A Secret For My Children

I have a game that I play each day with my children. It is a game, but it is one that I take quite seriously.

Each day I ask my children if they want to know a secret. And each time I ask they come running over to me and sit in my lap. You just never know what little nugget of wisdom dad might share this time.

In a very soft voice I whisper "The Secret is" and then I pause. Almost invariably their tiny faces look at me attentively and I finish the sentence with these words:

"I Love You."

Oftentimes my son will issue a sigh of exasperation and say "I already know that secret." That is part of the game in which he pretends to be irritated.

So you ask, what is the point of the game. The point is this. I want to do everything I can to ensure that my children never ever doubt my deep and abiding love for them.

Life can be quite cruel. Life can be hard and it can be tough. There will come moments of self doubt in which they question themselves. There will come moments in time in which they go on their own search for answers.

Right now I am trying to help provide them with a rock that will always be there to cling to. When things seem darkest I want them to be able to look inside and remember the love of their father. It is part of why I take blessing my children so very seriously.

On a side note I am waiting for the day when one of them tells me that it is not a secret. And with that allow me to bid you a good evening from paradise.

A Eulogy for Myself

The day of the funeral was quite hot. I gave in to the local minhagim (customs) and wore a black suit. In a different time and place they would have asked me if I was dressed up in a poor imitation of Belushi and Akroyd, but not here.

Standing graveside in the California sunshine it was quite clear that I had a different role and a different purpose. Here I was part of the communal support that we offer the mourners. My job was to help my friend and his family say goodbye to a beloved father.

I listened to his children speak about him and smiled at the stories they told. I heard about a good man, a kind man, a family man, a mensch who went out of his way to improve the world around him. I witnessed the tears of the mourners and looked to my left and right.

At the age of 37 I have been to more funerals than I can count. I have helped to bury more than one friend and the parent(s) of more than one friend. The morbid checklist reads something like four fathers and three mothers are all gone now.

In short I have heard quite a few eulogies, but I have never heard an unkind word said about the deceased. Call me narcissistic but hearing them always makes me wonder what people will say about me.

Will they say good things. Will my memory be a blessing. Will they cry real tears or will someone think to themself that I never quite lived up to my potential, that I never quite climbed the ladder.

Will they be honest and talk about a man who was at times stubborn and intolerant. Will people hear the stories about the temper, or will it be couched in terms like (Jack was a real Taurus). What impression will those who never knew me come away with. What impression should they come away with.

I am quite honest with myself. Of course I want people to mourn the giant. Of course I want people to speak about the tremendous void that my absence will create, a hole that cannot be filled. Who wouldn't want their ego stroked this way.

You know, a lawyer friend of mine once told me that he advised against writing these types of posts because you never knew when someone might try to use your words against you, but I digress.

Here is the most important thing to me. Here is what must be said at my funeral or I will have failed:

"He loved his family and was a good father."

That is it, the rest is commentary.

Porsche 911 beats 'Vette and Viper

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In testing the most expensive group of cars the magazine has ever purchased, Consumer Reports rated the Porsche 911 as the top high-performance sports car.

The 911 was tested against the Chevrolet Corvette Z06, the Dodge Viper and 11 other performance vehicles in a competitive test of luxury sports cars.

The prices of the cars ranged from $45,545 for a Lotus Elise to $105,855 for a Mercedes-Benz SL550.

Consumer Reports, published by the non-profit Consumer's Union, purchases all the vehicles it tests for the magazine. The vehicles are bought anonymously from retail auto dealers.

Cars are tested on public roads as well as at the magazine's test track facility in Connecticut. Cars are put through a variety of tests, including high-speed maneuvering, braking and cornering.

The scoring system used for these cars was different from that generally used by the magazine for minivans and sedans, said David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports' Auto Test Center.

While the scoring was still heavily weighted toward safety, including emergency handling, factors like acceleration were given more importance than, for instance, trunk space, Champion said.

Comfort, convenience and day-to-day drivability were still factors in the rankings, though.
Performance battle

"The 911 wowed us enough with its acceleration, handling, and braking for us to rate it our top sports car," said Champion. "The 911 is also easy to drive, but its much less expensive Boxster sibling performed almost as well."

The 911 cost about $87,500 as tested. The Corvette Z06's price was about $77,000.

The Corvette impressed the magazine's test drivers with its powerful acceleration and stable feel. The magazine called its handling "less precise" than the 911's, though.

The magazine called the Corvette Z06's predicted reliability "Poor," which prevented them from actually recommending the car in spite of high scores for performance and comfort.

The V-10-powered Viper ranked as the fastest car ever tested by the magazine with a 0-60 time of 4.2 seconds. But it was only a tenth-of-a-second quicker than the Corvette Z06 and beat the 6-cylinder 911 by just two-tenths.

What can I say. I'd be happy to own and drive any one of these cars. Actually, the truth is that I figured out a while ago that if I didn't send my kids to school I might be able to afford to drive one of these, for a couple of months or so.

In The End

"In The End"

(It starts with)
One thing / I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind / I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
All I know
time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It’s so unreal
Didn’t look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on / but didn’t even know
Wasted it all just to
Watch you go
I kept everything inside and even though I tried / it all fell apart
What it meant to me / will eventually / be a memory / of a time when I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
One thing / I don’t know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind / I designed this rhyme
To remind myself how
I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I’m surprised it got so (far)
Things aren’t the way they were before
You wouldn’t even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me
In the end
You kept everything inside and even though I tried / it all fell apart
What it meant to me / will eventually / be a memory / of a time when I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter
I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
For all this
There’s only one thing you should know
I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
For all this
There’s only one thing you should know
I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter"
Linkin Park- Hybrid Theory

12 Year Old Jewish Girl Beaten Unconcious; Bystanders Ignore Pleas For Help

There is something very seriously wrong with people who are willing to just sit back and watch something like this. The driver should be fired.

A 12-year-old Jewish girl who was beaten unconscious and robbed by anti-Semitic yobs on a bus has spoken out at her disgust that no-one came to her aid.

The girl, who does not want to be identified, was stamped on several times in a racist attack lasting around five minutes while on board a 303 Metroline bus in Mill Hill, north London.

At 6.30pm on August 11, she and a friend were sitting at the back of the bus when a group of around four girls got on at the Concourse, Grahame Park estate, and asked them if they were English or Jewish.

They both replied they were "fully English".

One girl in the group asked the victim for money, but she said she did not have any.

She and her friend tried to leave the bus at Mill Hill Broadway but were blocked by the gang who searched their pockets and stole a bracelet.

Driver didn't open doors

One girl hit the victim around the face with her phone, slapped her several times, grabbed her hair and pulled her to the floor, where she was kicked and stamped on. She was left with a fractured eye socket, bruising and swelling to her face and chest.

"All I remember is her stamping on my face," she said. "Me and my friend were screaming. Then I blacked out. There were four people on the bus who didn't do anything."

After regaining consciousness, the girl and her friend tried to pull the bus doors open to escape.

She said: "The driver heard the attack and didn't open the doors. A boy opened the doors for us and I ran off."

How To Make a Baby- A Kids Book

Boing Boing has a link to one of the most interesting kids books I have seen in a while.

These pictures are among the tamest in the book. I am certainly not prude, but this book is a little out there.

Or maybe not.

You make the call.

A Quick Roundup of Posts

Here is a snapshot of what I blogged about:

If You Died, Who Would Take Care Of Your Children
Frum & Gay
CNN Reporter- You Left Your Microphone On
Not All Values Are Equal- Moral Superiority
Another Day, Another Funeral- It is Elul

You might also enjoy reading these older posts:

The Supermarket
I Yelled At G-d
The Search For Answers About Our Ourselves

If You Died, Who Would Take Care Of Your Children

If you ever want to kill a conversation. If you ever want to change the tone into something more somber and muted ask a parent if they have made plans for where the children would live if something happened to them.

It is a frightening topic. It is a hard topic. It is uncomfortable to consider what would happen to your children if they were to lose their parents. It is painful to think about a future in which you do not participate.

It is a discussion that you have to have. As a parent you have to take the time to consider all of the angles. If the worst happens, who gets the kids. Who do you trust to raise them. If the worst happens is there someone who can provide for them. Is there is friend or family member who you can rely upon to take care of your children.

Will they respect your wishes and impart the same values upon them that you would. And assuming that you have someone in mind that you would like to act as a surrogate parent, will they be capable of taking this responsibility on.

One of my sisters and I recently spent time talking about this. We live on opposite coasts. She is on the Frigid East and I am out here in the Sunny West. Neither one of us is likely to pick up and move any time soon so if anything happened there is a good chance that the kids would find that their worlds had been turned upside down in every possible way.

Of course this is only a hypothetical, a worst case scenario that we hope never develops into any sort of twisted reality.

But you know the old saying, people plan and G-d laughs. As we head into another new year I ask again to be given the opportunity to see my job through. At a minimum I need another 100 years or so.

I'd like to meet my great-grandchildren. Is that so much to ask for.

Frum & Gay

**Welcome to the ten minute post. Yes, that is right. This post was composed in ten minutes. Let's see if it actually makes sense.**

The impetus for this particular post is a result of the discussion taking place over at A Whispering Soul. I'd like to pick out a couple of sections and briefly comment on them.

"The Orthodox community has been notoriously slow in dealing with issues they are uncomfortable with, or which they would like to pretend do not exist (domestic abuse, childhood sexual abuse, etc.). With regard to the issue of homosexuality, I am certain there is a great deal of homophobia that comes into play in the Orthodox world. The advice normally given by Rebbeim in the past to "just get married and it will go away" clearly indicates a lack of understanding of the issues involved on the part of the Rebbeim, not to mention being horribly unfair to the individual concerned and their unsuspecting spouse.

With the recent coming out of the principal of Flatbush Yeshiva, who has stated that he can no longer be Orthodox, and the film Trembling Before God, which explores the lives and struggles of "gay Orthodox Jews, " and with more young Orthodox Jews coming out, Orthodox Jewry is being confronted with the issue like never before. In the last year alone, I have heard four different shabbat sermons delivered at different shuls on the topic. Most advocate compassion. While that is a start, it is not enough.

No, I don't know what the answer is, because there is no answer. I have a hard time believing that HaShem would seemingly be so cruel as to expect someone to lead a life without love or a life of celibacy, but the Torah is also fairly clear. In the end, we don't know HaShem's reasons, and really it doesn't matter what the reasons are. I guess what I would like to see is for Orthodoxy to better understand the issues involved and see beyond the homophobia; to set up a framework to allow those who want to stay Orthodox but not indulge their sexuality to not feel left out of the community; and not to shun those who struggle."

I appreciate MCAryeh's candor and his sensitivity. It is not a black and white issue, no matter how badly some people might want it to be. If you maintain the immutability of Torah than the matter would in theory have an easy answer. You can be homosexual, you just cannot act upon the desire.

To me it is not that simple. I cannot accept nor believe that there is an omnipotent creator who set up this sort of stumbling block for people. I cannot accept nor believe in answers such as "G-d has a plan, we just don't know what it is."

Comments like that tend to infuriate me. I once heard someone tell a group of survivors something similar. I wanted to throttle him. Are you trying to tell me that survivors of one of the greatest horrors ever seen by mankind should be comforted because they are part of some unexplainable celestial plan.

No Way. It is unacceptable.

At some point in time you have to wonder about it all. You have to ask yourself if the concept of immutability is valid and even if it is, has man corrupted it. That is, if man is fallible have we gotten it wrong. Have we made a mistake in our understanding and interpretation and are we passing this mistake down through the generations.

What do you think?

CNN Reporter- You Left Your Microphone On

Not All Values Are Equal- Moral Superiority

Dennis Prager has another good opinion piece here.

"Last year at UCLA, I debated a professor who argued that Israel and the Palestinians were moral equivalents. He is not alone (especially on college campuses) in his lack of understanding of the immoral nature of the Islamic enemies of America and Israel.

Thus it is important to remind people once again about the moral world inhabited by the people we are fighting, whom President George W. Bush calls the Islamic Fascists. Societal examples:

– The Islamic Republic of Sudan, in its attempt to force Arab/Muslim rule on the largely non-Arab and non-Muslim population of southern Sudan, has led to the killing of well above 1 million Christians and animists and black (i.e., non-Arab) Muslims, in addition to the widespread enslavement, rape and torture of those people.

– No major international Arab or Muslim organization has condemned the Sudanese government’s mass murders that border on genocide.

– The leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel. As the 6 million Jews of Israel do not plan a mass exodus from their ancient and modern homeland, such annihilation would in fact mean another Holocaust.

– The holy center of Islam, the Muslim country where the holiest Muslim sites are situated, is Saudi Arabia. That country bans the practice of any religion other than Islam, amputates hands of thieves, does not allow women to drive a car, mandates what women wear outside of their homes and is the only country in the world to feature a weapon on its national flag. Women were treated considerably better and had more civil rights in ancient Rome, not to mention ancient Israel, than women living in the holiest cities of Islam today.

– Virtually every Islam-based country decrees the death penalty for any Muslim who converts to another religion.

In other words, every country that calls itself “Islamic” is morally inferior to just about every country in North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, almost every Asian country and many African countries.

No Muslim country treats non-Muslims and their religions anywhere nearly as decently as any Western non-Muslim country (including Israel) treats Muslims. That is why tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies and virtually no non-Muslim immigrates to any Muslim society. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are either systematically persecuted at worst or treated as inferiors at best.

Individual examples (in just the last five months):

– “A German court sentenced a Turkish man to more than nine years in jail yesterday for the ‘honour killing’ of his sister. . . . The murder of Hatun Surucu, 23, who was shot several times at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year, shocked Germany. . . . Forced to marry a cousin in Turkey as a young girl, Ms. Surucu later broke with her Turkish-Kurdish family in Berlin and was living independently with her 5-year-old son, to the intense disapproval of her relatives. . . . Public outrage at the murder was exacerbated when some teenage boys at a school with many pupils from immigrant families . . . reportedly openly applauded the killing, condemning the victim for having lived ‘like a German.’” (The Guardian, UK, April 14, 2006)

– “Men using machetes attacked worshipers in three Coptic [Christian] churches in the port city of Alexandria [Egypt] on Friday morning, killing an 80-year-old man and wounding at least six other people, the police there said.” (International Herald Tribune, April 15, 2006)"

Click here to read the rest.

A Short Film about Jerusalem

Click here.

Another Day, Another Funeral- It is Elul

Another day, another funeral. I don't remember where I first heard that line or even who said it. Heck, maybe no one said it. Maybe I just made it up and don't realize that I can take credit for it. It doesn't matter all that much.

In a couple of hours I will be heading off to another funeral. A dear friend's father has passed away and so I will join the community and do what I can to try and help his family ease the pain.

I got the news not long after I completed the post about my parents purchasing their plots. You could call it odd coincidence because the reality is that people do pass away each day. I don't mean to make light of this or to sound callous. You can attribute some of this to the poor mood I am in.

It is Elul and it has its own impact upon me. I remember being quite little and learning about the so called book of life, judgement being rendered upon who would live and who would die. It has stuck with me, or should I say that I have always wondered about a couple of things.

