WE'RE NOT WORTHY! Two lizardoids, myself and a cohort, met the Lizard Master, Charles Johnson, face to face, at my old alma mater, the American Film Institute. His Evilness described his evolution from a blong about web page design to the leading pro-American, pro-Israel, "anti-idiotarian" blog in existence, but he wouldn't tell us what Little Green Footballs actually means.

Much or the crowd was rightwing or conservative. Yours truly is neither, but shares the common distrust of dictatorships.

BTW, anyone agree that Bush blinked on Iraq?

LA TIMES WATCH: Miracles of miracles, while I was hunkered down trying to earn a living, the Whale's chief Editorial Page blow-hard Janet Clayton was demoted to editor of California regional news, and guess who they hired to take her place? (No, not me, although I so clearly deserve it.)

Michael Kinsley

Yep, THE Michael Kinsley, formerly of The New Republic and Crossfire. And he is NOT a terrorist apologist, or at least he wasn't at his previous jobs. Perhaps the heat reached the gnomes running the Tribune Company -- people don't like daily doses of radical propaganda with their morning coffee.

Think maybe he'll deep six Robert Scheer? Make the narcissistic bastard work for a living? And how long will Managing Editor John Carroll let him stay?

Your guess is as good as mine...


WHEW! Sorry I haven't been posting, but I had a really, really, big writing assignment, and I just submitted a HUGE mother of a story, over 3,345 words. And no, I can't post it -- my editor would be furious.

During the writing, I got a free dinner for myself and my family. That's the good part of being a feature writer. The bad part is that a freebie is the only way you can get a great dinner for yourself and your family!

THANKS, BLOGGER! Damned new Blogspot software just ate my last post. It completely disappeared. Let's see if I can remember any of it... By the way, Blogger's spell checker doesn't like the word blogging. It wants users to change the word to flogging. Reminds me of what I would like to do to a certain fish-lipped sociopath holed up in Ramallah. But, damn it, he would probably enjoy it...

FEEDBACK LOOP: It's a bit painful to make these entries if no one reads them, but I shall forbear, if not every day. My writing career seems to have moved into second gear, which makes blogging a bit of a chore. Come on people, let me know how horrible my rants are!

SEE, THE FENCE WORKS: Check Josh Harvey's chart demonstrating the rise in attempted suicide bombings and the decline in actual bombings carried out. The overwhelming majority are thwarted...

Let's finally make an end of them: Has anyone not seen the jolly gentlemen of Hamas and their collection of human meat?

I hate to admit it, but I once supported Oslo. Now I say, "Loose the Kraken." (An obscure mythology reference, to be sure, but you can imagine what it means.)

My immediate -- real -- suggestion is to take Gaza section by section and put the entire population through an explosive detector. Give those who test positive one chance -- talk and live (albeit after a good swallow of pig fat), or shout allah akhbar, just once. Aim low, mix the carcass with pig manure, burn it with the others, and inject the ashes into the water supply.

Ok, I'm just a little angry right now. I take back the part of injecting the ashes into the water supply. But I'll add another -- Take their children and raise them as people.

Let's finally make an end of them: Has anyone not seen the jolly gentlemen of Hamas and their collection of human meat?

I hate to admit it, but I once supported Oslo. Now I say, "Loose the Kraken." (An obscure mythology reference, to be sure, but you can imagine what it means.)

My immediate -- real -- suggestion is to take Gaza section by section and put the entire population through an explosive detector. Give those who test positive one chance -- talk and live (albeit after a good swallow of pig fat), or shout allah akhbar, just once. Aim low, mix the carcass with pig manure, burn it with the others, and inject the ashes into the water supply.

Ok, I'm just a little angry right now. I take back the part of injecting the ashes into the water supply. But I'll add another -- Take their children and raise them as people.

Death Watch: Notice that the networks and the papers didn't show what happened to Mr. Nick Berg. All that happened to him was that some dark age bastards cut his head off with a knife. But a bunch of naked Baathists get some noogies and wedgies and HEAVENS! Spread it all over the papers, day after day. None of them were shot, hanged, stabbed, beheaded, or faced watching their children raped.

