And you thought Americans were stupid

This must make FKM proud.

Relationship advice for guys:

MAGIC WORDS

1."Just tell me everything."

I don't think a man has ever actually uttered this statement, so make history. Here's the thing: Our most violent anger is often the result of anticipating being forced to shut up.

So once we're told we can give our entire, endless account—no rushing or defending ourselves—we cool off. Side benefit: We also get a little intimidated. We think, "Is this part important or interesting or relevant?" We edit ourselves.

Latest Israeli Atrocity

It's all nice and fine that Captain Salamander wants to make fun of Saeb Erekat, but let's not forget the Israelis are far from perfect. They have recently invented a new way to degrade the PoorPalestinians®: Not raping them.

Barbara Kay on the 'Lack of rape among Israeli soldiers'

Posted: February 13, 2008, 5:35 PM by Yoni Goldstein

Barbara Kay

I really don’t know how much longer satire can expect to carry on as a genre, given what passes for “scholarship” in the topsy-turvy world of academia. This pinch-me item just crossed my desk and of course I assumed it was a spoof. But I Googled the names of the academics involved and to my astonishment they are real, and this excerpt from the Israeli Shalem Centre newsletter is not a joke:

Prize Winning Sociology Thesis at Hebrew U.: Lack of Rape Among Israeli Soldiers Achieves Same Aims as Rape

A Hebrew University Sociology department M.A. thesis entitled “Controlled Occupation: The Lack of Military Rape in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict” notes that the relative absence of instances of rape by Israeli soldiers is an alternate method of achieving the same kind of degradation of Palestinian Arabs that would be achieved through a directed policy of raping Arab women. The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that "the absence of directed military rape constitutes an alternative way of realizing the same political goals [usually achieved by directed military rape]. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we can see that the rarity of military rape only strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies inter-ethnic differences, just as directed military rape would have done.” The thesis, selected for publication by the university’s Shaine Center for Research in Social Sciences, was supervised by Hebrew University sociologist Eyal Ben–Ari and a senior lecturer in education, Edna Lomsky-Feder.

I’ve heard sociologists apeak of “status anxiety,” but for originality and chutzpah, I have to admit that this thesis takes the cake. (“You seem gloomy, Fatima.” “What self-respecting Palestinian woman wouldn’t, Hamid? The Israeli soldiers were here to search the house – by the way, they found those rockets you hid in the baby’s toybox, sorry about that, but they didn’t make a single move on me. No rape, not even a lubricious wink or a pinch on the buttocks. Being non-violated like that, I feel so - I don't know - degraded. What am I to tell my friends…?”).

What’s next from Alice-in-Wonderland University? “Controlled Occupation: The lack of Random Bombings of Pizza Parlours in the West Bank”? Oh, those sly and underhanded Israeli soldiers. They certainly have psychological torture down to a fine art.

The Irony

Sometimes I wonder if the Palestinians are completely out of touch with reality.

From Ha'aretz:

Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, rejected on Monday the government's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. In an interview with Israel Radio, Erekat said that "no state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity."

Yes, Saeb. No state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity.

I suppose that's why some countries (i.e. Pakistan, Mauritania, Iran and Afghanistan) are styled the "Islamic Republic of..."

[Edited to add: I wonder if Erekat's statement is the Palestinian equivalent of the maddening Israeli aphorism, "kacha ze b'kol ha'olam."]

Roseanne and Vader: A study in contrasts

One Response to the R.O.P.

This is one of the funniest stories I have read in a long time. It's even true!

Synopsis:
Apparently, some hardy American folk in Texas were all up and consternated regarding the impending construction of a massive mosque/Islamic community center adjacent to their land. The adherenets of the R.O.P. (that's"religion of peace" for all you non-lizardoids) were also trying to have the landowners evicted in order to expand their project.

The response: Nightly pig races along the fence next to the mosque. No dhimmis here!

Here's a link. And some pictures.

Krauthammer on Yes We Can

From the National Review

The Next Great Awakening
Obama 2008's messianic fervor won’t last.

By Charles Krauthammer

There’s no better path to success than getting people to buy a free commodity. Like the genius who figured out how to get people to pay for water: Bottle it (Aquafina was revealed to be nothing more than reprocessed tap water) and charge more than they pay for gasoline. Or consider how Google found a way to sell dictionary nouns — boat, shoe, clock — by charging advertisers zillions to be listed whenever the word is searched.

