The Delusions About Lieberman - Part Billion

Some blogger, "Matt Stoller" at MYDD says this, among other filth, about why he hates Lieberman: "Lieberman [has a] vicious and reactionary nature"

I really have no idea what these people are talking about.

He's responding to this question "I'm not posting this to be critical. I'm genuinely perplexed. Why do some people like Lieberman? What, really, is there to like about the guy?" from the world famous in Poland Eschaton/Atrois.

One guy (Sundog) on the comments to Eschatrois: "Pro-Lamont guy here: What a silly statement. It's quite true that over his long history, he's been a solid Democrat. It's just the last few years and the war I have a problem with.//Comments like this help excuse his irrational hatred of the netroots."

Ya think?

Juan Cole - Friendly Words

Hey, you remember when I said that Juanito Cole was not a friend of the Jewish State? And you probably felt that I was exaggerating, because we Hebrews toss around these epithets a lot (it being the 9 days and all).
When you should see his restrained commentary about the Qana bombing::

"The Israelis appear to be engaged in a concerted campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Shiite towns and villages of southern Lebanon, "

What a sweet, temperate man.

Ugly Template

Oy, is this template ugly. I am trying to teach myself Blogger Template Code but they seem to make it incomprehensible on purpose. Oh, don't believe me do you? Check out this help page.

A New Feeling

One gift I've received from Hakadosh-Baruch-Hu has been a general feeling of hope. When I first realized (around 6 or 7 years old) that the world is filled with know-nothings who hold all the power and money, I recognized that a good brain, good family, and good friends can get you through almost everything.

In the past few days, I've gotten very worried about even that assumption.

It could be that my political views are not mainstream in the least. I am a moderate-Democrat (I would say a "Lieberman Democrat" but I'm afraid of the snipers, see below) in America and a Likudnik in Israel. Those two identities are rarely found together.

Which means that I have a tough time finding news to read online. The sites which are even passably pro-Israel are also rabid-Republican. There are a few which support Lieberman and, ipso facto, support Israel, but getting to those sites can be difficult.

The worst part is seeing the horrible anti-Israel hate on the Left Wing sites. As you can see from posts below, I believe being a Democrat does not mean being a liberal. But almost every 'Democratic' website has not gotten that memo.

Just reading page after page of hate against Lieberman and Israel makes the world feel very small, and very very dangerous.

Backpost: Hezbollah's Free Speech

Email Backpost so I'm keeping this at it's original date.

Check out this story from the Columbia Journalism Review from July 27 - that shows the two-part Hezbollah PR racket:

1. Only allow reporters to see what you want them to see and
2. threaten their lives ("The Party of God has a copy of every journalist's passport, and they've already hassled a number of us and threatened one.")

Orthodox Jewish Boxer?

Oy.

See the New York magazine story about Dmitry Salita, a shomer-shabbat boxer.

On one side, as a Torah-U-Madda-nik, I am in favor of Orthodox Jews not be restricted by any profession. There's halakha for everything, according to my practical theology. Yet, there are certain professions I'd like to think are permanently off-limits (e.g. any of the sex-worker trade). Boxing is one of them (see the Noda Bi-Yehuda about hunting).

2009 Update: He's gotten more coverage in recent years. I still say oy.

Pic of Salita from here. Backpost finished 2009-12-08. I had just the link and the word 'oy.'

The Cost of Propaganda

The blood libel against Israel is working. It kills. The Seattle case, Gibson's rant.

What I believe I meant, is it's wrong to believe that propaganda, or as Hillary & McCain like to say "just words", have no effect. Whenever there's bad stuff in Israel, the anti-Semites (sorry, "anti-Zionists"), malign Israelis - which then result in Jews getting beaten, stabbed, shot, and/or killed. There's more to say about this, but shorter may be best.

Backpost finished 4/11/08. Just the lines in bold

Backpost: Lieberman Endorsements

Backpost: 7/29/06. 11:08 PM. This was sent to the guest-moderator at TPM, named DK. The whole thing is intact from back them. As such, I'm keeping this post in its original date; 4/15/08.

