J-STREET: AS KOSHER AS ANY PLO FACTION COULD POSSIBLY BE

A friend asked whether halal food was made available to participants in the J-Street conference. This pursuant the complete absence of kosher at an event nominally for Jews ("pro-Israel Jews"), and allegedly organized by Jews, members of a group which insists, despite evidence to the contrary, that it is pro-Israel.

No kosher food available.

Kosher, it would seem, discouraged.
It might attract undesirables, you know.

Halal was probably not available either.

I do not think that Maen Rashid Areikat keeps 'glat halal'.
At least not in public.
It would blow his cover.

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/11/plo-ambassador-to-us-advocates.html


Among the other "pro-Israel moderates" to grace the event:
Amjad Atallah
Nadia Bilbassy
Mustafa Barghouti
Naomi Chazan
Suhail Khan
Michael Lerner
Daniel Sokatch

Again, I don't know whether any of them keep halal.

I suspect that the need for dissimulation allows them a certain amount of leeway on that score.


SURREAL AND PHANTASMIC

I am hard put to find ANY indication that J-Street is in whatever way pro-Isreal.
If my readers can cite facts to the contrary, no matter how figmentive and circumstantial, nay Orwellian even, I would be most keen to hear it.

This request is specifically directed at Isaac Luria.
Because he keeps e-mailing me stuff.


==========================================================================
NOTE: Tayere Reb Luria, use this link for your response (or any questions you may have
about life, the universe, and everything), zeit azoi git:
LETTER BOX.
Even your correspondence will be kept in confidence. Yours too, Ms. Susskind. B'emmes.
==========================================================================

PAKISTANI ETHICS

News from Pakistan has regularly shown that the tribal Muslims in the NWFP are unmitigated savages who commit barbarous acts with impunity. Which, precisely, is what their coreligionists in such diverse places as Islamabad, Karachi, Riyadh, and Dubai encourage, even underwrite.

Usually that savagery is directed at modernity and the West - some people in the Islamic World have a chip on their shoulder a mile wide - but not always.

Sometimes the barbaric Pashtoon kills local Christians, while the corrupt and lazy Pakistani police and judicial authorities look the other way. It's only a Christian, who cares?

Sometimes the barbaric Pashtoon kills a fish of an entirely different kettle.


QUOTE:
Jaspal Singh was seized while travelling in Khyber district a month ago. His body was found on Sunday.
Earlier reports that a second kidnapped Sikh, Mastan Singh, had been beheaded are not confirmed, officials now say.
END QUOTE.


SOURCE:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8527614.stm
[Article: Kidnapped Pakistani Sikh beheaded in Khyber region]


QUOTE:
Officials in Khyber say Jaspal Singh was among seven Sikhs travelling in the tribal district a month ago. He and two others were kidnapped by a group of armed men - four others in the party escaped.
Later, the family of Jaspal Singh received a ransom demand for 20 million rupees ($235,000) to be paid by last Saturday.
His body was found when members of his family arrived in the area on Sunday to negotiate his release.
Two other Sikh men still remain in the custody of the kidnappers.END QUOTE.


Well, that rather decisively shows that Pashtoons negotiate in bad faith, doesn't it?

Formerly there were more Sikhs in the Pak tribal regions, but due to official venality and the rapacious and treacherous nature of the locals, many of them have left. The rise of Islamic militancy has not improved matters.


There have been reports that Sikhs in the region have been subjected to jizya - an Islamic tax that is collected from non-Muslims.

Does the world really have any use for Pashtoons? Do they serve any worthwhile purpose?

One very well might ask the same about Pakistani politicians - greedily obscuring funds and committing morally outrageous acts is not really beneficial to anyone.
Nor is chussing the Arab gand...... except, of course, for the Pakistani doing it, and the Gulf royal receiving it.

Damn, but Pakistan is a pestilential place!

CLUELESS IN HOLLAND

Made the mistake of reading De Telegraaf during lunch - as usual, agida was the result.
An article mentioned an American Schoolteacher who was sentenced to twenty years for having sex with a thirteen year old boy.


Twintig jaar cel voor seks met leerling
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/5684122/__Twintig_jaar_cel_voor_seks_met_leerling__.html?p=10,1
IDAHO - Een Amerikaanse lerares is dinsdag door de rechtbank veroordeeld tot twintig jaar celstraf omdat ze seks had met een 13-jarige leerling.

[It's about a thirty seven year old school teacher in Idaho, Ashley Jo Beach, who had a torrid affair that lasted several months with a 13 year-old student - they sent each other nude pictures of themselves via cellphone in addition to banging up a storm.]



SEX CRIME

The key fact of the matter is that she molested a minor, and one who was her responsibility, nota bene. Irrespective of gender, that must be considered abuse of power and authority, in addition to child-rape.
It is quite clear-cut.

Of course, the Dutch, who know all there is to know about sexual abuse, do not see it that way. Well over half of the 155 comments underneath the article praise the woman and damn the country that sentenced her for raping a child - which in the eyes of over half of the commenters is only a minor matter, scarce deserving any punishment at all.

The United States, in their words, is a frightful puritan hell hole, and responsible for ninety percent of all misery in the world today.
We are the armpit of the planet, and pustulence personified.
And they feel good about saying that.

Many of the commenters feel that any punishment of the teacher for having an affair with a student is utterly ridiculous, and the severity of the punishment is beyond all reason.
Apparently it betrays our hypocrisy and a demented value system, we're a disgusting and appalling nation of pornographers and violent criminals, totally backward, unadvanced, retrograde, and uncivilized.

A fair number of the writers also laud the woman, and consider her a hero - both praiseworthy and commendable.


I have in the past rather indicated my feelings about the Dutch and their sexual predilections.......

