Fly Eagles Fly

Honestly, I can't believe my Eagles are playing in the NFC Conference Championship tomorrow.  It's amazing how far we've gone on our rock solid, kick ass defense and David Akers' foot.  Why we have such trouble in the red zone I have no idea, but being able to punch it over the goal line last week has hopefully helped remove the mental block.

This year's Eagles reminds of last year's Giants, the wild card team that got hot, stayed cool, and beat the Patriots' ass in the Super Bowl.  So yeah, we can go all the way.  I personally want to see the Steelers win and have an all Pennsylvania Super Bowl.  It will be interesting to see if Eddy Rendell goes with his Eagles, or panders to the west coast and tries to stay neutral.  Ed, you're already in the soup with me for kissing Panders' ass in the general election.  Show a little backbone and stand by your birds.

Now nothing is in the bag.  Eagles' D is going to have to rattle Warner early; in other words bury his ass in the turf and make him cry.  And I don't know if shutting down Larry Fitzgerald is completely possible, but isolating is a good goal.  Of course if anyone can put the screws to Fitz, its Brian Dawkins and company.  Brian Westbrook practiced Friday but is questionable for tomorrow.  If I know Brian, he'll play, at least when we need him.

There are an infinite variety of ways that the Eagles can blow it tomorrow.  But they're hungry, especially McNabb, who's gotten a ton of shit this season.  Don't piss off the Eagles...just don't.

I don't expect it to be pretty, but I'm going with my Eagles to bring it home and advance to the Super Bowl.

And now...jokes at the expense of Cowboys fans.  I know you tell these jokes in reverse in Dallas so no bullshit you Texas readers.  Take your lumps and we'll see you for the ass wuppin' next year.

These were sent to me by my Clintonista Philly Home Slice, The Little Unit. I dare not disappoint her by not posting these.  It's bad pregame juju.

On the first day of school a first grade teacher explains to her class
that she is a Cowboys fan.
She asks her students to raise their hands if they, too, are Cowboys fans.
Wanting to impress their teacher, everyone in the class raises their
hand except one little girl.
The teacher looks at the girl with surprise, 'Janie, why didn't you
raise your hand?' 'Because I'm not a Cowboys fan,' she replied.
The teacher, still shocked, asked, 'Well, if you are not a Cowboys
fan, then who o are you a fan of?'
'I am an Eagles fan, and proud of it,' Janie replied.
The teacher could not believe her ears. 'Janie, please tell me why you
are you an Eagles fan?'
'Because my mom is an Eagles fan, and my dad is an Eagles fan, so I'm
an Eagles fan too!'
'Well,' said the teacher in a obviously annoyed tone, 'that is no
reason for you to be an Eagles fan. You don't have to be just like
your parents all of the time. What if your mom were an idiot and your
dad were a moron, what would you be then?'
'Then,' Janie smiled, 'I'd be a Cowboys fan.'
------------------------------ -----------------------

Four football fans - a Cowboys fan, an Eagles fan, a Redskins fan, and
a Giants fan - are climbing a mountain and arguing about who loves his
team more.
The Redskins fan insists he is the most loyal. 'This is for the
Redskins!' he yells, and jumps off the side of the mountain.
Not to be outdone, the Giants fan shouts, 'This is for the Giants!'
and throws himself off the mountain.
The Eagles fan is next to profess his love for his team.
He yells, 'This is for everyone!' and pushes the Cowboys fan off the mountain.
----------------------------- ------------------------------ ----------


A Eagles fan liked to amuse himself by scaring every Cowboys fan he
saw strutting down the street in an obnoxious Blue & White shirt. He
would swerve his van as if to hit them, then swerve back just missing
them.
One day while driving along, he saw a priest. He thought he would do a
good deed, so he pulled over and asked the priest, 'Where are you
going, Father?'
'I'm20going to give Mass at St. Francis church, about two miles down
the road,' replied the priest.
'Climb in, Father. I'll give you a lift!' The priest climbed into the
p passenger seat, and they continued down the road.
Suddenly, the driver saw a Cowboys fan walking down the road, and he
instinctively swerved as if to hit him. But, as usual, he swerved back
onto the road just in time.
Even though he was certain that he had missed the guy, he still heard
a loud THUD. Not knowing where the noise came from, he glanced in his
mirrors but still didn't see anything.
He then remembered the priest, and he turned to the priest and said,
sorry Father, I just missed hitting that Cowboys fan.'
'That's OK,' replied the priest 'I got him with the door.'

And apologies if you have trouble reading the blog, but it's the NFC championship so deal with it for a day.

And now, the dorkiest, but best fight song in the NFL sung by the NFL's most brutal, unforgiving, fucking awesome fans:

Meme Tag

My dear friend Nunly over at Bad Habit, a delightfully sinful blog, tagged me in a meme game.  Apparently there are rules that she didn't post, which is just as well because I wouldn't post them either.   Best I can tell is that you have to list 6 random things about yourself and then select other bloggers to tag.  Sounds simple enough.

So let's see...six random things about me...

1)  I am a misanthrope.  I hate people.  Okay, hate is a strong word.  I have an inherent, rabid dislike of people.  They are selfish, brutish, smell bad, and would most likely eat their own mothers if there was enough money involved.  The people running our countries are self important assfaced dingdongs who are the ones trying to get people to eat their own mothers in the first place.  And people, Americans especially, go bleating along like sheep, which is insulting to the sheep, whom I find to be generally kind, empathic creatures.  

Take it away Housemartins! (Dorks of the world unite!)

One need only go to a mall on Black Friday and witness parents beating each other over the head to get the last Diddle Me Elmo, or trampling a Wal-Mart worker to death to buy a flat screen TV to understand what I'm saying.

"How can you make such a blanket generalization Shtuey?"

That's simple.  If Ken Kesey was wrong about there always being more dumb people than smart people in any given situation, would the world be so unbelievably fucked up?

Ding ding!  Thank you for playing.

Of course my friends, colleagues, and associates do not fall into this category because I tend to not spend time with idiots.  It makes my brain hurt.  I'm not asking for anything difficult, just a healthy sense of empathy, morality, compassion, and a sense of humor.  Is that too much to ask?  I don't think so.

The light on the horizon was the PUMAs.  After watching the RBC meeting on May 31, 2008 I honestly thought people were going to roll over and go back to watching Gilligan's Island reruns.  PUMA proved me wrong and has given me some hope that we can turn this thing around, or at least make our little corner not so completely fucked up.  

