Boker tov, Boulder!

tiny word

In Context has the last word on this week's political entertainment, the Kerry faux pas.

He's calling it a "botched joke." No sale.

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

Nope, sorry. The sentence is clear, and it's not even self-contradictory, though of course it's totally offensive and completely wrong. But maybe extensive microanalysis of the video- or audiotape of Kerry's speech at Pasadena City College will ultimately reveal that what he actually said was

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq.

Maybe the Democrat spinmeisters should try that one on for size. It's as believable as anything else they've come up with so far. Static. Hey, maybe they'll even come up with a faux copy of the speech with that tiny little word in place.

Okay, so maybe it's not the very last word we'll hear on the subject, but it's good, isn't it?

UPDATE: Lynn B. was very close in her prediction. The explanation given by Kerry spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, is that

Kerry's prepared text had called for him to say:

"Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

Of course the Democratic operative AP writer Jennifer Loven doesn't bother to question that explanation. And if you think Loven's name sounds familiar, you're right. See more here, here
and - more recently and famously - here.

Bookworm notes that Loven comes by her bias honestly "- her husband, after all, worked for Bill Clinton and advised John Kerry during his run for office."

uh-huh.

Ted Kennedy & the non-scandal

Ocean Guy:

Kennedy secretly reached out to Andropov in order to work against the President of the United States. He offered comfort to Andropov and offered to help him bring down the President of the United States. Let that sink in... Ted Kennedy, for the sake of partisan politics, or maybe just personal dislike of Reagan, offered to collaborate with our enemy to bring down the President of the United States. Senator... Presidential hopeful... National Leader... Ted Kennedy... reached out to our enemy in an attempt to diminish... to discredit, the President of the United States.

Is that front page news in your hometown? No, me neither.

It has no connection (other than political party), but I just came across this NRO piece [on the CBS News website] about "fluent, smooth and black" Senator Barak Obama, and The Dangers of A President Pelosi. A commenter writes, in all caps of course, "SHE IS GOING TO BE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE DEAL WITH IT YOU BIGOTS."

Apparently Ocean Guy's right: "Civil discourse seems to have almost completely disappeared." Oh, that's a different post...

See A Word About the Election, which will lead you to Kesher Talk, which may or may not lead you to this, in the NY Times.

'nuff said, I'll leave my comment over at Kesher Talk.

Well, push me to the Right! (again)

San Francisco, CA, USA - October 28th, 2006

I voted for Carter, I voted for Carter again. I voted for Mondale, Dukakis, and for Clinton twice. Then I voted for Gore. That was the end of that.

By 2004, I thought the Left had gone too far Left and I cast my first vote for a Republican:

3.5 million more people voted for Bush than Kerry. In my humble opinion, as a lifelong Democrat, it was because Bush was the more courageous, more clear, more positive, and more steady candidate. The liberals, in comparison, were too muddled in their message, too left of center, too risky and way too angry.

Let's give credit where credit is due. In the last two years, liberals have clarified and distilled their message: they hate the President and they don't have the stomach for any war, no matter how necessary.

They have moved even further left, to my mind from "risky" to "dangerous." Their anger has not abated; it has solidified. They don't give a damn for the truth, nor do they display any courage or conviction.

The Democrats are increasingly anti-Israel and antisemitic.

So I'm voting straight REPUBLICAN.

RJC ad campaign - see also this new one

Little-known factoid about "disengagement"

Israel's withdrawal from four northern West Bank settlements created an area more than twice the size of Gaza's 140 square miles under Palestinian control and devoid of any Israeli presence.

Saudis: US should pressure Israel to surrender

Is this for real? - apparently from the Associated Press, via Jerusalem Newswire:

Saudis: US can buy Arab favor by forcing Israeli surrender

Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Turki al-Faisal told a gathering in Washington Monday that America's standing in the Middle East is an an all-time low, and can only be elevated by forcing Israel to surrender all lands being demanded by the Palestinian Arabs.