[This post:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/11/keep-europeans-especially-dutch-out.html
in which I damn them all as sexual degenerates and perverts of the worst order.
And this post:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/11/joran-van-der-sloot-and-women-flesh.html
where I take issue with Dutch attitudes towards American teenagers.
This post discusses European attitudes towards the sexual exploitation of women in general: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/03/european-sexual-degeneracy.html
and mentions sexual slavery in the Netherlands in particular.]



ON THE OTHER HAND

But the bright side is that NOT ALL COMMENTERS underneath the article in De Telegraaf condemn us; several of the readers understand that a teacher abusing a position of power and authority is reprehensible. They also grasp that a mere slap on the wrist combined with community service, such as is common in the Netherlands for indecent acts with a minor, do not even begin to address the issue. Many even observed that the gender of the victim and the gender of the perpetrator are immaterial - if it should not happen to a thirteen year old girl, it should also not be done to a thirteen year old boy.

So while I would recommend not allowing any Europeans, especially the Dutch, anywhere near your children, I am pleased to report that they are not all utter degenerates. Not all of them.
There is an intelligent and civilized minority that has to put up with their countrymen and maintain their reason despite such dysfunctional neighbors.
That they manage to do so at all is commendable, that many of them do it so well is miraculous.

[There is even a Dutch website, Stop Kinderporno Nu (http://www.stopkinderpornonu.com/) which combats paedophilia and struggles to bring child-molestors to justice. What makes their task much more difficult than it should be is the incredibly light sentencing customary in the Netherlands for sex-crimes, even violent ones and repeat-offenses. A few weeks community service, or a talk with a social worker, are quite common. Gang rape usually means counseling for the perpetrators. Most sex-crimes in the Netherlands go unpursued, unprosecuted, and unpunished.]

If you are a young woman, it is probably not advisable to visit the Netherlands until they have changed their sexual dialectic. Or if you do, avoid drinking in bars at the very least, in order to avoid date-rape drugs.
But the same can be said for much of Europe, as well as parts of England, Mississippi, Georgia, and the third world.

MUSLIMS PREVENTING VISITS TO CHRISTIAN SITES

One of the main reasons for the Crusades was the reprehensible attitude of Muslim tyrants to the Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Having seized control over the holy places, and massacred Christians and Jews during their conquest, generations of Islamic warlords either outright forbade Christians and Jews from worshipping and visiting the sacred sites of their religions, or seized pilgrims and sold them at slave auctions.
In all, Muslim hegemony over other peoples' lands was horrific, barbaric, and rapacious.


One bright spot is the behaviour of the Turks.


Now the blight of Mohammedan bigotry and strongarmism has returned.


QUOTE:
One of Britain's premiere choirs is being prevented from performing in Bethlehem following a Palestinian protest over its scheduled performance in Israel.

The choir of Clare College, Cambridge, will sing Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" with the Israel Camerata Orchestra, but may not visit and perform in St George's Cathedral in East Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where it was invited to sing by the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, according to Tim Frank's Jerusalem Diary published Monday by the BBC.

The choir is being stymied in its efforts to visit areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority following a letter from the London-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign asking the choir to cancel its trip to Israel, saying it would "appear indifferent to Palestinian suffering."

The Palestinian Authority then asked the bishop of Jerusalem to withdraw the choir's invitation to sing in eastern Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and informed the choir that its members would not be welcome in Bethlehem as part of the bishop's pilgrimage.

SOURCE:
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/22/1009853/british-choir-prevented-from-performing-in-bethlehem



A NOTE ON TOLERANCE

Let me explain some pertinent facts to you Muslims:

Israel allows you to worship at your sites within the land. Europeans allow you to construct mosques in their ancient cities (mosques which, due to modern architecture and perfectly horrid taste, are ghastly eye-sores).
Even here in America, your practices are safeguarded - contrary to what your mad mullahs and lying imams tell you, the Mohammedan religion is alive and well in Yankee-stan.

Pressuring your captive dhimmis - pardon, "native" Christians - into blackmailing the west, however, is an action entirely beyond the pale of civilized conduct.

We accept that the degenerate Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia violently discriminate against non-Muslims and non-Arabs. After all, their brigands seized Mecca and Medina nearly a century ago, and have kept the entire Muslim world over a barrel ever since. Like you, we do not expect any better from those pigs.
And no Christian or Jew would want to settle in that poxed armpit of a place.
No biggie.

But if the rest of you Muslims wish to continue our acceptance of your presence and your cult outside of your wastelands and brutal societies, you need to play by civilized rules.

That means allowing our pilgrims to visit our holy places unmolested, and unhindered.



A NOTE ON INTOLERANCE

You've already driven the Christian majority out of Bethlehem.
The Christians of Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt, all of whom represent communities far older than the Islamic umma, keep emigrating to our lands - there is no place for them under your despotic and intolerant rule.
The Jews of the Arab lands have been robbed and expelled - except for those whom you viciously slaughtered.
In Pakistan and Indonesia your rabid dogs burn down churches and lynch believers. Your thugs in Iran and Central Asia are rapists and sadists - we have for years been treated to horrific news about your treatment of Christians and Jews in those benighted places.
Yearly, the record of your brutal bigotry grows ever more horrendous.


You do know, don't you, that there are several million Muslims living in the West?
Muslims who at present are still guaranteed safety and equal rights.


Perhaps you should consider that Western hospitality is a very brittle and recent overlay on centuries of violent tendencies. That such 'tolerance' is NOT limitless. And it is NOT fundamental to our psyche.
It really must be requited.

Merry Christmas. Bitches.