The thing that really sticks in my craw is the question of why people would die so close to Rosh Hashanah. For some reason the idea that they fell short of seeing another new year bothers me. I don't know why. If they would have lived just a couple of days beyond the new year I would feel better.

I don't know why this bothers me. I can't quite put my finger upon it, but it does. I feel edgy and unsettled.

A number of years ago I considered how many of my friends had already lost a parent. There were quite a few. By the time I was 21 I knew more than a half dozen whose mother or father had died. I don't know if that really is all that unusual, but it seemed like a lot.

Now at the age of 37 it is not so uncommon. Today I'll stand at the grave and look around. The strange thing is that as we age I see us all beginning to look more like our parents. There are a few more wrinkles and streaks of gray in hair and beards.

Later on at the house we'll form small groups and discuss the state of affairs and I know that part of that conversation will include talking about life insurance and how we are trying to protect our children's futures, just in case.

Sorry, I Thought He Was a Jew

This story is so very sad in so many ways. But at the same time it makes me quite angry. Daniel Pipes writes:

An Italian named Angelo Frammartino, 25, espoused the typical anti-Israel views of a far-leftist, as he expressed in a letter to a newspaper in 2006:

We must face the fact that a situation of no violence is a luxury in many parts of the world, but we do not seek to avoid legitimate acts of defense. … I never dreamed of condemning resistance, the blood of the Vietnamese, the blood of the people who were under colonialist occupation or the blood of the young Palestinians from the first intifada.

Actively to forward his beliefs, Frammartino went to Israel in early August 2006 to serve as a volunteer with ARCI, a far-leftist NGO, working with Palestinian children at the Burj al-Luqluq community center in eastern Jerusalem.But on August 10, he was stabbed in a terrorist assault at Sultan Suleiman Street, near Herod's Gate in Jerusalem, twice in the back and once in the neck. He died shortly after, only two days before his planned return to Italy. The killer, soon identified as Ashraf Hanaisha, 24, turned out to be a Palestinian affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A resident of the village of Qabatiya in the Jenin area, Hanaisha apparently planned to attack a Jewish Israeli but made a mistake.

Damage control soon followed. The Palestinian Authority's news agency, WAFA, carried a statement by the Burj al Luqluq community center condemning the murder in no uncertain terms: "Nothing could describe our emotions for what happened. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Angelo, they have our deepest sympathy." Several Palestinian NGOs then organized a vigil in Frammartino's memory. For her part, Hanaisha's mother launched an appeal, via the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, for the forgiveness of her son.

In response to this outpouring, Frammartino's parents did forgive Hanaisha. From the family home in Monterotondo, the father, Michelangelo, said that "he welcomes and appreciates, despite the undeletable sorrow, the plea for forgiveness made by the murderer's mother" and he expressed a hope that the parents' gesture "will bring to an end this extremely sad story." The father went further, telling the Corriere della Sera newspaper that he felt no hatred toward his son's murderer:

Angelo was working to promote peace. The message he sought to convey is greater than anything else. … the circumstances confirm that Angelo was a victim of the war, of the injustice in the world. When we are talking about a situation of tension, absence of common sense dominates. I do not feel hatred because Angelo's thought, the principles that always motivated him, were definitely not of hatred or revenge.

Comments:

(1) These signals from Qabatiya to Monterotondo and back amounted to a curious and despicable pas de deux, with each side remorsefully implying things would be just fine if only Hanaisha had killed his intended victim: "Sorry, I thought he was a Jew," reads the headline in La Stampa. The Palestinians conveyed a message of "Excuse us, we did not mean to kill your son," while the family replied with a "Understood, we accept that you made a mistake."

What the hell is wrong with this family that they can just ignore the murder of their son. How can they be so cavalier about this. It makes me angry because it comes across as if they believe that Jewish blood is cheap. The inconsistent and hypocritical stand is part and parcel of why peace is so hard to come by.

Let others pay for add-ons while you ride free

I snagged this from Book of Joe. Drop by and tell him I sent you over. He has some good material.

Damon Darlin's July 22, 2006 New York Times story about letting other people do your heavy lifting got my undivided attention.

Here's his piece.

What the Naïve Consumers Don't Know, Can Help You

"When Xavier Gabaix and David Laibson open a hotel room minibar, they see among the tiny liquor bottles and European chocolates a perpetual battle between companies charging hidden fees and the sophisticated consumer trying to avoid them.

The two economics professors -- Mr. Laibson at Harvard and Mr. Gabaix at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton -- have looked at how companies hide fees and costs. They found that sophisticated consumers have somehow learned how to game the system by having enough naïve consumers around to subsidize them.

The smartest strategy, they say, is for the sophisticated consumer to choose the service with the most hidden charges and highest add-on prices, but then avoid paying those added costs. ''The sophisticated consumer takes advantage of that,'' Mr. Gabaix said. ''The naïve pay all the fees.''

Companies hide add-on costs, of course, because it is lucrative. Hewlett-Packard sells inexpensive printers and makes its profit on high-margin replacement ink cartridges that can cost half as much as the printer. The fastest-growing segment of Wells Fargo's banking business is income from fees, up 14 percent in the latest quarter.

Consumers see fees everywhere, in their cellphone and credit card bills, mail-order invoices, mutual fund statements, car rental and hotel charges. Actually, most consumers (particularly those who do not start their Saturday mornings reading financial advice) do not see them or they spot them too late. And that myopia perplexed the two professors.

Economic theory says shrouded fees should not happen. A competing company should come along and tell consumers just how bad its competitors are for extracting those fees. Epson should be telling the world how much Hewlett-Packard charges for ink. Marriott should be pointing out Hilton's parking fees and phone surcharges. But that rarely happens, and Mr. Laibson likens that to the dog that did not bark for Sherlock Holmes.

''My view of the world is that people usually make smart choices, but sometimes they make mistakes,'' Mr. Laibson said. ''Why doesn't the market fix the problem?''

In a paper appearing in The Quarterly Journal of Economics with the academic title of ''Shrouded Attributes, Consumer Myopia, and Information Suppression in Competitive Markets,'' the professors say that price-cutting and educational advertising do not always benefit the bargain-seeking consumer. A company would hurt itself if it described how its competitor loads on the fees, they said.

They argue that drawing attention to the rivals' fees just alerts the sophisticated consumer that the rival is actually offering a better deal. Transparent Hotel could advertise a no-added-fees $100 room and point out that Nontransparent Hotel really charges $145 for its $70 room. If a consumer goes with Nontransparent and avoids the add-on fees, he ends up paying less, the economists said. He would advise going to the hotel with the lowest room rate and avoid any fees, assuming -- which economists love to do -- that factors like location and safety are equal.

The result for the well-meaning company is harsh. Its advertising might hurt the rival in the sense that consumers pay fewer fees there, but it is increasing the number of sophisticated consumers and teaching them to choose the other guys. It is unlikely to draw in the sophisticates. ''That business won't make much money once you understand how the world works,'' Mr. Laibson said. ''What's the benefit to the company?''

Click here to read the rest.

The Ginsu Knife

Ladies and gentlemen old Jack is a very happy man today. And if you are of a certain age you might even understand why.

The simple reason behind my joy is because I finally picked up my own Ginsu Knife. It took more than 30 years, but I finally got "the kitchen cutting tool that can "cut through a nail, a tin can and a radiator hose and still slice a tomato paper thin."

The story of the Ginsu Knife is one that I enjoy because it reminds me of my childhood. There is so much campy kitschy stuff tied up in this and the Ginsu Knife is right at the center of it. Thanks to the magic of the Internet I even discovered some relevant material.

This website provides a decent background on the people who developed the Ginsu Knife. I love this part:

"In fact, many of their colorful, "catch phrases" ("But wait, there's more", "Isn't that amazing", "Now how much would you pay?" Don't answer!", "Act now and you'll also receive...", "It'll slice onions so fast that there isn't time to cry," etc.) are still remembered, used, and parodied today."

I am guilty of using a bunch of those old lines. I am tempted to offer up a confession about when and where, but think that I just might save that for later.

I'd write more, but I am on hold with the Flowbee people now. Just take a look at this fine piece of salon equipment and tell me that you aren't jealous.

Ok, here is a different confession than the one I considered making above. I used to wonder if there was a way to use the old "Flowbee" as a tool for pranks. The juvenile in me wondered if I could just walk up to someone and vacuum up a little chunk o'hair.

Back in the days of mullets and big hair it had a very funny feel to it. I suppose that you can see clear evidence of my love for slapstick comedy. Of course if that was ever really done I might be slapped with a stick, so it is probably best left to my imagination.

But wait! There is more.........

My Parents Purchased Cemetery Plots

(Playing in the background Drown In My Own Tears- Ray Charles The Best Of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years)
Take a look at the pictures. They are from the cemetery that my parents plan on using.

It looks relatively nice. The rolling hills, palm trees and a sea of green grass give off a pleasant aura. From my monitor it doesn't give off the cemetery vibe.

How do I describe that vibe, that feeling that you get at the cemetery. I don't recall ever discussing it with anyone, so I am not sure that I have a frame of reference that is not related to pop culture.

I can't say that this is like Scooby Doo, Thriller, the Three Stooges, Freddie, Jason or any one of the assorted sitcoms, flicks and plays that use a cemetery as a scary setting.

(Playing in the background Somebody's Crying by Chris Issak)

Maybe it is because I have been to so many funerals, but cemeteries don't frighten me at all. At worst they sometimes make me sad, but that is usually when I am there to help bury a loved one. Otherwise it is hard to put a finger on how they make me feel. It feels a bit sterile, sort of like a very solemn Disneyland. You know that there is more going on than what you see. You know that if you could just pull back the curtain there would be quite a show, although this really is one place that you don't want to see how they make the magic happen.

So mom and dad have picked the place they want to hang out in. Their so called eternal resting place. When they called to let me know that they had purchased plots I assumed that it would be close to other family members. Call me lazy, but I was hopeful that I could do the circuit at the cemetery. Forgive the pun, but why not try to kill several birds with one stone.

That is not the case. It figures. Here in the land of eternal sunshine and gridlock I foresee a future in which in order to visit my family I am going to spend time on two or three freeways.

(Playing in the background Grievous and the Droids by John Williams)

Ok, the reality is that I probably will not try and visit my great grandparents, grandparents and parents all on the same day. At the moment I am blessed to have two living grandparents as well as both parents. And in theory if all goes well I have a good thirty years or more before my parents go.

With a time frame like that there is a lot that can happen. New mediums of travel can be developed, the burning river in cleveland might be cleaned up and George Foreman will make his 36th comeback.

It is a little surreal knowing that my folks have taken this step. Let's face it, you never really are ready for your parents to die. I know that it is going to happen one day. Just as surely as my son asked me not to die the day will come for all of us, myself and my parents included.

(Playing in the background London Calling by The Clash)

I won't apologize for wanting my folks to hang around as long as possible. Why wouldn't I want to take advantage of the opportunity to continue learning from them. It took more than a few years for me to realize that they did know something after all. It took more than a few years to realize how foolish I had been in not trusting them more when I was younger, but that is youth.

Sometimes it is hard to understand that your parents were young once and that they might know a little bit about where you are today. So I suppose that I'll take a moment to consider what else I can learn from them and with that this post is finished.

Hezbollah Didn't Win

Amir Taheri's opinion piece states that Hezbollah Didn't Win. In it he outlines the case for why they didn't win and how some people are under the misguided impression that they did. Let's take a look at one selection:

"...Let us start with Lebanon.

Immediately after the U.N.-ordained ceasefire started, Hezbollah organized a series of firework shows, accompanied by the distribution of fruits and sweets, to celebrate its victory. Most Lebanese, however, finding the exercise indecent, stayed away. The largest "victory march" in south Beirut, Hezbollah's stronghold, attracted just a few hundred people.

Initially Hezbollah had hesitated between declaring victory and going into mourning for its "martyrs." The latter course would have been more in harmony with Shiite traditions centered on the cult of Imam Hussain's martyrdom in 680 A.D. Some members of Hezbollah wished to play the martyrdom card so that they could accuse Israel, and through it the U.S., of war crimes. They knew that it was easier for Shiites, brought up in a culture of eternal victimhood, to cry over an imagined calamity than laugh in the joy of a claimed victory.

Politically, however, Hezbollah had to declare victory for a simple reason: It had to pretend that the death and desolation it had provoked had been worth it. A claim of victory was Hezbollah's shield against criticism of a strategy that had led Lebanon into war without the knowledge of its government and people. Mr. Nasrallah alluded to this in television appearances, calling on those who criticized him for having triggered the war to shut up because "a great strategic victory" had been won.

The tactic worked for a day or two. However, it did not silence the critics, who have become louder in recent days. The leaders of the March 14 movement, which has a majority in the Lebanese Parliament and government, have demanded an investigation into the circumstances that led to the war, a roundabout way of accusing Hezbollah of having provoked the tragedy. Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has made it clear that he would not allow Hezbollah to continue as a state within the state. Even Michel Aoun, a maverick Christian leader and tactical ally of Hezbollah, has called for the Shiite militia to disband.

Mr. Nasrallah followed his claim of victory with what is known as the "Green Flood"(Al-sayl al-akhdhar). This refers to the massive amounts of crisp U.S. dollar notes that Hezbollah is distributing among Shiites in Beirut and the south. The dollars from Iran are ferried to Beirut via Syria and distributed through networks of militants. Anyone who can prove that his home was damaged in the war receives $12,000, a tidy sum in wartorn Lebanon.

The Green Flood has been unleashed to silence criticism of Mr. Nasrallah and his masters in Tehran. But the trick does not seem to be working. "If Hezbollah won a victory, it was a Pyrrhic one," says Walid Abi-Mershed, a leading Lebanese columnist. "They made Lebanon pay too high a price--for which they must be held accountable."

Hezbollah is also criticized from within the Lebanese Shiite community, which accounts for some 40% of the population. Sayyed Ali al-Amin, the grand old man of Lebanese Shiism, has broken years of silence to criticize Hezbollah for provoking the war, and called for its disarmament. In an interview granted to the Beirut An-Nahar, he rejected the claim that Hezbollah represented the whole of the Shiite community. "I don't believe Hezbollah asked the Shiite community what they thought about [starting the] war," Mr. al-Amin said. "The fact that the masses [of Shiites] fled from the south is proof that they rejected the war. The Shiite community never gave anyone the right to wage war in its name."

There were even sharper attacks. Mona Fayed, a prominent Shiite academic in Beirut, wrote an article also published by An-Nahar last week. She asks: Who is a Shiite in Lebanon today? She provides a sarcastic answer: A Shiite is he who takes his instructions from Iran, terrorizes fellow believers into silence, and leads the nation into catastrophe without consulting anyone. Another academic, Zubair Abboud, writing in Elaph, a popular Arabic-language online newspaper, attacks Hezbollah as "one of the worst things to happen to Arabs in a long time." He accuses Mr. Nasrallah of risking Lebanon's existence in the service of Iran's regional ambitions.

Click here to read the whole story.

Haveil Havalim #84 is Live at Me-Ander.

The latest edition of Haveil Havalim is up at Me-Ander.

Math Can Be Useful

Really, it can help you understand how to create a 3D fractal.