And that includes Jerusalem, the ancient Jewish capital the so-called "Palestinians" claim as their own.

The prince said that Riyadh has no problem with the US remaining close friends with Israel, but that that friendship must be used to "push Israel" to make "peace" on the Arabs' terms.

I thought this didn't appear anywhere else (other than the Chinese People's Daily Online), but now I've found it at Yahoo News, where it's hiding under the more vague headline, Saudi ambassador chides U.S. policy.

Barry Schweid, Diplomatic Writer for the AP, is, well, more diplomatic in his rendition of the ambassador's speech:

WASHINGTON - The U.S. standing in the Middle East is at an all-time low and can be helped only by pressing Israel to relinquish all occupied Arab land — and Jerusalem — to the Palestinians, the Saudi ambassador said Monday.

"We want you to remain friends with Israel," Saudi Ambassador Turki al-Faisal said at a news conference. "But that friendship should be used to push Israel" to relinquish the land the Arabs lost in the 1967 Mideast War and provide the Palestinians with a state they have been denied for more than a half-century, the prince said.

"The United States is the only one that can deliver," the ambassador said. "The basic interest of the United States is for peace to reign in our part of the world."

In remarks he prepared for delivery to the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, a private group that presents the Arab view on issues, Prince Turki said, "It is no secret that U.S. standing in the Middle East is at an all-time low."

In his speech, distributed to reporters at the luncheon, he said, "It is not a matter of military strength or a shift in rhetoric, but rather a matter of basic understanding of the needs of the people who are affected by U.S. political decisions."

He added, "If the U.S. is going to help itself its policy needs to change in the Middle East."

Two important things to note about all this:

(1) It's Jerusalem they want

and (2) the Arabs haven't been "denied" a poorpalestinian state, they have refused a poorpalestinian state... in 1937, 1947, 1948, 1967, 1978-9, 1993, 2000, 2001 and 2003.

To learn specifically what was refused, see Jewish Current Issues and the Israel Hasbara Committee.

Ultra-Dovish Media Editorializes (in photo caption)

Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right wing Yisrael Beiteinu party raises his hand during a vote at the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday Oct. 30, 2006. Israel's parliament on Monday approved the addition of an ultra-hawkish party to the government coalition, a move that virtually ends hopes for a new Mideast peace initiative in the near future. With the vote, Avigdor Lieberman, who in the past has advocated bombing Iran, Egypt and Palestinian population centers, takes office as deputy prime minister in charge of dealing with strategic threats to Israel. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Yeah, right, it's the "ultra-hawkish" Uncle Avigdor who's ending hopes for peace, not Hamas and Hezbollah.

UPDATE: On reflection, perhaps the caption's author is referring to the end of Olmert's "new morning of great hope". You remember... according to Olmert two months before the Expulsion of Jews from the Gaza strip, the "Disengagement" was to lead to a "new pattern of relations" that would "develop into a meaningful dialogue." This was to be accomplished "by sitting with them, and talking with them, and helping them, and cooperating with them, and partnering with them..."

JFK is back

... and Michelle Malkin has the money quote.

John Kerry, during a campaign event in California yesterday:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

(Follow links at Michelle's site to listen to the audio, though I can't imagine why you'd want to.)

Speaking of homework, Barak over at IRIS Blog has been doing his, and in the process found "an extraordinary trend" in newspaper circulation. Go look, it's good news.

You'll find it right above the post that reports on the beheading of a 14-year-old Christian boy in Iraq (not to be confused with the 14-year-old Christian boy who was crucified there two weeks ago).

Consult their prophet for military doctrine

For once, I am in complete agreement that we should "study Mohammed" in order to "gain understanding."

WND via Jihad Watch:

The Pentagon must study the Muslim prophet Muhammad and his military doctrine to beat the growing number of jihadists, a former senior Pentagon intelligence official warns.