NO FAITH IN THE DUTCH

Subscribers to the Surinam Mailinglist have in the past seen me react with fury at the Netherlanders. Usually I do so after reading Dutch on the internet - whether the poisonous anti-American or anti-Semitic comments written underneath articles in the Algemeen Dagblad, the densely pretentious and wrong-headed editorials in a variety of Dutch newspapers, the blinkered and bigoted discussions in various chatrooms and networking sites, or even the several hundred page long discussions that were on the website of the NRC Handelsblad before we invaded Irak, which demonstrated in depth and breadth how much the average "well-informed leftwing Dutchman" hates the United States, despises Israel, presupposes about Americans and Jews, and has forgotten about the reprehensible history of his own country, and how unimportant the Dutch really are in this world.


Today I will not send them (the Surinam Mailinglist) a poison-pen letter.


I actually rather like most of them..... even that often intensely opinionated and irritating blister Plomp.
Being wrong is by no means being evil. The members of the list are sometimes wrong, but they are as a group, and overwhelmingly as individuals, good people.
Intelligent (and very multi-lingual), too.
I do not wish to give them bile.


Not so most of the writers in the comment string underneath this article:


Hamas spot met ontvoerde soldaat
http://www.ad.nl/buitenland/3350992/Hamas_spot_met_ontvoerde_soldaat.html


I shall not bother translating the article - it's about a Hamas television cartoon making fun of Gilad Shalit. Nor will I bother to translate any of the comments. Just take it from me that many of them reflect a venomous and narrowminded anti-Semitism, anti-Israeliism, and anti-Americanism, which thoroughly guts any Dutch claim to decency.

There are decent people among the Dutch. But as a people they are loathsome.

The vibrancy of the Golden Age, the achievements of their thinkers, the stellar prose and poetry of their many literati, the genius of their scientists - these have not ennobled them, nor enriched their minds. The average Dutchman is likely to be a petty small-minded bigot, without any perspective, ignorant of history, and certain that his own unfounded praeconceptions about the rest of the world are utterly correct. Many of them are blinkered, most of them stubborn. Not a few stupid. But every single one of them is utterly convinced that he is right.

Those few Dutchmen who exemplify civilization are indeed to be prized. But they should not be considered truly Dutch - they would be no less praiseworthy had they been born something else, and they very well might have been far better.

====================================================

In all fairness, I Suppose I should mention that the Dutch are not the only group I despise.
I also have an intense and perfectly reasonable dislike of Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotsmen, Germans, Austrians, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Arabs, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Persians, Hyderabadis, Brazilians, Texans, and Scientologists.
But because the Dutch are family, I have no motivation to overlook their flaws, and am much more likely to be aware of their failings.
All those other groups, well, whatever.

NONE OF THEM WERE MUSLIMS

In 1948, British forces in Malaya killed twenty four unarmed civilians. The perpetrators were all vindicated by British authorities, it being asserted that the soldiers had no choice but to shoot them to prevent the unarmed men fleeing into the jungle. Their village was subsequently set on fire, and the survivors prevented from burying the dead for a week.


The British government is not unduly concerned about this event.
The Malaysian government has shown scant interest in raking it up.
It is not an issue.


The victims were not Muslims.


They were Chinese Malayans.


After the world war, Britain was concerned with placating the restless Malays and assuring themselves of a source for rubber and tin. The Chinese Malayans, who had resisted the Japanese, were less important in the grand scheme of things than the Malays, who had quiescently collaborated with the Japanese.
Neither the British nor the Malays were concerned with justice for the Chinese Malayans, who had been particularly brutalized by the Japanese occupiers, or with including the Chinese Malayans in future power structures of the soon-to-be independent Malay state, choosing instead to 'reward' them for their stubborn resistance to the Japanese by a policy of ethnic exclusionism (the seed for apartheid policies against Chinese in modern Malaysia).
This, probably more than anything else, led to an emergency that lasted twelve years.

The Chinese community had been robbed and repressed by the Japanese, the Malays had collaborated, and were well rewarded. When the British returned, the Malays loyally collaborated again, to very great advantage.
Many of the Malayan Chinese consequently saw little choice but to join the insurgency.

The men of the village of Batang Kali who were killed by the British were not Muslims but Chinese. In the eyes of the British, that meant that they were almost certainly rebels. And in the eyes of the Malays, they were Chinese.

Both of those qualities were good reasons to execute them. The British were fighting a war, the Malays were profitably collaborating with the strongest party.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8025383.stm


From that article:
"Four of the Scots Guards gave sworn testimony, confirming that the shootings took place, confirming that the victims were unarmed. "
"We were kept away for a week and when we returned we found the bloated bodies, half eaten by animals."


[More data here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batang_Kali_massacre and here: http://dapmalaysia.org/all-archive/English/2004/jul04/bul/bul2460.htm]


I can understand the British authorities being unenthusiastic about re-examining the facts.
No ex-colonial power is glad to have its misbehaviour highlighted.
The British, French, and Dutch insist that their role in the East was that of enlightened bringers of civilization, law, and order, and that colonialism only benefitted the natives, who were incapable of administering themselves according to the standards of the civilized world. And who really wishes to dispute that?

I can also understand why the Malaysian authorities are not overly concerned - these were not Muslims, and therefore by the standards of Malaysia they can not really count for much.
Besides, there is no point in encouraging ANY sense of grievance among the Chinese. Surely that only leads to trouble?


I'm just noting that this was a war crime. One of many war crimes committed by the colonial powers in the years after the world war - thousands of people were killed or tortured in the eastern territories during the last gasps of the British, French, and Dutch empires.
This is just another war crime which our friends and allies (the former colonial powers) would rather forget. Why bring up dead issues?
After all, they lost their empires.
I also note that the survivors are now few in number, old and frail. When the last of them has died and still no justice has been done, the official version of events will stand. The victims will only be remembered as 24 among the tens of thousands of "communists" killed during the insurrection.
Seeing as so few Muslims died, compared to so many Chinese, the victory was without a doubt well worth it. Especially for the Malays.
And they are wonderful people, the Malays.

TURKISH DELIGHT

The following is a guest-post by frequent-commenter Grant Patel.
Don't worry, it is entirely clean - he does not mention underwear at all.