Here is some basic information:

Menger’s Sponge - named for its inventor Karl Menger and sometimes wrongly called Sierpinski’s Sponge – was the first three dimensional fractal that mathematicians became aware of. In 1995 Dr Jeannine Mosely, a software engineer, set out to build a level 3 Menger Sponge from business cards. After 9 years of effort, involving hundreds of folders all over America, the Business Card Menger Sponge was completed. The resulting object is comprised of 66,048 cards folded into 8000 interlinked sub-cubes, with the entire surface paneled to reveal the Level 2 and Level 3 fractal iterations.

OTOH, if you have some time and patience and no math ability you just might be able to do this yourself.

Is Islam Compatible With the West

Newsweek has an interview with Anjem Choudary.

Here is some background:

"Anjem Choudary, 39, has been associated with two such organizations that have been outlawed. A lawyer from Ilford, East London, and a longtime Muslim activist, he was a leader of Al Muhajiroun, a U.K.-based group committed to the creation of a global Islamic state. Al Muhajiroun was dissolved in 2004 and its founder, Omar Bakri Mohammed, deemed “not conducive to the public good” by the British government shortly after he fled to Lebanon in the wake of the July 7, 2005, London bombings."

Some people may consider this to be unfair, but I am going to cite one section of the interview. The line in bold is Newsweek's question.

Is there an inherent conflict between being British and being Muslim?
If British means adopting British values, then I don’t think we can adopt the British values. I’m a Muslim living in Britain. I have a British passport, but that’s a travel document to me.

This very troubling to me. If you have a nation that is full of immigrants you hope that they eventually assimilate and become a productive part of society. That doesn't mean that you have to give up all of your traditions and values, but rather that you include and incorporate those of your new country as well.

This man doesn't see himself as being British. It is just a place that he is living. Think about it. This is rife with potential problems.

The Pancake Fanatic

Chavez rips U.S., Israel during China visit

I don't trust this man at all. He is not playing a game. We need to be careful and vigilant. He is looking to make himself into a real player in world affairs.

"BEIJING, China (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez slammed Washington on Friday for opposing his bid for a U.N. Security Council seat and condemned Israel's strikes in Lebanon as comparable to the acts of Adolf Hitler.

"The left-leaning Chavez also said Venezuela wants to expand ties with China, giving Beijing a bigger role in its oil industry and drawing on the communist government's experience in modernizing its economy.

President Hu Jintao on Thursday endorsed Venezuela's campaign for a Security Council seat. The bid has unsettled Washington because of Chavez's efforts to foster relations with North Korea and Iran. U.S. officials are backing Guatemala for the seat instead.

"The U.S. government has employed every means to block my country from joining the Security Council," Chavez told reporters. "The American imperialists are trying to stop us."

Chavez condemned Israeli attacks in Lebanon since July 12 that have killed civilians. He compared them to the acts of Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, and said Israeli leaders should be prosecuted for genocide before the International Court of Justice.

"Israel is doing the same thing as Hitler today," he said. "We give our sympathy to the Arab people and condemn Israel."

Chavez has made similar remarks about Israel recently and has scaled back ties with the Israeli government while also building close relations with Iran.

Earlier this month, Chavez withdrew his country's top diplomat to Israel to protest its attacks in Lebanon and its actions toward the Palestinians. Israel, which responded by calling home its ambassador, has criticized what it calls Chavez's "one-sided policy" and "wild slurs."

Chavez said Friday he was invited to visit Syria but hasn't set a date. "

A Halloween Surprise

The Hebron Massacre

Jameel has an interesting post about The Hebron Massacre of 1929 .

"Since today, August 24th, marks 77 years since the Brutal Massacre and rape of the Jewish Community of Hebron, I thought it would be important to provide the following recently found letter from a survivor who recounts the horrors of the pogrom. The letter's author requests that his surviving children read the account every year to recall the survival and the massacre:

"Just one thing, my dear children, may you live and be well, I ask of you that you put away this letter for the generations. Each year, at an agreed‑upon day, you should all meet and give thanks and praise to God, blessed be He, who saved your parents from this great catastrophe, and each one of you should make a generous contribution to charity. The miracle took place on Shabbes, Torah portion Ekev, the 18th day of the month of Av, 5689 [August 24, 1929], in Hebron."

Following is an introduction, and then the letter itself."

Click here to read the whole thing.

Mumbai's "Hitler" eatery Update

Here is an update to this story.

"A restaurant named after Adolf Hitler that enraged Bombay's Jewish community will soon have a new moniker, its owner promised Thursday.

Puneet Sablok said he would remove Hitler's name and the Nazi swastika from billboards and the eatery's menu after it had angered so many people. He had previously said the name and symbols were only meant to attract attention.

"Yes, I have decided to change the name. I never wanted to hurt people's feelings," said Sablok, who made the decision after meeting with members from Bombay's small Jewish community.

"Once they told me how upset they were with the name, I decided to change it. I never wanted to create this controversy or hurt people with this name," said Sablok. "I don't want to do business by hurting people."

Hitler's Cross opened five days ago and serves pizza, salad and pastries in Navi Mumbai, a suburb of Bombay, also known as Mumbai.

Bombay's Jews had called the theme of the restaurant offensive, and demanded a name change. There are about 5,500 Jews in India, with about 4,500 of them living in Bombay."

I am happy see this.

Spammers Can't Spell Or Can They

Here is a little question that has been bothering me lately. If you have an email address and or spend any time online at all you have received all sorts of spam.

Apparently there are a ton of pills that I can take that will endow me with the privilege of being called tripod. Not only that, but these will make me the most incredible lover of all time.

Of course there are other messages that offer me pills that will give me more hair than Cousin It, thicker and fuller too. And there are the proverbial mystery shopper notes that offer opportunity to be paid to shop.

Here is my question. I understand that English is not the native tongue for many of the authors of these notes so it makes sense that there would be grammatical errors. But what I don't understand is why so many include complete gibberish. For example:

Give her an opportunity to spread rumors about your enormous size.
Expect an explosion in your intimate life very soon - guaranteed! Find
what you need
gjg-9tkjg=89978yujooopki0i908786876587 509y5ithkkhokhh

What the hell is up with that. It doesn't look like a tracking or referral code. I just don't get it.

What Israeli security could teach us

Jeff Jacoby has a good piece about how the US can learn from Israel. Emphasis in bold is mine.

"THE SAFEST airline in the world, it is widely agreed, is El Al, Israel's national carrier. The safest airport is Ben Gurion International, in Tel Aviv. No El Al plane has been attacked by terrorists in more than three decades, and no flight leaving Ben Gurion has ever been hijacked. So when US aviation intensified its focus on security after 9/11, it seemed a good bet that the experience of travelers in American airports would increasingly come to resemble that of travelers flying out of Tel Aviv.

But in telling ways, the two experiences remain notably different. For example, passengers in the United States are required to take off their shoes for X-ray screening, while passengers at Ben Gurion are spared that indignity. On the other hand, major American airports generally offer the convenience of curbside check-in, while in Israel baggage and traveler stay together until the security check is completed. Screeners at American airports don't usually engage in conversation with passengers, unless you count their endlessly repeated instructions about emptying pockets and taking laptops out of briefcases. At Ben Gurion, security officials make a point of engaging in dialogue with almost everyone who's catching a plane.

Nearly five years after Sept. 11, 2001, US airport security remains obstinately focused on intercepting bad things -- guns, knives, explosives. It is a reactive policy, aimed at preventing the last terrorist plot from being repeated. The 9/11 hijackers used box cutters as weapons, so sharp metal objects were barred from carry-on luggage. Would-be suicide terrorist Richard Reid tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe, so now everyone's footwear is screened for tampering. Earlier this month British authorities foiled a plan to blow up airliners with liquid explosives; as a result, toothpaste and cologne have become air-travel contraband.

Of course the Israelis check for bombs and weapons too, but always with the understanding that things don't hijack planes, terrorists do -- and that the best way to detect terrorists is to focus on intercepting not bad things, but bad people. To a much greater degree than in the United States, security at El Al and Ben Gurion depends on intelligence and intuition -- what Rafi Ron, the former director of security at Ben Gurion, calls the human factor."

Click here to read the rest.

Lone Soldier: Combat

I found this to be quite interesting. Thanks to Seraphic Secret for the tip.

"After finally being called to emergency reserve duty two weeks ago and much indecision on the part of the officers of how we would be utilized in the raging conflict, my unit was assigned a complicated mission. We were to penetrate some ten kilometers into Lebanon and root out and engage Hezbollah guerrillas that were concentrated in bunkers on a mountain slope facing northern Israel. Intelligence and aerial photographs described a site that was heavily fortified and defended by several cells of well-trained and equipped jihadists. Despite a sustained aerial bombardment by the air force, Katyusha rockets continued to be launched from the area into Haifa, Nahariya, Tzfat.

The decision was made that the launchers could only be destroyed and the guerrillas eliminated by ground troops."

Click here for the full story.

Japanese Chair Ejector Video

Japanese Game Show- Silent Torture

Some of the game shows in Japan are so far out there. This video is of one called edition of Silent Library - a Japanese game show in which the contestants endure hilarious torture but are not allowed to utter a sound.

I don't quite understand how people decide to participate in some of these things, but...

Tip: Boing Boing

Teaching Children Not To Quit

One of the things that I love about my blog is that it is indeed an online journal. It is a place that provides me with a snapshot of moments of my life. I especially enjoy reading about my children and the experiences that we have shared together.

I have had the chance to document my son's love for Scooby-Doo as well as his blasphemous belief that Scrappy Doo is cool. I recounted some of my daughter's antics, my son's religious questions and discussed some things that I want to teach my children.

I love my children. Each day I look forward to seeing them. I love the look they give me when I give them their blessing. I get so much out of that. There is nothing like feeling those little arms wrapped around my neck and hearing "I love you daddy." I get choked up just thinking about it.

And it is because of this burning unconditional love for them that I am able to deal with some of the harder things in life with a smile. With beautiful kids like this, how can I not. This brings me to the topic of the post, teaching children not to quit. It really is a continuation of my post Teaching Children To Lose Gracefully.

The reality is that life is not fair and at times it can be quite hard. One of my responsibilities as a parent is to help them gain coping skills. They have to learn how to fail. They have to learn what to do when their best effort does not produce the result that they want and how to learn from these experiences.

It is hard lesson to learn and I cannot say that I have any magic formula. But I have been working with son on helping him learn that failure is not a license to give up. It is a reminder that whatever we were doing was not working and it is time to find a new angle. To make it more interesting I have tried to help him look at this as being a game.

I think he gets it. I intentionally am not letting him beat me at all of the games that we play. Sometimes I beat him. He still doesn't like losing, but he realizes that he will not lose every time. I rather suspect that it won't be all that long before I have to try hard not to lose. His mind works so quickly.

My daughter is a little too young to get too deeply involved with this, but I am not sure that I am going to have to talk to her about this. She adores her big brother and is forever trying to imitate him. As I watch her chase him around the house I see such determination. She is tough.

I suppose that the real point of this post is just to say again how much I love my children. What a joy, what a blessing. I am so very thankful for them.

Zionist Jedi Tricks

Palestinian military forces were befuddled this morning when they were confronted by the world famous but seldom scence "Zionist Jedi Tricks."

In the picture above a man finds that the Zionist control of the force is indeed strong.

Ok, time for a confession I wanted to make some sort of Foghorn Leghorn joke but I just couldn't come up with one. Oh well.

An Inspriational Father

Ezzie tipped me off to this story. Here is a clip of the story and a video to go with it. Wow.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Is Dangerous

There is no question in my mind that this man is a very dangerous individual. Memri has a transcript of a speech he gave last week.

I am going to cite the end of it:

"If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender."

This may be a lot of rhetoric and bluster, but with leaders like this I like to play it safe. He is a dangerous man. Iran isn't playing games and if the world doesn't wake up it will be to our detriment.

Iranian Cartoon Exhibition Opens

Solomonia has the story about the opening of the Iranian Cartoon Exhibition. For those of you who are too lazy (and you know who you are) here is a link to the Memri story from Solomonia and an excerpt from the transcript.

"Following are excerpts from a news report on an exhibition of Holocaust cartoons in Tehran, which aired on the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on August 17, 2006.

Reporter: As the war in South Lebanon comes to an end, the Holocaust cartoon exhibition is held. It is attended by artists from 61 countries all over the world. The exhibition, held at the Museum of Palestine Contemporary Art, presents 204 works of art. The Holocaust issue, the international circles' ignoring of the truth, and the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people are the main topics dealt with by the artists.

[...]

Mas'oud Shoja'I, exhibition curator: We have received 1,193 works from 61 countries. This proves that people throughout the world, and cartoonists in particular, know how to distinguish between the oppressor and the oppressed.

Reporter: In the time that elapsed between the announcement and the opening of the exhibition, Zionist circles severely attacked the Holocaust exhibition website twice. The exhibition's management received thousands of threatening e-mails and offers to money to prevent the exhibition, but to no avail. Nothing could prevent the exhibition.

[...]

The participation of renowned cartoonists, such as the Australian Louis Pelder (sic), Carlos Latuff from Brazil, and Ekton (sic) from Turkey, shows that the presentation of the Holocaust issue has been very significant and effective.

[...]

Holocaust - the collective burning of people alive - was mentioned twice in the course of history. The first was in Yemen, in the time between the prophecies of Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad. Back then, many Christians were burned alive, at the king's decree, because they refused to renounce Christianity and become Jews. After World War II, claims about a holocaust were raised for the second time in history. This was nothing but a myth - a myth about the killing of six million Jews. Elham Gouran, IRINN."

The Liberal Brain

This is just for fun.

Some Reasons Why T-Mobile Irritates Me

1. The inability to change a rate plan without being subjected to a contract extension. There is something unfair and rotten about this. It is a bit like taking money from a loan shark. You can pay him back but you are forever tainted.
2. Reception, Reception, Reception. I still drop calls in far too many places.
3. Customer Disservice- Sorry, too many uninformed CSRs and too many minutes spent on hold and or navigating your voice jail system.

And this is just a partial list.

A Real Case of Penis Envy

As all my long time readers know old Jack has a thing for bizarre stories. My pal Chaim tipped me off to this one. If you haven't visited his blog go check it out and tell him that I said hello.

And now for stay tuned for the double feature you have been waiting for.

"Aug 19, 2006 — NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian businessman born with two penises wants one of them removed surgically as he wants to marry and lead a normal sexual life, a newspaper report said Saturday.

The 24-year-old man from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh admitted himself to a New Delhi hospital this week with an extremely rare medical condition called penile duplication or diphallus, the Times of India said.

"Two fully functional penes is unheard of even in medical literature. In the more common form of diphallus, one organ is rudimentary," the newspaper quoted a surgeon as saying.

The surgery was expected to be challenging as both organs were well-formed and full blood supply to the retained penis had to be ensured to allow it to function normally, he added. "

Setting aside all of the cracks that my juvenile mind wants to make I have to say that I can only imagine how challenging something like this must be. For those who are interested in learning more about how this happens here is what the article says.

"There are about 100 such reported cases of diphallus around the world and it is known to occur among one in 5.5 million men, the newspaper said.

