Showing posts from November, 2006

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Petrol Prams, the CIA, Chechen Drug Smugglers, Gullian-Bare Syndrome, Oh My: Pravda Writes about the Litvinenko Case

(Update: in the list of insane excuses, a top Russian defense expert is claiming that Litvinenko ate radioactive fish from Hiroshima at a Sushi Bar...you can't make this stuff up but they can) Pravda, long the organ of the Russian authorities, is an instructive collection of rantings and threats that the average Westerner can now benefit from. Within a day we will see the revelation of the official Soviet line on Litvinenko's death which will claim that Litvinenko was poisoned smuggling nuclear materials for Berezovsky enter the mainstream media before being developed in Pravda. (The domestic jingoistic and extremely convoluted Russian version will claim that Berezovsky was working for the CIA. Those missing out on the far more insane Russian version are also missing out on the story of the Priest who came to consecrate KGB headquarters and bless the KGB agents, who secretly told a KGB associate that he got a sense of evil from Litvinenko) It's grimly entertaining then to t

How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Iranian Bomb

If there was a line guaranteed to get a cry of outrage, a derisive snort or a 15 page dissertation out of a liberal in the 70's to 80's, it was "peaceful uses of nuclear power." As far as liberals were concerned there was no such thing as peaceful uses of nuclear power. The very idea was a contradiction in terms. Nuclear power was Satan's bodily fluids, a horrific material that was the very essence of evil. The only reason why anyone would want it to exist was in order to kill people, pollute the environment and destroy the earth; possibly in that order. Since then liberals don't appear to have become great fans of nuclear power (though the Europeans whom they constantly assure us we should be more like seem to be) but when it comes to Iran, the cry they echo now is 'peaceful uses of nuclear power.' Iran they assure us is only developing nuclear plants for peaceful uses. Yes the very same people who are sure that the Patriot Act was a government conspi

Russia's Secret War: The Truth Behind the Assasinations

In August 1991, the first coup that led was launched by a group headed by Vladimir Kryuchkov, the former chairman of the KGB. The political, military and KGB leadership behind the coup made a public statement stating that Gorbachev was sick and had been relieved of his post and appointed the sitting Prime Minister to replace him. Boris Yeltsin's intervention and the resulting protests prevented the coup from succeeding and resulted in the dismantling of the USSR. In August 1999, the second coup occurred that ended democracy in Russia and removed Yeltsin from power replacing him with the head of the FSB (KGB) Vladimir Putin. Lessons had been learned and unlike the previous coup matters were done quietly and with the appearance of legality. Yeltsin remained in power as a figurehead for several months while Putin was installed as his Prime Minister. Several months later Yeltsin stepped down and Putin replaced him. What followed was a return to tyranny, unity parties and government par

Esav and Yaakov: The Dualities of Force and Righteousness

One of the most difficult to understand things in the Torah for most people remains the blessings of Yitzchak. Why did Yitzchak favor the wicked son with the blessings and why was Yaakov's only resort to trick his father. It's an understandable question when looking back retrospectively but it is important to remember that we are dealing with people who could not look back, only forward speculatively. What baffles most people, Yitzchak's selection of Esav, becomes significantly less so when we look at it in the context of the time and place. Yitzchak was a son of Avraham but lacked his status or strength. The parsha is called Toldos Yitzchak but the only material involving Yitzchak it relates to us up until the blessings are his travails at the hands of the Phlistim. Like Avraham, Yitzchak found himself a wanderer and an alien among peoples who were all too willing to take advantage of him. Indeed both Avraham and Yitzchak even found themselves having to claim their wives a

On this episode of Arabian Idol: Heroic Warriors of Palestine Send 68 Year Old Woman to Die for Them

Previous high points of the Palestinian 'resistance' included sending a mentally retarded 14 year old boy with a remote controlled detonated pack that he didn't know was going to explode, a teenage burn victim sent to blow up the Israeli hospital she was being treated at and now a 68 year old woman sent to blow herself up. The media is already trumpeting this as proof of the desperate measures the Palestinians have been 'forced to resort to' by the Israeli non-occupation of Gaza. Of course things haven't gotten so desperate that Hamas terrorist leaders or even their own terrorists are actually blowing themselves up. No they're too busy carrying suitcases full of money across the border. Instead they sent their mothers or rather someone's mother to blow herself up. The media's lead on this is to focus on her as a 'grandmother' with headlines like, "Palestinian Grandmother Blows Herself Up in Attack Against Israeli Troops." Oddly for

Why I Support Rudy Guliani for President

This is not going to be a conventional endorsement. I'm a New Yorker who's lived in New York when Giuliani was Mayor. I've seen the good and the bad in his administration. There's times I cheered him and times I cursed him and I'm hard pressed to say which I did more often. Instead of beginning with hosannas of praise for Rudy as is usually done for a candidate, I'm going to begin with his faults. Rudy Giuliani is authoritarian, he's a bully and he's intolerant of dissent and criticism. He makes up his mind on what the right course is and pursues it regardless of opposition. His administration was nowhere near as corrupt as his Democratic predecessors but nor was it free of patronage and kickbacks. Giuliani doesn't listen to people, so much as tell them what to think. He is not a figure of Democratic virtues, instead he's the man you bring in to rescue you when Democracy fails. That's what Giuliani did when he came to a city that had been tro

