasan was in touch with a "radical" imam Anwar al-Awlaki. According to the Wall Street Journal -
Mr. Awlaki is right to mock "moderate" Muslims as hypocrites. Judging by what one actually sees, a "moderate" Muslim is one who lives somewhere where violence against non-Muslims will be met with force.
Which raises some questions for the rest of us. We cannot and should not expel Muslims legally living in the United States. But we are under no obligation, legal or moral, to admit any more of them. Nor to turn a blind eye to those of them here illegally.
But that does not address the problem of people like Major Hasan and Mr. Awlaki who were born here. Can we discriminate against them?
The impulsive answer is, "No, of course not." But the real answer is, to quote a prominent American politician, "Yes, we can."
Discrimination is constitutional when it is rational. A basketball team can hire and fire on the basis of the ability to play basketball. That is a rational discrimination. We call it competition and encourage it. Race or religion would be irrational bases on which to select basketball players unless it somehow affected their ability to play basketball. (Such as Jews refusing to play on Shabat. Which is why there are so few Jewish players in the NBA.)
We have customarily assumed that race and religion are irrational and thus unconstitutional bases for discrimination for all public purposes - admission to colleges, hiring for jobs, and all walks of public life. But Major Hasan has given pause to the blanket and unexamined application of that assumption.
Just as Jews are not hired as bishops nor Lutherans as rabbis, religion must be considered where it is relevant.
Israel sets us an example. Almost a quarter of Israelis are Arabs. For all the scandalous and ridiculous smears against Israel, none have claimed that Israel discriminates against Israeli Arabs. Israel is radically egalitarian and addresses differences between the peoples with affirmative action programs like those we have in the US. All citizen are treated alike, with one exception - Arabs do not serve in the army.
The official reason given for this exclusion is so that Israeli Arabs will not have to shoot at their brother Arabs. The private reason is that in Israel, Arabs are not to be trusted even with sharp objects let alone with Galil assault rifles.
Major Hasan has called to our attention that a similar policy is wanted in the United States. It is foreseeable that all our wars for the next half-century at least will be against Muslims in one guise or another. Muslims like Major Hasan should not be asked to fight against their fellow Muslims. Nor should they be trusted to do so.
Suppose Major Hasan had been deployed to Afghanistan as he was scheduled to be. Imagine a tense firefight between American soldiers and Taliban fighters. And suddenly Major Hasan, or someone else like him, begins shooting as many of his fellow soldiers as he can as the battle begins. One can readily imagine positions over-run and whole units lost, killed to a man. So far from unrealistic, it nearly happened.
How would the exclusion of Muslims from the military work in practice? It would likely be something like the admittedly unpopular exclusion of homosexuals from the military. They are excluded because openly homosexual soldiers are considered bad for morale and bad for the army. Refusing induction to Muslims has a far stronger rationale than refusing it to homosexuals. As was just demonstrated at Fort Hood.
Nothing about homosexuality predisposes one to fight against the United States. The same cannot be said of Islam. Fighting against non-Muslims is a central tenet and the Quran exhorts the faithful over and over and over and over to fight against us.
From Sirhan Sirhan to the World Trade Center to Major Nidal Hasan is a straight line.
Major Nidal Hasan was in touch with a "radical" imam Anwar al-Awlaki. According to the Wall Street Journal -
Mr. Awlaki was once the imam, or spiritual leader, at a Virginia mosque frequented by Maj. Hasan and his family.who, though born in New Mexico, was obliged to move to Yemen.Mr. Awlaki has called Major Hasan "a hero".
"Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people...How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?"Mr. Awlaki went on to deride "moderate" Muslims in America for decrying the Fort Hood massacre. Did the "moderate" Muslims decry (in public) the murders because their Quran teaches them not to kill non-Muslims? Or because they feared the consequences of publicly calling Major Hasan a hero in the United States?
Mr. Awlaki is right to mock "moderate" Muslims as hypocrites. Judging by what one actually sees, a "moderate" Muslim is one who lives somewhere where violence against non-Muslims will be met with force.
Which raises some questions for the rest of us. We cannot and should not expel Muslims legally living in the United States. But we are under no obligation, legal or moral, to admit any more of them. Nor to turn a blind eye to those of them here illegally.
But that does not address the problem of people like Major Hasan and Mr. Awlaki who were born here. Can we discriminate against them?
The impulsive answer is, "No, of course not." But the real answer is, to quote a prominent American politician, "Yes, we can."
Discrimination is constitutional when it is rational. A basketball team can hire and fire on the basis of the ability to play basketball. That is a rational discrimination. We call it competition and encourage it. Race or religion would be irrational bases on which to select basketball players unless it somehow affected their ability to play basketball. (Such as Jews refusing to play on Shabat. Which is why there are so few Jewish players in the NBA.)
We have customarily assumed that race and religion are irrational and thus unconstitutional bases for discrimination for all public purposes - admission to colleges, hiring for jobs, and all walks of public life. But Major Hasan has given pause to the blanket and unexamined application of that assumption.