In spite of all this I am, paradoxically, a pretty social creature, and more often than not have been called the life of the party.  But I think this gets back to the fact that I have a keen ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.   No doubt I am someone else's chaff.  I learned a long time ago that no matter how nice you are, there's always gonna be someone who thinks you're a complete asshole.  It's when the latter outweighs the former that you start having problems.  I've been pretty lucky to have had a lot of people willing to deal with some of my bullshit over the years.  I can be a real cranky pants sometimes, and often forget other people's birthdays.  But I am largely forgiven.

In spite of my feelings about the human race.  Those of you bringing kids into this world, I applaud your optimism.  But when you get to have this around, it's really not a bad deal:

I still have hope (not the bullshit kind being sold by Camp Pamp) that we can turn this puppy around.  I think most people want to do the right thing, they are just so fucked in their day to day lives that they are too tired, or too dispirited to care.  I can't say that I blame them.  That's why, when I'm your President, we're going to start taking it easier, we're going to relax more, and learn to enjoy life.  It's a pretty fucking awesome deal, and it goes by too fast to waste it.

2)  I love Manhattan.  I get sucked in completely.  If I'm in my hotel room and I hear people on the street I can't stand it.  I have to get out in it until I'm so wasted and/or tired that I have to go home and pass out.  I was most notably afflicted by this a few months before 9/11.  I was in town for a wedding.  After the partying was over, and a mandatory trip to CBGB's to see a friend of a friend perform, I found myself in my hotel room wide awake.  After drunk calling a couple friends I hadn't spoken to in ages I wandered the streets to a local bar where I proceeded to consume martinis and write furiously on cocktail napkins and guest checks provided by the bartender.  He also provided me with free martinis.  As I left, random people started shaking my hand.  I suppose they wanted to be able to say they knew me before I was famous, when in reality they knew me before I went back to my hotel and vomited all over the floor.  I was still so wrecked the next day that I forgot to leave a ginormous tip in the room for my mess and assume that I have been blacklisted.  I would have sent a tip to the hotel for the crew, but being so distrustful of people I assumed that the proper parties would never receive it, so instead I just occasionally think about it and feel bad.  Having had to clean my share of vomit, bowel movements, and other bodily fluids and semi-solids as part of my job I think karma has definitely evened the score on that one.

But what I love most about New York is the food.  Second Avenue deli, I could stay there for days.  If they let me sleep there so I could just wake up and stuff my face I would and would never leave.  I am also a huge fan of Wo Hop's wonton soup: the soup that eats like a meal.  And can anyone say enough good things about the biali?  I don't think so.  You should eat bialis, whitefish salad, corned beef and pastrami sandwiches on rye with mustard, NEVER ON WHITE BREAD OR WITH MAYO.  It is written in the Talmud that every time someone eats deli on white bread with mayo somewhere a Jew dies.  Any guesses as to what Larry Johnson has for lunch tomorrow?

3)  I love M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water.  I thought it was a wonderful story, with brilliant characters, and an amazing ensemble of actors.  I think Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard are two of our finest actors in cinema (ignore her role in Spider Man please).  People called it self-indulgent.  I thought it was an incredibly human story.  If you haven't seen it, rent it.  I also loved The Village for the same reasons, just replace Paul Giamatti with Joaquin Phoenix, another fine actor who I've heard is retiring to start a career in music.  You'll come crawling back.

4)  I maxed out a Discover Card on cash advances to pay for Grateful Dead tickets.  They were stupid enough to send the card to a college student.  That's their problem.  I spent the money on other stuff, like food, but mostly tour.  I ended up seeing 50 shows over the years and a big chunk of this beautiful country of ours.  I drove cross country once, went to Vegas three times to see the boys.  The first time I went I helped dupe a hoard of about 500 stoned faux hippies into staring at the fountain at the Mirage waiting for it to erupt, though the last eruption of the day had already happened.  A drum circle formed.  That's about the time we snuck across the street for late night buffet and watched them wait.  They ended up having a good time.  No harm done.  Oh my valve!  I just realized that they might still be there.  If there is anyone in the greater Las Vegas area do me a favor; swing by the Mirage and tell them to go home already.

In the end I paid only a percentage of what I owed (it was still a lot of money).  I take no responsibility for the current credit mess.  This was more than 15 years ago man.   For the record, I would make the minimum payments almost regularly.  Let this be a cautionary tale that minimum card payment does not help and you will be fucked in the ass.  If you don't have it, don't spend it.  I learned this the hard way.  But also learned the valuable lesson that you can live without credit cards, and in many ways are better off without them.  Credit cards are the way of the devil.  But if the Grateful Dead taught me anything you can go to hell in a bucket, but at least enjoy the ride.  I regret nothing.  If I had to do it all over again I would have just done a Maddoff pyramid scheme to fund my touring...just kidding.  Geez, you're so fucking serious!

5)   I think women are the shit.  Physically, mentally, intellectually.  Sure they can make you crazy, but no more so than we guys make them.  It's all part of the package.  When I get hit on by men (it's been more than 10 years since that's happened...my friends say it's the facial hair...what do I know), I tell them that I love women so much that if I were a woman I'd be a raging lesbian.  They get that.  I think men are kinda gross.  We tend to be flabby around the edges, with dangly bits, and a tendency toward sloth.  Quite frankly I find it amazing that you ladies put up with us, consenting to share your lives with us in any capacity, but I'm eternally grateful that you do, because life would be horribly unbearable without you.

6) If you feed me raw broccoli and garlic my ass becomes a weapon of mass destruction.  Seriously, people leave the room.  The Geneva convention explicitly states that I am not permitted to eat raw broccoli and garlic together except for humanitarian purposes like hostage crises and such.  I have always said that if we ever capture Osama bin Laden they should feed me raw broccoli and garlic and lock me in a room with him.  I wonder if anyone could fix it so I could meet Pampers in the White House.  I could make him resign.  Seriously...it's that bad.

7) Bonus meme: I firmly believe that if you think Led Zeppelin is better than The Who you are mentally ill and should be in the care of a trained psychiatrist.  Let's face it, even with an original member dead, and being old enough to get a senior citizen discount at your local drugstore, The Who could still kick Zeppelin's ass to the curb:

Now I must select my bloggers to tag:

Petunia

Nobama

Cinie

Roofingbird

GaryChapelhill

12 Tequilas

Andrew Wyeth Passes at 91

I was saddened to hear the news that my favorite painter, Andrew Wyeth, passed away this morning.  Growing up not too far from Chadds Ford, Wyeth was a legend.  I first discovered him on an elementary school field trip to the Brandywine River Museum.  His attention to detail was dumbfounding, his mastery of tempera unparalleled.  You could smell saw dust, mud, and grass.  You could feel the bristled warmth of a woman's wool sweater, the crisp autumn air, the cold sunshine.  He put you in his world.  It was one I never wished to leave.