It is caused by the failure of the mesodermal bands in the embryo to fuse properly. The mesodermal bands are one of three primary layers of the embryo from which several body parts are formed."

How Stuff Works

I love this site. It has some pretty cool articles. Here are links to some that I enjoy:

How Moonshine Works.

Breaking Out: A Dozen Great Escapes

How Kissing Works

How MapQuest Works

Mumbai's "Hitler" eatery angers Indian Jews

Some people lack common sense.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - A new restaurant in India's financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country's small Jewish community.

'Hitler's Cross', which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.

"We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people's minds," owner Punit Shablok told Reuters.

"We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different."

Paint me slow and stupid give me an example of how he was different, aside from the megalomaniac "I am a mass murderer intent on taking over the world" different."

A huge portrait of a stern-looking Fuehrer greets visitors at the door. The cross in the restaurant's name refers to the swastika that symbolised the Nazi regime.

"This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal," said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery's name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.

Sure. Next thing you know there will be a sign saying "Eating means Freedom." What a naive fool.

A Recent Roundup

Here is what has transpired on this blog recently:

Blogstration and Blogfusion

When a Mannequin Kicks Your Ass

Negotiating for Prisoners

Call Me Ishmael- In Search Of the Perfect Post

A List Of Things About Me

Blogstration and Blogfusion

In the course of composing more 250,000 posts I wrote about Blogstration and Blogfusion. If you are curious you can find the short post here.

When a Mannequin Kicks Your Ass

Ok, I am laughing pretty hard at this.

"Attack of the Mannequins" might sound like a horror film title, but, for some shoppers, it could also be a documentary.

Diana Newton, 51, of Westminster sued the J.C. Penney Co. last month after she was allegedly thwacked on the head by a department store dummy.Newton said she was ambushed by a legless female mannequin at the company's Westminster Mall store, a skirmish that left her with a bloodied scalp, a cracked tooth, recurring shoulder pain and numbness in her fingers.

The alleged attack was the latest in a string of mannequin mayhem incidents nationwide.

"There are a slew of lawsuits like this," said mannequin manufacturer Barry Rosenberg, who joked that stores should run background checks on dummies before letting them mingle with shoppers.

Most of the cases involved mannequins toppling over onto customers, but an Indiana woman claimed she caught herpes from the lips of a CPR training dummy. She dropped her lawsuit against the American Red Cross in 2000 after further tests revealed that she didn't have the disease, according to news reports.

The alleged Westminster Mall incident happened nearly a year ago in the women's department at J.C. Penney. Newton said she wanted to buy a certain blouse, but the only one in her size was being worn by a mannequin.

When a salesclerk tried to remove the garment, the dummy's arm flew off and struck Newton's head, according to her lawsuit, which was filed in Orange County Superior Court and seeks unspecified damages.

"I felt a burning sensation," she recalled. Then, blood cascaded down her face, she said.

Paramedics arrived and patched her gash. Feeling woozy but stable, Newton drove home, then had someone take her to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach for further treatment.

" 'My mom got beat up by a mannequin' was the joke around my house," Newton said."

Negotiating for Prisoners

You may recall that when Hizbollah first kidnapped the soldiers Nasrallah said that the only way to get them back would be a prisoner exchange. Well we all know where this led and now we find ourselves in a poor position.

There is a questionable ceasefire in place and the soldiers still haven't been returned. There are rumors that they spent the war locked in the Iranian embassy in Beirut or that they were spirited off to Syria and or Iran. It is not clear, at least not to the best of my knowledge.

Not unlike so many others I very much want them to be safely returned to their homes and families, but I am quite concerned about what message would be sent by this. In fact I am not sure that there is any real way to support this.

Israel went to war and did not come back with them. Their kidnapping is not the only reason for the war, but it is part of it. What I am most concerned about is whether negotiating their return serves as an incentive to the terrorists to continue conducting these operations. Somehow, someway there has to be a solution that doesn't involve giving that kind of hope and incentive away.

Beyond that, let's take a look at who Hizbollah wants released. One of the main guys is Samir Kuntar:

"Abu Abbas, the former head of a Palestinian terrorist group who was captured in Iraq on April 15, is infamous for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. But there are probably few who remember why Abbas’s terrorists held the ship and its 400-plus passengers hostage for two days. It was to gain the release of a Lebanese terrorist named Samir Kuntar, who is locked up in an Israeli prison for life. Kuntar’s name is all but unknown to the world. But I know it well. Because almost a quarter of a century ago, Kuntar murdered my family.

It was a murder of unimaginable cruelty, crueler even than the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist who was shot on the Achille Lauro and dumped overboard in his wheelchair. Kuntar’s mission against my family, which never made world headlines, was also masterminded by Abu Abbas. And my wish now is that this terrorist leader should be prosecuted in the United States, so that the world may know of all his terrorist acts, not the least of which is what he did to my family on April 22, 1979.

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. “This is just like what happened to my mother,” I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

A man like Kuntar does not deserve freedom. The cost is too high.

Haveil Havalim #83 is Live

You can find it over here.

Call Me Ishmael- In Search Of the Perfect Post

"Call Me Ishmael." Thanks to Herman Melville I cannot take credit for the opening line of this post, but I can thank him for helping me to set the tone. I am on a journey, a quest to find the perfect post. That is my own white whale.

I rarely am ever satisfied with my writing. It is always lacking. The rhythm, the rhyme, the tone, the words are not quite what I want. I feel like Tantalus. The eloquence I seek is always just beyond my reach.

As I surf the blogosphere I come across others who do such a good job turning a phrase. I stumble onto writers whose command of the language is superior to my own and in turn I am reminded of just how hard I need to work to improve.

If memory serves Robert has said on more than one occasion that writing is rewriting. I understand and appreciate that. Writing can almost always be improved upon. It is a practice that I should take on. I should spend more time rewriting and revising my work but...

I don't do it because I don't like doing it and in my blog I feel that I can get by without it. I blog by feel. I write what sits on my soul and I do it through a style that I think of as being stream-of-consciousness.

You, the reader are granted access to my unedited thoughts. Ok, that is not completely true, there is some minor editing. But the reality is that there really is very little of it. It passes from my mind to the keyboard and there you have it.

It is a topic that I have touched upon in previous posts, why I blog that is. I would be lying if I said that I didn't care about comments. Ultimately I write for myself and would continue even if no one said anything, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the feedback and the dialogue.

In terms of comments the most popular post I ever created is called What Do You Call Your Blog. In my experience the posts that receive the most feedback usually are about blogging.

In my search for the perfect post I have learned many things. The most important of these lessons is the reminder that writing is an exercise and like other exercises it can be improved upon. My suggestion is to read, read, read and write, write, write.

Read as much as you can. Look at how others construct their posts, their stories, their sentences and their novels. But never forget to just keep writing. The More that you do it the Easier it Becomes.

A List Of Things About Me

I received a request to try and create list of things about myself. I don't have any real direction so I am going to just throw it out there and we'll see if it is remotely interesting. (originally posted here.)

1. I have a problem with brevity, I am naturally long winded.
2. Although I can be gregarious I can be exceptionally quiet.
3. I can be the life of the party or the shyest guy in the room.
4. I am a hopeless romantic.
5. I love movies that have a character that has loved and lost- Casablanca and Unforgiven come to mind.
6. I am exceptionally stubborn. I can maintain my position against the world, even at the expense of cutting off my nose to spite my face. I am working on that.
7. I can bark like a dog. It sounds like a very large dog and I have used it on many occasions for many purposes.
8. When I was 12 I called the police on the FBI.
9. I was evacuated from a Forest Fire when I was 16 and have been through several major earthquakes.
10. I used to be able to curl 150 pounds and benchpress more than 300. Now I find putting up 200 to be challenging.
11. I am a Peace Corps baby. My parents met in Ecuador but I was born in Los Angeles.
12. My first car was a 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger. That was followed by a 1977 Cheverolet Impala Station Wagon. Then I had a 1977 Camaro, it was Blue. That was followed by a 1990 Toyota Camry Station Wagon. That was followed by a 1996 Honda Accord and a 2000 Honda CRV.
13. I took my Dart offroading, did donuts in the quad at my high school, drove through trash cans, shopping carts and endless other barriers that we would assemble.
14. In high school I helped an underclassman sneak out by allowing him to hide in the trunk of the Dart. I didn't want to do it but he begged me for a month and I finally gave in. I drove for about 3 miles before I let him out, but not before I hit every speed bump and dip I could find. When he got out of the car he was covered in a ton of muck, not to mention some oil I kept in the trunk.
15. I went to Israel for the first time in 1985. Before I left I made sure to get a haircut because I had heard that the barbers there were terrible. While in the chair I kept encouraging my barber to cut my hair really short. By the time he was done my head was shaved. My mother was furious.
16. One of the guys in my group started calling me Rambo. When we met the other kids on the trip they wanted to know why that was my nickname. It didn't take long for us to make up all sorts of stupid stories about how I was in the army, or had saved a family at the airport from being robbed. None of them were true, but I thought that they were pretty cool. I was 16, what did I know.
17. I am afraid of the dark and have been for as long as I can remember. I once tried to overcome my fear by walking alone at night through the woods for a couple of miles. It helped a little, but sometimes I still feel like that scared little boy.
18. I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. My biggest fear is that one day I won't make it to the bathroom in time. I have used all sorts of places and have some pretty good stories about my bathroom escapades.
19. One morning when I was having trouble I pulled into the parking lot of a diner. The men's room was locked so I ran into the womens. Fortunately it was empty. While I was in the middle of my business two women walked in and spent a ridiculous amount of time primping and talking at the mirror. When they finally finished and left I ran out, washed my hands and ducked out of there. A policeman saw me walk out and stopped me. I didn't know how to respond to his questions so I answered him in Hebrew. He finally decided that I must not have spoken English and let me go.
20. I could eat pizza every day and never get tired of it.
21. In college I tore the doors off of a pick up truck at my fraternity house. It was an old truck that had been sitting out in the rain for about 5 years. It didn't work and no one wanted to take responsibility for getting rid of it. One day after having had my heart torn out by an ex-girlfriend I took out my frustration on the truck. It took me about an hour to kill the first door. I was surprised when the door came off and of course had to see if I could do the same to the other door. It only took 45 minutes to tear that one off.
22. I love watching The Worlds Strongest Man Contests on ESPN. They are goofy, ridiculous, but oh so much fun.
23. I loved Gladiator. One of my favorite movie lines is "Unleash Hell"
24. Speaking of favorite quotes here are a few from Casablanca " "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." "Rick: How long was it we had, honey?Ilsa: I didn't count the days.Rick: Well, I did. Every one of them. Mostly, I remember the last one, the wild finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain, with a comical look on his face, because his insides have been kicked out."
25. I was in the pilot episode of a game show called "The Grudge Match." The show consisted of three rounds in which you fought an opponent. I was reluctantly matched up against a woman.The first round we had kind of a pillow fight. They gave us "pillow swords." I let her smack me with it a few times and then took it out of her and started to popping her with her sword and mine. Continued
    
26. The next round we were given big sticks that had pillows on the ends, they looked like giant cue tips. She kept trying to hit me in the crotch with her stick and I kept shaking my head at her. Eventually I swept her legs out from under her and that ended the round.The final round was boxing. They gave her regulation 16 ounce gloves to use. I was given oversized 32 ounce gloves. Continued again
    
27. They were monstrous and if i held them up I couldn't see her. I spent a large part of that round trying to avoid having to hit her, but she had no compunction about hitting me, especially below the belt. I finally got fed up with it and hit her back. I didn't hit her hard, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't get a little satisfaction out watchin her hit the canvas. There is only so many times that you can let someone do something like that before you react.
    
28. In my life I have considered working as a sports writer, rabbi, lawyer and teacher.
29. I once took out a singles ad. I got 24 responses and went out with 17 of the women who responded to my ad. For a brief time I dated 3 of them. It was cool because since they all had found me through the ad they knew that there were other women and no one gave me any grief about the others. Eventually I narrowed it down to one and had a girlfriend for about 8 months or so.
30. If I was single again I would not use an ad. It was a ton of fun, but it was an incredible amount of work to date that many people. Too hard to get to know anyone seriously when there are so many others, but it was fun while it lasted.
31. In college I lost a "push-up" contest. The goal was to do more consecutive push-ups then the others in the competition. I did a little more than 700. The winner did close to 850.
32. I love to read anything and everything. My profile lists a very small selection of the authors I enjoy.
33. I love history, it fascinates me.
34. I wore glasses or contacts for 20 years. I had the lasik surgery four years ago and never looked back. It is amazing.
35. I wish that I had James Earl Jones voice. I like mine, but his is on a different level.
36. I have worked as a writer, editor, teacher, youth director, cross country coach, P.E. coach, sold copiers, ad space (online and print), run a marketing department and sold lemonade.
37. Many years ago I was told that a great way to relieve stress was to just go outside and scream. I have never done this outside, but I admit to having done so in my car. And I admit to being scared at the outpouring of emotion. I always feel a little more vulnerable afterwards. FWIW, I don't think that I have done this more than three times and never while actually driving.
38. I have been accused of being too intense. I have also been accused of not taking anything seriously. The answer lies in between.
39. I have a body that was built for demolition, grace is not something that is used to describe me. I am not a klutz, I play many sports, some of them well, but I am just kind of big.
40. I am a daydreamer. I love to spend time lost in thought about things, people, places and all sorts of stuff.
41. I once believed that I would never be married. I have a bad case of wanderlust and I didn't think that I could be in one place with one person for any length of time.
42. When I was younger sometimes I would get in my car and just drive until something caught my eye.
43. I am a storyteller. I am good at coming up with stories off the cuff and just running with them.
44. Everything in this list is true, but I have had to work hard at making sure I didn't include anything that was fabricated. I really wanted to and I may still do it yet.
45. The best thing I have ever done in my life is become a parent. It is the hardest and the scariest, but still the best.
46. I used to say that I wanted six children. I still do, but I am not sure that it is a reasonable goal.
47. In college I told one of my girlfriends that I wanted to have six children. She told me that I was selfish and crazy, that it was unfair to ask one woman to bear that many children for me. I told her thatI told her that was very spiritual and that I would do as my forefathers did. I said that I would spare her the full load and offered to marry her and her two sisters. Not only did I offer my hand in marriage but health, retirement and vacation benefits.She didn't think that was funny. I still smile about it.
48. The scariest thing about being a parent is my own memory of the things that I did. I cringe sometimes at the thought of my children doing as I did.
49. I sometimes think that G-d gave me a daughter to punish/teach me a lesson. I love her dearly, but again when I think about boys/men and girls it makes me crazy. I work out harder so that when I am 50 those boys who come looking for my daughter will think twice about it. I don't really think that it will work, I never was intimidated by fathers, but maybe it will work for me. Who knows.
50. I almost never proofread my posts. I don't spell check them and unless someone points out a mistake it sits there, a siren notifying the world of my silly error.
51. I always wanted to be able to speak with an Irish accent. I don't know why, but I do. I can do a pretty good Southern accent. If I am speaking with someone with a drawl it just sneaks out of me. It can be strong enough to fool people into thinking that I am from Dixie. Of course they get a little irate when they hear me speak in my normal voice, but that is a story for a different day.
52. I love Didi Reese Cookies.
53. When I was about seven we had an Old English Sheepdog named Fluffy. She was wild. She ate shoes, the door, and assorted odds and ends. She used to go tearing through the house at top speed. I remember her knocking my sisters over like bowling pins. Eventually my parents gave her away and I cried.
54. When I was 24 we had to put our dog to sleep. I took her to the vet by myself and I held her paw as they injected her. I watched the lights go out in her eyes. It was terrible. Her kidneys were failing, she could barely see and she many other problems, but it was still hard. I stayed in the room with her and held her dead body. I cried then too. It was rough.
    