--- --- ---


TURK SOCCER GOONDU SUPPORTS PALLIES

Turkish pro-footballer Ibrahim Dagasan of Sivasspor planted a Palestinian flag in the centre of the field after his team beat Galatasary today. This was greeted by massive anti-Semitic screaming by the audience, composed primarily of idiots unaware of their own nation's depraved and disgusting history.

Not only when Turkey was still the Ottoman Empire - infamous for slave-raiding, brutal repression, sexual profligacy, and sheer decadent cruelty (culminating in the first genocide of the modern era, when Turks brutally slaughtered over a million Armenians (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն, Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı) - but also since then with their gangbusters war against the Kurds. Truly, modern Turkey is still a pit of a nation, just as homicidal, and thuggish in its politics, as when they took over Byzantium, committing murder and rape on a scale so horrific that even the Arabs, no strangers to sadism, were stunned.

While I would like to argue that this is the final drop of sewage in the generously overflowing bucket of proof that Turkey has no place in Europe (let alone anywhere in the civilized world), and should be permanently denied entry to the European Union, but I must alas acknowledge sadly that this instead proves that the Turks are every bit as European as the rest of that bunch. Woe. It is tragic.

I do not know whether this proves the Turks adept at emulation like monkeys, or shows that European anti-Semitism is universally appealing to the imperfectly civilized tribals of the world. I suspect much of both, and resolve to henceforth give Continentals and Muslims as much of a miss as possible in the Bay Area. They are little more than bloodthirsty gandus and owls. Their cooking is not enough to excuse them.

India, China, Japan, and the United States, at least, are civilized. The rest of you lot are mostly pigs. Oink, bitches, oink.


---Grant Patel


==================================

Mr. Patel is a Parsee attorney-at-law, currently at a firm in the Bay Area. He describes his life as "sifting through the clerical detritus created by incompetent Bengalis and neurotic Tamils - telecommunications mostly".
For entertainment, Grant Patel obsesses over undergarments, has fond thoughts of nuking Pakistan, follows the noble sport of cricket, and enjoys fine (non-Muslim) dining. His parents are from Gujarat, hence his meshune love of Undhiu, which normal people loathe from the minute of first exposure.

He is unmarried, likes long walks on the beach, sweet pressed flake pipe-tobacco, and "young wheatish women, provided that they are both feisty and spunky, like a hot pepper".

He also insists that I say that he is "both bahut manly and dashing, very much and exactly like Rajesh Khanna, okay."

Anytime, dude.

TWENTY FIVE MILES OR LESS

Fascinating facts from a newspaper article.


Since 2001, there have been 3,984 rockets and 3,943 mortar shells launched at Israel from Gaza.
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/29/MNHF150KHB.DTL
[cut]
Egypt brokered a truce that took effect in June, but since then, Palestinians still fired 223 rockets and 139 mortar shells from the Hamas-controlled enclave.
[cut]
The Palestinian death toll continued to climb on Monday, yet Hamas still managed to pour rocket fire on Israeli cities such as Ashdod, more than 20 miles to the north of the Gaza Strip, bringing a million Israelis within range of the fighting.


What that last part means is that any Israeli living twenty five miles or less from a Palestinian is probably in danger. As good an argument for imposing a twenty five mile wide no-mans land as any I've seen.

DAMNING ISRAEL

Reading the Dutch, German, French, and English news sites and forums today highlighted three tendencies regarding reactions and thoughts about Israel's action in Gaza. These tendencies already existed, of course, but have been more sharply drawn in the last seventy-two plus hours.


The Pro-Israel no-matter-what tendency
The writer damns all Muslims, Palestinians, Socialists, and self-hating Europeans, while lauding the actions of Israel in Gaza.
This is distinctly a minority point of view.


The Nuanced Point of View
This person tends to understand that Hamas broke their own ceasefire, has sworn to destroy Israel, and provoked the conflict by firing off over two hundred rockets towards Israeli towns. Nevertheless, civilian deaths are lamented, and question are raised. The writer is not comfortable with adding to the misery of the average Arab.
This too is a minority point of view.


The angry Anti-Israel Opinion
These writers thoroughly condemn everything that Israel does, lament the misery of Palestinian existence, curse their own governments for doing nothing, and fervently wish ill upon Israel, the Jews, and anybody who takes the side of either Israel or the Jews. Many of these writers are anti-Semitic, but assert that being anti-Israel is not actual hatred. They are not overt bigots, as they (mostly) stay within the bounds of acceptable 'progressive' discourse.
This is the overwhelming majority point of view.



Digesting it all
What became apparent, reading the various sites, is just how much Israel is hated. To a certain extent, I can understand Arab hatred of Jews and Israel - Arabs hate everything and everybody. It seems to be part and parcel of their culture. They've killed over seven million of their own in the last sixty years, and almost instinctively speak ill of each other or sabotage their own causes.
I expect no better from that side. And I'll admit it, I am probably a racist because I expect nothing else from them. For which I apologize - I honestly cannot hold them to the same high standard as the civilized world. I am a realist.

I can also understand European hatred of Jews and Israel. After all, to many Europeans, the very survival of Jews proves them wrong. Their attempts to exterminate the Jews did not succeed, their attempts to force them to convert en-masse to Christianity or Communism failed. There are still Jews. It must be keenly disappointing to have those people still around as a reminder of the failure of European society.

Life would be so much simpler for both the Arabs and the Europeans, if there were no Jews. The Arabs could slowly destroy European society, the Europeans could profit enormously from whoring to the Arabs in the meantime. Benefit to both sides.

The Jews, especially in the shape of Israel, are the fly in the ointment. And so Israel taking action against Hamas, is of course, an affront to both many Europeans and to Arabs.
Which must be thoroughly condemned.


What I have never understood is why parts of America, in particular Northern California, are so filled with Jew-hatred. Places such as San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley. Heck, I cannot fathom why Berkeley is the most Jew-hating city in all of California. It would appear that our universities inculcate a very European attitude, and deliberately undermine our society's values.
I fully expect the next domestic terrorist movement to originate in academe.



AFTERTHOUGHT
I find myself in-between the first and second tendencies. I recognize that Israel had to act, I find what they are engaged upon justified, and I applaud their successes. Granted, as a society, Israel is by no means perfect. And ideally it should be possible for any society to speak for all of its members. But in the real world, societies are not always capable of giving all goals and values equal importance. To Israel's credit, she tries. And often succeeds in advancing the interests of a large majority of her citizens. Israel does so as the only democratic state in that area, and the only liberal humanist society in the Middle-East.

That, unfortunately, is something that not a single one of the Arab states have ever done, and also something which almost none of the Arab states can even lay claim to ever trying.


The one great contribution to our vocabulary from the Arabs in modern times has been 'mukhabarat' - a term for a secret police that functions with extraordinary brutality. It is the one constant shared by all Arab states, and frequently the only efficient department in an Arab government.

MORONS! IDIOTS! POLTROONS!

In the past I have mentioned that I deal with teenage girls, and some adults who are not ready for primetime. This in the context of contacting customers and requesting that they hurry up and pay our past-due invoices.

[My portfolio of accounts include a fair number of small to medium sized retail stores. Hence the teenage girls. I did not choose the girls; they were hired by the retailers in question because they were friendly and non-threatening, unlike 'Spike', who also applied for the job - he's nineteen, twixt Goth and Deathmetal, and has multiple piercings and tattoos.]


Some of my customers, however, are bigger than that. And in consequence have employed people of even more marginal functionality.

Apparently invoices in the mid five figure range can only be processed by badly trained monkeys. Or morons, idiots, and poltroons.


AN E-MAIL CONVERSATION


11/24/2008
Hello Buffy,
I note that invoices 123456 and 124678 are coming due on the 29th and the 30th respectively. Please advise regarding payment.
Thanks.
---BOTH

There was no response.


12/10/2008
Hello Buffy,
Invoices 123456 and 124678 are now past-due.
Please advise regarding payment asap.
Thanks.
---BOTH

Again, no response.


12/11/2008
Why is this on credit hold?
---Moshe

Answer:
12/11/2008
Moshe,
Because they are past-due on two invoices.
Inv. 123456 due 11/29/08
Inv. 124678 due 11/30/08
Queries were sent to Buffy twice: the first time on November 24th, when I asked him to inform me about payment; the second time yesterday, when I reiterated that query and indicated urgency.
I courtesy-copied you, Throckmorton, and Brandee Wineslops on the second query.
---BOTH


To which Moshe replied:
12/11/2008
Spoke with Buffy. He said he has payment posted and we should see checks by next week.
---Moshe


Fast forward to today. Their last order was released based on expectation of payment for the two invoices which are now seriously past-due. And note that mail from Clogbucket City to civilization, even at this time of year, only takes five business days.

12/19/2008
Hello Buffy,
We have not received payment yet for the above captioned invoices (your purchase order nos. A98765 and B97643 respectively).
We were informed that payment was posted and that we should expect the cheques to arrive this week.
Please advise regarding cheque numbers and mailing date.
Thank you.
---BOTH


His response:

12/19/2008
Hi BOTH: I can’t give you any information on PO’s as my part of the system goes by invoice number. We are writing checks again on Tues.
---Buffy


Please note that the invoice numbers were in the subject line of all inquiries sent to Buffy. They were visible, and identified as invoice numbers, in Buffy's response.

[The PO explanation looks like a fob-off, and mention of Tuesday's cheque run suggests that the cheques have not been written yet, contrary to communication on 12/11/2008.
But the brevity of his response hints that Buffy and reading-comprehension may have parted ways shortly after graduation from Clogbucket City High.]


My most recent e-mail:
12/19/2008
Buffy,
To reiterate: I am inquiring about invoice 123456 and invoice 124678.
On the eleventh of December I was informed that payment had been posted, and to expect the cheques to arrive this week. We have not received the cheques yet.
Can you give me cheque numbers and mailing dates please?
Thanks.
---BOTH



With all due respect to my fellow humans, many of whom are deficient in several ways and some of whom are utter defectives, and in consideration of the fact that a large number of the above captioned have against any and all logical expectation managed to find gainful employment, if I had my druthers I would prefer to only communicate with the aforementioned teenage girls regarding past-due invoices.
They are sincere. They are helpful. They are capable of understanding that questions need actual answers. And they are capable of stating "please hold a sec, I dropped my pencil', or asking how I spell my name.


Note also that this post is for Tzipporah, who excused herself from posting more on her own blog by writing:
"I have nothing to blog. My life is dull and empty, in between the moments of extreme chaos. Although some days there is chocolate. (cut) ... it's all complaints, and the people about whom I would complain know about my blog. So, I just stifle it and swear under my breath. "


See Tzipporah, I just posted one long screaming kvetsh-kretsh about emptiness and chaos.
It can be done. And it feels very good indeed to do so.
As commenter Spiros said: "You don't see lack of anything to write about stopping BOTH from posting, do you? I mean, he writes about people taking away his red swingline stapler, for heaven's sake! "


I want my red swingline stapler back, I want more chocolate, and I want forty days of torrential rain to hit Buffy in Clogbucket City.
I hope Buffy's backyard washes away in the flood and takes his begonias with it.

But basically, I just want to vent.