I too find the NYTimes endorsement of Lieberman significant. I decided to
check out, though, the Connecticut newspapers.

First the "Hartford Courant", the largest CT daily, endorses Lieberman. So does the "Connecticut Post" (Bridgeport)

The Stamford Advocate says they will provide endorsements, but just not yet...

Most of CT newspapers don't seem to have specific websites (its all very
strange) and all link to the Courant piece from the AP.

The two Democratic House members (Rosa DeLauro and John B. Larson) endorse Lieberman as well.

You can see Lieberman's endorsement page to confirm these.

I think this issue holds an important angle. For the non-Connecticut crowd,
the New York Times is huge. For Connecticut, especially the poor part, the
local newspapers may carry more sway.

NYTimes Endorses Lamont

Yup. Seriously. You would think that the newspaper who financed Judith Miller and the lies about Iraq, might not be so supercilious about Lieberman. But I guess Lieberman is too pro-Israel to receive an endorsement.

Late Addition:
Here's a letter I sent into the TPM (who's making a whoop-de-doo about the NYTimes endorsement, grrrr)

I too find the NYTimes endorsement of Lieberman significant. I decided to check out, though, the Connecticut newspapers.

First the "Hartford Courant", the largest CT daily, endorses Lieberman. So
does the "Connecticut Post" (Bridgeport)

The Stamford Advocate says they will provide endorsements, but just not yet...

Most of CT newspapers don't seem to have specific websites (its all very strange) and all link to the Courant piece from the AP.

The two Democratic House members (Rosa DeLauro and John B. Larson) endorse Lieberman as well

You can see Lieberman's endorsement page here.

I think this issue holds an important angle. For the non-Connecticut crowd, the New York Times is huge. For Connecticut, especially the poor part, the local newspapers may carry more sway.

Michael J. Totten: Lebanon’s Premature Liberalism

This is a fascinating insider's look at the situation in Lebanon - Michael J. Totten: Lebanon’s Premature Liberalism

More Left-Wing Foolishness

Background:

This is all of a piece, similar to what I recently posted here, about the inane myths in the left-wing echo-chamber. In the example below, the master of the Great Orange Satan, the Kos himself, repeats the standard nonesense:

Daily Kos: State of the Nation:

I grew up in a war zone. And there was one clear lesson I learned -- there will never be peace unless both sides get tired of the fighting and start seeking an alternative. It's clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting. They have centuries of grudges to resolve, and will continue fighting until they can get over them.

Centuries of grudges, eh? Moron.

Backpost finished 4/11/08. The link and the quote.

Israeli Military & Civilian Losses

Israeli military & Civilian losses in the conflict with Hezbollah as of July 27, 2006 (from the JTA). Each listing includes the victim’s name, age and city of origin, and is in chronological order.

Civilians:
Monica Seidman Lehrer, 40, of Nahariya
Nitzan Roseban, 33, of Safed
Omer Pesachov, 7, of Nahariya
Yehudit Itzkovitch, 58, of Meron
Shmuel Ben Shimon, 41, of Yokneam Illit
Asael Damti, 39, of Kiryat Yam
Nissim Elharar, 43, of Kiryat Ata
David Feldman, 28, of Kiryat Yam
Rafi Hazan, 30, of Haifa
Dennis Lapidos, 24, of Kiryat Yam
Reuven Levy, 46, of Kiryat Ata
Shlomi Mansura, 35, of Nahariya
Andrei Zelinksy, 36, of Nahariya
Rabia Abed Taluzi, 3, of Nazareth
Mahmoud Taluzi, 7, of Nazareth
Shimon Glickblich, 60, of Haifa
Habib Isa Awad, 48, of Iblin
Dou’a Abbas, 15, of Kfar Mrar

