Maybe if you hadn’t gotten a lawyer, you wouldn’t be worrying about being a Jewish Grinch.
…The initiative followed a decision by airport officials to remove its nine Christmas trees instead of adding a giant Jewish menorah to the holiday display as a rabbi had requested.
Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky, who made his request weeks ago, said he was appalled by the decision. He had hired a lawyer and threatened to sue if the Port of Seattle didn’t add the menorah next to the trees, which had been festooned with red ribbons and bows.
…“They’ve darkened the hall instead of turning the lights up,” said Bogomilsky’s lawyer, Harvey Grad. “There is a concern here that the Jewish community will be portrayed as the Grinch.”
So, you threaten to sue instead of work it out with the airport and then have the nerve to try to spin it your way when it blows up in your face?
I think the Yiddish word is Chutzpah:
One humorous example of chutzpah is often given as follows: “A boy is on trial for murdering his parents, and he begs of the judge leniency because he is an orphan.“
That about covers it.
UPDATE: I’d call this SCHMUCK spin.
…”We are not part of the war on Christmas,” said Grad. “All we asked for was inclusion and now we’re getting hate mail and angry messages.”
Your threat of a lawsuit is NOT “asking” for inclusion and most people would consider a lawsuit an act of war.
I sure do.
TV
Let the little video player pop up and just nod your head in time to the common sense.
How easy it is to talk about ‘stupid cowboys’ and ‘plastic turkeys’; here are some students with real courage:
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — A group of students Monday briefly interrupted a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at their university by booing and chanting “Death to the dictator,” Iranian news agencies reported.
The protesting students apparently avoided security guards who tried to prevent them from attending the speech at Amir Kabir University, according to the student news Web site, ADWAR.
As Ahmadinejad approached the podium to speech, the members of the Islamic Students Association — a banned group — began booing and chanting, while some even burned pictures of the Iranian president, ADWAR reported.
Ahmadinejad responded by accusing the protesting students of having no shame and being on the payroll of the United States, according to ADWAR. He added that he loved each one of them and said, “You insult me but I will respond to you calmly.”
Let’s hope nothing bad happens to them, and their protests can grow and spread.
Since they spirited all the pseudophedrin behind the pharmacy walls because of those pathetic LOSERS, the new/reformulated/safe for the shelf Tylenol Cold Severe Congestion isn’t worth SH*T.
Call me a reactionary old fool, but this scares the bejeebus out of me:
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges in an expansion of its uranium enrichment program that brings the Islamic nation significantly closer to large-scale production of nuclear fuel, the president said Saturday.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also claimed that the international community was caving in to Tehran’s demands to continue its nuclear program.
And he’s right.
The United States and its European allies have been seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend enrichment. But Russia and China have opposed tough action advocated by the U.S., Britain, Germany and France and the Security Council appears to have reached a standstill on the issue.
…On Friday, key European nations circulated a revised U.N. resolution that narrowed the proposed sanctions on Iran in a bid to win Russian and Chinese support. The new draft would ban the supply of materials and technology that could contribute to Iran’s program, but it gave much greater detail on what items would be prohibited.
While the shortsighted ‘realists’ dither and massage in diplomatic circles the Iranians are accelerating their centrifuges. J. H. C. on a Pogo Stick. What the hell are these people thinking? While they sit in their cave and argue about the shadows on the wall in front of them the troll is walking up behind them…and they are handing him the club. I just for the life of me can not understand how anyone in the West can possibly think that allowing these guys native nuclear technology is an acceptable course of action. But I’m sure they’ll chuckle over their martinis about how creative their diplomacy was when they win their little battle with the US. Yes, do nothing, declare a diplomatic agreement, and then the bombs will go off.
I had to steal their title; it’s too good. Look what happens if you bowl a little too hard and try to put some english on the ball…
[argh. hotlinking issues]
There are some very funny images and stories on the site.
…quite a character.