Cox and Forkum had this to say about that...

And one wonders what sort of clucking is going to come from Amnesty International? (They once called me from Europe, when I was a newspaper editor to complain that some murderer was about to be executed for murder. I asked the numnuck "You are telling me that he didn't do it?" The reply, "That isn't the point!" No it was the point. A murderer is a murderer.)

Blog Watch: Blogger has a new user interface. All beige instead of grey, with a black quote feature like Little Green Footballs.

Does it work?

Let's see...

It does, sorta, but in fact, it is a pain because you can't go straight back after previewing. Grrrrrrrrrr. Oh, "Hide Preview" does it. That was slightly un-intuitive.

And the blockquote thing has a flaw -- it inserts two new lines at the end, so you have to continue from the same paragraph or you'll look funny. Oh well, It's a work in progress.

Oh, and the spellcheck is REALLY dumb -- it doesn't even know the word "Blogger"! HA-HA!

Health Watch: It was a false alarm, thank G-d. I'll tell you about it someday. Ok, I had a lump and the doctor urged a mammogram. Guys can get it. Damn that X-ray machine was cold, but it turned out to be just a stupid cyst.

The ladies who march with pink ribbons don't bother to tell you about it, but perhaps two percent of all B cancers occur in men. Get examed, even if you're a guy. (I confess, though, for a few hours after the exam I had unnatural urges to pout, look at fabrics, and win every single argument, but they wore off.)

: - ))

A Wonder From Irshad: Irshad Manji of Toronto, author of "The Trouble With Islam: A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change" is our favorite Muslim-Lesbian writer and thinker (that's a lot to combine). The self-styled "Muslim Refusenik" believes that Muslims need a reality check:

Moderate Christians accept that the Bible is a compendium of gospels "according to" different observers - Matthew, Luke and so forth. 'According to' means as interpreted by them. But no such acknowledgment exists in Islam yet. Even moderate Muslims believe that the Koran is the final, immutable word of God, untouched by the human hand and mind. Which is why most Muslims have no clue how to debate or dissent with extremists - we've never been introduced to the possibility, let alone the virtue, of asking questions about our holy book. It's time to change that...

She also takes issue in Toronto Life with Yosi Klein Halevy, one of our favorite writers, who implied that Islamic fatalism is a good thing:

It was Halevi who urged her to inject more love into her narrative, "not for the mullahs but for the billions of souls over the centuries who prostrated on little embroidered prayer rugs and offered their small, unhappy lives to God’s glory..." "Excuse me for ruining the moment," Irshad bounced back, "but why should so many lives be 'small' and 'unhappy,'especially under a merciful God?" She has little patience for Westerners willing to tolerate human rights violations in the Muslim world. She calls it "the soft racism of low expectations."

Halevy wrote the following of his encounter with Irshad:

Irshad is particularly outraged at Arab - and, by extension, Muslim - hatred of Israel. She understands what most of the world does not: that the Arab world's antipathy toward Israel is a monstrous attempt to deflect onto the Jewish state the terrible failure of its own civilization. And she has taken the time to examine all the little lies that together form the new big lie: that the Arab world is the innocent victim of a rapacious Israel.

Arab Heroism Watch: A couple of Palestinian Heroes murdered a pregnant woman and her four daughters.

Naturally, al-jezeera called it a "resistance strike." This is how these gentlemen of the Arabic press described the Israeli response:

The missile attack was a collective punishment for an earlier Palestinian shooting of illegal Israeli settlers on their way to protest any withdrawal.

A woman and her four daughters, shot at close range, in their car, and it's a "resistance strike." (And the rally against withdrawal was long over, but that makes it ok, right?)

Animals.

Health Watch: Should anyone be reading this, I've been having some medical tests done, so there hasn't been much time or attention span for blogging. I'll explain when I know more.