Military:
Sgt. Maj.(res.) Eyal Benin, 22, of Beersheba
Sgt. Maj.(res.) Shani Turgeman, 24, of Beit Shean
Sgt. Maj. Wassim Nazal, 26, of Yanuah
Staff Sgt. Alexei Kushnirski, 21, of Nes Ziona
Staff Sgt. Yaniv Bar-on, 20, of Maccabim
Sgt. Gadi Mosayev, 20, of Acre
Sgt. Shlomi Yirmiyahu, 20, of Rishon le-Zion
Sgt. Nimrod Cohen, 19, of Mitzpe Shalem
Staff Sgt. Tal Amgar, 21, of Ashdod
Sgt. Yaniv Hershkovitz, 21, of Haifa
Cpl. Shai Atias, 19, of Rishon le-Zion
1st Sgt. Dov Steinshuss, 37, of Carmiel
Staff Sgt. Yonatan Hadasi, 21, of Kibbutz Merhavia
Staff Sgt. Yotam Gilboa, 21, of Kibbutz Maoz Haim
Maj. Benjamin (Benji) Hillman, 27, of Maccabim Re’ut
Staff Sgt. Refanael Muskal, 21, of Mazkeret Batya
Staff Sgt. Nadav Baeloha, 21, of Carmiel
Staff Sgt. Liran Saadia, 21, of Kiryat Shmona
Staff Sgt. Yonatan (Sergei) Vlasyuk, 21, of Kibbutz Lahav
Maj. Ran Yehoshua Kochva, 37, of Beit Hanania
2nd Lt. Lotan Slavin, 21, of Hatzeva
Staff Sgt. Kobi Smileg, 20, of Rehovot
Col. Zvi Luft, 42, of Kibbutz Hogla
1st Lt. Tom Farkash, 23, of Caesarea
Maj. Ro’i Klein, 31, of Eli
Lt. Amihai Merhavia, 24, of Eli
Lt. Alexander Shwartzman, 24, of Acre
Sgt. Shimon Adega, 21, of Kiryat Gat
Staff Sgt. Edan Cohen, 21, of Jaffa
Staff Sgt. Shimon Dahan, 20, of Ashdod
Cpl. Ohad Klausner, 20, of Bet Horon
Cpl. Assaf Namer, 27, of Kiryat Yam.
Lt. Yiftah Shreirer, 21, of Haifa

I Am Not Landis

I have an alibi. I swear.

Northern Refugees

The town of Alon Shvut is the quaint academic/yeshiva town (a.k.a. a "settlement" over the "green line" populated by "Hebrews") I lived in for a year.

They are doing their part to house refugees from the North of Israel. I find it notable that residents of Acco need to go to the West Bank to be safe.

Israel's Nobility

It was a terrible day for Israel - 8 soldiers killed by ambush. According to Haaretz (whose editors are not apologists or propagandists for the government, as you know) about today's deaths in Bint Jbail :

...officers in the Golani and Paratroops Brigades charged that the IDF employed insufficient force before the soldiers were deployed to search the homes. They said that once the civilians had been told to leave the town, the army should have regarded Bint Jbail as a battlefield and destroyed any home where Hezbollah guerrillas were suspected of hiding.
[....]
Military sources claimed Wednesday that the IDF's current tactics are having an insufficient impact on the Katyusha rocket launchers and expose the soldiers to excessive danger. The criticism was mostly aimed at the decision not to employ large ground forces in Lebanon, which would give the IDF a significant advantages over a guerrilla force.
The sources also criticized what they described as insufficient utilization of aircraft in ground support operations, because of concerns that they might kill Lebanese civilians that did not evacuate target areas.

Israeli soldiers die so civilians don't.

It's not even that Israel has the most moral army in the world (it is) - because I assume all armies of Democratic countries minimize civilian casualties.

It's just that Israel is accused of war crimes for targeting civilians... while soldiers are dying to protect the very same civilians...

The Juan Coles of the world perpetuate a libel, this blood libel, against Israel.