Another striking feature of Wyeth's work was his unconventional method of portrait painting.  Rather than painting human subjects, he would often paint articles of theirs that he associated them with; a coat, a pair of worn boots.  Pure poetry.  

I had an opportunity to return home a few years ago to see the grand Wyeth retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  It was not the intimate setting of the Brandywine (truly the best place to see his work), but there were paintings I had not gotten a chance to see before, and it was good to see so many people of all ages there to appreciate his works.

They don't make 'em like Wyeth anymore.   His sisters Henriette and Carolyn were both gifted artists.  Carolyn's work is particularly powerful in my opinion.  There will be an exhibition of her work at the Brandywine running from January 23-March 15; I strongly recommend you check it out.  His son Jamie also possesses Andrew's sense of atmosphere, with the sense of whimsy so prevalent in N.C. Wyeth's illustrations.  Karl Kuerner III, who grew up near Wyeth, is clearly a member of the Brandywine School, mentored by both Carolyn and Andrew, and carries on a piece of the Wyeth legacy.  The influence will travel on.

Though he has left us, Andrew Wyeth's work will endure and continue to inspire, challenge, and comfort us.  With the days we are approaching we could use that more than ever.

Here are a handful of favorites (there isn't a Wyeth I've seen that I haven't loved, just some grab me more than others).

Master Bedroom

Trodden Weed

Wind from the Sea

Day Dream

Pennsylvania Landscape

Otherworld

Wherever you are in this world, if you are able, make the pilgrimage to the Brandywine River Museum and see Andrew Wyeth's work the way it was meant to be seen; quietly, by meandering water and willows.  You'll thank me later.

Here is the article from Fox News:

PHILADELPHIA — Artist Andrew Wyeth, who portrayed the hidden melancholy of the people and landscapes of Pennsylvania's Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine in works such as "Christina's World," died early Friday. He was 91.

Wyeth died in his sleep at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Chadds Ford, according to Hillary Holland, a spokeswoman for the Brandywine River Museum.

The son of famed painter and book illustrator N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth gained wealth, acclaim and tremendous popularity. But he chafed under criticism from some experts who regarded him as a facile realist, not an artist but merely an illustrator.

"The world has lost one of the greatest artists of all time," George A. Weymouth, a friend of Wyeth's who is chairman of the board of the Brandywine Conservancy, said in a statement.

A Wyeth retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2006 drew more than 175,000 visitors in 15 1/2 weeks, the highest-ever attendance at the museum for a living artist. The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, a converted 19th-century grist mill, includes hundreds of works by three generations of Wyeths.

It was in Maine that Wyeth found the subject for "Christina's World," his best-known painting. And it was in Pennsylvania that he met Helga Testorf, a neighbor in his native Chadds Ford who became the subject of the intimate portraits that brought him millions of dollars and a wave of public attention in 1986.


The "Helga" paintings, many of them full-figure nudes, came with a whiff of scandal: Wyeth said he had not even told his wife, Betsy, about the more than 200 paintings and sketches until he had completed them in 1985.

Wyeth's world was as limited in scale, and as rich in associations, as "Christina's World," which shows a disabled woman looking up a grassy rise toward her farm home, her face tantalizingly unseen.

"Really, I think one's art goes only as far and as deep as your love goes," Wyeth said in a Life magazine interview in 1965.

"I don't paint these hills around Chadds Ford because they're better than the hills somewhere else. It's that I was born here, lived here — things have a meaning for me."

Paradoxically, he said, he loved Maine "in spite of its scenery. There's a lot of cornball in that state you have to go through — boats at docks, old fishermen, and shacks with swayback roofs. I hate all that."

Wyeth was a secretive man who spent hours tramping the countryside alone. He painted many portraits, working several times with favorite subjects, but said he disliked having someone else watching him paint.

Much of Wyeth's work had a melancholy feel — aging people and brown, dead plants — but he chose to describe his work as "thoughtful."

"I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future — the timelessness of the rocks and the hills — all the people who have existed there," he once said. "I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape — the loneliness of it — the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show.

"I think anything like that — which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone — people always feel is sad. Is it because we've lost the art of being alone?"

Wyeth remained active in recent years and President George W. Bush presented him with a National Medal of the Arts in 2007.

Wyeth remained active in his 90s, but his granddaughter, Victoria Wyeth, told The Associated Press in 2008 that he no longer gave interviews. "He says, 'Vic, everything I have to say is on the walls,"' she said.

Wyeth was born July 12, 1917, in Chadds Ford, the youngest of N.C. Wyeth's five children. One of his sisters, Henriette, who died in 1997, also became an artist of some note, and one of his two sons, Jamie, became a noted painter in his own right. His other son, Nicholas, became an art dealer.

N.C. Wyeth, the only art teacher Wyeth ever had, didn't always agree with his son's taste.

In a 1986 interview with the AP, Wyeth recalled one of the last paintings he showed to his father, who died in 1945. It was a picture of a young friend walking across a barren field.

"He said, `Andy, that has a nice feel, of a crisp fall morning in New England.' He said, `You've got to do something to make this thing appeal. If you put a dog in it, or maybe have a gun in his hand,"' Wyeth recalled.

"Invariably my father talked about my lack of color."

The low-key colors of Wyeth's work stem partly from his frequent use of tempera, a technique he began using in 1942. Unlike the oil paint used by most artists today, tempera produces a matte effect.

Wyeth had his first success at age 20, with an exhibition of Maine landscapes at a gallery in New York. Two years later he met his future wife, Betsy James.

Betsy Wyeth was a strong influence on her husband's career, serving as his business agent, keeping the world at bay and guiding his career choices.

It was Betsy who introduced Wyeth to Christina Olson. Wyeth befriended the disabled elderly woman and her brother, and practically moved in with them for a series of studies of the house, its environs and its occupants.

The acme of that series was "Christina's World," painted in 1948. It was Olson's house, but the figure was Betsy Wyeth.

Another well-known Wyeth series was made at the home of Karl Kuerner, whose Pennsylvania farm bordered the spot where Wyeth's father was killed in a car-train accident.

Before his father died, Wyeth once said, "I was just a clever watercolorist — lots of swish and swash. ... (Afterward), for the first time in my life I was painting with a real reason to do it." The Kuerner paintings often have an undertone of menace, a heavy ceiling hook or the jagged edge of a log outside a sun-warmed room.

It was at Kuerner's farm that Wyeth met Testorf, a German emigre who cleaned and cooked for Kuerner.

"I could not get out of my mind the image of this Prussian face with its broad jaw, wide-set eyes, blond hair," Wyeth said.

Wyeth painted Testorf from 1970 to 1985, but said didn't show his wife any of the pictures until 1981. In 1985, he revealed the full series to her, and declared he wanted them sold. The buyer, Leonard Andrews, reportedly paid $6 million to $10 million for them.

The Helga paintings created a sensation when their existence was revealed in 1986, in part because many were nudes and because of Betsy Wyeth's provocative answer when asked what the works were about. "Love," she said.

"He's a very secret person. He doesn't pry in my life and I don't pry in his. And it's worth it," she said.

After 1985, Wyeth painted Testorf at least three more times.

The exhibition of the Helga paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington drew tens of thousands, but it renewed the dispute between Wyeth's admirers and his equally passionate detractors.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York pointedly refused to accept the exhibition. And it turned out that the original stories about the collection overstated things, since some of the Helga paintings had been exhibited earlier and Betsy Wyeth had been aware of some of them.

Andrews sold the Helga collection in 1990 to a Japanese industrialist for some "40 to 50 million dollars," dealer Warren Adelson said in 2006, when he was handling the private sale of some 200 of the works. Adelson didn't identify the industrialist.

"When people want to bring sex into these images, OK, let 'em," Wyeth was quoted in the catalog to an exhibition Adelson organized. "The heart of the Helga series is that I was trying to unlock my emotions in capturing her essence, in getting her humanity down."

Some critics dismissed Wyeth's art as that of a mere "regionalist." Art critic Hilton Kramer was even more direct, once saying, "In my opinion, he can't paint."

The late J. Carter Brown, who was for many years director of the National Gallery, called such talk "a knee-jerk reaction among intellectuals in this country that if it's popular, it can't be good."

"I think the man's mastery of a variety of techniques is dazzling, and I think the content is in many cases moving," Brown said.

Fare the well Andrew.  Thank you for sharing your gifts with us while you were here.

Look....Up In THe Sky...It's Me Vomiting Again! (UPDATE: Now with Super Pampers backstory)

Thanks Wired.com for making my spidersense tingle, and not in a good way.

Hat tip to our Stateofdisbelief for sending this around. Apparently Commander Pander, America's leading feminist and swell guy, will be gracing the covers of a number of super hero comic books over the next couple of months. Rather than go on about the incessant hero worship (I'm still kicking myself for not investing in robes and a set of Ginsu knives so that I could charge people an arm and a leg to sacrifice their organs on my burning alter on the National Mall this Tuesday), I've decided to examine Pampers as superhero.

If anyone has seen the film Unbreakable, or is a fan of comic books, then you know that there are certain guidelines under which superheroes must operate. The rules may have changed since I was a kid, reading my bunkmates' comic books at summer camp, but I'm going to assume things haven't changed much. First and foremost they must have superpowers. What would Darth Bambi's superpowers be....

• Mind control: Not unlike Aquaman, who could command random sea creatures with his mind, Super Pampers has the ability to get even the most genius intellectual types, like Gore Vidal, to suspend all rational thought and evidence, and declare that they have the power to elevate Super Pampers to the "Presidency and beyond!"

Preacher Cadence: Using his Zelig-like ability to become anyone, and imitate any accent, Super Pampers gives speeches similar in inflection to Martin Luther King, Jr. so you will believe he is sincere, and is actually engaged in a struggle for anything you might happen to care about (like women's rights for instance), despite the fact that the exact opposite is true.

Super Smile: Able to overcome even the most incredulous citizen. Even if you know the words coming out of his mouth are complete lies, when he follows it up with that winning smile and wink you're buying the Brooklyn Bridge, whether you can afford it or not.

Breath of Obfuscation: Using this power makes you forget that Super Pampers is a bigotedhomophobicmisogynistJewhater, because he didn't hear, see, or say anything untoward in the 20 years that he was not a member of the Trinity Church.

                              

Of course all superheroes must have a uniform. Super Pampers' uniform would be a fact deflecting teflon unitard, over which he would wear the mandatory Super Pampers (I'll leave it to Captain Underpants to sue the crap out him).



                                                



Every superhero must have a weakness, an element or force that robs him or her of their powers. Super Pampers is no different. There is only one force in the Universe capable of shutting down Super Pampers' powers: Fox News, wielded by his arch enemy (all superheroes must have an arch enemy) Super Sean Hannity, who regularly makes Super Pampers cry and whine like the little child he is, begging his friends to take Super Hannity on while Super Pampers retreats to his happy place.

All Super Heroes must have a lair, cave or fortress in which they regroup after being attacked by their arch enemy. Super Man has the Fortress of Solitude. Pampers has the Fortress of Rezkotude.
 
                                     

Of course there must also be supporting villains that either work in concert with the arch enemy, or on their own as it gets to be a little tedious seeing your hero fighting the same villain over and over. The Super Friends had the Legion of Doom. Super Pampers has: The Super PUMAS and their incessantly annoying truth beam.

And every superhero must have a backstory.

Super Pampers was born on the Planet Asshat where utter stupidity prevails. Rational thought is a crime. Critical thinking is punishable by death. The elders of Planet Asshat discovered a tiny speck of a blue planet called Earth, where there were still some people capable of thinking for themselves. They sent Super Pampers to lead the Planet Asshat invasion forces to Earth to eradicate the free thinkers. But soon after departure, the people of Planet Asshat destroyed themselves fighting over the last Hostess Dingdong. Super Pampers is eternally sad that he has no home to return to, and is filled with bitterness and weltschmerz that occasionally causes him to fall on the floor and pound his fists like an angry three year-old. Upon arrival, he found there were so few that still possessed the capacity to think independently that enslaving most of the population was relatively easy. Using his super powers to cause wetness (h/t to myiq) he consumed Tweety and Olberasshat's minds, turning them into sycophantic sex slaves willing to say and do anything in the hopes of seeing That One in the buff. Now "the future's uncertain and the end is always near."

Come to think of it...it seems that Super Pampers isn't a hero at all. A real superhero wouldn't use mind control, thoughtspeak, and bigotry to defeat his/her enemies would they? Say it isn't so Super Pampers! Say it isn't so!

And frankly, Pampers doesn't even seem like a superhero or villain. He's just a sad and tragic character like Tommy from the Who's rock opera; a guy who had reality driven from him by his family, who shut down to the point of not even knowing who, where, or what he was, and emerging as someone who believed they were worthy of being worshipped, whose supplicants followed him mindlessly until they realized he was just a fraud (sadly we have to wait until 20 January to see if that part of the story really kicks into high gear). In the end he just wanted someone to love him, and have the father he never knew. Exploited and an exploiter. The only difference is that, though it can be argued that Pampers is blind, deaf, and dumb, he is real, and is going to preside over the greatest screwing of the American people in our nation's history.

                                                                 

Barry...can you hear me? [Fear not; the parody is on its way]

This Is What Israel Hate Looks Like

In yet another feeble attempt to look like a journalist, LJ over at NQ has enlisted one of his buddies, Patrick L. Lang, to engage in what we in the biz like to call the "Jew Bash Bait and Switch."