Just as Jews are not hired as bishops nor Lutherans as rabbis, religion must be considered where it is relevant.
Israel sets us an example. Almost a quarter of Israelis are Arabs. For all the scandalous and ridiculous smears against Israel, none have claimed that Israel discriminates against Israeli Arabs. Israel is radically egalitarian and addresses differences between the peoples with affirmative action programs like those we have in the US. All citizen are treated alike, with one exception - Arabs do not serve in the army.
The official reason given for this exclusion is so that Israeli Arabs will not have to shoot at their brother Arabs. The private reason is that in Israel, Arabs are not to be trusted even with sharp objects let alone with Galil assault rifles.
Major Hasan has called to our attention that a similar policy is wanted in the United States. It is foreseeable that all our wars for the next half-century at least will be against Muslims in one guise or another. Muslims like Major Hasan should not be asked to fight against their fellow Muslims. Nor should they be trusted to do so.
Suppose Major Hasan had been deployed to Afghanistan as he was scheduled to be. Imagine a tense firefight between American soldiers and Taliban fighters. And suddenly Major Hasan, or someone else like him, begins shooting as many of his fellow soldiers as he can as the battle begins. One can readily imagine positions over-run and whole units lost, killed to a man. So far from unrealistic, it nearly happened.
How would the exclusion of Muslims from the military work in practice? It would likely be something like the admittedly unpopular exclusion of homosexuals from the military. They are excluded because openly homosexual soldiers are considered bad for morale and bad for the army. Refusing induction to Muslims has a far stronger rationale than refusing it to homosexuals. As was just demonstrated at Fort Hood.
Nothing about homosexuality predisposes one to fight against the United States. The same cannot be said of Islam. Fighting against non-Muslims is a central tenet and the Quran exhorts the faithful over and over and over and over to fight against us.
From Sirhan Sirhan to the World Trade Center to Major Nidal Hasan is a straight line.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Sunday, November 01, 2009
The Right of Self-Defense
In what is sure to become an annual Dia de Los Muertes ritual, I unwrapped the remaining Halloween candy and threw it one by one into the garbage disposal. After a couple of pounds of little snickers bars (Lambeau Field booing the return of long-time Packers quarterback Bret Favre - in a Vikings uniform. Boooooo!) KitKats, and Reese's peanut butter cups, the disposal began malfunctioning.
The repair guy fiddled with it a while and said it is overweight and pre-diabetic. He suggested running it more often and for longer and grinding up celery and carrots.
The repair guy fiddled with it a while and said it is overweight and pre-diabetic. He suggested running it more often and for longer and grinding up celery and carrots.
An editorial ...
[Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary Clinton]click on photo to enlarge
Unlike written editorials which are supposed to be labeled as such, this photographic expression of disdain for the two subjects is presented as news.
Just as the internet is awash with spam presented as email, this is propaganda presented as photography.
.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
More Gaza
[Hamas members in Gaza set fire to a coffin with pictures of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas]From today's New York Times -
[Notice that though Hamas got its head handed to them by the IDF in January, they nevertheless assume they can dictate transparently disingenuous terms. Revealingly, they forever refer to everyone but themselves as "arrogant".].
As with their wars with Israel, Muslims never accept that they have lost. So nothing is ever settled until one side or the other is dead, all of them. And both sides know that. Which is why their politics are so violent. An awful lot of Muslim Brotherhood people wound up very dead in Egyptian jails as a result.
So the terrible suffering in Gaza caused by the embargo is as much a product of the Egyptian embargo as of the Israeli embargo? That is poignant in several ways.
One is that the Egyptians, unlike the Jews, are the Palestinians' Arab and Muslim brothers. Another is that Egypt has imposed its embargo without years of rocket bombardment of Egyptian civilians from Gaza.
A third poignancy is that the Arabs, the UN, the Euro-left, the various American Israel-bashers, the Norwegians, the Rachel Corries of the world, the J Street liars, have all forgotten to condemn Egypt for its half of the embargo. No UN resolutions, no marches, no university boycotts, no divestment campaigns, no thundering from protestant pulpits. Not a peep.
Which leads to the fourth poignancy - that the Israel-bashers don't care about the embargo or the people of Gaza the least little bit, whether they live or die. They care only about the Gazans as they are able to use them to attack Israel. If they cared about Gaza they would oppose the Egyptian embargo and they don't. What does that leave?
Which leads to the fifth and final poignancy, the ironic one. It is that the enemies of Israel are thus using the people of Gaza collectively as a political human shield, just as Hamas uses them individually as military human shields, as human sacrifices.
An aptly ghoulish thought for Halloween Eve.
.
A three-year-old embargo on Hamas imposed by Israel and Egypt keeps nearly all factories shut and supplies away. Eighty percent of the population gets some form of assistance.Wait, Israel AND Egypt? Why Egypt?