55. I could extend this silly list of nonsense, but I am not sure that it is even worth posting so I'll cut it off here for now.
    

Teaching Children To Hate

This is just so very wrong. Indoctrinating children with such hate.

Hollywood Takes a Stand Against Terror

I was glad to read about this.

NICOLE Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.

"The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper.

It specifically targets "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads.

"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.

"We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."

A who's who of Hollywood heavyweights joined Kidman on the ad.

The actors listed included: Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt.

Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names."

From YNET:

"Actor Adam Sandler was present at one of the many briefings the consul general gave this week. At the end of the briefing, Sandler announced that he would personally donate USD 100,000 to the children of the north and south, and about 400 Playstation games purchased by the actor are expected to be transferred to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in the coming days."

Some Cool Sound Clips

Here are a few sound clips. Some may be more risque so consider yourself forewarned. Some of these come from some of my favorite movies.

Bogart
Stella
Land War In Asia
Mr Wolfe.
Mutants
Women
Trying to Pick Up Women
Dodgeball
Scarface
Three Up and Three Down
White Man In Dire Need
Kansas

Always
Close
Good Leads
Top Man
Mr. Hand
Dr. Evil
I could Have Been A Contender

JonBenet Ramsey Continued

Here is some additional information regarding the post below. This still leaves a few questions to be answered.

BOULDER, Colorado (CNN) -- John Mark Karr, a 41-year-old schoolteacher, has been charged with murder in the 1996 killing of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, authorities said at a news conference in Boulder, Colorado, on Thursday.

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy wouldn't comment on nature of investigation or the timing of the arrest.

"There is much more work to be done" on the case, Lacy said.

"Let us do our job thoroughly and carefully," Lacy asked the media.

Karr had begun working as second-grade teacher in Bangkok international school system on Tuesday, Lacy said.

Karr said in Bangkok he was with the child beauty queen when she died in 1996 and called her death "an accident."

"I was with JonBenet when she died," he told reporters in Bangkok. "I loved JonBenet."

Asked by a reporter if he was an innocent man, Karr replied, "No."

And here is another section to review.

Abduction gone awry?

Suwat quoted Karr as saying that he tried to kidnap JonBenet for $118,000 ransom but that the plan went awry and he strangled her, according to an AP report.

Karr told questioners he drugged and then had sex with JonBenet before accidentally killing her, Thamrongrisakul told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Thamrongrisakul said he was not present for the questioning, which was conducted by U.S. law enforcement officials, according to the AP report, but was told of the interrogation.

Karr had been a suspect for a while, Hurst said, adding that her office and the Thai police worked closely for two months before a judge believed probable cause existed for an arrest.

Karr's arrest was the culmination of an investigation that began after a University of Colorado professor, Michael Tracey, contacted authorities in Boulder.

Tracey, who produced a documentary about the JonBenet murder, had been in touch with Karr for at least two years, according to university spokesman Barrie Hartman.

Karr's ex-wife, Lara Karr, told KGO-TV in California that she does not believe her former husband killed JonBenet because he was with her in Alabama at the time."

A Lebanese Perspective

The Lebanese Political Journal offers a post about where things stand now.

"No maybe political statements have been made from the 14 March camp, but Druze leader and regular Lebanese rhetorical firestarter Walid Jumblatt announced that he will hold a press conference on Thursday entitled, "We will not surrender to Assad and Nasrallah's conditions."

The tone in Lebanon has already changed. According to friends in Beirut, not even the Shia were happy with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's post-ceasefire speech.

The Shia community is the most vulnerable right now. Hezbollah is using fierce rhetoric, most likely, to intimidate other Lebanese politicians and sects from criticizing them and to delay any talk of their disarmament. This rhetorical move is sending shivers down the spines of most Shia because now is precisely the time to talk about Hezbollah's weapons. We were talking about them before in an effort to prevent something happening like what just occurred. Now, the urgency to talk is even greater.

Hezbollah's rhetoric is frightening many Shia because they are without homes, food, electricity, medication, money, roads, utilities, and other necessities. They could take the fight against Israel. They can't take much more. And they definitely can't take arms against the people who most recently supported them when they were in need; the very people who currently in a much better state than those who lost their homes.

Many Shia claim that if Hezbollah doesn't provide them with support very soon, they will no longer be able to support the organization. Many Shia were willing to support Hezbollah through thick and thin because Hezbollah took care of them. In Dahieh Jounoubieh (the southern suburbs of Beirut which is primiarly Shia and where Hezbollah's headquarters are located), Hezbollah was referred to as chebab (guys) who took care of all sorts of mundane problems.

Now that they have truly suffered for Hezbollah, the Shia want something in return. Their houses are gone. Their furniture is gone. Their loved ones are gone. And they want to know if Hezbollah will help offset their losses. In his speech, Nasrallah claimed he would. But most likely that support will be too little, too late."

We shall have to see what this all means.

Updated to include:

The war Hezbollah couldn't lose - and might

(Thanks Snoopy)

So how could Hezbollah lose?

They still might. And not only because its gunners have yet to make good on Nasrallah's probably ill-advised (and reminiscent of Israeli blunders) vow to send missiles crashing into Tel Aviv.

The answer lies in the nature of the cease-fire now under debate at the United Nations and across the Arab world. The answer lies, no less, in the one phenomenon that Israelis planners could not have foreseen, and which they are still at a loss to explain:

The world's silence.

For all the name-calling and hand-wringing - much of it perfectly valid, others drearily, predictably one-sided - Israel has been for a solid month operating under no real international pressure.

The reason this time may have little to do with Israel, and everything to do with Iran.

The world is scared of Hezbollah. Because the whole world is scared of Iran. Especially large swaths of the Arab world.

If, for the first time, Hezbollah is forced by international pressure to pull back its fighters in favor of the Lebanese army and a multi-national force, even at the cost of a large prisoner exchange.

Arrest made in JonBenet Ramsey case

I truly hope that they have the right person. I hope that there is a special place in hell for those who hurt children. I can't believe that it has already been ten years.

"(CNN) -- Authorities have arrested a "possible suspect" in the decade-old JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation, law enforcement sources told CNN on Wednesday.

An investigator with the Boulder County, Colorado, District Attorney's office traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, and is bringing a suspect back to the United States, CNN Denver affiliate KUSA reported.

The suspect was arrested Wednesday morning and has confessed to certain elements of the crime that are unknown to the general public, KUSA reported.

The man already was already held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges, sources told The Associated Press.

Prosecutors have not confirmed the identity of the suspect, but expect to hold a press conference later today.

JonBenet's beaten and strangled body was found in the basement of the family home in Boulder, Colorado, the day after Christmas in 1996. She was 6."

Lebanese And Israeli Destruction- The Media

Call me crazy, but virtually every non-Israeli media report I read about the aftermath of the war shows pictures of the destruction in Lebanon and almost nothing on Israel. It offers stories of what happened to the Lebanese. They are often tragic tales and they certainly shouldn't be discounted.

Is it just me or does there seem to be a bit of imbalance here. Where are the pictures of the wanton destruction caused by Hezbollah missiles. Where are the stories about those who were indiscriminately slaughtered by the intentional attacks on a civilian population.

Again, I do not discount the loss for the Lebanese, but it is just unreasonable not to expect to see coverage of the Israeli side.

For more on this check out Soccer Dad's post here.

Grandpa Is Still Gone

My sister and her kids left this evening. It was the first time that the children had been here since my grandfather died. They ran around the house searching for him. The older two understood that he is gone, but that didn't stop them from conducting a little scavenger hunt of sorts.

I miss my grandfather. Three years ago I had four grandparents and now I have two. Life changes so very quickly. Sometimes I wake up and find that I have forgotten that he is gone.

When I walk through my parent's house I find myself looking for him. Everywhere. Somewhere. Anywhere. The halls are empty and his chair is bare. His presence is absent and yet in some ways it is still there, lingering.

My father is an orphan. I suppose that one day I will be too. I look at him. I watch him and study how he handles this. It is a habit that was ingrained in me at birth. How can I not pay attention to him and how can I not notice how many things he does that my grandfather did.

There are expressions and gestures. There are reactions and actions and in all of them I see my father and echoes of my grandfather. If I see this much in my father it makes me wonder how much my children see in me, or how much they will see.

Grandpa and I were very similar. There are some things that I share with him that I don't have in common with my father. It is ok, I don't see a need to be a mirror image. I don't expect my son or daughter to be a mirror image of me either.

I suppose that in some ways we cannot help but look at our parents/grandparents and study them in an effort to understand ourselves better.

The children asked about him. They knew that he was gone, but still they wanted to know where Grandpa was. I asked them where they thought he was and in a quiet voice the eldest said "he died."

We talked about it a little. It is a conversation that I have had with my son many times. He understands that right now he is the end of the line. Grandpa died and that left the line with my father, myself and my son.

And then there were three.

In a short time my daughter's memories of grandpa will fade. My two youngest nephews won't remember him at all and the reality is that even the memories of the eldest will be vague. It pains me a little.

My grandfather meant so much to me. He is a part of me. Like I said earlier, there are certain things that he and I shared. There are secrets that I was given trust of and in turn secrets that I placed in his care.

The things that we knew about each other are deep and the truth is that it really bothers me to write about him in the past tense.

Here is the big secret. When I think about him I don't always get that lump in my throat and part of me feels guilty about that. It feels a bit like a betrayal to his memory and at the same time I know that he wouldn't want the fuss. He would be uncomfortable with it, so I can't be too upset.

It is a part of life and in my experience it is ok to let some of that go. It is not really a betrayal. It is ok not to hold on to the pain and loss.

That doesn't mean that I don't feel it from time to time, I do. It just means that it is not always present.

I loved my grandfather. It is tough to realize that I don't have him around anymore and it is hard to accept that the kids will never know him the way that I did.

But they will hear stories and in spending time with me they'll be exposed to certain expressions and thoughts. So I suppose that in some way they will learn more about his legacy.

Grandpa died. It sounds so hollow and feels so empty.

I miss you...still.

A Confession- Sometimes I Sing These Songs When I Am Alone

Ok, so here is my confession of the moment. Sometimes I find myself singing children's songs to myself. I am willing to bet that I am not the only parent who does this.

Thanks to the magic of YouTube I can share a few with you. Fortunately I never did buy the Pseudo-Star Trek costume.

Law & Order Missing Letter Unit

Thanks Chaim.

You Too Can Be Like Wolverine

I like the X-Men. Wolverine is probably my favorite character, but this guy takes it too far.

Movie Quotes That Remind me Of The War

A couple of quotes from The Untouchables:

Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?

and

Capone: When you got an all-out prizefight, you wait until the fight is over, one guy is left standing. 'N' that's how you know who won.

If I wasn't so tired I might spend a few minutes discussing how these quotes relate to real life. Ok, maybe I'll try.

IMO, if you go to war you go with the intention to completely overwhelm the enemy. As Sean Connery's character illustrates you hit them so hard they cannot conceive of lifting their head up out of the mud. There is no reason to use bombs and bullets unless you wish to kill and if that is your task then you let them wonder if they didn't start a fight with the devil.

Now if we go with Capone's commentary we can take two different perspectives. The first is the literal interpretation. Last man standing is the victor.

OTOH, we can argue that it does not have to be taken literally and that a better measure can be assessed after some time has passed. Does the last man standing walk away or do they just collapse from exhaustion. It is something to consider.

More on this later.

Ants- The Bigger The Butt The Better They Taste

"BARICHARA, Colombia - The first loud crackle tastes and feels like popcorn, but by the time the juices spray wildly in your mouth and the filament-like legs slide down your throat, there's no mistaking this toasted ant queen.

The people of sun-soaked northern Colombia have been eating ants for centuries. They believe the accurately named "hormiga culona" — big-butt queen ant — is everything from a natural form of Viagra to a protein-rich defense against cancer.

Now the invertebrates are going global: A businessman in Santander province exported more than 880 pounds of the inch-long queen ants last year, many of them to be hand-dipped in Belgian chocolate and sold in fancy packaging at $8 for a half dozen at upscale London department stores like Harrods and Fortnum & Mason.

But even as the delicacy begins to expand beyond Colombia, the ants appear to be dwindling in Santander, and that worries the region's ant-eating bipeds.

This year's harvest, which usually begins around Easter and lasts as late as June, was one of the worst on record, with peasants in the artist colony of Barichara reporting half their normal year's haul.

Entomologists say the winter was unusually harsh and spring rains were late, which may have disturbed the virgin queen ants' nuptial flights — the one time a year when they emerge from their dune-like ant hills to seek a mate and form a new colony. Almost as often, the queens are grabbed by lizards, birds or humans.

Expanding fields of beans, tomatoes and tobacco also have replaced the region's last remaining wilderness and farmers consider the leaf-cutting ants — the species atta laevigata — to be serious pests.

"It's an age-old dilemma for the farmer — should I kill it or eat it?"

Click here for the full story.

Is Google Losing Its Sense of Humor?

Last month, we noted that "google" had entered Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. It was a landmark for the search engine -- going from nonentity to common usage in only eight years. One would think that a company that existed only in the minds of two college dudes a few years ago would be happy that a major publication such as The Washington Post prominently marked the occasion.

One would, that is, until one got a letter from Google's trademark lawyer.

Google, evidently, took offense to this passage in last month's article: "Google, the word, now takes its place alongside the handful of proper nouns that have moved beyond a particular product to become descriptors of an entire sector -- generic trademarks."

This characterization of Google, the letter warned, is "genericide" and should be avoided. Such letters are cranked out every day by companies keen on protecting their trademarks. Wham-O Inc. wants writers to eschew "Frisbee" for "plastic flying disc," for instance. I'll note that in my Palm. Excuse me -- my "personal digital assistant."

Google, however, goes the extra mile and provides a helpful list of appropriate and inappropriate uses of its name. To show how hip and down with the kids Google is, the company gets a little wacky with its examples. Here's one:

" Appropriate: He ego-surfs on the Google search engine to see if he's listed in the results.

Inappropriate: He googles himself."

But this one's our favorite:

Click here for the full story. Hat tip to Tinkerty Tonk.

Mike Wallace Interviews Iranian Maniac- Ahmadinejad

What a scary man. Footage can be found here and here. Commentary can be found here.

Does Marriage Kill The Female Libido

Maybe Gene Simmons was right.

Libido lags for ladies in luck

By Maurice Chittenden and Roger Dobson

THE female sex drive starts sputtering to a halt as soon as a woman has got her man, according to a new study.

Researchers have found that women's libido plummets so rapidly when they believe they are in a secure relationship that after just four years the proportion of 30-year-old women wanting regular sex falls below 50 per cent.