This method is almost as old as Jew Bashing itself, and Patrick L. Lang, though clearly not resembling a journalist in the slightest, is able to pull it off with an ease that is almost second nature.

He begins his post "Real Soldiers do not Target Children" this way: If the BBC is to be believed (emphasis mine), IDF soldiers are deliberately shooting women and children in Gaza.

So let me get this straight Pat...can I call you Pat?  I'm calling you Pat, which is a lot better than some of the names I could or should be calling you.  So let me get this straight Pat, you challenge the credulity (sarcastically? nice when you're talking about the lives of children) of the BBC and then, with nothing more than their story, from unconfirmed sources, presenting no forensics, you present their story as fact.  Classic bait and switch.

Yes Pat, we know that the IDF are nothing more than unprofessional war criminals, and the US Armed Forces are the greatest most disciplined soldiers on earth.  Blah blah blah.

The BBC, along with France 2, Reuters, and Al Jazeera (the latest media darlings at NQ) have not only presented the most anti-Israel biased coverage of any news outlets, but have presented discredited footage (like Al-Dura), and doctored photos, as they did in 2006.  I think I'll wait to see whether we can actually find out what kind of bullets were removed from these dead children before I pass judgment, and present innuendo and hearsay as fact (which is what a real journalist would do Pat...since you clearly don't understand that, and which is why that BBC story is worthless crap and you know it...and if you don't then you have no business disseminating it...oh wait you hate Israel...I forgot).

But since NQ has thrown all integrity out the window, let's look at another steaming pile of turd that our buddy LJ presented at NQ.  This is the clearly staged footage shown on CNN of medical personal supposedly attempting to resuscitate a dying Palestinian boy, while his brother is supposedly filming his brother die.

Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs for not letting this story die, and getting a little media coverage over it.  As a professional who has mandatory training in CPR annually with the Red Cross, I can tell that the fatass in the video is not doing anything remotely looking like CPR.  

When one gives CPR the fingers are laced together over the chest, the palm applied over the heart, and the arms are locked, with your body and arms as in line with the chest as possible.  You then apply the compressions evenly (30 compressions for one breath is the new rhythm) using your body to apply the pressure, not your arms, as this is less tiring, allowing one person to do the compressions longer.  He also gives no breaths.  If a person's heart has stopped beating they are also not breathing.  Someone else in that room could have been giving rescue breaths.  No one was there doing that.  Take a look at the fat ass again.  That is not CPR.  That is acting.  But Larry the Jew Basher Johnson defends CNN's fake bullshit footage.  Was the kid dead?  If so, then he was dead before he entered that room, period.  There is no denying it.

And by the way,  Mads Gilbert the Norwegian doctor in the scene is Pro Hamas, and a radical socialist.

Oh, and that UN building that Israel shelled?   Hamas terrorists were firing on IDF soldiers from the compound, if MSNBC is to be believed.  The Israeli government apologized anyway.  Funny though, it's the UN that has allowed Syria to smuggle around 30,000 or so rockets into Lebanon, in violation of the ceasefire agreement, some with longer ranges than those used against Israel (many loaded with cluster bombs...I know how you leftist dingdongs love to attack Israel for using cluster bombs, but Hezbullah actually did use them, and it was verified in 2006, so again, where's your righteous indignation, on vacation?) in the summer of 2006.

Screw you Larry.  Just admit you hate Israel, and Jews in general, and that you are nothing more than an unprofessional Hamas propagandist.  You 'll feel better, I promise.

By the way, when a medical report is filed by a third party, that is not the UN, confirming that children are being intentionally targeted by the IDF I'll publish the names of the guilty soldiers.

Casino Royale, Trial Balloons, and Wagging the Dog

Many are inflamed by the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas.  Quite frankly I'm tired of the incessant diarrhea of the keyboard coming from various bloggers on how Israel must do this and must do that and must fight morally when the rest of the world fights to win, and kills infinitely higher numbers of innocents, and would never have sat on their hands as long as Israel did while rockets were falling on their cities and towns for seven years.  All of you please just shut up or have the cojones to say what we all know you are thinking: that you wish Hamas kills every last bloodthirsty, money grubbing Jew in Israel so Palestine, the country that never was, can be free.

There is of course plenty of reason to be pissed, but mostly because this current set of hostilities is happening as a result of the confluence of myriad threads in the web of bullshit that is the Middle East; a depressing combination of necessity and nonsense.  There is only one reason why Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister formerly known as Ariel Sharon's trial balloon, has launched this offensive: because the elections are coming, and Olmert's Kadima Party is in danger of losing to Likud and Benyamin Netanyahu.  Yes, this offensive is happening because there is no reason that a sovereign nation should have to live with a territory controlled by a body that is dedicated to her destruction, but Olmert could have engaged at any time, the residents of Sderot have been begging Olmert to take action.  Now that he thinks it is politically expedient, he has done so.  If the way he conducted the Lebanon fiasco in 2006 is any indication as to Olmert's acumen, there is absolutely no reason to think that he is capable of finishing this in a way that provides long term security for Israel.  No, it's better to just say that he is doing this to try and save the Kadima party.  The irony is that the only reason Kadima exists is because of what Ariel Sharon did to save himself from being indicted and prosecuted on corruption charges as a result of becoming involved in a scheme with wealthy investors, and crooked Israeli and Palestinian politicians.  

 When Ariel Sharon was still Prime Minister of Israel I referred to his lapdog, Ehud Olmert, as "The Trial Balloon."  Whenever Sharon had a hair brained idea, or one that he thought might be unpopular, he'd let Olmert float it in the Knesset (Israel's three ring circus...I mean parliament).  Olmert's most famous float was the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza.  Contrary to popular belief, this was not a move that was designed to move the peace process forward, or make it easier for the IDF to kill Palestinians and drink their blood (which I'm surprised I haven't heard about from some of the brainless dingdongs commenting on certain blogs lately).  No, the real reason Sharon pushed "disengagement" was money money money, specifically in the form of casinos, and saving his corpulent ass.

An Israeli business man, Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, claimed in 2005 to be in negotiations with Palestinian Authority officials regarding the building of a casino in the Elei Sinai settlement area after the evacuation was complete.  According to Flatto-Sharon, PA officials wanted Israel to destroy the settlement housing to decrease their costs in building the casino, which a noted Las Vegas tycoon would also be investing in (and the synagogues that were left standing were not to be an insult to the Palestinians, as Leftist assholes are muttering to each other in their racist echo chamber of bullshit, but as houses of worship for Israeli tourists...I don't really know of many religious Israelis who would go to Gaza to gamble and then daven, but having them there makes for another amenity to list in a brochure at your local travel agent's office I suppose).  All of this needed to be approved by the Israeli government of course, as Israelis would be the casino's primary visitors.