Massaging the Terrorists at Israel's Expense

"British Prime Minister Tony Blair says resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the core of bringing peace to the Middle East...Part of the effort, he said, must be what he called a "whole Middle East" strategy, which focuses on relieving "pressure points" throughout the region. First and foremost, the prime minister said, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." This is an old tune Blair and most of the Arab world has been playing for some time and it goes something like this, 'Israeli concessions to a Palestinian state are the key to stability in the Middle East.' Pakistan's President Musharaf, who had supported the Taliban up until America threatened to bomb his country to rubble after 9/11 chimed in of course saying, " This knot of terrorism will be untied through first resolving the Palestinian dispute. " Between Blair's 'Pressure Points' and Musharaf's 'Knot of terrorism', it seems like massage meta

1000 Rockets Have Fallen on Sderot: the World Remains Silent

Officially now a 1000 rockets have fallen on Sderot since 2001 with over 400 wounded. The average explosive payload has climbed from 5 kilograms to 9 kilograms and the radius has increased from 3 kilometers to 10 kilometers. Nervous disorders have become commonplace among children there. Many are unable to sleep at night. While the media reports every Israeli incursion as a massacre and goes into depth about the sufferings of the poor Palestinian Arabs, the world remains silent at this ongoing bombardment of a civilian town. The media and the world looks everywhere. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has now joined the Arab demands for Israeli concessions as a precondition to any other programs or resolutions in the Middle East. The price for his failure in Iraq is to be placed on Israel's head. The British military which lazed around in Basra letting the militias do what they liked (and then boasted to the press that they know how to deal with colonials so much better than the hamf

Oh The Lies They Tell

Authorities are celebrating Joe Chisholm's implicit suggestion that he will not murder his neighbor, John Norton, when late this week he signed a letter in which he stated his intent to initially take half his neighbor's home, vowed to continue attacking him and pledged to fight on till victory. Press reports however focused on the implication that by not explicitly mentioning his intent to kill Norton and by agreeing for settle half his home, that the entire matter could finally be settled peacefully. Chisholm however disappointed some when he appeared at a press conference later announcing that his letter did not mean any such thing and that he intends to take half of Norton's home only as a first step to taking all of it and that he has never renounced his desire to kill Norton. Reporters and various talking heads however continued to insist that this was a major turnaround for Chisholm and that an era of peace would be at hand if only Norton put away his rifle and left

Please Pray for Yitzchak ben Miriam

Wounded in today's attack on Sderot.

Recognize the Islamic Enemy or Lose the War

At a meeting with a number of conservative talk show hosts, Bush was quoted as saying that the, "the War on Terror has to be about right versus wrong, “ because if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we’ll lose .” The easiest way to lose a war of course is to decide beforehand that you can't win. Plenty of wars indeed have been lost precisely that way and the nations in question long forgotten except as someone else's colonies. Now I'm not saying there should be an official war declared between Christianity and Islam. But the war cannot be declared as one between 'right and wrong' because to most right and wrong are abstract ideas interpreted subjectively. My right is not necessarily your right. It may be your wrong. Muslims feel that right involves murdering their daughters, bombing skyscrapers and expanding the dominion of Islam. Convincing them that's wrong requires displacing their current moral system with an alternative moral system. Since their mo

Empire of Evil: Iran attempts to intimidate Google into recognizing its occupation of Tabriz

While most people think of Iran as Persian, in fact Iran like most former empires is a cobbled together collection of conquered territories and peoples. The currently disputed city of Tabriz in South Azerbaijan is a case in point. Iran has sizable Sunni, Bahai and Zoroastrian religious minorities who are perennially oppressed by the ruling Shiite theocracy. (A smaller Jewish minority is all that remains of Iran's once large Jewish population much of which has now escaped that brutal tyranny for Israel and America) It also has several ethnic minorities including the Azeri, the Kurds, the Mazandarani and Baloch. Of these the Azeri are the largest comprising 25 percent of Iran or 30 million people. While the Persians comprise only a slim majority of the country, Persian linguistic and cultural domination is absolute backed by all the power of the totalitarian force of the Iranian Islamic Republic. As the Iranian government channels the country’s resources to building infrastructure, f

...It worked so well in Germany and Russia

"An elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories may be preferable to the group operating outside the power structure and carrying out terrorist actions, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday. Referring to Hamas, Rice said, "I am not so sure that it is better to have these groups running the streets, masked, with guns rather than having them have to face voters and having to deliver." ...after all it worked so well in Germany and Russian when groups who had previously run the streets and engaged in terrorism took power.