Former U.N. Amb. Jeane Kirkpatrick dies
One-time Democrat warmly embraced Reagan era conservatism
I miss those days.
Allah at Hot Air has posted a series of videos from a contemporary church that is trying to distance itself from the term ‘christian.’ Go look; I’ll wait.
I really don’t get how the ‘cool dude’ calls himself a ‘Christ-follower’ while acting as if the Bible is not needed. While it’s easy to mock the bumpersticker WWJD crowd (and certainly there are many of them that seemingly drift perilously close to the Pharisee on the corner) we are, as Christians, called to spread the faith, so I can’t really fault folks who do as long as they are able to keep the focus on Christ and not their works/zeal. As Christians we shouldn’t do good acts to bring glory to ourselves, to hear the neighbors say “What a decent fellow Bingley is” (it gets rather embarassing when they keep saying that, let me tell you). No. Well, we shouldn’t really but of course at times we do because we are imperfect, fallen creatures. And that’s okay because we confess our sins and are aware of our failings and foibles…and we know that God is also aware of them, and makes us confront them with painful clarity. To look truthfully at yourself is hard, painful traumatic business, made all the moreso by the knowledge that someone else knows all your dirty laundry and calls you on it. There’s none of this “that’s ok” crap; and here’s where I think that ‘modern’ Jesus-Is-My-Bestest-Bud movements go astray: Jesus judges us, and judges us harshly. We are sinners. We do bad things. We do selfish things. We do evil things. And Jesus tells us so. And this causes shame…well deserved shame. And from what I’ve heard of contemporary christian music and preaching this part of it is de-emhasized, because shame and judgement are so passé, so damaging to the self-esteem. I mean, church is where you’re supposed to feel good, right? NO! Church is where you confront yourself honesty, where you go before the living God who sees you as you truly are, makes you face all of your flaws…and then when you know you least deserve it says “I forgive you.” And this Grace, freely given to those who should by all rights have no expectation of it causes a change, little by little, week by week, in how we act. As the saying goes we are reformed and ever reforming. We act out of thanksgiving for the Grace that God has given us, and since The Big Guy really has no need for any earthly gifts we could possibly give (well, except maybe a PS3; they’ve got to be hard to come by even there) we show our thanks by acting in ways that we hope would be pleasing to Him; we can not presume to always act in such a fashion, because we can’t, but we can conciously try. And occasionally we succeed.
My church is a moderately large traditional Presbyterian church in NJ, and we, like many churches, are struggling with how to attract new members. I’m simply not sure if the desire to ‘be contemporary for the kids’ that Tom Lehrer parodied so brilliantly in “The Vatican Rag” is the call of spiritual and communal growth or the call of the Sirens. We have a large traditional Sunday morning service, replete with full choir and organ, and we’ve added a more contemporary Saturday night service of the guitar-based variety and we’ll see how it goes. As I said above I guess what bothers me most about this whole contemporary movement is that it seems to be based on the idea that Christ is our ‘best buddy’ and that if you profess belief than everything is peachy and cool, when in actuality nothing could be further from the truth. Religion is hard, uneasy work. For you musicians out there it’s as if life was all major chords…when it’s really mostly minor. We’re trying to see if we can bridge that gap.
It’s sad that people who profess to follow Christ would want to separate themselves from the term ‘Christian’ and the Bible for political convenience, isn’t it?
And if you want to see the true secrets of my Presbyterian faith revealed, the commentator “CorinthianJest” at HotAir must have hacked into our secret Presbyterian database. The BlackHawk helicopters are on their way to his location as we speak…
Heads up, ya’ll!! Monday’s the ‘deadline’ for Christmas Priority Mail delivery to the APO/FPO addresses.
Incognito as it were
MUSLIMS, socialists, unions and other groups will conduct a counter-rally against bikini protesters who plan to march on a Brunswick mosque on Saturday.
Police will monitor the demonstrations, with white supremacists claiming to have infiltrated bikini protest ranks, increasing the potential for confrontation.