There are few things that appear able to keep a woman sexually interested, the study found, but living apart for extended periods can help.

The findings for women contrast with those for men, whose sexual appetite hardly flagged at all up to 40 years after marriage.

The study, by researchers at Hamburg-Eppendorf University in Germany, challenges the popular image of modern women as equal to men in sexual appetite.

"Female motivation matches male sexual motivation in the first years of the partnership and then steadily decreases," concludes Dietrich Klusmann, the medical psychologist who conducted the study.

"Male motivation remains constant regardless of the duration of the partnership." Dr Klusmann questioned more than 500 people about their sex lives in order to measure changes in their libido.

He found that within a year of a relationship starting, female libido moved into steep decline.

While 60 per cent of 30-year-old women reported wanting sex "often" at the start of a relationship, the figure fell to below 50per cent within four years and to about 20 per cent after 20 years.

Dr Klusmann, whose work will be published this week in the journal Human Nature, has compared his findings to the sexual habits of prairie voles and offers an evolutionary explanation.

He believes that women, having found a man with whom to procreate, keep "resources" scarce to keep the man interested. Men, on the other hand, maintain a higher sex drive in the hope of keeping their mate faithful and other men at bay.

The Germans found, however, that living apart slows the decline in female libido, confirming the maxim "absence makes the heart grow fonder".

Women whose husbands or boyfriends have higher educational qualifications than their own also maintain their sex drive. This, speculates Dr Klusmann, is because such men are regarded as a "valuable mate of choice" by other women.

Read the whole thing.

Bottle and baby used as bomb

The Daily Telegraph Reports:

"A HUSBAND and wife arrested in the British terror raids allegedly planned to take their six-month-old baby on a mid-air suicide mission.

Scotland Yard police are quizzing Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his 23-year-old wife Cossor over suspicions they were to use their baby's bottle to hide a liquid bomb.

The theory is one of the reasons security chiefs are now insisting mothers taste babies' milk at check-in desks before allowing them to take bottles aboard flights.

The pair are among up to 23 suspects being questioned over a plot to bring down nine airliners over five US cities, killing thousands of people in the air and on the ground.

The questioning of the group comes as British Government sources yesterday revealed many of those suspects posed as relief workers to travel to al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistan.

It has also been revealed that security services are secretly monitoring "dozens" of fresh plots involving hundreds of suspects which could be unleashed at any time.

One government source said at least 30 priority cases were under urgent investigation.

" All those 30 are seen as serious, determined attacks that will happen unless we stop them," the source said.

Police spent yesterday combing through the Alis' east London housing commission flat for clues.

Cossor took her baby with her to the police station during last week's raids but her son is now being cared for by grandparents.

Cossor's grandfather, Nazir Ahmed, 84, said Abdula had travelled to Pakistan about four weeks ago.

"We didn't understand what the hurry was and why he needed to go," Mr Ahmed said."

Haveil Havalim #82 Is at Soccer Dads

Check it out here.

It Is Not Quite Coffee

Ok, this isn't even close. When you don't have time to brew your own cup and you cannot risk a wait at Starbucks you can rely on your very own Boots Caffeine Strips.

Boots Caffeine Strips help support energy levels. These easy to take strips have been specially developed so that you can help maintain your energy levels throughout the day.

• Contains 28 strips
• Not suitable for children under 12 years
• Four strips to be dissolved in the mouth daily
• Do not exceed the stated daily intake

LA Times- Tim Rutten Says It

Normally I am very skeptical of the LA Times and its coverage of Israel but I have to give their media critic Tim Rutten credit. In this column he says plenty that I agree with.

Here are a couple of sections for your consumption.

Lebanon photos: Take a closer look

THE controversy this week over Reuters' distribution of digitally manipulated, falsely labeled and — probably — staged photos of the fighting in Lebanon hasn't been nearly as large as it should have been.

I am glad that at least one person in the so called MSM recognizes this as their credibility is being tarnished daily. Let us continue

"Last Saturday, Reuters, which is headquartered in London, transmitted two photographs by one of its regular Lebanese freelance photographers, Adnan Hajj, whose work for the agency has appeared in many American newspapers since 1993. An anonymous tipster reportedly drew Johnson's attention to the photos, and he immediately recognized that one purporting to show the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on Beirut had been digitally enhanced. It subsequently emerged that another image allegedly showing an Israeli fighter launching multiple air-to-ground missiles also had been altered using the common Photoshop computer program.Johnson quickly posted a denunciation of the phony photo. Within 18 hours, Reuters killed the manipulated images, fired Hajj and removed 920 of his photos from its digital archives. Paul Holmes, the Reuters editor responsible for standards and ethics, told the New York Times that all the withdrawn images were being reviewed "to see if any others have been improperly altered." He also said the news agency was investigating how the photos slipped by its editors but noted that on the day in question, "we published 2,000 photos. It was handled by someone on a very busy day at a more junior level than we would wish for in ideal circumstances."

The cause of the lapse, Holmes said, simply was "human error."

Call me a cynic, but I am not sure if I buy the junior level excuse. On with the column.

"Fair enough. Unfortunately, these things can happen to conscientious news organizations in precisely the circumstances he cites. Three years ago, for example, the Los Angeles Times immediately fired a staff photographer and apologized to its readers when it discovered he had used similar technology to make a picture he'd shot in Iraq more dramatic. The doctored image had appeared on the paper's front page.

There are, however, two problems here, and they're the reason this controversy shouldn't be allowed to sputter to its inglorious conclusion just yet: One of these has to do with the scope of what strongly appears to be wider fabrication in the photojournalism Reuters and other news agencies are obtaining from their freelancers in Lebanon. The other is the U.S. news media's grudging response to the revelation of Hajj's misconduct and its utter lack of interest in exploring whether his is a unique or representative case."

Yes, yes, yes. Why wouldn't you take the ball and run with it. Is this a one time event or something that happens more often.

"Thus far, only a handful of relatively brief stories on this affair have appeared in major American papers. The Times picked up one from the Washington Post, which focused mainly on the politics of Johnson's website. The New York Times, which ran one of Hajj's photos on its front page Saturday, reported that it has published eight of his pictures since 2003, but none were altered. It then went on to quote other papers about steps they take to detect fraudulent images. No paper has taken up the challenge of determining whether there's anything dodgy about the flow of freelance photos Reuters and other news agencies — including the Associated Press, which also transmitted images made by Hajj — are sending out of tormented Lebanon."

Shameful. honestly, just shameful. The lines in bold in the graph's below are my doing.

"Johnson is co-founder with mystery novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon of another online site, http://www.pajamas media.com. It aggregates mostly right wing blogs from around the world and has ambitions as a politically inflected alternative news source. It's worth taking the time to go there and to click on the link giddily labeled "Reutersgate." Make what you will of the analysis, much of which is feverish, sneering and tending toward the mechanistically conspiratorial. What's hard to imagine is how anybody can look at the photos and not conclude that they're riddled with journalistic deceit.

Many, including grisly images from the Qana tragedy, clearly are posed for maximum dramatic effect. There is an entire series of photos of children's stuffed toys poised atop mounds of rubble. All are miraculously pristinely clean and apparently untouched by the devastation they purportedly survived. (Reuters might want to check its freelancers' expenses for unexplained Toys R Us purchases.) In some cases, the bloggers seem to have uncovered the same photographer using more than one identity. There's an improbable photo by Hajj of a Koran burning atop the rubble of a building supposedly destroyed by an Israeli aircraft hours before. Nothing else in sight is alight. (With photos, as in life, when something seems too perfect to be true, it's almost always because it is.) In other photos, the same wrecked building is portrayed multiple times with the same older woman — one supposes she ought to be called a model — either lamenting its destruction or passing by in different costumes.

There's more, and it's worth your time to take a look. That's one of the undeniable strengths of the Internet and of the blogosphere, and the fact that it is being employed to help keep journalism honest ultimately is to everybody's benefit."

Rutten makes a good point below. Again the emphasis in bold is my own.

"What the major news organizations ought to be doing is to make their own analysis of the images coming out of Lebanon and if, as seems more than likely, they find widespread malfeasance, some hard questions need to be asked about why it occurred. Some of it may stem from the urge every photographer feels to make a photo perfect. Some of it probably flows from a simple economic imperative — a freelancer who produces dramatic images gets picked up more and paid more. Moreover, the obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of most of the European and world press means there's an eager market for pictures of dead Lebanese babies."

I really appreciate the conclusion below. More bold placed by myself.

"It's worth noting in this context that there is no similar flow of propagandistic images coming from the Israeli side of the border. That's because one side — the democratically elected government of Israel — views death as a tragedy and the other — the Iranian financed terrorist organization Hezbollah — sees it as an opportunity. In this case, turning their own dead children into material creates an opportunity to cloud the fact that every Lebanese casualty, tragic as he or she is, was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel's pursuit of terrorists who use their own people as human shields. Every Israeli civilian killed or injured was the victim of a terrorist attack intended to harm civilians. That alone ought to wash away any blood-stained suggestion of moral equivalency.

That brings us to the most troubling of the possible explanations for these fraudulent photos, which is that some of the photojournalists involved are either intimidated by or sympathetic to the Hezbollah terrorists. It's a possibility fraught with harsh implications, but it needs to be examined thoroughly and openly.

Johnson and his colleagues have done the serious news media a service. Failure to follow up on it would be worse than churlish; it would be irresponsible."

Understanding the Media

A man in Paris saw a pit bull attacking a toddler. He killed the pit bull and saved the child's life. Reporters swarmed the fellow to cover the story.

--"Tell us!! What's your name?? All of Paris will love you! Tomorrow's headline will be "Paris Hero Saves Baby Girl from Vicious Dog!".

The man said "But I'm not from Paris."

Reporters: "That's OK. Then the whole of France will love you and tomorrow's headline will read: "French Hero Saves Baby Girl from Vicious Dog".

The man said, "I'm not from France, either."

Reporters:"That's Ok also. All Europe will love you. Tomorrow's headline will shout: "Europe's Hero Saves Girl from Vicious Dog".

The man said, "I'm not from Europe, either."

Reporters: So, where ARE you from?"

The man said "I'm from Israel."

Reporters: "OK... Then tomorrow's headlines will proclaim to the world:

"Vicious Jew Kills Family Pet!!!".

The Value Of World Opinion

Dennis Prager has a good essay on why you cannot judge morality based upon world opinion. I am going to take the liberty of quoting the entire piece here.

"If you are ever morally confused about a major world issue, here is a rule that is almost never violated: Whenever you hear that "world opinion" holds a view, assume it is morally wrong.

And here is a related rule if your religious or national or ethnic group ever suffers horrific persecution: "World opinion" will never do a thing for you. Never.

"World opinion" has little or nothing to say about the world's greatest evils and regularly condemns those who fight evil.

The history of "world opinion" regarding the greatest mass murders and cruelties on the planet is one of relentless apathy.

Ask the 1.5 million Armenians massacred by the Ottoman Turks;

or the 6 million Ukrainians slaughtered by Stalin;

or the tens of millions of other Soviet citizens killed by Stalin's Soviet Union;

or the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their helpers throughout Europe;

or the 60 million Chinese butchered by Mao;

or the 2 million Cambodians murdered by Pol Pot;

or the millions killed and enslaved in Sudan;

or the Tutsis murdered in Rwanda's genocide;

or the millions starved to death and enslaved in North Korea;

or the million Tibetans killed by the Chinese;

or the million-plus Afghans put to death by Brezhnev's Soviet Union.

Ask any of these poor souls, or the hundreds of millions of others slaughtered, tortured, raped and enslaved in the last 100 years, if "world opinion" did anything for them.

On the other hand, we learn that "world opinion" is quite exercised over Israel's unintentional killing of a few hundred Lebanese civilians behind whom hides Hezbollah -- a terror group that intentionally sends missiles at Israeli cities and whose announced goals are the annihilation of Israel and the Islamicization of Lebanon. And, of course, "world opinion" was just livid at American abuses of some Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. In fact, "world opinion" is constantly upset with America and Israel, two of the most decent countries on earth, yet silent about the world's cruelest countries.

Why is this?

Here are four reasons:

First, television news.

It is difficult to overstate the damage done to the world by television news. Even when not driven by political bias -- an exceedingly rare occurrence globally -- television news presents a thoroughly distorted picture of the world. Because it is almost entirely dependent upon pictures, TV news is only capable of showing human suffering in, or caused by, free countries. So even if the BBC or CNN were interested in showing the suffering of millions of Sudanese blacks or North Koreans -- and they are not interested in so doing -- they cannot do it because reporters cannot visit Sudan or North Korea and video freely. Likewise, China's decimation and annexation of Tibet, one of the world's oldest ongoing civilizations, never made it to television.

Second, "world opinion" is shaped by the same lack of courage that shapes most individual human beings' behavior. This is another aspect of the problem of the distorted way news is presented. It takes courage to report the evil of evil regimes; it takes no courage to report on the flaws of decent societies. Reporters who went into Afghanistan without the Soviet Union's permission were killed. Reporters would risk their lives to get critical stories out of Tibet, North Korea and other areas where vicious regimes rule. But to report on America's bad deeds in Iraq (not to mention at home) or Israel's is relatively effortless, and you surely won't get killed. Indeed, you may well win a Pulitzer Prize.

Third, "world opinion" bends toward power. To cite the Israel example, "world opinion" far more fears alienating the largest producers of oil and 1 billion Muslims than it fears alienating tiny Israel and the world's 13 million Jews. And not only because of oil and numbers. When you offend Muslims, you risk getting a fatwa, having your editorial offices burned down or receiving death threats. Jews don't burn down their critics' offices, issue fatwas or send death threats, let alone act on such threats.

Fourth, those who don't fight evil condemn those who do. "World opinion" doesn't confront real evils, but it has a particular animus toward those who do -- most notably today America and Israel.

The moment one recognizes "world opinion" for what it is -- a statement of moral cowardice, one is longer enthralled by the term. That "world opinion" at this moment allegedly loathes America and Israel is a badge of honor to be worn proudly by those countries. It is when "world opinion" and its news media start liking you that you should wonder if you've lost your way."

Nieces, Nephews, Sisters, Great-Grandparents AWWW!

Just returned from a family trip to a secret compound in which I was given the pleasure of watching my children play with nieces, nephews and assorted family members. What fun.

Much of the time I sat and watched as they devised all sorts of crazy plans to con their aunts, uncles and grandparents into supplying them with enough junk food to place them all on a perpetual sugar high.

It is with great pleasure that I readily admit that they are smarter than I am, all of them. From the smallest to the largest they all best me. Fortunately I have a little life experience on them which enabled me to stay one step ahead of them.

Imagine for a moment one infant, one 2 year-old, one 5.5 year-old and a 6.5 year-old hanging off various parts of my anatomy (and that is just the boys) and you will begin to understand why my body feels like I just finished participating in the UFC.

Picture young girls with makeup and a desire to make an uncle look pretty and or beautiful and you might understand why I am reticent to go see La Cage Au Folles.

Consider what it would be like to have a room full of young children and adults listen in rapt attention to stories told by a 92 year-old great-grandfather about what his life was like in his younger years.

If you can picture these things you might have an inkling of what it was like.