Darwin Works: You're not going to believe this one... According to Ireland On-line and Scotsman.com, two Palestinian robbers tried to steal the bomb off a suicide bomber, what Charles of LGF calls a splodeydope. Only splodeydopes don't have anything on these guys. Natually...

A Hamas suicide bomber blew up two armed Palestinians who tried to rob him at gun point in the Gaza Strip. Hamas claimed the “stickup men” worked for Israeli intelligence, while Palestinian security forces said the two were ordinary thieves. Rather than give up his explosives, the bomber detonated them, killing himself and the two robbers near the border fence between Gaza and Israel...

And these guys think they can run a state...

Denial Watch: Steven Spielberg has announced that he intends to direct a feature about the Munich Olympic Massacre of 1972. According to al-Reuters:

Spielberg plans to start production in June and is eyeing actor Ben Kingsley for a role in the upcoming drama, which will chronicle the Summer Games marred by the kidnapping and slaying of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants, a DreamWorks studio spokeswoman said Wednesday.

In all, 11 Israelis lost their lives in the bloody 1972 tragedy, including nine hostages killed in a botched rescue attempt at a military air base outside Munich, all while Olympics officials carried on with the competition. Five of the gunmen and a German policeman also died. Three of the militants were captured alive.

The specter of the massacre 32 years ago has haunted authorities in Greece preparing security for the upcoming Summer Olympics in Athens amid heightened concerns of potential attacks by extremists linked to the al Qaeda terror network...

Notice that the al-Reuters jerk calls those who kill Jews militants and those who may kill others in Greece part of a terror network? And that it doesn't actually say who killed them? It's just during a "botched rescue attempt."

It's not an accident that they did it this way. Here's how al-BBC ran the same story:

Director Steven Spielberg is to make a film about the kidnap and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Spielberg is looking to cast actor Sir Ben Kingsley in the drama, which will begin filming in June, a spokeswoman at his Dreamworks studio said. The Israelis died after being taken hostage by Palestinian activists at the 1972 summer games in Munich

Notice how the Palestinians were activists, and that the Israelis simply died. Maybe at the hands of the Martians? Like the Reuters jerk, the BBC mamzer couldn't actually say that Palestinian terrorists killed them. Against the rules.

This is a real problem for me, as a terrorism survivor. Teorrorists are terrorists. There's also another issue: The terrorists said that they belonged to a "group" called "Black September," but there never was an organization of that name. It was a front for Fatah, and was directly controled by the Prince of Evil himself, Yasser Arafat.

Previous films on the subject, including the recent Oscar winning documentary "One Day in September," avoid this issue. ("Gasp! You can't blame Arafat! Think of the peace process!")

Will Spielberg do the same? I hope not, but my guess is that he will.

Ghoul Watch: Here is the late Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi rambling about the Jooooos, in English, to an Australian Islamist site (via Damien Penny and others):

Q: "How do you interpret the cowardly assassination attempt on your life, and the assassination policies of the Israelis in general, whose latest victim was Al-Qawasimy commander in Hebron?"
A: "Firstly, this is the custom of the Jews, for they are the killers of prophets, and the killers of the preachers who enjoin justice. Their criminal nature will never change. ...The Jews have designs and ambitions in Palestine and in surrounding countries, and they utilize terrorism to materialize their plans and accomplish their holy prophecies."

("So much for that "people of the book" crap, eh, Rantisi?" -- Damien says)

"As for us in Hamas, our charter states Palestine is a Muslim land that falls under the category of Waqf in Islamic Law. Hence no leader, group, people or any generation is permitted to surrender a single hand-span of it to a non-Muslim. This is why we do not recognise the sovereignty of Jews on a hand-span of our country. We have stated clearly the ‘Road Map’ is a conspiracy against the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian existence."

Q: "How can the Intifada survive in light of the truce with the occupying enemy, especially considering the known Zionist cunning and deception for this nation since the time of our Prophet Muhammad (saw)?"
A: "Certainly the Intifada is continuing and shall not stop. Truce may actually be a cause for stirring up the Intifada not weakening it. The Zionists have nothing to offer to our Palestinian people, and time will prove this Inshaallah. As for the truce, it is our opinion that truce is an exceptional, temporary case, and its main aim is to maintain the choice of resistance."

