Israel: Group therapy from Hell (Video)

...And you think you have problems?



(HT: Israelity)

Lebanon: Gunners fired at Israeli overflights

UPDATE:
Lebanese army anti-aircraft gunners reportedly fired at Israel Air Force warplanes during foray over south Lebanon

Ynet News:
Lebanese eyewitnesses: Israeli jets perform mock raids over Hizbullah stronghold of Dahiya in southern Beirut for first time since fighting ended in August; Israeli army says jets sent on recon-intel mission

Haaretz:
United Nations peacekeepers, Lebanon: IAF overflights violate Security Council Resolution 1701

The Jerusalem Post:
Overflights come hours after UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen tells Security Council that Lebanese government reported arms smuggling from Syria

The IAF sorties, which Israel says will continue, may well have been in response to an earlier, semi-satirical report:

HizbullahCo revamping biz model,
rejigs core industry

For extensive (and I do mean extensive) coverage and documentation of Hizbullah terror activities, including video evidence, click here.

Obligatory Borat post about Jews (Video? Sheesh. Of course there's video)

(Sigh) Must it come to this? To have become a mere flack for the masses, an unpaid viral promoter of the newest media shark-pool feeding frenzy?

Jewlicious has an outtake from the upcoming Borat flic, where Baron tries to adopts a dog, but first checks out it's "Jew hunting" potential.

The animal shelter employee's slapdown response to Cohen's request is great, as a change from others he "interviews" who come off looking like utter imbeciles - even if the are. But then again, I never liked "Candid Camera," or Israel's "Fisfoosim," either, for surreptitiously humiliating strangers for the vacuous, voyeuristic "entertainment" of the masses.

I'm funny like that.

JerusalemOnline news update: Oct. 31th (Video - Channel 2 TV)

Today's Headlines:

Katsav: High Court cannot suspend me Cabinet votes to include Lieberman Olmert: Israel to expand Gaza Operation Special – A Piano in Wartime - click to watch Click here or on image for latest Israel Channel 2 News update

Naked Palestinian fugitive eludes IDF custody

From Ynet News:

Palestinian avoids arrest while 'doing acrobatics to hide my buttocks and sexual organ'

A wanted Palestinian terrorist showering at his parents’ home last week escaped an Israeli arrest raid by jumping out a window and running naked through a densely populated refugee camp.

The terrorist, a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank, recounted the story to WND under the condition his name and location be withheld, conceding he is "very embarrassed" by the incident.

(...)The terrorist is on Israel's most-wanted list and boasts of leading a cell responsible for six suicide bombings and scores of shooting attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.

HizbullahCo revamping biz model, rejigs core industry

HizbullahCo CEO S. H. Nasrallah
addressing stockholders at a recent
training session on new developments.

Under pressure from the U.S. to disarm in the wake of this summer’s war with Israel, Hezbollah announced today that it would spin off its political and social service units to focus on its core business — the development and distribution of terror.

Stockholders reactions seen as
mixed to "explosive" news.

In a corporate news release, CEO Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said, “Over the years, our success has lead us into several brand extensions — like politics, health care and education. But I’m afraid these have become distractions, and we’ve allowed other terror groups to steal market share while we fiddled around with negotiations and public relations. We need to get back to our core beliefs and focus on becoming world class in our niche.”

The announcement comes as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again called on Hezbollah to fulfill the terms of the U.N.-brokered cease fire with Israel by laying down weapons and becoming a legitimate part of the political process in Lebanon.

However, Mr. Nasrallah rejected the idea, saying “it’s ridiculous to think we should change our tactics after all these years. Our enemies are so primitive that they still settle their differences with discussions and documents. They’re diplomatic fanatics. You can’t negotiate with animals like that.”

UPDATE: From The Washington Times:

Iran and Syria are rapidly rearming Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon as an international peacekeeping force has failed to carry out a U.N. mandate to disarm the Shi'ite militia group, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said yesterday.