I have more sisters than you can shake a stick at and for a brief time we were all together. For a moment we gave the spouses the responsibility of watching the children and we sat with our mother and father. The room felt empty. It was so very quiet.

I looked at the youngest and I looked at the middle sisters and wondered where the time has gone. It seems silly to say it, but last week we were stuck in a station wagon. I was 12, the only boy and it felt like my sisters were always bothering me about something.

Trapped in the station wagon the youngest let their older sister manipulate them and so they worked as a bloc. Together they complained to mom, "Jack is bothering us. Jack hit me, Jack poked me" etc.

There are so very many stories that I could tell. So many trips in the car. There are the stories about how we fought and some of them are pretty funny, but the pleasant reality is that there aren't that many.

Most of the stories are about siblings who love each other, deeply. When I think about my grandfather's funeral I have many memories, but one of the best is from one of the euologies.

The man who gave it spoke about fierce loyalty and described how my siblings and I have always leaned upon each other. He described this protective nature as a fierce loyalty that he wished he could see in every set of siblings

He is right about that. The old cliche is right, mess with one of us and you end up dealing with all of us. It is comforting to know that my siblings are always there to help me.

In a couple of days we are going to be split apart again. My sister will leave and the cousins my children love so dearly will go with her. The family will be torn apart. It is a little unfair to say it that way, but it is how I feel.

I wouldn't stand in her way. She has a life outside of our hometown. She has friends and her husband's family. The kids have a life their too and they would miss it if they had to leave it, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't wish that they would move home.

Such is life. The most important thing that you can do is to love your family fiercely. Hold them and keep them tight.

My sisters think that I am a big tough guy. Do me a favor and try not to tell them how much I miss them, I'd hate for them to think that I am getting soft in my old age.

Should We Feel Badly For Deserters

That wacky pseudo-activist who has claimed to be the voice of those who oppose the war in Iraq has offered refuge to deserters on her land in Crawford, Texas.

Allow me to skip ahead and quote part of the article:

"Among a contingent of younger Iraq Veterans Against the War were several current service members.

One not wearing a name badge declined to reveal his identity. He said, with confirmation from his peers, that he was from the Seattle area, in his 20s, and had been "away-without-leave from a combat unit now in Iraq" for an undisclosed period of time.

The AWOL soldier said he decided to flee the Army after the invasion of Iraq because he believes the war illegal. He said he joined the military before 9/11 "because I had been to five different high schools and went through family problems. The military was a way to get friends and family structure." He said he first began considering risking prosecution for desertion after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Being AWOL, however, has been "hell," he said, not only because of rifts in his family, but also because of "the uncertainty of not knowing if I will be caught as a deserter or if I should go public and turn myself in. I am constantly back and forth; it's always on my mind."

You know, I feel badly that these young people have been placed in a situation such as this. I really empathize with them and understand why someone might want to run away. In fact part of me wants to just ignore the fact that they have gone AWOL, but I just cannot do it.

And the simple reason that I cannot do so is because they enlisted. They made the choice to join the armed forces with the knowledge that they were giving up control of their lives to the government.

I believe in soldiers taking initiative to avoid acting in ways that compromise the morals and integrity of the military (yes, I know that sounds funny) but at the same time that initiative is limited. You are no longer a civilian and that is just the way it goes.

So the answer to my initial question is basically this. We can feel compassion for these people. We can understand that they are in a precarious situation and we can appreciate the how and why of it, but that doesn't mean that we can ignore their culpability in placing themselves in this position.

It is like the drunk driver who feels remorse after killing someone. Of course they didn't mean to do it, but who is responsible for placing themselves in such a position.

Hizbollah's Media Manipulation

Hat Tip Yourish

Out On Assignment

Blogging will be light for a few days as I am on a special assignment. See you later, this is double o something or other signing off.

Fake Photos Continued

The photo scandal that we wrote about here and here appears to be expanding. You can see a number of examples of this here.

In short the media manipulation is in full force and the disappointing news is that there are some real questions about how much effort the media is putting in to verify that these photos are real and accurate.

War- Behind The Scenes Part 2- The Cyberbattle

This continues the thread of thought from this post. The IDF has been taking over transmission of some Al-Manar broadcasts. Here is a link to a clip from YNET.

"Clips broadcast on al-Manar made use of motifs taken from the world of Lebanon and Hizbullah, including quotes from Nasrallah.

The IDF has only assumed control of ground transmissions via regular antennae; satellite broadcasts were uninterrupted.

Like everything in the IDF, there was a three-part explanation supporting the take-over of Hizbullah media:

1. Use of the organization's own platforms to broadcast Israel 's messages

2. Creating the sense that the organization is "penetrable" and that Israel has powerful capabilities

3. Damaging the organization's abilities for set periods of time, and using the media as part of the war on to access the consciousness of the Lebanese community."

The battle in cyberspace is still going on. There are participants on all sides who are working the angles, including DOS attacks, Trojans and various other electronic offensives. Keep your eyes peeled history is unfolding around us.

"Sudden Jihad Syndrome" in Seattle

Daniel Pipes has an essay called "Sudden Jihad Syndrome" in Seattle in which he makes a number of comments that are worth thinking about. He begins by relating the tale of the recent shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle in which a Muslim man forced his way into the building where he shot several people, killing one of them.

This leads to his initial comment about how law enforcement views this incident:

First, law enforcement has, as is its wont, ignored what is self-evidently a case of radical Islamic terrorism. David Gomez of the FBI's Seattle office commented: "We believe ... it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism. There's nothing to indicate that it's terrorism-related." As in other cases, if the police cannot connect a terrorist to Al Qaeda or some other group, he is deemed not a terrorist.

It is troublesome to think that the only way an event can be deemed a terrorist attack is if it is tied into terrorism. Terrorists do not have to be a member of a particular group to be considered terrorists and law enforcement should accept that.

Pipes attributes the actions of the Seattle Shooter to what he calls Sudden Jihad Syndrome:

"Fourth, Mr. Haq's actions are a clear instance of "Sudden Jihad Syndrome," whereby normal-appearing Muslims unpredictably become violent."

This next section is where things get dicy.

"His attack confirms my oft-repeated call for special scrutiny of Muslims. Because the identity of the next homicidal jihadi cannot be anticipated, Muslims generally need to come under heightened observation. I regret writing this as much as you dislike reading it, but it needs to be said and operated upon."

Racial profiling is something that needs careful consideration. I am reluctant to give up civil liberties because once they are gone they are not easily recovered.

So the question is, what do we gain by doing so and what do we lose by engaging in this. There is an awful lot to consider there. I don't have time to cover this now so let's move back to the essay

Pipes also addresses the cause of 'Sudden Jihad Syndrome.'

"...sudden jihad syndrome never erupts in isolation, but results from a steady diet of antisemitic, anti-Zionist, anti-Christian, and anti-American incitement fed by Islamist mosques, schools, voluntary associations, and media. Leftist demonizing of Israel further contributes to the problem."

And there you have some reasons why monitoring what is being said in various places across the country and the world and so many places around the world. Am I the only person who feels like he is living in a Dickensian world.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

My hope and dream is that we do what needs to be done to keep a position in which we always say "it was the best of times."

Are They Too Old To Star In Action Movies

On the lighter side of things the Washington Post has an interesting article entitled:

Aging Action Heroes: The Perfect Vintage;

"With Sylvester Stallone resurrecting both the Rocky and Rambo franchises and Harrison Ford on tap to reprise his role as Indiana Jones one more time, it isn't that much of a stretch to imagine other action heroes of yesteryear eagerly queuing up to reanimate characters ripe for some boomer-style butt kicking.

The latest addition to this buffet of "mature" hams is Bruce Willis, who is on tap to make a fourth "Die Hard" movie as detective John McClane in "Live Free or Die Hard," tentatively planned for an Independence Day 2007 release."

At what point do they become too old to save the day.

The World's Wackiest Statues

Click here.

The Sandmonkey Says" Nazi" Is Overused

A post at Rantings of a Sandmonkey had such potential and then fell short.

"I open yahoo news and I see this item: " Chavez accuses Israel of 'New Holocaust' ", and it made me wonder about something:

Seriously now, why is it that whenever someone talks negatively about the Israeli actions, they use Nazi speak? Don't they see anything wrong about this at all?

Don't get me wrong, I am not belitteling the deaths caused by the IDF or the numerous questionable actiosn the Israeli government took over the years (The whole Netenyaho as PM period, what was THAT about?), however, don't you think that nazi comparisons are a little, I dunno, too much?

I am not arguing against them from a sensitivity point of view either, altough it is kinda fucked up to keep calling them nazis (That's kinda like calling the Pleastinians zionists if you don't get why that is insensitive, and its really funny that we call for their annihilation, and sell Mein Kampf on the streets of Cairo, but call them Nazis). Nope, not worried about their self-esteem. They got thick skin. They can take it. I am simply arguing against it from an accuracy point of view, because I honestly think that using such comparisons belittle what the Nazis have done.

Think about it. Calling what's going on in Lebanon a new Holocaust is an offense to the Holocaust itself. The Holcaust was massive. Millions and Millions died in it, and died deliberatly in a massacare of ruthless prussian efficiency. The Nazis line itemd genocide. They treated it like a product. It was organized, orderly, efficient and massive in its scope. If you would try to describe the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, would you use any of those adjectives?"

Thank you. Someone who understands that using the term nazi to describe Jews and Israelis is just wrong. Unfortunately he doesn't quite take this post to where I was hoping it might go as he makes the claim that Zionism and nazism had similar qualities. It is just not accurate.

More On Reuter's Photographer

Here is a follow up to this post. CNN offers the following:

"LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database on Monday after a review of his work showed he had altered two images from the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Global Picture Editor Tom Szlukovenyi called the measure precautionary but said the fact that two of the images by photographer Adnan Hajj had been manipulated undermined trust in his entire body of work.

"There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image," Szlukovenyi said in a statement.

Here is the real meat of the matter:

"Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj on Sunday after it found that a photograph he had taken of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on suburban Beirut had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more and darker smoke rising from buildings.

An immediate inquiry began into Hajj's other work.

It established on Monday that a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter over Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon and dated August 2, had also been doctored to increase the number of flares dropped by the plane from one to three.

"Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout its long and distinguished history. It undermines not only our reputation but also the good name of all our photographers," Szlukovenyi said.

"This doesn't mean that every one of his 920 photographs in our database was altered. We know that not to be the case from the majority of images we have looked at so far, but we need to act swiftly and in a precautionary manner."

The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj filed directly to the Reuters Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with the great majority of his images."

They think that the other 918 are ok, but I really question whether they conducted a thorough investigation of the other photos. How do we know that there aren't more. Certainly this provides more evidence of the possibiliy of additional media manipulation.

Images of War

Click Here.

What I have Been Blogging About

Here is a short round up of some recent posts here:

I Think I Love You- The Partridge Family Lives

U2 Plays a Bar Mitzvah

Haveil Havalim is Up

How To Dance Like a White Guy

War- Behind The Scenes

The Atomic Bomb- An Anniversary

A Monkey Could Do This Job

Reuters admits altering Beirut photo

Jew/Muslim/Israeli/Arab

How Many Blogs Do You Read Part II

I Think I Love You- The Partridge Family Lives

If you are a certain age this song just might take you back a couple of years.

U2 Plays a Bar Mitzvah

All Hail Mr. Kincaid. Hey, I think I love you.

Haveil Havalim is Up

Perspectives of a Nomad has the scoop.

How To Dance Like a White Guy

There is plenty of serious news here and elsewhere so I have to continue my run of information that you don't really need to know but just might need at some point in the future.

War- Behind The Scenes

This past July Lisa wrote a post called The Most Blogged War? in which she said the following:

"It looks as though the Israel-Lebanon are-we-calling-it-a-war-yet of 2006 is the first conflict to be blogged from day one. Bloggers from both sides of the border - some of whom were already aware of one another before this tragedy began - have been providing live updates, commenting on one another's blogs and sometimes linking to posts by bloggers on the other side of the border. Will this turn out to be the first time that residents of "enemy" countries engaged in an ongoing conversation while missiles were falling?"

I thought that it was interesting then and almost a month later I find it even more interesting. The blogosphere is actively churning out posts that question and analyze every little detail of the war. There are questions about reporting, bombings, pictures that might have been tampered with and more.

It is just fascinating to me to consider how so many of us are sitting at a keyboard typing furiously about the same topic. We may not all agree, in fact there is no question that there are vast disagreements.

And it is certain that the war is also being fought here in cyberspace. There is a battle for hearts and minds that is taking place, a cyberspace chess game. Consider for a moment how we have the opportunity to go check out the other side.

With a couple of keystrokes we can join them in their discussion and listen to their concerns and react to those.

In short this makes me wonder how much influence we really have here and to ask myself more questions about what is going on behind the scenes. Are there people who are savvy enough to try and harness the power of the Net. Are they working to push their stories with their slant into our living rooms.

If it was me there is no question that I would.

In the years to come I wonder if we will gain access to the classified intelligence and be able to compare our own analyses of the events and see how they compared to the experts.

For now I suppose that we will have to wait and see.

The Atomic Bomb- An Anniversary

From Answers.com

"On the morning of August 6, 1945 the United States Army Air Forces dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima, followed three days later by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb over Nagasaki, Japan. In his 1999 book Downfall, historian Richard Frank analyzed the many widely varying estimates of casualties caused by the bombings. He concluded "The best approximation is that the number is huge and falls between 100,000 and 200,000."^[1] Most of the casualties were civilians.

The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender, as well as the effects and justification of them, have been subject to much debate. In the U.S., the prevailing view is that the bombings ended the war months sooner than would otherwise have been the case, saving many lives that would have been lost on both sides if the planned invasion of Japan had taken place^[2]. In Japan, the general public tends to think that the bombings were needless as the preparation for the surrender was in progress in Tokyo^[3]."

A Monkey Could Do This Job

'NEW DELHI, India - They say it takes a thief to catch a thief, but India’s Delhi Metro has hired a monkey to frighten off other monkeys from boarding trains and upsetting passengers.

In an effort to keep monkeys out of the New Delhi subways, authorities have called in one of the few animals known to scare the creatures — a fierce-looking primate called the langur, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

The decision to hire a langurwallah — a man who trains and controls the langurs — came after a monkey got into a metro car June 9, the newspaper reported.'

You know one day the monkeys are going to take over the world.

Reuters admits altering Beirut photo

The war continues in the media where Reuters has just admitted that a photographer manipulated a photo:

"A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

Reuters withdraws doctored image

In the message, Reuters said that "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience."

Reuters' head of PR Moira Whittle said in response: "Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."

"As soon as the allegation came to light, the photograph, filed on Saturday 5 August, was removed from the file and a replacement, showing the same scene, was sent. The explanation for the removal was the improper use of photo-editing software," she added."

You can be sure that this will go around the blogosphere. For more details you can check out some of the links at

LGF.

Flopping Aces

Jew/Muslim/Israeli/Arab

As I typed up the post I thought about some of the children's rhymes I remember hearing as a kid. Something like "Rich man, poor man, Indian Chief."

I know it is fragment, maybe a couple of fragments that all sloshed together in that mushy region inside my skull. Onwards with more random thoughts.