Organisers of the “Great Australian Bikini March” had planned to march against the Michael St mosque last Saturday, anniversary of the Cronulla riots in NSW.
With any luck I’ll infiltrate the ranks as well.
This next bit caused me to spit out my coffee:
The so-called bikini march, criticised as being insensitive, was designed as a reaction to mufti Sheik Taj el-Din el-Hilaly’s comments on scantily clad women being the cause of some rapes.
Insensitive. This guy says that women who are raped are at fault because they’re scantily clad and, well, cats will pounce on raw meat, don’t you know, and we have to understand their culture, yaddayaddayadda.
But wear those bikinis girls and damn you for your “insensitivity.”
In response, the Islamic Information and Support Centre and the Socialist Party Australia are organising a barbecue
Scarier words were never written.
So now our friends the Taliban have come out with a 30 point rule book
Now, the Taliban has put out a code of conduct for its commanders and fighters — including when to kill teachers and how to prevent sexual abuse.
According to Pakistani journalist Khawar Mehdi Rizvi, who obtained a copy of the 30-point plan and provided it to CNN, the instructions have been issued to district level commanders in Afghanistan in a small handbook.
If you’ve ever wondered when it was ok to kill teachers, as opposed to, say, just beat them, well, just lookie here:
“It is forbidden to work as a teacher under the current puppet regime, because this strengthens the system of the infidels,” says rule 24. And if a teacher refuses a warning to give up his job, reads rule 25, “he must be beaten.”
“If the teacher still continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or a group leader must kill him,” it continues.
When schools are burned, the Taliban rules say it is important that religious texts be removed from the buildings first.
Awfully glad that’s settled.
Oh, and there are no gays in Islam, especially not in the chosen purity that is the Taliban. But, in a sign of their infinite mercy and understanding for the infidels, they include this little rule
Along with rules about not smoking cigarettes and not allowing murderers to join the Taliban, there also is this entry: Taliban “are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters.”
Who knew they were Python fans?
You’ve got to love that line about “not allowing murderers to join the Taliban.”
They prefer to make their own, evidently.
Let me get a cup o’ coffee first.
“Heeere’s Johnny!” is top U.S. TV catchphrase
“Heeere’s Johnny!” — the introduction for U.S. talk-show host Johnny Carson for 30 years — has been ranked the most memorable TV catchphrase in a Top 100 list covering 60 years of American television shows, cartoons, commercials and quotes from news programs.
Neil Armstrong’s famous “One small step for man … ” comment when stepping on the moon on July 20, 1969, took second place in the list compiled by TV Land, while millionaire businessman-turned-TV star Donald Trump came in third with his curt “You’re fired!” ousting of contestants from the TV show “The Apprentice.”
…The Top 10 greatest TV quotes and catchphrases chosen by TV Land are;
1. Heeere’s Johnny! (Ed McMahon, The Tonight Show)
2. One small step for man … (Neil Armstrong)
3. You’re fired! (Donald Trump, The Apprentice)
4. Baby, you’re the greatest. (Ralph Kramden, The Honeymooners)
5. Ask not what your country can do for you … (John F. Kennedy)
6. D’oh! (Homer Simpson, The Simpsons)
7. Where’s the beef? (Wendy’s)
8. Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? (Arnold Drummond, Diff’rent Strokes)
9. Yabba dabba do! (Fred Flintstone, The Flintstones)
10. I’m not a crook (Richard Nixon)
Jules Crittenden is seeing a betrayal, and he’s right.
…and hit the streets! (Or, at the very least, publishers’ offices.)
BLOGGER-turned-author Jessica Cutler pulled out of next Monday’s Mediabistro panel on how bloggers can land book deals. Her “blowoff” prompted Mediabistro to remind readers that Cutler is “someone known for exchanging sex for money.”
I didn’t realize there was a way to make this a paying gig. I’ve always thought Wonkette and the rest were just lucky.
Naïveté, thy name is Sister.