Mr. Mofaz said Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah fighters this summer had dealt the Shi'ite militia a major setback in its southern Lebanese base. But he expressed frustration that the Lebanese army and an enhanced U.N. peacekeeping force had not disarmed Hezbollah or sealed the border to prevent Syria and Iran from rearming their "proxy."

Read more.

JerusalemOnline news update: Oct. 30th (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Security forces nab suicide bomber
• President Katzav refuses to suspend himself
• Labor to remain in government
• Weekly Summary – click to watch all the headlines
  
  
  
  Click here or on image for latest Israel
  Channel 2 TV news update.

Duck! And Cover! (Updated Israel - Iran video/audio version)

(As I write these lines, my IDF/police beeper is buzzing over Kassam rocket strikes into Sderot like your head does the morning after the night before way too many arak and beer chasers...)

First up on this morning's soggy docket: Uzi Mahanimi with a Sunday Times of London item about Israel's bon ton digging in with their very own nuke-proofed bomb shelters:

AMID mounting fears that Iran is planning to obliterate their country, wealthy Israelis are shelling out on underground nuclear shelters in the gardens of their luxury homes.

The shelters, which cost at least £60,000 for a bargain-basement version, are built to withstand radioactive fallout, have fortified walls and doors and generate their own electricity and decontaminated air. Defence experts estimate that hundreds of such bunkers, many fitted with all modern conveniences such as bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms, have already been built in private homes across the country and demand is soaring.

(...)Leading the stampede to the nuclear bunker is Shari Arison, the country’s wealthiest woman, estimated to be worth about £2.7 billion. The Israeli media have reported that she has already made preparations for Armageddon by building two sophisticated underground structures. One is at her home in Tel Aviv, the other in the garden of her holiday villa in Bnei Zion village.

(...)Firms specialising in the manufacture of such shelters are booming.

Haha, get it?! "Booming." That Uzi - whatta' kidder! BTW, Arison owns Israel's Bank Hapoalim; at least now I know where all my usurious ATM fees are being siphoned off to...

And our Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert? What say he? From this morning's Jerusalem Post:

(T)he international community is "hardly doing anything" to stop Iranian nuclear ambitions and its ongoing threats to annihilate Israel, which he said echoed statements coming out of Germany just before the start of World War II.

Turn on your speakers, click here or on Bert
and get a musical surprise!

(Stage whisper) Pssst, Bert - er', sorry, Ehud? How 'bout first dealing with Sderot, where the hits just keep on coming. From Ynet:

A Qassam rocket was fired Sunday morning at 7:40 a.m. from northern Gaza Strip at the southern town of Sderot and landed at a sheep farm. Some of the sheep were injured and several people were treated for shock by Magen David Adom paramedics.

On Saturday, while hundreds of Sderot residents demonstrated outside Defense Minister Amir Peretz's house against the unending firing of Qassam rockets at the city, Palestinian gunmen fired two rockets at the western Negev. One of the rockets landed in the community of Nativ Ha'asara, and the other in Palestinian territory.

Sderot children in classroom taking part in current
Kassam rocket attack drill. (Circa 2004-5-6, etc.)


American schoolchildren taking part in Cold War-era
classroom drill against nuclear threat. (Circa early 1960's)

I have followed the ongoing Sderot rocket crisis extensively (maybe even more than Olmert, going by results). Here's a link to the most recent item, including video and audio clips, photos, and written content, "daisychaining" back to earlier exclusive coverage.

Blogging in The Washington Post, and Skpye-ing Algeria

Someone slap me awake.

An editor at the The Washington Post “PostGlobal” page emailed me yesterday, asking me to take part in a blog-versation on a question of the day:

“Does a leader have a right to bypass democratic institutions to ensure his people are fed and secure?”

asked panelist Daoud Kuttab, referring to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's recent statement that bread is more important than democracy, and the possibility of dissolving the Hamas-led PA government.

I replied:

Long before, and certainly during the elections that brought Hamas to power, many Jerusalem Palestinians told me on numerous occasions that they were fed up with the stale corruption they felt characterized the entrenched, Fatah-led “old guard” Palestinian leadership. They wanted bread and a radical transformation. But I don't think that “democratic institutions,” at least as the term is understood in the West, were ever really a viable option for them.