The Trickle-Up Theory of Media Bias

(AP) Israel Invades Palestinian Areas, Kills 6 Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships rumbled into sleeping Palestinian towns shattering their peaceful stillness with a relentless rain of fire from above killing 6 Palestinians, among them 5 activists belonging to Hamas and a young boy. UN Secretary General has strongly condemned... (Reuters) Israelis Assault Palestinian Civilians Killing Several As part of Israel's drive to seek vengeance for the deaths of its soldiers, Israeli troops mobilized for an all out assault on Palestinian civilian areas. Backed by superior numbers and firepower the troops left several Palestinians dead in their wake. UN Secretary General has strongly condemned... (UPI) Israel's War Campaign Claims Growing Death Toll Fueled by gasoline and vengeance, the Israeli Army pushed deeper than ever into Palestinian territories as the body count for its campaign continues to grow. Despite the outcry of human rights activists, the killing continued for anot

Donald Rumsfeld Vs. James Baker III - Whose Legacy Will Define Republican Foreign Policy?

It's been Rumsfeld who led America's War on Terror going into Afghanistan and Iraq and delivering the shockingly quick defeats of the Taliban and Saddam's Republican Guard. Once the youngest Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld was under consideration by Ronald Reagan as his Vice President. Instead Reagan picked George Bush Sr, a CIA hack with all the charm and personality of well... Vladimir Putin. Bush Sr. only managed to survive a single term in office and dedicated much of it to bailing out his Saudi friends when Saddam came calling. As part of that package though, the George Herbert Walker Bush administration focused on appeasing the Arabs by pressuring Israel and solidified the presence of the most Anti-Israel elements in the Reagan Administration. Despite the showy Clintonesque bombing of Libya under Reagan and a lot of patriotic rhetoric, the Reagan Administration had been all too willing to bend over backwards for the Arabs in order to keep the USSR at bay. Beginni

Tzedakah and Misphat; Givers and Takers

In this parsha, derivations of the word yada, know, are used to indicate intimacy. When G-d decides to tell Avraham of his intentions to destroy Sdom, he says Ki Yedaativ, for I have known him. The word Yeedativ is used here to mean love, Hashem is saying that he has known Avraham that through his knowledge of him Avraham is beloved to G-d. When the men of Sdom encircle Lot's house demanding his guests, they also use a derivation of yada. They demand that the guests be brought out to the mob, Veneida Otam. Here the word also involves intimacy but their intention is rape. In both usages an intimate knowledge is meant but in the first case it involves love for another that comes through knowing another, in the second it involves an assault for personal satisfaction. In its first use G-d sees the goodness of Avraham and gives him special privileges and rewards. In the second use the men of Sdom are so threatened by generosity towards strangers, that they threaten cruelty towards them

Was Israel Really Responsible for Beit Hanoun Deaths?

(The following is a translation of a piece questioning whether Israel was responsible for the Beit Hanoun attack. The translation is my own and may contain technical errors and poor wording when it comes to matters of armament. All corrections are appreciated "As the wails of outrage and condemnation continue over the supposed Israeli shelling of Beit Hanoun and the deaths of 13 members of the Athamna Palestinian family with the media describing in detail scattered body parts Though Israel has stated it was a mistake, experts analyzing the situation differ. First of all the Kassams fired by the Palestinians themselves often fall short not reaching their target and falling inside Palestinian areas. Israel fires at terrorists using fragmentation shells. Had this been an Israeli fragmentation shell it would not have penetrated the roof but it would have left fragments everywhere, but a poorly aimed Kassam could well have exploded on the roof of this house, much like a mine. The shell

Democrats Win, America Loses, Israel is on its Own

The results of this election and likely the one afterward will be remembered as one of the worst political disasters in American history. Not because one party lost and the other won, but because in the middle of a war the electorate brought to power the very same people whose negligence had brought the war on in the first place. If Chamberlain had been returned to office in the middle of World War 2 on a platform of negotiating with Nazi Germany, that is the scale of the magnitude of this disaster. Under a Democratic congress the odds that the United States will intervene militarily to stop Iran have dropped to nearly zero, short of an act of war committed by Iran against the US. This means Israel is on its own against Iran. If Israel fails, Iran will have nuclear weapons and there is no doubt it will use them. The only question is whether it will first use them against Israel or the United States. The blood price for tonight's elections and the celebrations by Democrats will be i

Tzom Rabin - Reform Judaism Adds New Fast Day to Not Observe - Urge Violence and Sedition

(Ynet) - " To commemorate Yitzhak Rabin's death, the Reform Movement has initiated The Fast of Rabin, similar to The Fast of Gedaliah. Ahead of the memorial day commemorating Rabin's murder, the reform movement's rabbinical council issued a public statement confirming that the memorial day will be deemed a public fast day. It is set to be added to other days of fast in the Jewish calendar. Similar to other public fast days, the movement's rabbis will not conduct weddings and other joyful events on this particular day. The reform community is set to conduct special prayer sessions to mark the day of Rabin's murder." There's no mention of you know actually not eating on Tzom Rabin, since that's apparently a lost cause already. Now since the Reform Movement holds weddings and all sorts of joyful occasions on every Jewish fast day including Tisha Ba'av, it's unclear what the point of adding another fast day to not fast on is. I might propose th