A modified version of this post was emailed to the TPM in response to the Juan Cole post; Marshall wrote back to me saying that he agrees. Which means that, yet again, Marshall demonstrates he is a thinking Leftist

Late Update: Here are the obituaries

Soldiers in Prayer

Here's a stirring page of Israeli Soldiers in Prayer.

I have said time and again: Israel survives because of Hesder soldiers.

Rant: Deliveries and UPS InfoNotices

It's not hard for me to know why, in general, I linked to this UPS page: Deliveries and UPS InfoNotices, but I don't remember a specific incident. Basically, in my New Haven neighborhood, the UPS guy doesn't wait for us to come to the door before he drives off. Getting packages from them is impossible. Fed-Ex ground is fine, USPS as well. UPS just hates on the neighborhood, or the driver has pressing business with a pipe, who knows. I've complained to the home-office to no avail. So I have asked everyone to stop using UPS for my house (and in general I've stopped using them, preferring all the other many options).

Backpost finished 4/11/08. Just the link.

The Spirit as a Movie

I saw this headline the other day and I got scared and angry (scangry?) - "Spirit" comic comes to life on big screen. Despite my strong attraction to the film medium, I am enough of a bright-eyed connoisseur to recognize that things I love in one medium will 99% of the time be trashed by the inept maroons of Hollywood.

Don't believe me? Explain how Robert Heinlin's best book, Starship Troopers, was turned into thick bovine crud.

The Spirit (or I should say, The Spirit), is one of my favorite comic book heroes, created by the best comic artist ever - and the single greatest influence on my art - Will Eisner.

The idea that Hollywood anii would befoul my favorite funnybook character is too much to bear. But then I read the story: "The movie will be adapted and directed by Frank Miller."

Whew.

Not only is that not bad news, it's good. If Will Eisner is number one on the funnybook list, Frank Miller is number two. And my man Robert Rodriguez may have taught him a few things from their collaboration on "Sin City." The feared warp of the universe has been repaired.

Rockets vs. Missiles

Background: Another Lebanon War era post. This was just a good column from one of my favorite reads - and genre of non-fiction - the 'explainer' column from Slate. There are a few of these columns about, like the Straight Dope, and Imponderables (and to some extent, Snopes). I don't have a good term for the genre (although the Wiki suggests "Skeptic Multimedia;" ugh).

Anyway, the question to the Explainer is what's the difference between
Rockets vs. Missiles? Short answer: guidance.

Backpost finished 4/11/08. Just the link.

Andrew Bergman

Premiere magazine had a cover story listing the "best comedies ever" - a topic calculated to both interest and enrage - and while many of my favorites were on there, they also listed some real doggies. One movie they discussed was "The In-Laws" (1979). I had heard of it before and avoided it on the general principle that it appeared to be part of that execrable 'comedy' subcategory: The Two Hours Trapped With An Annoying Person movie.

But, like all red-blooded American bloggers, I checked out the movie on IMDB and found that the screenwriter, Andrew Bergman, has written some of the funniest films out there. Consistently top-notch stuff! One guy wrote these 4 movies, which I consider some of the best comedies of all time: Blazing Saddles, Fletch, The Freshmen, and Soapdish!

So we tried out The In-Laws. Whoa, is that a good movie. It's worth it's reputation; it has perfect casting (Falk and Arkin!); and gives Bergman a 5 for 5 of top comedies.

Backpost finished 4/11/08. Had most of this back then.

Blog spellcheck

Blogger provides a spellchecker feature. Nice of them. Funny fact: the word "blog" is not in the spelling dictionary.

Triviality Dump

As you may have noticed, I am dumping on the blog my backlog of fun/innocuous posts that have been accumulating over the past few days. I am also working on tuning up the Blog Template. After I finish the backlog, I'll return to more serious topics.

Fun and Legal Pseudo-Treasonous Assault

This is fun for about 45 seconds, but it's worth it for those moments: Bash Bush on Bubbles, from Boreme.com

Dave Barry Online (Pirated)

I was searching, as a favor to Mrs. Styx, for the resolution of the famous Dave Barry story about the "Lavender Hill Mob." In my search, I found the original story online, because, I swear I am not making this up, some Russian website has pirated his books and placed them online.