Among those I spoke with were cab drivers, pedestrians in voxpop interviews, and – especially - one elderly Old City gift store merchant near the Jaffa Gate, soon after President Bush announced the roadmap peace plan.

Fingering prayer beads in a overflowing trinket shop on an alleyway empty of tourists fearing terror attacks, he spoke in despair of how the Arab leadership had pocketed their futures and disappointed them, in his words, for over 50 years – essentially, by not thwarting Israel's establishment.

When I asked him what he thought about Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, his sole answer was bitter: “Who is he?” he said with a dismissive shrug.

Read the rest here.
---
Well, an entity “bigger than Phil,” in this case, Skype, has a great sense of humor. At the same time I was preparing my comment, since I have a Skype widget on this page that says "I'm Online" (look for it), several guys in - wait for it - Algeria called, wanting to chat with an Israeli.

So, making sure my webcam was unplugged, I quickly slicked back my horns, and we chatted a bit, more excited over the connection than the content. Unfortunately, we soon broke off, owing to their poor English, and my even poorer Arabic.

Later on, a few very bored Israelis - let's be kind and call them "yutes" - with a webcam, microphone and a "sharmuta" (their term. Just guess what it means...) of an "a-ti-tude,” called just to say "f**k you..." now that's certainly food for thought on Israeli - Arab talking points. Takes all kinds, I s'pose...

Then again, my comments are in the WaPo, and their's aren't.

Who really won the Lebanon War: a lucid analysis

Novelist and polemicist (and one of my favorite writers), Mark Helprin, writing for the Claremont Institute, says in a lucid, cogent and cleverly-posited analysis of the fighting between Israel, Hizbullah, and Iran in Lebanon War:

Imagine an Israeli guerrilla organization based in the Galilee, a power unto itself, with seats in the cabinet, a generous welfare apparatus, and the oft-stated goal of Lebanon's destruction and replacement with a Jewish state governed by Jewish religious law. Upon instructions from its foreign patron and supplier of arms, it crosses the border to capture and kill some Lebanese soldiers. Lebanon, however, is in no mood to tolerate such a provocation, especially in light of the guerrillas' arsenal of 10,000 or so short-range missiles targeted at Lebanese civilians.

For a month, the Lebanese air force ranges freely over all of Israel, and, without losing a single plane, cuts every major bridge and road link in the country, destroys its power plants, bombs ports, airports, military facilities associated with the guerrillas, and the guerrillas themselves, obliterating all but their buried infrastructure. Significant portions of Tel Aviv and Haifa, and many of the small towns of Israel's north, are reduced to rubble.

Who won?

Helprin's answers cut to the quick and may surprise you.

Front of home in Israeli town of Ma'alot, destroyed in
Katyusha rocket strike. Sign (pre-existing): "For Sale."
(Photo: Dave Bender)

More video, audio, photos and articles of my coverage of the war are here.

Tel Aviv at Night (Photo)

Tel Aviv at night: The Ayalon Freeway adjacent to the
Azrieli Towers (Photo: Dave Bender)

'Home Game:' When Israeli hoop dreams lost to Gaza pullout (Podcast, video)

I just posted the audio podcast of this report:

While media coverage of Israel’s evacuation of 9,000 Jewish residents from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005 focused on the political and physical struggle between the government and its citizens, filmmakers Yaron Shane and producer Avi Abelow chose to focus on the human aspect.

The massive police operation which garnered the world's attention and brought emotions to a fevered pitch within the country, played out on very same day as the final game of the annual high-school basketball championship between the 22 Jewish communities in Gaza.

That's the backdrop for Home Game, their recently-released film.

A movingly edited amalgam of hundreds of amateur film clips, recorded by the residents themselves, along with one-on-one interviews with residents Home Game chronicles daily life before and during the evacuation of the 30-year-old farming community of Netzer Hazani, in the southern Gush Katif settlement bloc. Shane and Abelow carefully pieced together the myriad personal and public dramas taking place both within, and beyond the echoing walls of the sports hall into a dramatic whole.

"My ultimate goal is for people to put aside their political orientations, and religious affiliations and whatever baggage they have that stops them from feeling empathy for their fellow Jews who go through tragedies; and in this case, with the movie dealing with the people and the families and the youth of Gush Katif, who went through an unbelievable tragedy,” Abelow told www.ISRAEL21c.com at a screening of the film in Tel Aviv.

Here's a bit of background:



Gaza Pullout: Settlers & Supporters Protest on Vimeo

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

A full version of this article, and the podcast is cross-posted at Israel21c.

Charlie Brown: A Jihad Christmas (Video)

O-kaaaaaay. This is clever. Wicked, but clever. And I am so waiting for the Hanukkah version, so Jews, Israelis and supporters can have a hoot during a darkening winter.

To the new visitor here: There are other, much, much nastier versions of this sort of parody out there, but this one is slamming Jihad and suicide bombers (and Tom Cruise) - not Islam, Get it?



And - just to show the uberPC dweeb visitor here that we're fair, here's how we like our satire about Jews and holidays.

JerusalemOnline news update: Oct. 22nd (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Health Ministry probes flu injection deaths
• Coalition passes bill for presidential system
• Israel Beiteinu Party set to join coalition
• IDF planning Gaza foray
  

Click here or on image for latest Israel
Channel 2 TV news update.

Why did God create atheists?

And, in an effort to balance out the previous posting, Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks writes in The London Sunday Times:

“DO YOU believe,” the disciple asked the rabbi, “that God created everything for a purpose?”

“I do,” replied the rabbi.

“Well,” asked the disciple, “why did God create atheists?”

The rabbi paused before giving an answer, and when he spoke his voice was soft and intense. “Sometimes we who believe, believe too much. We see the cruelty, the suffering, the injustice in the world and we say: ‘This is the will of God.’ We accept what we should not accept. That is when God sends us atheists to remind us that what passes for religion is not always religion. Sometimes what we accept in the name of God is what we should be fighting against in the name of God.”

Read the rest.

Tales of 'Near-Death Experiences' in Israel

Erica Chernofsky at The Jerusalem Post takes an interesting look - and takes the time to write a long-format article (not sure if it's also as long in the print version) - on the subject of "Near Death-Experiences."

From Wikipedia:

A 'core' near-death experience reflects — as intensity increases according to the Rasch scale — peace, joy and harmony, followed by insight and mystical or religious experiences (Lange, Greyson & Houran, 2004). The most intense NDEs involve an awareness of things occurring in a different place or time. Among the clinical circumstances that are thought to lead to an NDE we find such factors as: cardiac arrest, shock in postpartum loss of blood or in perioperative complications, septic or anaphylactic shock, electrocution, coma, intracerebral haemorrhage or cerebral infarction, attempted suicide, near-drowning or asphyxia, apnoea, serious depression (van Lommel et al., 2001).

Worth a read.

Here's a compelling YouTube entry about the subject:

HezBow-Flex! For a Firmer, Tighter Katyusha

Flat Fatima is Back!

From The Jerusalem Post:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has responded positively to Lebanese Amal head Nabih Berri's peace-talk overtures, calling the Lebanese Shi'ite leaders words "interesting."

"Anytime an Arab leader says he wants to talk peace, we have to listen," Olmert told reporters.

From Ynet News:

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Lebanese authorities on Thursday to take a lesson from the recent war between Israel and Hizbullah and quickly agree on a plan for disarming Hizbullah.

Refrigerator magnets of the gods: Now available on this site

Mideast mayhem got you down?

Bored stiff waiting for that special email to arrive? Did'ya get stood up when your IM chat partner wrote "brb" (be right back) - but wasn't?

Hey, no worries, we got you covered, bunky!

Look over there at the top, left side of this page - just beneath the "profile." That's right, go ahead and scroll - I'll wait...

Right. They're refrigerator magnets. Moveable by you, along with hundreds (...ok, five or six) of others in real-time.

Just click the mouse cursor on a letter, hold it, and drag it around. Until somone else does... Make nice.

Go. You know you want to...

Free Palestine! (While stocks last)

From Ynet News:

An Israeli was moderately injured early Thursday morning in a shooting attack near the Fadouel settlement in the West Bank.

The man said terrorists opened fire on him as he drove his car on t he road leading to the settlement. The Israel Defense Forces searched the area in an attempt to locate the perpetrators.

From Haaretz:

In an interview with Haaretz published Thursday, senior cabinet minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) said that Israel should hold permanent peace negotiations with Arab states based on the Saudi initiative.

Sheetrit also said that Israel should agree to negotiate over the Golan Heights if Syria halts its support of terrorism.

From The Jerusalem Post:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz secretly met Tuesday with veteran settlement leader Ze'ev [Zambish] Hever Wednesday night, according to a Channel 2 report.

The two reportedly discussed a plan in which a number of illegal West Bank outposts would be voluntarily evacuated by settlers, while around 10 others would be given legal status as permanent settlements.

JerusalemOnline news update: Oct. 19th (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Peres makes 2nd bid for presidency
  
• Katsav hints at inside info on sex charges
  
• Business: Sudden CEO change at drug giant Teva
  
  
  
  Click here or on image for latest
  Israel Channel 2 news update
  

  
  
  (Cross-posted at Israelity)
  

'My Name is also Rachel' (a terror-ISM reminder)

Keshertalk, offering a timely reminder that Rachel Corrie wasn't the only young Rachel killed in the conflict notes:

The original US producer of the new off-Broadway run of the London hit "My Name is Rachel Corrie" wanted to "contextualize" the play by providing for structured discussion...

If you did not know that Corrie protected smuggling tunnels, or that her organization the ISM has openly praised and abetted suicide bombers, or that suicide bombers existed, or that the bulldozer driver couldn't see her from where he was sitting, you would never find it out from this study guide.

Eight Israelis named Rachel, along with 950 others, including Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, tourists, guest workers and others were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 2003, the year Corrie was killed.

As Haifa University professor and blogger Steven Plaut acerbically points out:

Corrie died as a result of her own stupidity. She was in Gaza to help promote Palestinian terrorism and to prevent Israel from protecting its own citizens. She died protecting the illegal tunnels into Gaza from Egypt, through which the suicide bombers obtained their materials. The most lasting images of Corrie was of her face contorted with rage and as she burned an American flag. When Reuters reported that Palestinians "honored" her after her death in a "symbolic funeral" by flying U.S. flags, James Taranto from the Wall Street Journal remarked that if Corrie were still alive, no doubt she'd have burned the flags.

Even the far-Left Mother Jones magazine considers her a dangerous and deluded little twit. The Israeli army investigated the death and concluded that Corrie had effectively committed suicide. Taranto also suggested that Corrie be awarded the "Idiotarian of the Year Award" for playing chicken with a huge earth-mover.

The ISM is not simply an innocent, if evil, fringe debating society. Within Israeli territories, its members have actively collaborated with terrorists. They hid weapons and wanted terrorists in their offices. The local ISM offices hosted two Moslem suicide bombers from the UK, who had entered Israel as "peace activists," only to blow a Tel Aviv bar to smithereens the next day.

The Israel Wayback Machine: (pre, pre, pre, pre- 'Skype Out')

One Jerusalem has a cute item illustrating what I've been trying to tell my kids for a long time: what using telephony here was like BEFORE the Internet, and the advent of SkypeOutMSNMessengerAOLYahooGoogle, cellphone SIM cards, prepaid calling cards, you-fill-in-the-blank, etc...

Click here or on the image for the translation

Ok, granted, they go a bit further back than I was aiming for - 1925(!) - but hey, the dialing instructions for calling Bethlehem from Jerusalem (about two whole miles - tops) are worth the price of admission. What I still don't though, get is where the "asimon" telephone token goes:

Remember these? My kids don't.