In other words, no peace, ever. Find the rest at "The Call to Islam," which claims to be Australia's leading Islamic site.

Fiend Watch: Unsatisfied with putting nails laced with rat poison in their bombs, the Palestinians are now using AIDS tainted blood, or at least trying to. According to the following, in the New York Post and elsewhere:

Israeli security foiled a plan by Palestinian terrorists to detonate an AIDS bomb - a powerful explosive charge contaminated with HIV-tainted blood, authorities said yesterday. The diabolical plot during Passover - thwarted by the arrest of at least two suspects - was one of 10 terrorist attacks stopped during the holiday, which ended yesterday, officials of the Shin Bet secret service said.

They said members of the Palestinian Tanzim terrorist outfit planned to obtain the tainted blood from Palestinian hospitals and add it to the explosive belt of a homicide bomber who was to attack in an Israeli city. But the cell members were arrested before the plotters got as far as obtaining the blood and the plan collapsed. Israeli medics have long feared the use of an "AIDS bomb" and routinely wear gloves when handling victims of terrorist attacks.

The Arabs see no limits, they can justify anything. Perhaps the problem is that, for the purposes of this war, neither Arabs nor Israelis are considered human. Unlike a human, an Arab is not responsible for his actions. And killing an Israeli is not murder.

Just a thought.

Your slip is showing Dept. The following is a real headline in a real Asian financial site: Misys gives Pecker head job. Misys is Rudi Pecker's employer, not his wife, but neither of them will ever live this down!

Whistleblower Watch: It's not easy coming forward. Sometimes you get interviewed on 60 Minutes. Usually you get fired and your life is ruined. I know, I was a big time whistleblower myself. I even had to leave the city I lived in. So I was a bit disturbed by the following report that the U.S. Special Counsel, the office that specializes in protecting whistleblowers has an official gag order policy in place, meaning that it doesn't like its own whistleblowers:

The U.S. Special Counsel, the principal protector of federal civil service rights, has sent what appears to be an illegal gag order to his own staff, according to a letter of protest filed today by three national whistleblower watchdog groups.

Scott Bloch, recently appointed by the Bush Administration to serve a five-year term as the U.S. Special Counsel, began his tenure by suspending agency policies protecting federal employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Last week, in an embarrassing rebuke, the White House announced a reversal of Bloch’s self-imposed suspension.

These are policies that REALLY encourage people to come forward...

Palestinian Red Paste Watch: Of all the peoples in the history of the world, none have been more in love with war than the Arabs, and for the last thousand years, none have been so relentlessly bad at it. And so the killing goes on, they never advance a single inch against the Israelis, and they never, ever, learn why. Cragg Hines of the Houston Chronicle offers the following observation about the Palestinian national habit: They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportuinity:

As Abba Eban once observed, Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And yet again, Palestinians have been presented an opportunity that their leaders seem determined to let pass them by.

An Israeli prime minister is unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. A U.S. president has reaffirmed his commitment to a Palestinian state.

The initial Palestinian response has been the usual fulminations. The most obvious reason is that Palestinian leaders do not handle reality very well. What part about best current opportunity don't Palestinian leaders understand?

President Bush's statement of two regional realities — the existence of sizable Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the inadvisability of allowing Palestinians to settle in Israel — are points that tacitly have been acknowledged to varying degrees by previous U.S. administrations, but to no great effect within the splintered Palestinian hierarchy of aging leaders and raging terrorists. That there is little that the Palestinians can do to change these realities is one reason that various peace processes and negotiations and road maps have not gotten very far — or at least not to final agreement and implementation...