Check it out: “Dave Barry” at FictionBook.lib

Coke Zero vs. Diet Coke

What is the difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke? Naturally, for a serious question like this, I went to the Wiki:

Coke Zero is "a low-calorie variation of Coca-Cola Classic sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame potassium (also known as Ace-K)."

"Diet Coke does not utilize a modified form of the Coca-Cola recipe but is instead an entirely different formula. The controversial New Coke, introduced in 1985, used a version of the Diet Coke recipe that contained sugar and had a slightly different balance of ingredients."

So the difference is rather simple; Diet Coke is New Coke with nutrasweet and Coke Zero is Coke Classic with nutrasweet.

Note, neither match up to the real thing, which in the Styx's opinion, is the greatest soft drink in the universe. But, that just may be my logo talking.

Absurd Triviality Alert - Pengu

Oh glory be, someone found Pengu online, again. Yummy.

My Old Blog is Working Again

It's hard to explain, but I managed to get my old blog working again. It took, I believe, a combination of:

1. time
2. constant fiddling with the Template & Settings,
3. luck
4. an extensive set of new writing on a new blog, thus making a decision to switch back to the old blog too onerous to contemplate, showing that the merciless Internet Demons have a wicked sense of humor.

As it is, I will keep the Old Blog just a set of Archives. I was going to transfer all the Benjieposts to a new blog anyway, this way I will just slice away the reposts.

Viva la Styx!

Rant: The Evil, Blogs

Why do people hate blogs? I hear this from people and it's in the same tone people used to have back in the 80s when they talked about answering machines. While I don't feel old, I realize that because I grew up in the transition time between in the years between when virtually all phones were corded (and many rotary! glad that died a swift death), and when people reacted strongly to leaving a message on an impersonal machine.

As I've mentioned before, while we don't have our flying cars in the 21th Century (yet), we have made enormous mind-boggling futuristic advances in communication and computing technology. But no flying cars. I'm actually happier to have my palm tero - wireless phone/Internet/color computer - which is probably more powerful than the system that launched the Apollo missions.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about blogs. Right, OK. So, people hate blogs. Who hates? So far the resistance has come from two groups:

1. Politicians and Old Media Employees
   
2. Old People (anyone above 60)

The latter group hates blogs for the same reason they hated answering machines. They have no idea what blogs are, so let's hate it! It's a stupid word to begin with (any decent word that starts with the B-L diphthong? Colors don't count). And it's a synecdoche for everything bad in new technology. And because info-technology is evolving very very fast, there's a lot to feel uncomfortable about. A blog is seen as just a way to waste time on the tube-ridden internet, and bloggers are the punk ruffians who have made the internets - and by extension the outside world outside of Archie Bunker's living room - a bad place.

We can ignore this group. They will soon pass into irrelevancy.

It's the first group - Politicians and Old Media Employees - who actually know (a bit) what blogs are, and don't like 'em. Back in 2006 my comments on this matter would have been prescient and interesting. Now, they're just a post-mortem. Because in the past 18 months, The Man has gone from fear to acceptance on blogs. They use 'em (badly, usually) and have gotten to understand that blogs are the newest incarnation of the technology tidal wave.

Sadly, this has led to many blaming blogs for early deaths - an epidemic, like Satanism in the 70s and comic-book-fuelled-child-delinquency in the 50s - without recognizing that blogging is no different from the 24/7 news stations. Except that CNN/FOX et al. have stopped doing actual news and have gone to entertainment while blogs have the chance to be the real 24/7 news that TV can't manage. Because TV costs a lot, requires made-up bimbos to read cue-cards, and is seen as a medium of entertainment and not information.

If anything, I hope blogs will finally kill off 24 hour news stations. Everything started going downhill (culminating with Chris Matthews) when news was perceived as 'profitable.' Viva la blog.

