IDF Fetish Toy: Sterling Silver Chess Set

Hey, you out there! You love Israel, right? Then dig this:

The IDF Chess Set Made From Sterling Silver

"A masterpiece unique artisan large 925 sterling silver (NOT silver plated) IDF (Israel Defense Force) chess set. Comprised of 32 highly detailed and outstanding IDF related pieces representing the various corps in the Israeli defense forces, 16 made of sterling silver (for the white pieces) and 16 made of gilded sterling silver (for the black pieces).

"The pawns are designed as soldiers, the rooks are shaped as missile boats, the knights are as mobile gun, the bishops are as patrol jeep, the kings are as combat pilot standing beneath his F-15 and the queens are as queen driving a Merkava tank (the tank is considered to be the queen of the battlefield)."

Did this ad nauseate you much as it did me?

So. Instead of pissing away – wait for it - $1650.00 smackers on ludicrously overpriced Israel fetish uber-schlock, go key-in some of that plastic-card green at the following sites instead, where it'll do real IDF troopers who are - even as I write this and you read it - placing themselves in harms way and grievious danger for Israel's sake, a hell of a lot more good:

The LIBI Israel Soldier's Fund
Friends of the Israel Defense Forces

Go there, and donate whatever you can afford - you know you want to - and the soldiers (and you) will be better off for it.

Al-Zarqawi: Paradise is Overrated

Do you like parody? I mean wicked parody from some other dimension? Like old National Lampoon when it rocked, back in the early 70's? Then go read Iowahawk.

"Now, back in the madrassa when we studied the afterlife, I always wondered what would be the last thing to go through my head. I'm pretty sure now it was one of Mahmoud's anklebones. And if you're wondering if it was painless? Imagine a full-frontal 800 degree root canal while listening to a Neil Young record. But hey, I figure no big whoop, just the admission price to heaven's eternal ho sammich.So Zarkman walks toward the light. No shit, it's a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey, but in 3-D quadrophonic sensurround. And BOOM, plop, I'm in this gigantic white room, completely empty except for this hooded faceless guy and a totally sweet 47" plasma screen. " (warning: not G-rated, but so worth it)

Also, excellent background reading:
Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest,
Peace Elusive in Strife-Torn Midwest

And finally, this, a brilliant body slam to the New York Times:
"New York, N.Y. - Like the corpses that lazily bob along in the nearby East River, life obeys its own pace in this isolated island community of 8 million in southern New York State.

It is an ancient pace, its cadence dictated by the steady whirr and click-a-clack of word processors, plied by the gnarled hands of skilled opinion craftsmen who once supplied nearly eighty percent of the world's refined punditry output.

To some ears, the din from the mighty opinion mills of this gritty Ink Belt town may be grating; but it has served as a siren call for generations of hungry immigrant OpEd workers."

Read it all.