Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Plus Ca Change...

I don't care who you are, that's funny right there...





The Guarding of the Change

I fought it all day. I focused on things like this (a splendid article, about which I intend to blog soon). I lingered on the joy and satisfaction which my friends were experiencing (that one came the closest to working). I pondered the wonder of the peaceful, seamless transition of power in our Republic, and looked into the earnestly well-wishing, gracious, and satisfied yet wistful face of our outgoing President as he handed over the keys.

All to little effect. Today, I have decided, I shall surrender to the impulse to be a sourpuss about our new POTUS.

This is not a difficult place to come to, mind you. The endless hagiographic swooning by a media whose indecently, leg-tinglingly transparent bias had no small hand in this election's outcome fills me with nausea. The transports of vacuous ecstasy in the faces of pampered celebrities (many of whom would likely fare worse on a basic civics quiz than a fair number of migrant workers in a California vineyard) have made me seriously consider revising my quaint notions of intellectual property and looking to hitherto-eschewed bittorrents. The earnest gum-flapping of assorted congresscritters on matters of "bipartisanship" (after years of hyperpartisan derangement) in This New Era have induced almost tourettes-like eruptions of random bile which appear to have aroused sincere concern in the face of my dog.

All around, there are breathless perorations about how All Things Are Possible Now, piquant prognostications about the end of divisiveness and the mending of our Nation, yadda-yadda...all of which sound unnervingly like conclusions in search of premises. More than anything, it appears that the American and international media have circled the wagons against anything which might threaten to pierce the bubble on which the One has drifted to his apotheosis.

For today, at least, I remain largely unmoved. The very notion that a government figure can solve our problems is offensive to me. That an eloquent but untried government figure might, by dint of the sheer force of his personality cash the checks that all of his allies in the Fourth Estate have helped him to write leaves me sputtering and gagging.

Tomorrow may be different. Indeed, I know myself well enough to have faith that a more equitable blend of kudos and criticisms will ultimately prevail (in the end, I know that I am not That Guy...you know, the one who stands in his bathrobe, intermittently barking obscenities at the radio). No Obama Derangement Syndrome for me.

For today, however, secure in this knowledge, I have chosen to indulge myself in an orgiastic bender of grumbling misanthropy. As ever, your mileage may vary.

A handy "To Don't" List for the Right

From Andy Levy, via breitbart. Worth reading. The last one struck a particularly true note:

And finally, DON’T use the fact that many on the left behaved abominably for the past eight years as an excuse to behave the same way. America needs adults. And if it bothered you when they did it, it’s a good sign that you shouldn’t do it.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Humanitarian Aid, "Palestinian" Style

Via Hot Air comes this instructive little tidbit.

Hamas on Monday raided some 100 aid trucks that Israel had allowed into Gaza, stole their contents and sold them to the highest bidders.

The IDF said that since terminal activity is coordinated with UNRWA and the Red Cross, Israel could do nothing to prevent such raids, Israel Radio reported.

Between 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the army had ceased all military activity in Gaza and once again established a "humanitarian corridor" to help facilitate the transfer of the supplies.

The Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings had been opened to allow in the aid trucks.

So, to be clear, the IDF periodically halts its defensive war against terrorists bent on its destruction in order to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to the innocents who are routinely placed in harm's way by those terrorists. Then the aforementioned terrorists hijack those aid supplies, sell them off to those who can afford to pay (thus letting those who can't pony up simply continue to face starvation), in order to raise funds to continue their war of extermination against the providers of that aid.

Clearly, this must be the fault of the Israelis, yes? It must be part of some twisted Zionist conspiracy to subvert Islam and re-occupy the territory which it unilaterally ceded to the "Palestinians" (who then went on to raze every bit of useful infrastructure which the Israelis had left behind, and replace it with...slums and rocket launchers). Here's your proof:

Meanwhile, Israel is considering establishing a field hospital in the Gaza Strip to treat Palestinian civilians wounded in fighting between the IDF and Hamas.

The plan would be to establish the field hospital outside the Gaza Strip, but the IDF is also considering the possibility of erecting the hospital inside the Palestinian territory so it will be more accessible to the Palestinian population. It would be run by the IDF Medical Corps.

Clearly, this "hospital" is merely a thinly-veiled move by Israel to steal territory it previously gave away, and restore to health those innocents who were accidentally hurt in its campaign, so that they will...what? Live on to become subjects of the Zionist Entity?

It is a rare thing in life for a situation to be this clear. Those who persist in distorting this conflict to support their reflexive antipathy toward Israel continue to astound me with the cognitive gymnastics in which they must engage to obscure the blindingly obvious.


EDITED for the sake of pronouns feeling lonely without antecedents.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Disproportionate

As the Israeli Defense Force continues with its thus-far exceptionally precise and comparatively humane effort to rid the Gaza Strip of the murderous thugs who have rained unguided anti-personnel rockets on civilian targets, the predictable and tedious cries about "proportionate" responses have risen like flies from carrion. Like many commentators, I am left scratching my head as to what exactly would constitute a "proportionate" response to Hamas' campaign to kill as many Jews as it can, with the explicitly avowed end of eradicating the Jewish State. Targeted assassinations of terrorists and murderers are decried as craven murder. Bombing of known strongholds and weapons caches is vilified for the accidental casualties incurred among the civilians among whom those weapons (which are themselves deliberately aimed at civilians) are stored. The destruction of Mosques raises especially strident cries of "war crime!" among those for whom Israel is invariably portrayed as the default villain. Places of worship are supposed to be sanctuaries where humans seek the higher callings of their better natures, after all...

What then are we to make of the below-embedded video depicting the destruction of a Gazan Mosque? It is no secret that, like many religious texts, the Koran contains a number of explosive passages. However, this may be an example of scriptural literalism raised to an unusually direct level.