Illegal Zionist. . . oh, forget it
That's it. I give up. Arab League, you win. No matter how outrageous a parody of obstinate Arab lunacy I write, I can never top the real thing.
Arab League Slams Plans For a Wireless Jerusalem
In a bizarre move, the Arab League issued a condemnation Tuesday of the Jerusalem municipality’s project to turn Israel’s capital city into the world’s first city with complete wireless internet capability.
According to SANA, the official Syrian news agency, the Arab League says the project to make Jerusalem wireless fidelity-enabled (WiFi) accessible threatens the Arab identity of the city.
The Arab League issued a statement Tuesday saying, "the project aims at imposing a de facto [sic] on the city in a way that serves the Israeli interests under the pretext of encouraging the foreign investments."
The statement added that the WiFi project, along with all of Israel’s policies, "contradicts not only the international law and resolutions but also reflect no desire in realizing the just and comprehensive peace in the region."
Wireless Internet access -- have the Jews no decency?! Someone, please tell me this is just a Syrian prank.
By way of Allah.
Chirac: Let's force Israel's surrender to the Arabs.
Arabs: Thanks, Jacques.
Excuse me, what country is this?
Are you kidding me??Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush plans to seek a court order to force the U.S. Federal Election Commission to stop all political advertising by independent groups, said spokesman Scott McClellan.Against all odds, it seems that the Bush campaign is actually trying to out-stupid Kerry. Anyone here ever heard of the First Amendment? It had something about restrictions on the freedom of speech being a no-no. I swear it said something like that.
``The president said he wanted to work together to pursue court action to stop all activities by these shadowy 527 groups,'' McClellan told reporters on Air Force One en route to New Mexico. `` If court action doesn't work, he is willing to pursue legislative action,'' McClellan said.
Wow. Why not skip even that, and just send in Ministry of Information troops? And if I may be so bold, the 527 groups aren't "shadowy." They are groups of citizens with political views who want to get those views heard, and influence the elections. That's not a failure of the political process -- it is the political process!
I can't believe the Bushies are trying to pull this. It's stupidity I never thought I'd find outside the Kucinich camp.
I have to say, the Republican choice of New York City for their 2004 Convention is a pretty smart move. Besides the obvious references to 9/11, that is.
I'm talking about the protests, which are expected to be huge. This is to no one's surprise, of course. Considering the massive worldwide ANSWER-sponsored anger at Bush policies, this may make the anti-trade protests in Seattle, etc. look small. (Allah has been on top of this story for a while.) So what are the Republicans to do? Well, if you can't stop the mobs (and you can't), might as well use them to your advantage, and minimize their impact on your friends.
The Republicans could have chosen a traditionally friendly venue, like San Diego. But this would have brought the various mobs into a friendly town, causing annoyance and resentment among supporters. On the other hand, dragging the thousands of yippies, Black Bloc creeps, and their ilk to New York would at least show the largely-Democrat population there just who exactly they stand with. ("Hey, it wasn't us who torched cars and sailed bricks through the windows of Macy's...") Even if a small number of people switch their votes to Bush in pure disgust, that's a win. And if not, at least the anti-Bush forces will be trashing their own back yard.
True: this is still unfair to the many workaday-joe New Yorkers who will suffer through the mass protests and violent mobs. But they may want to keep in mind that it's not the people at the Convention that are causing gridlock and violence, and tying up emergency services. Good luck.
A Suggested Bush Quip
"I know Bob Kerrey. Bob Kerrey is a friend of mine. And Senator, you're no Bob Kerrey."
Bush accused of exploiting hurricane in Florida as he offers aid to disaster areaOn closer reading, I wonder if the by-line should have been separated at all. Perhaps it was really meant as a continuation to the headline. Because, try as I might, I can't find a single instance of anyone quoted in the article that accuses Bush of exploiting anything. The closest we come is here:By David Usborne in Orlando
"The most politically useful trips of all are the, quote, 'non-political' ones," commented Larry Sabato, a professor of political science at the University of Virginia. "Presidents never look better than when they appear to be acting decisively in situations such as these."What Prof. Sabato says is perfectly true, but far from "accusing" anyone, he merely offers statements of fact. Yes, of course a President looks good when offering aid to disaster victims -- who doesn't? One has to make quite a leap to read into this that Bush is nakedly using suffering people for his own political purposes. In fact, the accusation is much easier to level against Usborne, who twists a perfectly ordinary Presidential visit to help people who have lost everything into a sinister ploy, all for the benefit of his half-baked political "theories."
I hate to break this to anyone, but not everything done by a sitting President is a calculated political ploy. Just because Bush has a corn muffin with his dinner is not an indication of trying to appeal to Midwestern farmers, and eating waffles for breakfast is not a dig at John Kerry. It is perfectly right and expected for a President to visit the hurricane-ravaged state of Florida, to use federal resources to provide relief, and to praise the aid workers who helped out the victims. If you're going to insist that this is all just an attempt to turn a disaster to political advantage, then first please make sure you're not merely projecting.
Evil Zionist Occupiers redux
LGF has a photo that you're not likely to see on CNN or BBC:
An Israeli Army soldier comforts a Palestinian woman at the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah Wednesday Aug. 11, 2004.
Be sure to also check out IDF Dave's photo collection. Amazingly simple, yet simply amazing.
Yo Ahmed, don't bogart the good stuff, man...
Israelis find the key to peace in the Middle East.
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Central Florida woman was fired from her job after eating "unclean" meat and violating a reported company policy that pork and pork products are not permissible on company premises, according to Local 6 News."Religious differences," my foot. She worked at a company run by Muslims, and she knew (because she had been warned) that they found her pork-eating offensive.Lina Morales was hired as an administrative assistant at Rising Star -- a Central Florida telecommunications company with strong Muslim ties, Local 6 News reported.
However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination.
What I don't get is the outrage over this at Allah's place and LGF. Ms. Morales' employers are Muslim as are most of their employees. Over and above this, the company and the building it's housed in is their property, and they get to set the rules. Ms. Morales was made aware of those rules, which are not unfair, nor do they cause her an undue hardship. Her religion does not require her to eat pork products, and if she really wanted pork, she could simply eat it elsewhere. She was obviously not fired for being Catholic (something her employers knew when they hired her) -- she was fired for being disrespectful to the beliefs of her employer and violating the rules of her employment. And all because she wouldn't make a trivial modification to her lunch menu.
The rules she was subjected to were easy to follow, and not unreasonable. If pork was consumed in the company cafeteria, the company's Muslim employees -- including its owners -- could not be sure that the surfaces, utensils, etc. they were using are clean. Ms. Morales's lack of consideration would deny them the use of their own cafeteria.
I honestly want to know: am I missing something? It sure doesn't sound like Ms. Morales's rights were violated. Instead, it sounds like she tried to violate the rights of her bosses at Rising Star, and they didn't stand for it.
Update: Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, commented on the discrimination angle last night -- I wish I had checked his site more carefully. In a nutshell, he says that there is no discrimination. The equally qualified Jonathan Rowe says the same thing.
And exactly how does Kerry plan on doubling the number of Special Forces..? These guys are called Special Forces for a reason. They are simply brilliant warriors, to a man. They are all volunteers who often apply for Spec Ops training over and over again, rejected until they are accepted. What does Kerry want to do? Impose Quotas on Spec Op hiring? All this will do is dilute the effectiveness of the Special Forces, making it difficult to use them as they were designed. Again, this tells me that either Kerry knows nothing of the military he claims to be proud of having served in, or this is a cynical and calculated effort at undermining it. . .(By way of Pejman.)The carnard [sic] about the backdoor draft is just that, a canard. When you sign up for the Guard, it's not for sunny jaunts in armored cars across the Califormia coastline on a taxpayer funded binge. People join up knowing fully well that there is a eight year commitment, and that the purpose of the military is to fight wars. The Pentagon is now calling up reservists on the basis of something that all enlistees know about when they do sign up. They never have had to in past engagements, because our post-Vietnam entanglements never came close to stretching our resurces until Iraq-II. But this is exactly why the deferred service clause is in the contract. Does it suck? Of course it does? War sucks for everyone, particularly the soldiers. . .
Update: Also back: the mustard-yellow Russell Wardlow. Well, he isn't yellow, but his site is.
Handicapped kids left strandedOK... why? These children aren't stuck on a desert island -- they are in freaking Egypt, an Arab country and -- just as an aside -- recipient of $2 billion annually in American aid. Why can't they house 11 handicapped children in decent conditions? Why should it fall upon the mean old Israelis to let these children -- "and their caretakers," whoever they may be -- cross the border?HUMAN rights activists today called on Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz to let 11 handicapped Palestinian children, stranded in Egypt for nearly two weeks, return home to the Gaza Strip.
The children, among some 2500 Palestinians blocked by the Israeli army, are suffering from a shortage of food and water and the situation was worsening daily, said the activists.
Let me guess. . .
This is just Tony Blair helping Bush distract the American public from the story that terror alerts were issued to distract the American public from the period after the Democratic National Convention.
- First, some "militants" burn down government offices because Arafat assigned his brother to be the new head of Palestinian security.
- Next, some other "militants" stormed into a "reform meeting" and shot it up for being a "plot against Arafat."
- Today, a guard at a jail holding some alleged collaborators with Israel decided that rather than supervise them, he'd just as soon toss a grenade in their cell. Not all his targets died right away, so later his buddies came and shot one in his hospital bed.
- Meanwhile, the heroic fighters of Hamas bravely launched Qassam rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, while another group of fearless fighters courageously tried to gun down a car with eight children on board. (Thankfully, they missed.)
Sounds to me like a wonderfully civilized society, ready for its own state.
August 3 update: Russell Wardlow adds some perspective:
Hey, so they tossed some grenades in an occupied cell. At least they didn't put women's panties on the inmates' head. THAT would be unexcusable.Point well taken.