And now, in the most amazing trick of all, a silver-tongued freshman senator has found a way to sell hope. To get it, you need only give him your vote. Barack Obama is getting millions.

This kind of sale is hardly new. Organized religion has been offering a similar commodity — salvation — for millennia. Which is why the Obama campaign has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a “salvational fervor” and “idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria.”

“We are the hope of the future,” sayeth Obama. We can “remake this world as it should be.” Believe in me and I shall redeem not just you but your country — nay, we can become “a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest.”

And believe they do. After eight straight victories — and two more (Hawaii and Wisconsin) almost certain to follow — Obama is near to rendering moot all the post–Super Tuesday fretting about a deadlocked convention with unelected superdelegates deciding the nominee. Unless Hillary Clinton can somehow do in Ohio and Texas on March 4 what Rudy Giuliani proved is almost impossible to do — maintain a big-state firewall after an unrelenting string of smaller defeats — the superdelegates will flock to Obama. Hope will have carried the day.

Interestingly, Obama has been able to win these electoral victories and dazzle crowds in one new jurisdiction after another, even as his mesmeric power has begun to arouse skepticism and misgivings among the mainstream media.

ABC’s Jake Tapper notes the “Helter-Skelter cultish qualities” of “Obama worshipers,” what Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times calls “the Cult of Obama.” Obama’s Super Tuesday victory speech was a classic of the genre. Its effect was electric, eliciting a rhythmic fervor in the audience — to such rhetorical nonsense as “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek.”

That was too much for Time’s Joe Klein. “There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism ... ,” he wrote. “The message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.”You might dismiss the New York Times’ Paul Krugman’s complaint that “the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality” as hyperbole. Until you hear Chris Matthews, who no longer has the excuse of youth, react to Obama’s Potomac primary victory speech with “My, I felt this thrill going up my leg.” When his MSNBC cohosts tried to bail him out, he refused to recant. Not surprising for an acolyte who said that Obama “comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament.”

I’ve seen only one similar national swoon. As a teenager growing up in Canada, I witnessed a charismatic law professor go from obscurity to justice minister to prime minister, carried on a wave of what was called Trudeaumania.

But even there the object of his countrymen’s unrestrained affections was no blank slate. Pierre Trudeau was already a serious intellectual who had written and thought and lectured long about the nature and future of his country.

Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He’s going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can’t possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran’s Ahmadinejad. Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs and that have eluded solution for a generation. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war — with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.

Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude.

Yes we can?

The Voldie Oldie

"Bend Me, Shape Me" (The American Breed, 1968)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"I just LOVE that topspin!"

- BB

Funny Flick

I guess everyone else is too busy to post anything, so this will have to do.

Shaq has Gas (20:16)

Shaq's Interview

At around the 20:16 mark of the interview he admits to having lots of gas. This post is dedictaed to Gaby's Special Museum.

The Voldie Oldie

"Drive" (The Cars, 1984)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"Deuteronomy is ambiguous!"

- Henry VIII (from A Man for All Seasons)

Reactions to Super Bowl (r) commercials

Sadly, I didn't get to see the super bowl. No, not because we don't have a TV, it was because we had a cousin's wedding.
Apparently some people were ticked off about a stereotypical commercial involving pandas.
Here is a response posted in a NYTimes chatroom:
"I was offended by the ad using Cavemen. I have many Cavemen friends myself, and I find them very intelligent, well-spoken people. Hey, they invented the wheel. Sure they can be a little bit on the hairy side, and they don't take advantage of the dental plan offered at work, but media's constant portrayal (edited) of these men as perpetual abusive grunters goes way over the line. I'm surprised Neanderthal-Americans have not spoken up on this issue.

— Charlie, New York"

Have been accused by some as being 1) a Neanderthal and 2) a caveman, I agree!

Yes We Can

It's Quite Funny Even in Transcript

http://www.ibras.dk/comedy/allen.htm

The Voldie Oldie

"The Night Is Still Young" (Billy Joel, 1985)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"The ubiquitous, elusive Max. Is he here, is he there? Mr. Jerome seeks him everywhere."

- JJ

Fun for the Whole Family

The Voldie Oldie

"A Hazy Shade of Winter" (Simon and Garfunkel, 1966)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"Is he photosynthetic?"

- MF the Elder, re. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight