bloggie

.. with a followup post here.

Too much good stuff there to quote.. well actually, a SnoopyTheGoon comment from this morning caught my fancy:

Once upon a time a plane carrying an Englishman, a Frenchman and an Israeli crashes somewhere in a tribal area and all three are caught by a tribe. The chief tell the three that they are going to be eaten and offers each a last wish. The Brit wishes for a beer, gets its and drinks it. The Frenchman, naturally, wishes for a woman, gets her and... The

Israeli asks for a good kick in his backside. After wondering a bit, the tribe satisfies this request. After being kicked, the Israeli gets an Uzi from his... whatever and promptly puts an end to the whole tribe.

"But why didn't you do it to start with?" ask the other two.

"We, Israelis, do not shoot unprovoked," was the answer.

IMHO, Olmert is accumulating his "provocation points" for the last few weeks of that "ceasefire" and all his amorous jesting toward Abu Mazen. It may be stupid, since the outside world does not care about all that, but this is how it looks.

Of course, when the real shooting starts, the world will not give a fig about the collected points... Instead the world will start baying about the red-toothed Zionist baby-killers.

But do we have re-education of the effing world in the list of our chores?

Of course, when the real shooting starts, the world will not give a fig about the collected points... Instead the world will start baying about the red-toothed Zionist baby-killers.

The Palestinians took this extreme step almost from the inception of their declared war against the 'Zionist Entity'. For more than 35 years...

Funny stuff.

As for Olmert's "plans", that comment reminds me of the giant 'trap' Sharon was supposedly pulling on the Arabs by giving them Gaza.

Of course, if he failed to arrange for a successor, being an obese man in his 80s, maybe he's not that cunning. If I ever go over to the loony side I expect that I'll start thinking Olmert had him taken out by means of a bizarre stroke causing drug interaction, or something.

Anybody read the new Sharon biography?

Hmm. Well, if there was a trap, he might have told someone. Anyone. If he let anyone in his inner circle know what it was, they're not telling.

That said, the split in the Israeli/pro-Israeli right was damaging enough that it's probably best to let it be. In that respect, not naming a successor (let alone a capable one) was a blessing, in that everyone agrees Olmert is a feckless bastard.

No, I haven't I'll probably have a look at it (the bio).

As for Olmert poisoning Sharon, early on in the Lebanon war I briefly considered that Olmert was putting his words in to action. Remember the 'tired of winning, tired of fighting' speech he gave to the (ahem) pro-Israeli Israel Policy Forum? For a fleeting moment, I thought he was losing on purpose.

Nah. Occam's razor.

The bio is on my "to read" pile, which I suspect won't get read until retirement. Also the Katz biography on Jabotinsky, which costs $90. Actually the biographies of all Israeli PMs would be worth reading.

Because I'm terrible with names ... are you the Matt who's fairly young, lives in England and is thinking of aliya?

Zhabotinsky in the original Klingon.

Happy Birthday, Matt!

Yep, more or less. I know, easy to remember nic, right? I also go by 'Colt'.

I had planned to join the IDF early this year. My dad is Jewish, my mother isn't, but that's enough for aliyah - and therefore for the IDF. But they want a ketubah, or a (Jewish) birth/death certificate, of either my parents or a close family member. Since my dad is just about as assimilated as it is possible to be, there's none of that. And not in the extended family, either. Apparently, the Jews who arrived in the U.S. (dad is American) left whatever Judaism they had at Ellis Island along with their Romanian passports.

So at this point, yes, I'd like to make aliyah after I am properly converted.

It is. And, as usual, it isn't...

I had no idea Matt was Colt and Colt was Matt. Hi Colt! I mean, Matt.

Yep, hello! Um, surprise...? :-)

RWC, it's like being one of those sitcom actors with a catchphrase. And fans come up to the street and say "do the line!", and you smile weakly and say, I'm just trying to buy a paper, and they ask you again, and you say, I'm sorry, I'm not working now, and you try to step past them, but then they ask again, but they're not smiling any more, so you try to push past, and they grab your sleeve, and you grab their arm, and you fall to the floor, and there's a scuffle, and you hold their head in a puddle until the bubbles stop.

Just sayin' :-)

Can we call him MrFay? Just for simplicity?

I can't believe it's almost a year, time flies :-)

joem, I'm British. I don't need an excuse to drink.

RWC, you didn't invent it. You weren't to know.

Uh, you forgot to wish him a happy birthday. He turned 1,207 today.