Now, let's take a little ride in the Wayback Machine to 2003.  Israel's favorite fat man, Ariel Sharon, was facing indictment on corruption charges involving his idiot children Gilad and Omri.  In their book Boomerang, Aviv Druker and Ofer Shelach spin a tale of how Sharon the Rotund managed to wheel and deal his way out of being nationally disgraced and indicted.

Anyone who has done even a cursory examination of Israeli politics remembers Ariel Sharon and the immovable object when it came to Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.  He pushed the building of settlements, and the concept of unilateral withdrawal was completely off the table.  But in December of 2003, almost as if my magic, or divine inspiration, Sharon suddenly reversed his position to the shock and dismay of the Israeli Right, and the stupified amazement of Israel's Left.  Sharon advocated the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria.

[From israelinsider]

According to Drucker and Shelach, Sharon's motivation for adopting the radical left-wing plan --overwhelmingly rejected in the January 2003 elections -- was to avoid indictment for his alleged role in corruption scandals for which police were already investigating him and his sons Gilad and Omri. They write: "In private conversations [Sharon] said he was convinced that [state attorney Edna] Arbel would try to bring about his indictment and his resignation from the premiership." Sharon's aides, first and foremost among them his personal attorney and chief of staff Dov Weissglas, told Sharon that to avert indictment he had to take a bold initiative "to change the public agenda away from the media's focus on the investigation."

What could possibly be more "bold" than pissing off the base that put you in power, and supported your settlement encroachment offensive in the territories, by turning your back on them and advocating the expulsion of 3000 Jewish settlers from Gaza?  Perhaps cannibalism, as if Sharon needed to put on any more pounds.  The Sharon agenda of disengagement  was born.  Now we're going down a corruption rabbit hole that might only be regionally surpassed by Sharon's nemesis, the Grand Master of Political Corruption; Yassir Arafat (contrary to the Left's romantic notions, Yassir Arafat, an Egyptian by birth, was not the George Washington of the Palestinian people, but more like their Victor Lustig).

Sharon appointed Arbel to the Israeli Supreme Court.  With Dame Edna effectively out of the game, Sharon now had to deal with the ornery Attorney General who was fixing to prosecute.  Well, when you're the Prime Minister the fix is easily done.  You could take him out to Highway 61, or just simply replace him with a toady.  The latter sufficed.  Sharon replaced the A.G. with one Menachem Mazuz.  

In a million billion years Sharon would never have pushed disengagement had it not been for the investigations and the threat of indictment.  And guess what happened next?

Again from Shlomi Whitbord:

...the disengagement plan was Weissglas's brainchild, concocted without staff work, discussion with the army, or debate by the cabinet. Weissglas presented it to then US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice without any discussion with or alert to the IDF, Shin Bet and against their vehement objections. To counteract the security establishment's fierce opposition, Sharon effectively fired the IDF chief of general staff, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, and Shin Bet director Avi Dichter by not extending their tours of duty, as is routinely done for both positions. He then stacked the General Staff and the Shin Bet with commanders who, like Mofaz, owe their personal promotions to Prime Minister. 

So the disengagement nonsense opens the door for Flatto-Sharon's Gaza casino scheme, but wait...Gaza is not the only place where casino concerns are being eyed.  Arutz Sheva reported that one Cyril Kern was an investor in the Gaza casino scheme.  He also happened to be a wartime pal of Sharon who gave the Sharon family a reported $1.5 million (another source of investigation into Sharon's dealings).  Kern and a Saudi investor inspected the proposed site for the casino.

So now we have a former Israeli MK (Flatto-Sharon), a big money buddy of Ariel Sharon, a Saudi, and the Palestinian Authority involved in the Gaza casino scheme.  But...there's more.  Kern was also involved in another casino push in the city of Jericho in the West Bank.

Then IDF Chief Moshe (Boogie) [I love that] Ya'alon was shit canned by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, right before the Gaza disengagement was scheduled to begin, according to a "security source," because of the Jericho Casino.  Apparently Ya'alon was getting uppity about his concerns about turning over Jericho to Mohammed Dahlan and Palestinian Authority control. 

From Mikor Rishon, February 2005:

The source noted that Yaalon and other senior security figures have expressed concern in the past that Jericho's casino profits --that have been estimated at more than one million dollars per day even after the start of the Al Aksa terror war in 2000- had also been used as a prime funding source for Palestinian terror activity against Israel. As recently as this month on Channel One's Friday evening program with Amnon Zichroni, journalist Uri Dan, a close associate of Sharon, said that the Jericho casino is a source of funding for Palestinian terror groups and should not be reopened now. Dan also said the Israeli underworld and their Palestinian counterparts are cooperating in the Jericho Casino racket." The problem, Dan added "is that the Palestinian underworld is also part of the current leadership of the PA."

Israeli concerns aside, Palestinian sources confirmed this week that returning Jericho to PA hands and its casino to full operation is now "at the top of the Palestinian agenda." West Bank strongman Jibril Rajoub and former senior Arafat financial advisor Mohammed Rashid, who is known to control Arafat's several billion dollar portfolio -top the list of Palestinians believed to have among the heaviest financial interests in the casino. It was also reported on radio Palestine in Arabic this week that Dahlan has been appointed Palestinian Minister for Local Government Affairs-- a post that would logically include responsibility over Jericho.

It is also well known in Israel that MK Omri Sharon, the Prime Minister's son and closest confidante, and Former Sharon Bureau Chief Dov Weissglass have been long time associates of Rashid. The younger Sharon and Weissglass were reportedly Rashid's guests at his swank Tel Aviv Apartment on the night of Sharon's election victory in February 2001 according to Israeli journalists Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff in their 2004 book, The Seventh War.

An Israeli source with close ties both to the Palestinian Authority and Jordan noted this week that some Israelis and Europeans may also be interested in reopening the Jericho casino as soon as possible. A very senior Israeli security source said this week that he and others in the IDF remember "with a cynical smile the repeated approaches Weissglass made to the IDF and security establishment after the closing of the Jericho Casino in 2001 to convince them to reopen the casino."It was well known to us that Dov Weissglass had personal interests in the Jericho Casino, the senior security source added...

Oh what a tangled web we weave.  Now, let's get back to the Kadima Party.  Keep in mind that Sharon was elected with the Likud Party.  When he pushed disengagement Likud freaked out.  He was facing the real possibility of losing control of the party and the Knesset.  And Likud voted down the party referendum on disengagement.  In order to save his ass, and keep his scheme juggling alive he formed Kadima with politically left elements who supported disengagement because they saw it as an opportunity to move the peace process forward, along with his political pals who wanted to make sure they were in line to get a piece of the casino action.

What I'm wondering is this, when Weissglass (who seems to be the real puppet master here) presented the disengagement plan to Condi, what piece of the action did he offer her and the Bush administration?  I can't help but feel there must have been something.  The only way the Gaza/Jericho casino scheme was going to work was with Fatah in control of the Palestinian Authority, and it was Condi who pushed the elections in the territories, thinking that Fatah would win.  They didn't count on Hamas, who ran as the "Reform and Change" ticket (fuckin' scary right?) to be so appealing to Palestinians.  Why?  Because either they had no idea how badly the PA was fleecing their people, being ginormous kleptocrats, or they were so blinded by their disdain for radical islamists that they ignored all the warning signs (just pick all of the above).  Is it possible that Condi's involvement was motivated simply by post 9/11 fanaticism?  Sure.  But "economic motivation is paramount in man," so anything is possible.

So what happened?  

Fat ass Sharon's flabitude caught up with him.  He suffered a massive stroke and, as far as I know is still in a coma somewhere in Israel.  

Hamas won the fraud election and then ousted Fatah from Gaza, winning the pitch-your-enemy-off-the-roof contest. 

Omri Sharon got sentenced to 9 months and 9 months suspended for political contribution violations, and perjury.  

Palestinian Authority leaders are still involved in the Palestinian underworld.  

Ehud Olmert is most likely planning on seeing Fatah reinstalled in Gaza (which would be an unmitigated disaster for both Israelis and Palestinians (would you want the mafia running your country?  I didn't think so), if he doesn't manage to completely screw Operation Cast Lead and turn it into Operation We Killed Hundreds of People For Nothing.  Olmert, using his status as Sharon trial balloon took credit for pushing disengagement (typical Olmert to stake claim to a decision that angered Israel's religious Jews, and left Israel open to increased rocket fire which he chose to do nothing about until 10 weeks before elections).  The only really good thing about Olmert at this point is that he won't be Prime Minister anymore.

Rockets are still falling on Israel.

The Palestinians are still fucked.

Benyamin Netanyahu, who was also facing corruption charges but was never prosecuted, will most likely end up being elected Prime Minister next month.  After that, who the hell knows what will happen?

My assessment:  There can be no peace with Hamas in control of Gaza, period.  It will be up to Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia who have a vested interest in breaking Hamas, to put an end to them (we should assume that Israel will not be allowed to do it and will be put in timeout) unless of course they want to face continued threats from radical islamists, emboldened by an ever growing threat in Iran.  This is more a problem for Jordan and Egypt who are not rolling in oil money, but make no mistake, Saudi Arabia is compromised by a nuclear Iran.  Having surrogates in Lebanon and Gaza are not in anyone's interest except the fasco-Islamists.

The Kadima party is just as corrupt as the Palestinian Authority so there's really no hope for peace with Kadima and Fatah, unless Hamas is gone and the casino scheme returns.  Ironically, if done right, it could potentially be of great benefit to rank and file Palestinians who would build it, and work there.  Other resorts would be open, and Gaza could potentially become the new Riviera of the Middle East (the key to success is the fact that the Palestinian Authority would finally have found something more profitable than terrorism against Jews.  Unfortunately, if the players in Israel and the PA stay on the scene the Palestinians would no doubt get screwed in multitudinous ways.

So yes, the current fighting is because of a casino scheme involving a vegetative ex-Israeli Prime Minister.

Yes, the current fighting is because Ehud Olmert is wagging the dog on behalf of Tzipi Livni.

Yes, the current fighting is because Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel unabated, without so much as a fart from the UN or anyone else for that matter, and Israel and Palestinians will never have peace while Hamas is a player due to their infantile, genocidal bullshit.  But if Ehud Olmert wasn't such an ass, and the world community actually gave a damn about Israelis and Palestinians, this would have been dealt with, possibly without the current loss of life.

Is it any wonder why I hate politicians?  They suck everywhere.  And now you have a much better idea as to just how fucked up this mess really is.  I told you it wasn't black and white.  It's a big ugly mess and everyone is guilty, everyone has played a part.  How long will Palestinians and Israelis put up with this incessant flowing river of bullshit?

There are several loose ends and related stories on this that I will be presenting later on so stay tuned, and keep praying that this is resolved with a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and that the asshats on both sides responsible for this bullshit end up with painful ass boils.

Warning To Dog Owners (UPDATE)

A friend of mine contacted me today because her dog got sick (nausea and bloody diarrhea). Her vet said this has been a growing problem, there have even been cases in Australia. The common thread at the moment seems to be packaged chicken jerky. My friend gets hers from Costco, and guess where it's made? That's right...China. Surprised? I'm not. If you can avoid it, stop feeding your animals any foods with chicken raised and processed in China. And definitely avoid feeding the jerky and chicken flavored treats. She feeds her dog Purina Pro Plan and suggested she switch to Pedigree. So if you're feeding the Pro Plan you might want to switch too.

Here is the most recent posting I have been able to find on this.

Are You Really What You Eat?

Many people look at the so-called election that took place in Gaza and conclude that the people of Gaza support the eradication of Israel and the establishment of a Islamic caliphate, approve of their methods, and/or are complicit in what is happening now. Still there are others who say that Israel is attacking the duly elected government that represents the people of Gaza.

People seem to forget that their other choice in that election (which was fabricated by the United States under the direction of that miserable failure in knee high boots, Condoleeza Rice) was Fatah, a party that, under Yassir Arafat, and then under Mahmoud Abbas, embezzled billions in financial and material aid, keeping them in abject poverty and pawns in a scheme where terror is more profitable than peace. Seeing their leaders driving BMWs and wearing fine Italian suits while there are people without indoor plumbing, etc probably didn’t help matters.

Hamas ran an excellent propaganda campaign, opening clinics and schools. Even though the majority of Gazans are not subscribers to the radical Islamist agenda that is incrementally bringing sharia law to the territory, when faced with a choice between what they had before and something seemingly the lesser of two evils, or something new, they chose Hamas (which, ironically ran as the "Change and Reform" coalition in conjunction with a handful of non- Hamas candidates).  Every four years we end up doing the same thing. Both our parties are demonstrably corrupt. Both have endorsed and legislated an eroding of our constitutional rights, etc. The big difference is that they’re not forcing us to live at the end of a barrel of a gun…not yet anyway.

Though the current sentiment on the streets of Gaza may be anger and outrage with Israel, I suspect that if you gave them the choice of living in peace and coexisting with Israel, or living with Hamas rule and the constant threat of bombings and infiltration by the IDF, I have to believe that they would choose the former. The problem is that currently there is no force in the Palestinian body politic that has the power to stand up to the armed thugs running things.