What's so hard to understand? Israel is there, it's going to stay there, and as long as you blow up restaurants, you're going to live in filth. Hines concludes with the following quote from an Islamic Jihad dork on PBS's Frontline:

"We will have no cease-fire, and we will not put our gun aside until the liberation of Palestine, with its capital Al-Quds Ash-Shareef, holy Jerusalem. This is our legitimate right. Palestine from the river to the sea, that is our legitimate right in this homeland."

"From the river to the sea." With that kind of sentiment, no wonder Arafat and friends so reliably miss so many opportunities.

Precisely.

Gas Tax: Best Way to Stick It to the Saudis Nobody likes to pay taxes. I don't, I'm a working writer and taxing anything hurts like hell. But there's a war going on, and we have to pay for it. The best way I know is by taxing the stuff the enemy produces, so maybe people won't use so much of it.

And that stuff, as all of you know, is petromium, oil, black gold, Texas tea. We suck it up like addicts needing a fix, and we like it as cheap as possible so we can waste even more of it in bigger and heavier imitation armored personnel carriers we think we need.

Andrew Sullivan has this to say in this week's Time:

Gas prices are too low. There. I said it. Even when they peak this summer, as most analysts predict, they will be too low. And they're too low in large part because gas is woefully undertaxed in this countrya state of affairs that is bad for the economy, bad for drivers and bad for our foreign policy. In fact, one of the simplest and best things any Administration could do right now would be to add a buck per gallon to the federal gas tax, which is currently just 18.4¢. Now that I have alienated almost every reader of this column, allow me to defend myself.

The worst knock against a gas tax is that it is, well, a tax. Who likes that? But with soaring deficits and a war to pay for, taxes are not an option — they're a necessity. The only relevant question is, Which taxes? The case for a gas tax is a straightforward one. Gas prices are strikingly lower in America than anywhere else in the world; such taxes are relatively easy to collect; since an overwhelming majority of Americans drive, few avoid the tax; and by adding a cost to the wanton consumption of gasoline, you actually encourage conservation, accelerate fuel efficiency, reduce pollution, cut traffic and help wean Americans off the oil that requires the U.S. to be so intimately involved in that wonderful cesspool of rival hatreds, the Middle East. So what's not to like?

The idea is so obviously a good one that in their recent absurd bickering over who is responsible for higher gas prices, neither George W. Bush nor John Kerry has gone near it... (Find the link to his blog at the right.)

Our fellow Middle of the Road Extremist, Damien Penny also chimes in:

I've been a subscriber to Car and Driver since 1987, when I was still four years away from getting my licence. I watch American Muscle Car on the Speed Channel every week. I even mused about wanting one of these Hemi Dodge Ram pickups on this blog a few months ago. But I still think Sullivan has a point.

Sullivan makes some outstanding points about why a gas tax is, in many ways, more fair than the income taxes we're already forced to pay. Certainly, I'd be willing to pay more for gas in exchange for being allowed to keep more of my paycheque. Why should people who don't drive at all effectively subsidize the rest of us?

And, really, I don't think there's any contradiction in being a car enthusiast and supporting this proposal. I just got back from Great Britain, where gasoline is more than twice as expensive than it is here in Canada (where gas is already more expensive than in the States, though not by the margin it used to be). It certainly doesn't seem to have dimmed their enthusiasm for the automobile. In fact, the British market is saturated with tremendously entertaining little sports cars, roadsters and hatchbacks considered "too small" for the North American market...

He finished with this: "And yes, I am prepared for some absolutely vicious criticism in the comments section. Fire away." They did!

Busy, Busy, Busy: Gentle readers, this blog may be read by only you and God above, but I really am a professional writer. This means that I actually write for a living, mainly articles in magazines, but some fiction as well.

For those of you unfamiliar with the art and craft of writing, it is damned time consuming. It eats you alive. You sit at the screen and stare, and stare, and stare. Finally the words burst forth, and precisely at that moment, the wife and kid need you for something that has to be done RIGHT NOW. Which means that the turn of phrase for which you have been searching all morning has disappeared into smoke.

We have two assignments pending. Not difficult ones, just work. Which is why, Gentle Readers, we are not blogging as much as we should like.