(Crcoss-posted at Israelity)

A sudden suicide bombing. Slowly (Video)

From Vital Perspective:

A television commercial aimed at thwarting terrorism has hit Middle Eastern television networks using high-tech time-suspension "Matrix" effects to show the anatomy of a suicide bombing in graphic detail. The $1 million ad uses the film techniques to show bodies, cars and broken glass flying in slow motion through the air:

This Just In! Barbie: the ME conflict edition

Co-blogger and journalist Allison (welcome back from the land of the round doorknobs), over at Israelity posted a great pic (via Danya) of Barbie all, er', dolled out for Simchat Torah:

Meanwhile, though, Hamas, in an effort to beat the Jews (literally and figuratively), and gearing up for more "struggle" in Gaza against the IDF and neighboring Sderot's residents, has wasted no time in bringing out their version of the dimunitive "dosit" - just in time for the festive end of Ramadan:

Ahh, fashion Barbie. Such a harsh mistress.

McDonald's - I'm Hatin' it!

A group of about 15 "twenty-something," self-described animal-rights supporters and anarchists held a protest vigil outside the downtown Jerusalem branch of McDonald's Monday evening.

The group, blowing whistles and shouting through a megaphone, called on passersby near the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall not to eat at the restaurant, due to what they described as the food corporation's harmful policies.

"McDonald's puts profits before people, animals and the planet," group leader Amnon Keren, 24, of Jerusalem, told Israel At Level Ground, and called on Israelis to boycott the chain.

Keren, noting that the group had numbered about 30 earlier in the afternoon, added that similar vigils were being held concurrently in front of branches in Ra'anana, Kfar Saba, Haifa, Rehovot and Beersheba, as well as at many locations worldwide today.

There was a brief, non-violent, altercation with a diner, who, stepping out to protest the noisy demonstration loudly argued with Keren over the usefulness of such vigils.

A small crowd of about 20 pedestrians gathered across the narrow street, and spirited discussions about the eatery were bandied about. Several, apparently bemused, kipa-wearing Jews, ironically found themselves on the same side of the ideological divide as the protesters, due to McDonald's non-kosher status because the chain is open on Shabbat.

Demonstrator in front of downtown branch,
as Ronald and "Happy Meal" look on. Poster:
"McDonald's 'McExploits employees.'"
(Photo: Dave Bender)

Diner, waving ice cream cone in face of protest
group leader, argues that noisy demonstration
disturbs those inside eatery. Lower poster:
"McDonald's 'McPoisons' children."
(Photo: Dave Bender)

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

JerusalemOnline news update: 00:00, Oct. 16th (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Police to A-G: indict President Katsav for rape
• Gaza: Hamas stockpiling arms, anti-aircraft missiles
• First winter rains cause flooding in north

Click on image for latest Israel
Channel 2 news update

Tel Aviv: Dimension X

(Photo: Dave Bender)

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

Glowing aliens come ashore at Tel Aviv, surround beachgoers

(Photo: Dave Bender)

JerusalemOnline news update: 00:00, Oct. 13th (Video - Channel 2 TV)

Today's Headlines:

---

• Iran to train Hamas operatives
• IAF strikes Hamas operative's home, kills young girl
• Kassam hits Sderot causing blackouts
  
  
  
  Click on image for latest Israel
  Channel 2 news update

'Mike's Place,' Tel Aviv keeps rockin' the blues (Video)

(Video and photos: Dave Bender)

Blues jammers extrordinaire, Dov and Assaf put on a great show for the crowd at Mike's Place bar, on the Tel Aviv shore Wednesday night, Oct, 11.

The nationally famous pub was the scene of a suicide bombing on 30.4.2003 that killed three and wounded over 50, perpetrated by two Hamas - dispatched British Muslims.

Despite the lethal attack, Mike's Place reopened on Israel's Independence Day, and continues hosting a full house most nights and is a blues and classic rock-and-roll magnet in Israel.

More about Mike's Place: here, here, and a feature-length film, "Blues By The Beach."

More about Dov and Assaf is here.
(Photo: Dave Bender)

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

Flipping out Hitler

You just think you know who this is:

The winners have yet to be announced, but the 200-plus finalists in Iran's "Holocaust International Cartoon Contest" were recently exhibited in Tehran and posted online.