…courtesy of MSNBC.com.
Egypt finds 4,000-year-old doctor’s mummy
I’ll bet she was Jewish.
…””Why I Was Never an Economics Major”.
“ths”, you ask, “How do you ever find this sh*t?”
Well, Grasshoppers, it’s like this. There I was, over at CNBC.com (people doing well affects my purely discretionary products’ bottom line) and there was this payroll article. Simple enough, right? I scan it and BAMMO. This jumps out at me.
…Also on Wednesday, the second of five jobs derivatives auctions had traders betting U.S. employers added 85,400 jobs in November. The first auction on the data, on Tuesday, had an implied forecast of 82,000.
“Jobs derivative auctions“? Que? Traders buy and sell the odds/amounts of job creation? WTF is that?! So, my interest piqued, I went looking. And so they do. The little primer I found even touts how ‘customers’ can hedge their ‘bets’ if they use their particular system.
…New Profit Opportunities. Trading Economic Derivatives provides customers with new profit opportunities. Previously, customers that expressed a view on an economic number using a financial instrument might forecast the number correctly but have the market react in an unpredictable fashion, leading to portfolio losses even though the customer’s view on the number was correct. With CME Economic Derivatives, customers can express a view directly on those economic statistics without basis risk: the customer profits if, and only if, the view on the economic statistic is correct.
Damn. The only thing I can comprehend completely is that there’s money to be made or lost anywhere on ANYthing.
– Seeking Gaia friendly kitchen stool covers, Bingley concludes his third ‘booze for buffalo hide’ trading session. ©TPI
Hot Air…
Flatulence brought 99 passengers on an American Airlines flight to an unscheduled visit to Nashville early Monday morning.
American Flight 1053, from Washington Reagan National Airport and bound for Dallas/Fort Worth, made an emergency landing here after passengers reported smelling struck matches, said Lynne Lowrance, a spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority.
The plane landed safely. The FBI, Transportation Safety Administration and airport authority responded to the emergency, Lowrance said.
The passengers and five crew members were brought off the plane, together with all the luggage, to go through security checks again. Bomb-sniffing dogs found spent matches.
The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal body odor, Lowrance said. The woman lives near Dallas and has a medical condition.
I will restrain myself from commenting on this story.
My cooking of late has been severely restricted around the house, as we have been redoing our kitchen. In fact, I have personally been responsible for the 15% rise in restaurant spending in New Jersey over the past month. But slowly, oh so slowly things are coming together.
The biggest decision that you face is what will your countertops be made of. We were getting rid of some blechy 40 year old laminate (which, to give it its due, did indeed last 40 some-odd years) and were torn about which material to choose. Initially I wanted maple butcher block, because it just looks some cool and, well, cozy in a kitchen. But, as my bride correctly pointed out, it takes a lot of maintenance, doesn’t like liquids, and really doesn’t like hot pans. Oh bother. Well, what about Corian? I have to admit it was very tempting to have an oil product in my kitchen! Plastic, New Jersey and me; perfect together. I wondered if I could get various Halliburton officials to autograph it…sigh.
But then blinding inspiration struck. I saw an article about Al Gore and the Cult of Gaia and I knew instantly what was needed here:
Gaia Flesh.
Living, breathing Gaia flesh. Ripped from her tormented body in an open pit strip mine in India by huge, smoke-belching machines. Loaded on to diesel-stench spewing trucks for a perilous drive down to the port, and from there on to a rusty freighter whose bilge effluvia leaves a sickened and oil-slickened gaian bloodstream gasping in her wake. My god, it was perfect; I had to have granite:
Read more »
First Al Gore visits and lectures them, and now this
In the late 1800s the deadly aphid phylloxera devastated much of the Victorian wine industry, but it mercifully spared the Yarra Valley. Yesterday, it finally hit its mark.