ESAU'S FAN CLUB: JIM HARRIS AKA TOM JOAD

Saw the noted anti-Semite Jim Harris this past Saturday (hi Jim, you're looking unwell as usual). He was standing with Women In Black, which at Grandlake is composed mostly of sour Presbyterians and a few antiquated anarchists.
The East-Bay chapter of Women In Black sincerely treasure the half-a-dozen misguided Jewesses in their ranks, because these simple souls allow them to claim that they have nothing against Jews, why even their best friends etcetera, etcetera, etceblablatera.

One wonders how the one Jewish person in their line this past Saturday felt about being in the same place as Jim - he's quite rabid, and never at a loss for the wrong word. Perhaps she is the one who insisted that he stand apart, facing into the cross-street.


I was actually hoping she'd whack him over the head with her sign.


But that would probably have been considered an unnecessarily Jewish approach to his principled ideological stand. Not at all cricket. Not when you both oppose the existence of the state of Israel.



JIM HARRIS / JAMES HARRIS / TOM JOAD

Jim Harris is the remarkably ignorant and unpleasant activist in charge of the Berkeley anti-Semites who call themselves the international solidarity movement (ISM). He can be recognized by a bad haircut, a vacant or unhappy expression, and a smoothly bagged double chin.

Sometimes, when he wants to make an intelligent impression, he writes under the name 'James Harris', but usually his screeds show up on indymedia under the moniker 'Tom Joad'.

The International Solidarity Movement, which also goes by the name of Stop AIPAC (substantially the same membership roster), is just one of the representatives of organized anti-Semitism in northern California. In addition to circulating all the usual falsehoods about Jews and Israel, and slamming the presence of any and all Jews in any political circles, they also create rumours about politicians that they feel are too close to Jewish causes. What they tried to say about Nancy Pelosi was virtually unprintable, and I shan't repeat it here.
Their main claim to fame is as actively involved supporters of terrorists and a cheering squad for murder. Jim Harris has a history of calling such acts justified and appropriate. In that he is hardly original.
But one would not expect originality from Jim Harris in any case, one is merely grateful that he is leaky as a sieve and should not be trusted with any information about planning at all. Jim just isn't intelligent.


Things have been said about his sexual habits that I am far too much a gentleman to parrot, even if they are true.


Stay tuned for personality reviews of Paul Larudee, Joseph Anderson, Ron (Ralph) Klein, Barbara Lubin, Hatem Bazian, and the Nakba Jews who tried to take over the JCC several months ago. It may take a while, because if you wade through a sewer you want to scrub down with a steel brush afterwards. Something which I fondly imagine Jim, Paul, or Joseph actually doing for pleasure.


Please note the new label: ESAU'S FAN CLUB. Appropriate, no?

A MUSLIM, A TERRORIST, A SOCIALIST, AND AN ARAB

I present a guest-post by SM, who is one of the commenters on Dovbear's blog whom I have always admired. A shtarke denker whose tight and to the point writings often express ideas that I wished I could have put so well.

He doesn't know that he's guest-posting, by the way. I just decided to lift his text wholesale and plonk it here. It was in a comment string underneath a guest-post by JS on Dovbear's blog.


SM writes:
1. Obama is genuinely inspiring to many, many people. This hurts the teeth of the right wing nut jobs but it is true. Their response is to talk down inspiration as lies - a betrayal of the political process which exposes them as 'only if you think like me' democrats (small 'd').

2. Because he is inspiring Obama has persuaded millions of people to vote who would otherwise not have voted. That is far more important than converting Republicans. He has persuaded people who felt excluded from the political process that they are included. That is a triumph for democracy - unless like some of the moaners above - you don't like the result. How dare dem uppity black folks vote in your election, eh guys?

3. Those same people have been alienated by McCain's choice of a woman who is stupid, uneducated and - most of all - uncaring as his running mate. Never was a more obvious choice to go with the benefit of publicity made. And to my credit I said this when DB first posted on Palin.

4. The right have done nothing but moan about media bias and Obama scare stories. See our own dear mad Essie and her mates. For most people who have never voted before this is a massive turn-off which motivates them against McCain. Lesson: if you whinge endlessly about conspiracies then people will quietly make your worst nightmares come true.

And, as an English football manager once memorably said, 'I am LOVING it'. Bush stinks. McCain was alright but never managed to step away from the smell because his veep (hahahahaha) carried it around with her. I am fed up of hearing Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, a socialist, an Arab. These are lies told by the desperate because they cannot deal with the truth. And today that sort of crap is being flushed.

The message will not, of course be learned by those who should learn it. They lack the capability. But the USA will swing to the left and there ain't a damn thing anyone can do about it save assassinate the President. I wonder which idiot here will be the first person to defend that? And I shall be there - rejoicing. If Essie moves to Panama I might even take her green card...

Source:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/dovbear/5825415106459307815/?src=hsn
Guest post by JS:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2008/11/vote.html
Dovbear's blog:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/


The Essie referred to above is Esther, who believes that Obama is a pro-terrorist communist islamo-black-nationalist voodoo practitioner. Or so she has told us in several verbose and over-the-top comments and communications.
We think of her as the Madame Blavatsky of the blog world, purveying messages from the spirits of truth, justice, beauty, and shoes that are too tight.

IN THE BEGINNING - THE ARAB VERSION

When in March of 1948 the United States proposed suspending the partition of the Holy Land, and the creation of a trusteeship with an international peacekeeping force (specifically to include a sizeable Egyptian military contingent), the Arabs rejected this in favour of all-out war.
The results were disastrous for the Arabs, who since then have kept up the drumbeat of violence, and forced their "Palestinian" refugees into squalid camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere.


Even massive British assistance to the Arabs could not prevent the survival of Israel - the warplanes and other materiel given to Iraq, the training and arming of the Arab Legion in Jordan, the military aid to the Saudis, and tactical assistance and military intelligence given to the Arab forces, as well as the subsidizing of the Arab League (much a creation of the British in any case), did not assure the Arabs of victory.
Rather, despite all this, and despite their overwhelming numeric and strategic superiority, hubris and squabbling guaranteed that the defeat of the Arabs would seem that much more catastrophic.
Since then, the Arabs have maintained much the same posture that resulted in their trouncing sixty years ago, with substantially the same results in subsequent donnybrooks.