And though not among the finalists, the above image was part of a cartoon accepted into the contest, one of over a thousand entries accepted. The cartoonist's name, Hugh Bradley, can be seen on the contest's list of participants under USA.

Obviously a cartoon featuring Adolf Hitler could be appropriate for such a contest, but there's more to the image than meets the eye. It also contains a hidden message critical of the Iranian regime.

We know this because "Hugh Bradley" is really Cox & Forkum.

Ah, what the hell, while we're at it, let's go for the Full Monty:

Click on image, or here.

YouTube ok's Bush snuff film, censures political spoof (Video)

I usually stay away from US internal politics, unless the mood (or cash up front) moves me, but this was too good:

David Zucker, producer of a slew of funny Hollywood movies (Airplane, Naked Gun) has come out with a clip slamming the Democrats, and doing a drop kick in the butt (and what a butt) to former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, just in time for upcoming elections on Capitol Hill:



Amazingly, YouTube has flagged the video as having "offensive," content, although it's about as "offensive" as, say actor Leslie Neilsen's gags in any of Zuker's films. But, as Little Green Footballs notes, "...the fictional assassination of George W. Bush? No problem: YouTube - Death of a President":



On the right side of the political spectrum (and others) there's a growing Internet brush fire over YouTube's presumed Left-tilting, hyper politically-correct policies.

So why am I posting this imbroglio? Well, consider Defense Minister Amir Peretz's "can't we all just get along?," overtures to Syria - and Chief chinless wonder boy Bashar Assad's near-instantaneous reply, and the distinct possibility that A) Iraqi weapons of mass-destruction are hidden in Syria, according to IDF and foreign reports, and B) Syria's military cooperation with Iran before, during and since Lebanon War II: The Debacle!

The Middle East: 5000 years in 90 seconds (Flash Video)

NOTE: This map may appear as a white space on slow internet connections. The map will load after a few seconds. Please be patient!

Flash required for viewing this map.

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Duly noted: a little something to tell God

For those here and abroad who couldn't bear the drive and crowding at the Western Wall plaza for the mass priestly blessings during the holiday, Ynet News offers a solution:

A recent innovation at Mini Israel allows visitors to leave notes in the cracks of its miniature Western Wall. The notes will be transferred to the real Western Wall in Jerusalem once a week.

Mini Israel CEO Haim Rogatka said that since the opening of the park, hundreds of thousands of visitors had stood in awe before the miniature Western Wall each year.

“It was as if they were standing before the true Western Wall in Jerusalem, the capital city,” Rogatka said.

For my close-up look at Mini Israel, go here.

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

JerusalemOnline news update: 00:00, Oct. 8th. (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• PM Olmert, Lieberman near coalition deal
• Police push for indictment in Katsav sex scandal
• Israelis flock to dozens of Succot festivals

• 
  Click on image for latest Israel
  Channel 2 News update
  

Watch This Space: Israel and the future of video (Podcast)

Seven of Israel's most prestigious companies in the video infrastructure and applications delivery field have joined forces to create a new paradigm for viewing video content. Their goal? To enable individuals to view video content of their preference, any time, anywhere, on their device of choice, without any kind of hitch.

The three-year NeGeV project, which is expected to cost $20 million, aims to tackle and solve a range of thorny technical, architectural, sociological and even psychological issues that surround the adoption of this new TV and video technology.

Ziv Ringer, NeGeV's general manager talks about what they've got in store in a podcast excerpt of the article, cross-posted at Israel21c)

One of these things is not like the other... (Photo)

Except maybe the ovoid shape of both objects, both found at the Mahane Yehuda market for Succot...

(Photos: Dave Bender)

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

Succot food porn: Shakin' it like you just don't care (video)

Halva at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market
(Photo: Dave Bender)

Halva. About four trillion tooth-melting calories per serving as a Succot festival dessert. That's why we are commanded to do the following acts daily for the week-long holiday:

For more about Succot, click here.


I'll try to post more pics before the holiday comes in this evening, so please check back later.

HT: Yo Yenta

(Cross-posted at Israelity)