The fact that the world community has not made any moves to change this speaks to the worldwide acceptance of the genocidal policies of both Fatah and Hamas. So to me the question is not whether there are enough peaceful Palestinians to work with, but whether there are enough players in the world at large that don’t tacitly support the destruction of Israel, that will help dismantle the terror kleptocracy, and give the Palestinian people the chance to build legitimate political institutions that function without the destruction of Israel as their raison d’etre.

The fact that the United States has also largely been silent on that issue, and has sought to legitimate the corrupt Fatah apparatus as a political body, is the best argument in refuting the misguided notion that there is a Jewish/Pro Israel cabal that is influencing our foreign policy, in addition to the fact that our State Department is notorious for selling out Israeli security interests in favor of OPEC, a long standing currency the United States will spend to keep oil prices low when necessary.

The Hamas margin of victory was not that great either in terms of percentages, not one that anyone would call a mandate (though it garnered around 30 more seats that Fatah in the parliament). Perhaps there should have been a third choice on the ballot: "Why don't both of you go fuck yourselves?" I have a feeling that would have been the winner.

The Palestinian people have faced shit, shittier and shittiest as their choices for years. If the world community really gave a flying fuck about the Palestinian people they would do something about that fact. So far the world community's solution is fuck Israel. The only reason that option hasn't worked out is that Israel has more weapons.

Fact: Israel is not going to allow a Palestinian state to be formed when it is going to be run by a terror kleptocracy, and all the bitching by Leftist arm-chair protestors, who have nothing to lose or gain other than a selfish feeling of [false] moral superiority, is not going to change that fact.

Fact: If you object to Israeli military action in Gaza and are not actively working to help end the terror kleptocracies standing in the way of peace, then you are not a friend of the Palestinians, you are anti-Israeli.

Fact: Israel, in the end, doesn't give a fuck whether Left Wing American arm-chair protestors march in the streets. It's just another reminder of how little value the world gives Jewish lives since they never open their fat thoughtless mouths when Jewish children die.

So if you really care about the Palestinians you'll actually do something to help them be able to live free of the terror kleptocracies that do nothing but insure war with Israel without end. But that would entail actually doing something other than bitching.

Good luck with that.

It's About Time

According to the wholly and totally unbiased "journalists" at the AP (Asshat Propaganda), Israel is dropping leaflets on Gaza saying that the IDF's military operations are going to "escalate."  I really don't know what to make of that, and neither does AP apparently as they offer no sort of explanation.  They're just letting everyone know how many Palestinians have been killed and that the blood lusty Jews plan on killing more.  Thanks for the tip.  And apparently Mahmoud Abbas is in Egypt blathering on about Israel installing a "waterfall of blood."  That ought to match well with the waterfall of rockets.  AP was courteous enough to mention that 176 Israelis have been wounded by the Hamas rockets that don't explode and are very primitive and inaccurate...much like the katyushas and grad missiles.  But since more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis we know Israel is wrong.  Thank god we have the Asshat Press to guide us in this moral struggle so we can all feel good about valuing Palestinian lives more than Israeli lives.  That's really helping.

But let's remember the test for Israel.  I really don't want to assume that Ehud Olmert launched this offensive now in order to influence the results of the upcoming Israeli elections.  Let's face it, his limp wristed asshat Kadima party sat on its hands while Hamas rockets fell, and made zero effort to push the world community to take any steps toward replacing the Palestinian Authority/Hamas TerrorKleptocracy with a body politic that legitimately envisions something resembling peaceful coexistence.  Perhaps they were too busy cutting deals with Shas and Israeli real estate developers to build housing in the Judean hills (don't be surprised if we find out later that the Israeli housing authority put money in the hands of Abbas either...as I first started arguing when this shitfest started, all the players are corrupt...I'll be happy when everyone else stops getting killed).  If this operation ends and Hamas rockets are still falling (translation: Hamas is not completely dismantled), Likud wins the election.  If this operation ends and Olmert plans on installing Fatah in Gaza, Likud wins.  If Olmert did nothing, Likud wins.  In other words:  Ehud Olmert is a fucking idiot so the best we can all hope for is that Hamas is in fact dismantled and Likud wins.  Why?  Because I promise you as sure as I shit that if Likud loses, Labor or Kadima will install Fatah's Hamas not-so-light in Gaza and the bloodshed will continue.  Netanyahu, for all his flaws, for all his lunacy, is the only one in the elections who will not broker a false peace with a corrupt Palestinian Authority.  Doing so would only mean more exploitation of the Palestinian people, and more bloodshed.  I really wish the Leftist Asshats would grow up and see that.  Until the Palestinian people are free of the terrorkleptocracy they will be kept in the shit house by their leaders and the Israeli government will continue to make them line up at checkpoints and live behind fences in an effort to prevent Israelis from having to be scraped off the walls of burnt out buses.  And even the ex-shoe salesman from Cheltenham knows that the status quo cannot be sustained forever.

Are you brainless Leftist weenies starting to get the picture yet?  No?  Maybe you need a head check.

This is a political cartoon that, to my memory, originally ran around the time of the second intifada.  My Countessa of Snark, Lady Farquar has presented this as your Rorshach test.

What do you see?

...and I have just received word from our newswire at the ShtueyNewsNetwork confirming the nature of Israel's escalation in Gaza operations.

LES JUIFS DANS L'ESPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE!

                                      

More Video You Won't See On No Quarter

For those of you not participating in the anti-Israel book burning bloodlust rioting at No Quarter you are missing out on a brave new world of stupid.  I would suggest you go over there and read some of the inane, uninformed bullshit flying from the keyboards of some of the shit eating Leftist Jew haters commenting there, but you probably shouldn't contaminate your computer, or your brain.  I've said for years that having George W. Shrub in the White House dropped the collective IQ of this country by at least 20 points.  At NQ that number is clearly lower.

Here's an example from someone called Landoffuckingstupid (screen named changed to protect the racist)

"But of course the Palestinians–and Arabs in general– are subhuman animals so they never feel any of the things you describe, is that what you’re saying...?

They’ve been thrown off their land, herded into concentration camps, and now the Israelis seem to be hellbent on a Palestinian “final solution.”

But that’s perfectly okay, because somebody did it to them first, and besides, they’re the “Chosen People,” is that it?

Israel is a state founded on terrorism. You reap what you sow…"

Well, for Landofshitforbrains, and the rest of the non-coms in the cannon fodder brigades of the intergalactic invasion forces of Planet Asshat, here's some videos at Nobama's blog that you and the rest of the dingdongs won't see because you're too busy blowing it out your ass.