From 1948 onward the Israelis have defended themselves against Arab aggression, and the Arabs have concentrated on sinking any hope of an independent Palestine.

The Arabs still demand all of the Holy Land; since that is not possible, they energetically promote factionalism and sabotage each other.

We know what Arab unity meant in Lebanon - the Arabs fought each other by proxy, and that country has never recovered from the kind attention.

We are seeing it now in Iraq - the Saudis and Egyptians fund the Sunnis, the Iranians fund the Shia, the Turks bomb the Kurds, and all parties accept foreign funding to slaughter religious minorities.


Arab assistance to other Arabs is indeed "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre", in the words of Arab League Secretary-General Abd ar-Rahman Azzam.


Key engineers of this eventuality, the unwitting traitors to the Arab side, proved their value in 1948 by their incompetence and chicanery.

Let us briefly list a few of them in gratitude:
Amin al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, who wished for the extermination of Jews like his friend and hero Adolf Hitler;
Sayyid Muhammad as-Sadr, prime-minister of Iraq, who gratefully accepted British aid to that end;
King Abdallah of Jordan, who tried to expand his kingdom by driving the Jews into the sea;
Fawzi al Kawkji, Field Commander of the Arab forces, Syrian mercenary, and ex-Nazi, whose ineffective tactics and sheer incompetence failed to un-impress his employers.

And, let us not forget, all the rulers of the Arab world, who collectively conspired to divide themselves in unity against the Jews, succeeding only in the disenfranchisement of their own people and the despoilation of all dreams of the Arab umma - the violence they have, in sixty years, applied to their own societies, keeps the Arab world down and undeveloped more effectively than any foreign boot ever could.


As a lagniappe, let us also mention Mahatma Ghandi, who exemplifies the mentality that continues to inform the misguided rhetoric regarding this conflict.
To quote: "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French."

It is a remarkably ignorant statement. It betrays a complete lack of historical awareness, and that man's opportunistic concommity with anyone who opposed the British. One suspects that there may have been more than a few Nazi-sympathizers among his followers.

Oh wait. There were.

They certainly enjoyed themselves during the partition of Hindustan, as it gave them a chance to apply the methods of their idols to the pesky problem of refugee columns.
Very effective, gentlemen, bravo - your kind attention to the members of the other side during the "population exchanges" proved how well you worshipped.

As do likewise your modern descendants, the Muslim Jihadis and Hindu Nationalists.


The heartfelt sincerity of those who slaughtered refugees during partition in India matched that of the good Europeans who collaborated with the Nazis, and that of the Arabs who wished to drive the Jews into the sea.
It is a continuing miracle that the rape, pillage, and slaughter planned by the benevolent leaders of the Arab world did not happen.
The beginning of Israel was a blessing.


Without the Arabs, there might not have been such a blessing.


It was the Arabs who created the Haganah and the Irgun during their insurrection against the British before World War Two (1936 - 1939).
It was also the Arabs who by their intransigence and fanaticism created the IDF in 1948.
It is the Arabs who by their continued hate, irrationality, and denialism have ensured that Israel will continue to exist - because there is no other choice.

Gentlemen, you Arabs remain an inspiration (and a blessing).
We are grateful.

A WINGNUT AND A PRAYER

For the past several months I have, at times strenuously, tried to avoid talking about American politics on this blog. I have not always succeeded - and some readers have ceased visiting here because of that - but in the main I have not spewed my gall at the gang of republican thugs and deviants that have dragged both a fine party and a great country into the mud.

[Yes, I know that sounds partisan, and will offend those of my readers who despite their excellent taste in blogs still have loyalty to the grand old party, no matter how frightfully misguided that is. I'm sorry. Why don't you take back your party from the slack jawed yokel base of bumpkins that have hijacked it? PLEASE take back your party, we really do need a plurality of thoughts and ideas in this country - we just aren't getting anywhere with only ONE party run by sentient beings.]



Nevertheless, sometimes I will post something political. In this case, it is the stellar comment by Conservative Apikoris (CA) under a post on Dovbear's blog.

[Dovbear: http://dovbear.blogspot.com/
The post under which the comment appeard: Curtains for McCain.
Conservative Apikoris is a regular reader of Dovbear, and Dovbear should be among your regular reading.]


CA wrote:

"I never supported Senator Mc Cain, but there was period during the late '90;s and up to the middle of 2003 or so when I had a great deal of respect for him. Then he started frenching Bush in the obvious hope of geting the 2008 presidential nomination. His record in the Senate of vocal criticism of Bush's worst policies and total support for them in his votes made his final descent into wingnuttery not too much of a surprise for me.

I strongly recommend Tom Dickingson's article in Rolling Stone about the man:http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty


The best line is this:

"In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot."


After reading about Senator McCain's disastrous career in naval aviation, as a taxpayer, I'd like to bill him for the government property he wrecked. "

---------------------------------------

Please note that by posting this I do not intend to sway you. If you did not know for whom to vote before yesterday's debate, you are still a moron and an ignoramous today, and you should not vote by any means.
As it says in the odd book: "because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out."
Really, you should've made up your mind already, what's wrong with you?


I can cheerfully accept people who are wrong. People who are wishy-washy, or waffling idiots, excite my bile. I shall pray that they get distracted by blinky things on the way to the voting booth come November.

FINKELSTEIN, CHOMSKY, AND OTHER BLOODSUCKERS

One of my regular commenters takes exception to another commenter. Hilarity ensues.


Well, actually, not quite.