The failure of Pentagon brass to implement a "systematic study" of Muhammad's military doctrine is hurting the U.S. military's effort to control and defeat insurgents and terrorists, complains William Gawthrop, who until recent months headed a key counterintelligence and counterterrorism program set up at the Pentagon after 9/11....

The U.S. still does not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, says Gawthrop, who recently stepped down as program manager for the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA.

"As late as early 2006, the senior service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader," Gawthrop said. "As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered" ....

Gawthrop says jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply following the example of Muhammad, who some 1,400 years ago personally led 27 attacks and sent his armies out 47 additional times against non-Islamic communities averaging about seven operations a year.

He says the Muslim prophet's military doctrine is contained in the Quran and its supplements, and the insurgents and terrorists are using them as their manual of warfare. They are Muhammad's soldiers in the 21st century. Homegrown and freelance terrorists are also following his example, he notes.

"There is evidence to support the contention that sources of terrorism in Islam may reside within the strategic themes of Islam," Gawthrop said. They include "the example of Muhammad, the Quran, the hadiths, Islamic law, the pillars of faith and jihad."

The Muslim sacred books cover all aspects of warfare, from methods and tactics of violence against kafirs to war booty to truces, he says. Even alms-giving is directed toward jihad, which is obligatory for Muslims, who are told by the Quran that "fighting is prescribed for you" (another translation says "warfare is ordained for you").

Gawthrop says the Pentagon needs to develop a broad new strategy to deal with the threat from Islamic terrorists. But to do so, officials must first overcome the political taboo of linking Islamic violence to the religion of Islam, its sacred scripture and the personal example of its revered prophet....

This is encouraging:

Gawthrop's analysis appears in the new fall 2006 edition of "The Vanguard," the professional journal of the Military Intelligence Corps Association published out of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., the Army's intelligence headquarters.

Now if we could only get this into the hands and minds of the President and Secretary Rumsfeld, we might actually make some progress in this War. And just think, the Left couldn't object; they're always calling for us to "understand" the people who want to kill us!

Jews don't wanna kill birds

Judeopundit has an unbelievable post about trying to put up an eruv in California. It's slightly more upbeat than the previous post.

If you need more of a cheer-me-up, this might make you smile.

Lila tov.

Ending the evening on a low note

Somehow I missed these.

October 25, 2006 - Vladivostok - A synagogue was vandalized overnight when swastikas and the words, “Jews go to Israel” were painted on the exterior walls and door.

September 29, 2006 – Buenos Aires –Graffiti was found in nearly all of the men’s bathrooms of the Faculty of the Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires that read, “Out of the country Zionist assassin Jews, you only encourage hate and resentment. Get out Marxists of Argentine faculties.”

October 14, 2006 – Melbourne – About 20 football players attacked a Jewish man in front of his family, yelling racial epithets and punching him in the face. The players yelled “F*** off Jews” and “Go the Nazis,” motioned as if firing a machine gun at the family, and then grabbed his yarmulke before striking him in the face.

July 24, 2006 – Brussels – A Holocaust memorial was desecrated in what Jewish officials described as a “clearly anti-Semitic” event. Documents, windows, and the memorial’s crypt were destroyed. The crypt included an urn carrying ashes from Auschwitz, which was emptied and vandalized.

August 5, 2006 – Campinas [Brazil] – Vandals threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at a synagogue.

May 15, 2006 – Milan – Forty Jewish graves were desecrated, and five destroyed, at a Jewish cemetery in the outskirts of Milan.

September 22, 2006 – Moscow – The leader of a small Jewish congregation in Fili was attacked while walking on a street near his house in broad daylight just prior to the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The unidentified assailant approached the victim, asked if he was a Jew and what his religion was, and kicked him.

There's much more at ADL. Found via link at Settler is the New Black.

And there's also this disturbing slideshow of anti-semitic incidents in the U.S.