The insect was found last Friday and officially identified yesterday by officials from the Department of Primary Industry in a small section of eight-year-old merlot vines in the 32-hectare Beavis Vineyard, at Coldstream. The vines had been suffering from poor vigour.
Please buy lots of Concord rootstock, Aussie Winemakers, and eliminate this before it’s too late.
I need my shiraz.
Crittenden stirs up the righteous:
A number of Canadians took offense recently to a Boston Herald column in which I slammed Canada and Europe in general for failing to hold up their end in this war for democracy, freedom and security. Specificially, I slammed them for being smug democracies that do little to help the truly oppressed of this world, while throwing insults at us and obstacles in our way.
The Canadian Hordes from the Great White North have been unleashed.
Jihad, eh? Ya hoser.
Read his post and the comments.
As he said in his original post
Islamic extremists are ascendant among the world’s 1 billion Muslims thanks to their successes, which are nothing more than our failures. American voters, whether they realize it or not, have chosen the path of Europe, of Canada – wealthy, smug democracies that profess concern for the oppressed but will do little for them, little even in their own defense.
These wealthy, smug little democracies, whose very wealthy smug existences are a direct result of the US carrying the lion’s share of the burden in defending them from the Soviets. All of their little social programs that they love to trumpet about would not exist had they had to fund a reasonable defense budget. So they sit back and sip their espressos and snipe at us, at everything we do and don’t do. Oh, pish on the little detail that lots of our intelligence data was from them, and they agreed with the general thrust of the analysis. If we said it then well it’s lies, don’t you see. For oil, and McDonalds. Oh, and for Jesus. And Halliburton.
And in their advanced, compassionate ways they want to “hang a burning tire around our necks.”
I want a strong, secure US border. I want radioactive searches of every container ship coming in to the US done 200 miles offshore. I want a working missle defense system. I want every US troop home from Europe (except for moving ones to Poland).
And then I want to tell the rest of the world to solve their own problems and pay their own bills.
And they better learn Chinese.
…scared the pants off o’ me.
Bush says rarely talks policy with dad…
I thought it said ‘with the dead‘.
At second glance, I’m not sure I feel any better.
It was a routine patrol, in the third week of June — if, in fact, there is such a thing as a routine patrol in Fallujah, in the Anbar Province of Iraq.
Chris Walsh, a Navy medic assigned to a US Marines weapons company, was riding in a Humvee with three Marines, when a hidden bomb exploded in the dirt road just in front of them.
Even before the thick dust had settled, the Marines, and Walsh, were out of the vehicle, looking for the insurgents who had planted the remote-control device. The triggerman, as several who joined the pursuit vividly recall, was spotted first on a rooftop, then on the ground making his escape through the maze of ramshackle houses that line the road.
When Walsh and the Marines came to one doorway, M-4 rifles up and ready, a woman emerged from a room, holding an infant and saying, over and over again, “Baby. Baby sick.”
Walsh put his gun down and the woman put the baby down.
Walsh had seen bad things — as an EMT back home in St. Louis, and at war. But he told his comrades he had never seen anything like this: The child, just a few months old, looked as though her insides had been turned inside out.
Her name was Mariam, and she looked up at Walsh with dead eyes.
…to here…
Mariam’s grandparents, who traveled with her because her mother has not recovered from complications at childbirth, told Maureen Walsh they had learned of Chris’ death last month, when Captain Donovan visited them at the hospital.
Mariam’s grandfather took Maureen Walsh’s hand in his and, speaking in Arabic, said, “Thank you for your son.”
Mariam’s family does not believe it was coincidence that Chris Walsh was the one who came into their house in hot pursuit of someone who had tried to kill him and instead put down his gun and picked up Mariam.
“This,” her grandfather said, nodding solemnly, “was an act of God. God sent Chris. To Mariam. So she will live.”
…“Saving Baby Miriam“ is a story of promises kept.
“Thank you for your son“, indeed. We all thank you, Mrs. Walsh.
Life | Mr. Bingley | 
December 11, 2006 3:38 pm | 
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