Backpost finished 4/11/08. I had just the first line (bolded). I've expanded it... all over the place. That's why it's now a 'rant.' And as far as I know, I've said much of this before as well.

Vladimir Arutinian

Anybody ever heard of Vladimir Arutinian? Anybody? Evidently I thought you should 18 months ago. A quick visit to the link and, woopsy-daisy, look at that: "On 10 May 2005 he made an attempt to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit to Georgia [FSU]." Yeah?

The wiki elaborates:

On 10 May 2005, Arutyunian threw a Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade, wrapped in a red tartan (plaid) handkerchief, toward the podium where President Bush stood as he addressed a crowd in Freedom Square in downtown Tbilisi. The grenade landed 18.6 metres (61 feet) from the podium, near which Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, his wife Sandra E. Roelofs, Laura Bush, and other officials were seated. The grenade, however, failed to detonate.

Georgian officials claimed that the grenade was a non-combative engineering type used in training, which either did not contain explosives or would have had to be very near the President to cause him any harm, and that it had been placed approximately 100 feet from the podium where Bush was speaking, in an attempt meant to scare the crowd and gain media attention.

However, after an investigation, Bryan Paarmann, head of the FBI office in Tbilisi, reported that it was a live grenade which had been thrown, hitting a girl in the crowd, which cushioned the impact and prevented the grenade from detonating. Officials initially said that President Bush had been in no danger, but Bryan Paarmann of the FBI later identified the attack as endangering the President's life...

So, basically, if I understand it, the security around W was so poor back in 2005 that some Russian whack-job was able to throw a grenade at him? And the only reason he wasn't hurt was because said whack-job was stupid?

OK, let's say Arutinian was just trying to 'cause a scene.' Fine. Is that why the security people allowed Arutinian to keep his grenade when they found it before he threw it? No... because if they found the grenade he would have been arrested and whisked off to some black site to be tickled by the CIA.

Basically, the complete irony of the security regime of W is that the president's life was saved because his potential assassin was the only living person who is more incompetent than W himself.

Pic from here. Backpost finished 4/8/08 3:03 AM, started 7/24/06, 10:03 PM. I had just the link.

Left Wing Lebanon Commentary

Background:

18 months ago, my twin blog obsessions were about the flailing Lebanon War and the primary challenge to Joe Lieberman. It was as a result of Israel's botched mission in Lebanon that even centrist blogs like TPM were taken over by yammering leftists who considered that every action in the Middle East that didn't snuggle up to Muslim terrorists was a bad thing. So the following quote, from the until-then reliable TPM, shows the crazy extent of the leftist backslide.

Grrrr. From TPM:

"In any particular flare-up in this unhappy region, debating who shot first is a distraction, since the conflict has been going on for generations. The question is, or should be, does the US have a policy with a realistic chance of success, and is the US involved in a process to further that policy...in this case, to resolve the flare-up of the moment? Whether a long term 'solution' is possible is always another question....see Bill Clinton/Camp David, etc."

What's wrong with this?

1. It's inane to think that "who shot first" is irrelevant because "the conflict has been going on for generations." The first statement is immoral and the second is incorrect. The myth that the Arab-Israeli conflict is an ethnic stranglehold, like Bosnia or Iraq, is pure intellectual laziness. Besides the fact that Israel has been existence for 60 years means that it's a young conflict. It's just a way that pundits can sweep everything under the rug and start their comments afresh, as if they had a right not to look up facts anymore.
   
   
2. Another problem is why on earth should the U.S. have a responsibility to mediate this conflict? It's the flip-side of Iraq, in my opinion. If you don't think that the US should have been involved in Iraq, and these Leftists don't, then why get involved in Lebanon? It's Israel's problem, Israel is an ALLY (and Hezbollah, not), so let's let the ally do what it needs.

Backpost finished 4/11/08 1:20 PM, started 7/24/06, 9:40 PM. I just had the link, quote, and 'grrr'.