Israel wants to isolate Hamas because the group rejects Israel’s existence. As Ayman Taha, a Hamas movement spokesman, said in an interview, “Our long-term strategy is the liberation of all of Palestine, but we would agree to a temporary solution involving a state in the 1967 borders with a truce of about 10 years, depending on the conditions of the truce.”Well, yeah, that and years of bombarding Israeli civilians with thhousands of rockets.
[Notice that though Hamas got its head handed to them by the IDF in January, they nevertheless assume they can dictate transparently disingenuous terms. Revealingly, they forever refer to everyone but themselves as "arrogant".].
Egypt rejects Hamas because of its affiliation with the Cairo-based Muslim Brotherhood.Which assassinated Anwar Sadat for making peace with Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch, also fought a lengthy and bloody terrorist campaign against the Egyptian regime for its corruption and secularism. At times this came close to civil war. The Mubarak regime won.
As with their wars with Israel, Muslims never accept that they have lost. So nothing is ever settled until one side or the other is dead, all of them. And both sides know that. Which is why their politics are so violent. An awful lot of Muslim Brotherhood people wound up very dead in Egyptian jails as a result.
So the terrible suffering in Gaza caused by the embargo is as much a product of the Egyptian embargo as of the Israeli embargo? That is poignant in several ways.
One is that the Egyptians, unlike the Jews, are the Palestinians' Arab and Muslim brothers. Another is that Egypt has imposed its embargo without years of rocket bombardment of Egyptian civilians from Gaza.
A third poignancy is that the Arabs, the UN, the Euro-left, the various American Israel-bashers, the Norwegians, the Rachel Corries of the world, the J Street liars, have all forgotten to condemn Egypt for its half of the embargo. No UN resolutions, no marches, no university boycotts, no divestment campaigns, no thundering from protestant pulpits. Not a peep.
Which leads to the fourth poignancy - that the Israel-bashers don't care about the embargo or the people of Gaza the least little bit, whether they live or die. They care only about the Gazans as they are able to use them to attack Israel. If they cared about Gaza they would oppose the Egyptian embargo and they don't. What does that leave?
Which leads to the fifth and final poignancy, the ironic one. It is that the enemies of Israel are thus using the people of Gaza collectively as a political human shield, just as Hamas uses them individually as military human shields, as human sacrifices.
An aptly ghoulish thought for Halloween Eve.
.
Further Down the Page....
[the father of Moshe Nahari, with his daughters]From today's Wall Street Journal -
Then, on Dec. 11, a lone gunman shot dead Moshe Nahari, a father of nine and well-known figure in Raida's Jewish community [in Yemen]. Abdul-Aziz al-Abdi, a retired Air Force pilot, pumped several bullets into Mr. Nahari after the Hebrew teacher dismissed his demands that he convert to Islam. In June, the shooter was sentenced to death.
What risk of actual punishment does al-Abdi face from his fellow Muslims for murdering a Jew? The British government released one of the Lockerbie bombers in spite of his having murdered hundreds of people, many of them British subjects. What can we expect to happen to Abdul Aziz al-Abdi in Yemen? Not much.
Is it just me...?
['Enola Gay' returning to Tinian. Her sister ship was the B-29 'Necessary Evil']
I got a flu shot a week ago.Thursday evening during world series game 2 I got a bad sore throat which came on quickly. Friday it worsened and became a head cold. Saturday I was having difficulty breathing even with my mouth open. I dragged my broken body to a drugstore for patent medicines. One of which had no effect at all. (house brands not always a bargain?) and the other, an inhaler, worked but stung like a sonofabitch for half an hour. Between Friday afternoon and this Sunday morning I slept perhaps 30 hours.
The checker at the market where I got the inhaler said that she also got sick shortly after she got a flu shot.
Between me and the checker is just two incidents and may be coincidence. Has anyone else gotten sick after getting a flu shot? This was a regular flu shot, not swine flu.
Postnote Sunday AM -
A friend who works in a public health clinic agrees with Harvey that there is little likelihood the vector was the flu shot. Indeed it is most likely that I have the H1N1 virus, the swine flu.
Which is most disturbing. I thought there was a tacit understanding that it would only affect other people. It was supposed to be something that never really happens other than on television, like killer bees. And how unseemly is it for a Jew to have swine flu? They couldn't name it for some kosher animal? [schmucks]
Having H-anything N-anything is unnerving after seeing the 1918 graves in Sunset View Cemetery. Even in the dinky remote El Cerrito of 1918 large numbers of people died. Considering what happened in the less populous, less connected world of 1918, the effect of a similar outbreak now daunts the imagination.
It is no exaggeration to say that a recurrence of a disease like the Spanish Influenza of 1918 is a vastly greater danger to the human race than all our nuclear weapons combined. Nuclear weapons kill people where they are dropped. The Spanish Influenza killed a varying fraction of the population everywhere in the world.
.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Feminist Suspicions
[funeral in Baghdad for victim of yesterday's truck bombings]Is it possible that crowds like this would be less prone to hysteria and violence if there were women among them?
(Wait Mahmoud. We can't go burn down the embassy. We have to be at my sister's by five and we have to shop for pita and a goat first.)
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