Here is a little clue to my identity. I am a member of ZBT. Back in the day my house was known for being quite diverse. There were Jews, Muslims, Christians, Blacks, Whites, Filipinos, Latinos, a virtual UN.

I never paid much attention to color/race/religion. It has never mattered to me, just whether you were a good person. Anyway, for the purpose of this story I'll offer some more background on the players who joined me for lunch one day.

There were three of us, a Spaniard, a Jew and a Muslim. As it so happened Israel was involved in a tiff with Hezbollah. We entered the restaurant and sat down and ordered our meals.

While we are waiting for our food to be cooked the Spaniard looks at me and says "so did you start this?"

Before I could respond he looked at our Muslim friend and said "Is it your fault?"

The question was in reference to the conflict.

When I look back at the question I realized that I have heard it phrased this way so many times. The battle is phrased as if I was the PM of Israel and making decisions. I am held personally accountable for the actions of Israel. Whether I agree with them or not, I am asked to account for the actions of the government.

Truth is that I can no longer remember a time when I didn't feel a personal connection and accountability and I am not even sure if there was a time when I didn't.

The thing that bothers me the most about the whole situation is that we dehumanize each other. We tell stories about the animals that slaughter us. We talk about the subhuman life forms that live and breathe as we do as if they were nothing.

But if you are going to kill someone and you have any sort of conscience you have to remove a little of their humanity or you lose more of your own. The problem is that even when you do that you still lose some.

Don't misunderstand me. I have no problem saying that there are people on the other side who deserve to die. They have values that are in conflict with my own. They do not have the same regard for life and because of that many more people will die.

I haven't any problem picking and choosing. Not all values are equal, some are superior to others.

But that doesn't mean that I cannot feel compassion. It doesn't mean that I don't feel badly that there are innocent people who will suffer and that there are lives that will be shattered.

To me one of the strangest contradictions in life is knowing that sometimes in order to save lives you have to kill, you have to snuff others out. Life is full of shades of grey and sometimes it just doesn't make sense.

I wish that it wasn't like this and that we could get beyond classifying people this way, but that day hasn't come yet. It is a sad comment on life and people.

How Many Blogs Do You Read Part II

The original post was written last December but in light of current world circumstances I am curious to find out how many blogs do you read.

Here is part of what I wrote then:

"Anyway I have tried to limit my blogroll to blogs/sites that I read consistently but maintaining that schedule is rather tough because even though I read quickly there is often a ton of material to review and some of those posts require/demand more time. You know the ones that I am speaking of, they fall into two categories.

The first are those posts that tug on my emotions and touch something inside me. I like to stop and read them slowly to make sure that I really am understanding what I am reading and sometimes I am just blown away by it all, so much that I have to stop and catch my breath.

Some of the posts written by parents who have lost children have rocked my world. I often finish them and head straight to hug and kiss my children, wherever they may be.

The second category are those posts that are chock full of information and require that I read, review and read again. Sometimes that is because the topic is something that I am not as familiar with and I need to proceed carefully so that I can be certain that I understand it all. Sometimes I am well versed in the topic but there is so much information there I get sidetracked."

For a while I increased the number of blogs I was following dramatically, but have since shrunk it back down. Too much information leads to sensory overload.

How about you. How many blogs are you reading? Is the current situation causing you to read more or less? Are you saturated or is this increasing your thirst for more information?

The floor is open.

Terror is Real- The Video Again

I am more than a little irritated, but it looks like some people need to be reminded that a nation has an obligation to protect its citizenry from those who wish to harm it.

Some people assert that Israel could never truly be destroyed and that anyone who voices concern about groups that are committed to its destruction is some kind of crazy alarmist.

As I said elsewhere, if we accept that proposition we still recognize that no civilized nation allows any individual or group to commit acts of terror. They are obligated to protect their citizenry.

LOOK at this video and tell me that you would ask your government to ignore these atrocities. Tell me that you believe that people who are willing to slaughter the innocent are going to be persuaded by Chamberlain like behavior. Tell me that you think that the murderers who commit these acts are doing so because they have no choice and I'll laugh in your face.

Ignorant fools, you silly fop. There are bad people in this world. There are evil people and they will kill you. They will cut off your head, torture your family in front of you and engage in acts of barbarism that you cannot believe.

There are wars that must be fought with both force and diplomacy. It is a sad fact, a tragic reality. If these pictures do not sicken you, if they do not make you weep than there is something wrong with you.

I loathe war and wish that there was a better way. I wish that more people acted like Ghandi and engaged in nonviolent protest, but I live in the real world and understand that this is not how it works.

There are sick individuals out there. There are monsters in the night and the day and the fact is that I would rather see them killed. Some cancers cannot be cured, they must be cut out.

I pray for peace. I pray for all children and that the day comes when videos like this are history. But that time isn't here yet and right now if it is a choice of them or my family, I choose them.

G-d help us all.

PS. This video is graphic. You have been warned.

Great College Recruitment Video

Actually this video makes me think of some really bad sitcoms from the '80s. I keep expecting to see some washed up old actors make an appearance.

The Flying Car- Call Me George Jetson

This is from Terrafugia and I think that it is pretty cool. I'd love to have a flying car.

Just think in the not so distant future you can enjoy bouts of road and air rage during the same trip to the store.

Why I Left The UFC

Any suggestions for a caption?

Eicha- An Aching Heart Mumbles

Jameel's post has had me thinking all day long. So many thoughts, so many things to say. Feelings that I want to express that come out in disjointed fashion. Incoherent ramblings that tear through me, but just don't come out in the way that I want them to.

Eloquence is what I seek but it escapes me. So here I shall ramble for a bit and then head off to much needed sleep. It is Tisha B'Av. A sad and solemn day, even for those of us who wander on and off the derech.

Past thoughts that tie into this day can be found here, here, here.

Here is what I hear in my head:

"1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

2 Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps.

3 For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us mirth: 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'

4 How shall we sing HaShem'S song in a foreign land?

5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

6 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy." Psalm 137

It is easy to get caught up in the uncertainty of the future, the vagaries of life and the questions that surround the war. Most of us wish to see the future, but it is not a gift that is given out. In an age of instant gratification we look to the past and see hope for the present and the future.

Given the choice what I really want to hear are the reports of victory, the words of a lasting peace. It is late and I am tired so I am going to wrap this up. I don't feel like going to sleep on such a down note so I am going to share this with you.

In the background I am listening to this recording of Twersky reporting the retaking of the Old City. Here is the excerpt that really holds my ear.

Rabbi Goren: We’re now going to recite the prayer for the fallen soldiers of this war against all of the enemies of Israel:

[Soldiers weeping]

El male rahamim, shohen ba-meromim. Hamtse menuha nahona al kanfei hashina, be-maalot kedoshim, giborim ve-tehorim, kezohar harakiya meirim u-mazhirim. Ve-nishmot halalei tsava hagana le-yisrael, she-naflu be-maaraha zot, neged oievei yisrael, ve-shnaflu al kedushat Hashem ha-am ve-ha’arets, ve-shichrur Beit Hamikdash, Har Habayit, Hakotel ha-ma’aravi veyerushalayim ir ha-elokim. Be-gan eden tehe menuhatam. Lahen ba’al ha-rahamim, yastirem beseter knafav le-olamim. Ve-yitsror be-tsror ha-hayim et nishmatam adoshem hu nahlatam, ve-yanuhu be-shalom al mishkavam [soldiers weeping loud]ve-ya’amdu le-goralam le-kets ha-yamim ve-nomar amen!

[Translation: Merciful G-d in heaven, may the heroes and the pure, be under thy Divine wings, among the holy and the pure who shine bright as the sky, and the souls of soldiers of the Israeli army who fell in this war against the enemies of Israel, who fell for their loyalty to G-d and the land of Israel, who fell for the liberation of the Temple, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jerusalem the city of the Lord. May their place of rest be in paradise. Merciful One, O keep their souls forever alive under Thy protective wings. The Lord being their heritage, may they rest in peace, for they shalt rest and stand up for their allotted portion at the end of the days, and let us say, Amen.]

[Soldiers are weeping. Rabbi Goren sounds the shofar. Sound of gunfire in the background.]

Rabbi Goren: Le-shana HA-ZOT be-Yerushalayim ha-b’nuya, be-yerushalayim ha-atika! [Translation: This year in a rebuilt Jerusalem! In the Jerusalem of old!]"

May tomorrow bring a better and brighter day for all of us.

123 Jewish Children...Murdered

Akiva has a link to a heartbreaking presentation.

My Fight For Israel

Psychotoddler has a good post called What I Can Do.

"Actually, I think there is. In an earlier post, I mentioned that Israel is fighting a war on 3 fronts. Gaza, Lebanon, and the World Media. You can argue about how it's doing on the first two. But I don't think there's any question that it is doing poorly on the third. So maybe there's something I can do about that."

I agree with the good doctor. I can do something here. I find myself quite conflicted about this. Longtime readers might remember my post Aliyah Musings in which I explored some of my thoughts.

"You see, when I visited Trumpeldor's kever in Tel Hai and read Ein davar, tov lamut be'ad arzenu ("Never mind; it is good to die for our country") I really bought into it."

The point is that I am following the war quite closely. Not just because it involves family and friends, but because there is a part of me that realizes that I could have easily been the one in harms way. That may sound goofy, it may sound strange or egocentric to people, but it is how I feel.

Others are on the front lines while I sit here in a tank top and a pair of shorts, humbled by their service and awed by so many of the stories I read. So while others sacrifice far more than I am I remember that I owe something to those who came before me and those who stand in the trenches so that my family stays safe.

One of the other things that I have noticed is that there seems to be far more static coming out of the problems of the world are caused by Jews crowd. The trolls are out in force and I am finding far more of their comments here as well as on the air on various talk radio shows.

Look, I am the first to say that Jews do not have a monopoly on suffering but that doesn't negate or discount the numerous incidents that have taken place recently and or in the last sixty years let alone the past two thousand.

You may not like it. You may not like Jews. You might truly believe the tripe some of you are peddling about how we are the source of trouble. Anyone with an ounce of common sense and an inkling of logic understands that this is patently false, but people have short memories.

I stay vigilant because of things like Darfur and Rwanda. Because I know that there are people who are willing to slaughter others I stay alert. I stay alert because I know that sometimes the monsters of the night appear during the day and that they sometimes look just like you and me.

I cannot and will not relax and pretend that nothing can happen to me or those I love. I went to the same high school as Daniel Pearl. I saw what the cursed terrorist Zarqawi did to Nick Berg and I know too many other stories about those that oppose a Western lifestyle.

I know that one day the survivors will be gone and the question of Will The Children Understand will gain greater poignancy.

Tony Blair spoke today about a war of values.

"Mr Blair spoke of how he believed "global extremism" should be tackled.

"To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian, Arab and Western, wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony.

"We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world." He said this "unconventional" war must be won through these values.

"This war can't be won in a conventional way, it can only be won by showing that our values are stronger, better and more just, more fair than the alternatives," he said."

He is right. In the end it is not just a fight for Israel or for Jews. It is a fight to maintain a Western lifestyle and war has already been declared. We stand together now. We draw our line in the sand or accept the battle on their terms.

So there you have it. Agree or disagree. You are entitled to your opinion, but don't ever think that we are going to go softly into the night.

It Is Not Haveil Havalim

It is Jack's roundup of links and thinks. Stories that caught my eye.

Kana/Qana/Cana- Was this staged? Posts that deal with this.

Confederate Yankee

Israel Matzav

EU Referendum

Soccer Dad

Daled Amos

Seattle Jewish Federation

Kesher Talk

Tel-Chai Nation

DiveDesk

Elder of Ziyon

Jimmy Carter and more

LOR

Ezzie

Yourish

Elisson
a

Why I Love Cleveland

Stories like this one.

"WESTLAKE, Ohio (AP) -- A bar waitress checking to see if a customer was legally old enough to drink looked down to see a familiar photo.

It was her own.

The 22-year-old waitress, whose name was not released, called police last week and said she had been handed her own stolen driver's license by a woman trying to prove she was 21."

What a beautiful world we live in.

More On Mel Gibson

I thought about writing a post about Mel Gibson and then I remembered that South Park had already said what I want to say.

These Are The People You Work With

Every office has at least one office pest. Here's RedEye's list of some of the worst offenders.

The Borrower: Always takes things from your desk, and you never see them again.

The Groper: Always finds a way to put a hand on your shoulder or brush against you in meetings.

The Close-talker: If she gets any closer you'd be making out.

The Fridge Foe: Better put a lock on that sandwich or else he'll steal it.

The Loud Speaker: Hasn't mastered the "inside voice" and talks so loud on the phone that you, too, have to live through all his personal and professional drama.

The Slow Joe: Takes an hour to explain something that should take a minute.

The Nervous Nelly: Twists her hair into dreadlocks, incessantly clicks her pen or constantly cracks her knuckles.

The Pontificator: Nothing's a simple "yes" or "no."

The Noisemaker: Whistling, tapping, sneezing, humming or performing some awful impression at all times.

The Copier: Don't worry about missing the latest hip catchphrase, you'll hear it every time you run into him, usually accompanied by the ol' finger pistols.

The Fish: Gives you the hated Limp Handshake and has the personality to match.

The Know It All: Puts in his 2 cents in all conversations, even if he's not involved. And he's always right, or else he'll keep talking. So, just agree with him.

The Whiner: Spends the entire shift complaining—about co-workers, workload, management, corporate policies. Yet he's worked there for years and probably will never, ever leave.

The Gossip: Always fanning the flames of office politics. Usually knows the latest scoop—but if not, makes it up

The Breather: Has perpetual bad breath and needs a mint especially after 2 p.m.

The Pre-Divorcee: Has daily fights on phone, for all to hear, about the messy divorce he or she is going through.

One More Reason Why Soccer is Inferior

For all of the problems that US sports leagues have this is something that we gave up last century.

"ZURICH, July 21 (Reuters) - Players who make racist remarks face a five-match ban while those found guilty of diving will miss at least two games under new rules announced by European soccer's governing body on Monday.

UEFA's package of measures raises the mandatory three-match ban by two extra games for any player "who insults the human dignity of a person or group of persons, by whatever means, including grounds of colour, race, religion or ethnic origin".

Clubs whose fans engage in racist or discriminatory conduct will receive a minimum fine of 19,000 euros ($24,230). For more serious breaches, UEFA said on its Web site that it may hand down punishments such as playing games behind closed doors.

The governing body also said any extremist ideological propaganda is banned and could lead to the awarding matches by default, deducting points or disqualification from competitions.

Those running the beautiful game have become increasingly worried about racism within the sport with FIFA, the world governing body, warning that national associations who fail to impose tough new rules on racism face suspension.

RACIAL TAUNTS

During the World Cup, French players alleged that they were racially taunted by Spanish fans and last year Real Zaragoza and Racing Santander fans racially abused Barcelona forward Samuel Eto'o during league matches and were subsequently fined.

Rangers were also fined by UEFA for sectarian chants by their fans at a Champions League tie with Villarreal last year."

Bras That Do Tricks

You can blame this post on Attila. In truth I am not quite sure what the meaning is but like a good adolescent I saw the picture and started giggling.