LanceThruster had commented underneath my posting proposing pie for Finkelstein. Here's what he wrote:
"Dr. Finkelstein is a truth-teller. Should someone want to attack him for that I should think humble pie would be appropriate. "

I assumed that anyone who called Finkelstein a truth-teller was a committed member of the dark side and ab initio not worth speaking with.

As I let him know:
"My dear mister Thruster, I shan't debate with you, as you are clearly too delusional to be swayed. And besides that, with the user name you have chosen, you paint yourself as a male chauvinist with a tiny penis and a massive set of issues.
You are an uber creep. Get medicated. "

Perhaps not entirely the politest response I've managed in conversation with someone who is willingly and knowingly wrong. My bad.


Then Grant Patel noticed LanceThruster's contribution. And added his own:
"The problem with herr Finkelstein is that his scholarship has been shown to be both suspect and sloppy, his conclusions are not supported by the material (and he cherry picks perhaps more blatantly than many other "scholars"), and his well-publicized tiffs with others (most notably Dershowitz) are self-serving publicity seeking stunts.

His association with others of his own ilk (particularly Chomsky) call his ideological basis into question. And his odd Oedipal exploitation of his mother indicate that, like many, he has issues with his past, and her past.

That said, I find the defense of so contentious a figure to be questionable. There are people, Jews even, who would gladly utilize a "Jewish" scholar (even one who loudly trumpets his 'Jewishness', and whose 'scholarship' is by others loudly trumpeted) for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel agendas.

And further, his willing association with those who would seek Israel's destruction, such as Hezbollah, the Iranian mullahs, and the various American far-left haters and conspirators, show him to be an immoral and unethical tool. A willing hater of his own people, who stands for nothing but getting back at his mother, and her relatives whose absence weighed so heavily on his child-hood.

Finkelstein needs therapy, Chomsky needs to shut the fu&& up, and Carter needs to be institutionalized. Tutu, Morris, and the European left all need to be locked up for supporting terrorists.

Paul Larrudee and Allison Weir need to be investigated for ties to and funding from hostile foreign interests."


Bravo, Grant, I could not have said it better myself.


Grant Patel then followed with another prize addition:
"And by the way, is LanceThruster the cover for some Paki bhainchoot? I suspect it is. I suspect, further, that LanceThruster is sympathetic to the Muslim cause. Perhaps you should look into what the Muslims and their Quislings have done to India. And, further back, to Persia.

I would particularly advise you to look into the history of the bollocky Muslims as regard to minorities and other religious creeds. Like the Christians in the Levant, and the Parsees in Iran.

Why is it that the Bahai find refuge in Israel, the Philistine Christians flee to liquor stores in California, and the Parsees are centered in India?

Could it be because Muslims, and their sympathizers, and their collaborators, are little more than intolerant murderous deviants with a creed pretty damn close to witchcraft and Gnostic word-worship?"

Lance finished with an invitation to mr. Thruster to 'congress off, feminine reproductive unit'.



[Please see this post: PIE FOR FINKELSTEIN.]



MUSLIM 'TOLERATION'

Grant Patel raises some interesting points.

The number of Christians in such countries as Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt has been falling precipitously for years as a result of persecution and government policies that favour Muslims. Virtually a low-level state sponsored Jihad - and it should be noted that the first and last listed of those countries are allegedly US allies.

The Bahai religion is virtually extinct in Iran, yet flourishes marvelously in Haifa, where the Bahai found succour from Islamic terror.

The Parsees fled Iran hundreds of years ago to get away from murderous Islamic tyranny.


I shan't even mention the Ottoman brutality that turned the Balkans into the most dysfunctional part of Europe, or the slave-raiding which Arabs engaged in for over a millennia. Which, by the way, continued under Saudi aegis until the sixties or seventies, albeit in a more southerly direction.

I shall, however, mention the Bada Ghalughara and the Chhota Ghalughara. In the first, the Muslim hordes slaughtered over thirty thousand Sikhs on February fifth, 1726.
In the second, the Muslims massacred over ten thousand on the banks of the Beas in 1746.

Both of these events should be considered inherited blots on the escutcheon of every Muslim, both of these actions make plain that Islamic rule is a curse upon a country, both of these events had no conceivable justification other than cruelty, baseness, and intolerance.
Both of those events are merely the two best examples of the bloodthirsty tyranny that prevailed in what was, at that time, the greatest of Muslim empires. And both of these events are merely blips on the radar if the total numbers of Sikhs killed by Muslims in the centuries since the rise of Sikkhism is taken into account.

Truly, the history of Muslims in the subcontinent rivals in its bestiality that of Muslims in the Middle-East. Nay, it might even surpass it - Pakistan as the Muslim portion of India has little to be proud of, and less validity as a state, than even Egypt or Jordan, or any of the blood-drenched failures of the Arab world.


I will not go as far as some of my Indian friends, who have expressed the sentiment that 'the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim'. Some of my best friends are Muslim.
But it would indeed have been better for the world if that horrid man had died before experiencing his hysterical visions and fits in the hills outside of Mecca, and never given his untrustworthy tribal kin an ideology that brought them out of the waste-lands. And there is almost nothing that compares to the depravity of the Ottoman, Persian, and Mughal empires.

SARAH PALIN'S RICH INNER LIFE - GUESTPOST BY SPIROS

You want a rich inner life? I give you the rich inner life of Ms. Sarah Palin, who visualizes the US rolling into Russia, George Patton style, if those Godless Ruskies don't stop picking on those po' Georgians (I guess that's what the famed Bridge to Nowhere is in aid of). I don't suppose that anybody has had the chance to brief Ms. Palin on the fact that the Georgia in question is not in fact the Georgia in which Ty Cobb was born, but the Georgia in which Josef Stalin was born; come to think of it, I'd be willing to trade our Georgia for Minsk-Pinsk, and maybe a case of vodka. Or some latkes.

------SPIROS