I fought the temptation to publish cat pictures, what with that being the super-cliche of blogging, but hey, there's always next time.

I'm not sure I should tell you this, but I went fairly light on most of my subjects this week. Over on my place, I have such categories as "Jew Cooties" and "Israel Derangement Syndrome," and I long ago declared my blog a "No Israel-Bashing Zone." (In a nutshell: There are enough places in the media and in the world where people bash the crap out of Israel in every possible way, and I am unwilling to provide a forum for Israel-haters on my dime.)

Now it's back to regular blogging for me, and spending my Tuesday afternoons and Sunday mornings teaching little Jews to be big Jews. So they can grow up and write for sites like Jewcy.

The post And That’s A Wrap appeared first on Jewcy.

Appealing to Palestinians to avoid civil war, Abbas said: "We are all one people regardless of differences of opinion. My top priority is to preserve national unity, because Palestinian infighting and blood are a red line that must not be crossed."

Defending his call to use weapons against Israel, he added: "We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation. It is forbidden to use these guns against Palestinians.

Funny how the AP and AFP only seem to publish the part about it being forbidden to spill Palestinian blood.

They also seem to miss the part where Abbas talks about not surrending a single grain of Jerusalem's land, and insist on the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel.

"Today more than any other day, we must hold fast to our Palestinian principles, and we will not accept a state with temporary borders," said Abbas, adding, "We will not give up one grain of [land] in Jerusalem."

Let me remind you again that 42 years ago, it was 1965, two years before the Six-Day War. There were no "Occupied Territories." There was only Israel. "Fatah" means "conquest" in Arabic, something else the media rarely points out.

Abbas is no moderate. The rifles that the U.S. is sending him will be trained on Israelis, not Hamas. But it makes a good cover for the mainstream media, and politicians who don't want to admit that the Palestinian leadership has no one that truly wants to make peace with Israel.

The post What The Mainstream Media Leaves Out appeared first on Jewcy.

"Bubbe" Maryasha Garelik, who lived through the entire 20th century, surviving the pogroms of czarist Russia, Soviet anti-Semitism and Nazi terror and then dispensing her wisdom to thousands of Lubavitch Jews, has died. She was 106.

She died Wednesday night in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood and was buried Thursday at the Old Montefiore Cemetery near the grave of the ultra Orthodox sect's revered "rebbe," Rabbi Menachem Schneerson.

I'm waiting for the Jewish newspaper obituaries. The AP simply has this at the end of the article (emphasis added):

Some of Garelik's more than 500 descendants are Lubavitch emissaries in Australia, China, England, France, Panama, Poland and South Africa.

I'd really like to see that broken down by grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. But, wow. Just–wow. My grandmother's descendants haven't hit triple digits yet, and aren't likely to for a long, long time.

The post Brooklyn’s 106-Year-Old Bubbe Dies appeared first on Jewcy.

Like video eyeglasses that promise a wide-screen TV experience in front of your nose, while still enabling you to see.

Or a lie detector program you can download to see if your Skype buddies are telling the truth.

Or the "Doorganizer," a device that hangs on your doorknob and holds your keys, mail, wallet, or anything else you seem to forget on your way out the door to work in the morning.

It's a nice counterbalance to the mainstream media, which tends to emphasize everything negative about Israel.

The post 21st Century Israel appeared first on Jewcy.

Makes you wonder what they're smoking in Oregon these days. Or at least, who's writing their speeches.

The post Klingons In The White House appeared first on Jewcy.

In recent Hamas-Fatah clashes, children have been deliberately killed. Last month, the three small children of Fatah General Intelligence officer Baha Balusha were murdered while traveling to school in their father's car. Last week, Hamas attacked the home of a senior official in Fatah's Preventive Security Service, Mohammed Gharib, in Jabalya. The officer begged the assailants to spare him and his young daughters; however, they killed him and four of his bodyguards, and seriously wounded his daughters. A few months ago, the earth shook when Palestinian civilians were killed by the IDF's misguided artillery fire on Beit Hanun. Tempers ran high in the United Nations, and leftist organizations in Israel demanded that an international commission of inquiry be established and that the GOC Southern Command be dismissed. When Palestinians kill Palestinian children – and not by accident – no criticism is heard.

That's not even half the issue. A number of Palestinian civilians were killed by Hamas. The media buried the deaths in the middle of stories, and downplayed the atrocities.

You may recall that Hamas got civilians to form a human barrier around a terrorist's house the IDF was going to destroy. The IDF did not destroy the house, since Israel does not deliberately target civilians.

Hamas does.

G., a member of Gharib's family, joined one of the processions of unarmed civilians that was organized in an attempt to create a human barrier between the Hamas gunmen and the house. When the gunmen opened fire at the marchers, wounding dozens, he managed to escape into the surrounded building. "I went in and went upstairs, where everyone was. There were about 50 people there, in two rooms. The firing continued, and after each explosion another part of the wall or the ceiling fell," G. related.

This is the reason I started a category on my blog titled "Israeli Double Standard Time." There is one standard for Israel, and another standard for everyone else.

The post Israeli Double Standard Time appeared first on Jewcy.

A haredi activist arrested for allegedly pummeling opponents during a violent turf war demanded an exemption this week from wearing a house-arrest monitor on Shabbat.

But a Jerusalem Magistrate's Court judge ruled that if the man does not wear the ankle bracelet monitor at all times, he must go to jail. As a result, Avraham Zarbiv, 24, who first made a name for himself in haredi circles by spearheading an angry and sometimes violent offensive against attempts to enlist yeshiva students in the IDF, was removed this week from house arrest and imprisoned because of his punctilious observance of the Jewish day of rest.

This man is definitely no angel. And yet, the Haredi are threatening riots if he goes to jail this weekend. This would be on top of the riot they threw when a security company arrived after he took the bracelet off.

Various rabbis have given their opinion on the legality of wearing a house arrest bracelet on Shabbat.

Rabbi Haim Kanyevsky, one of the most respected in the Lithuanian community, ruled by proxy that use of the monitoring system on Shabbat was prohibited.

Metzger, quoting Kanyevsky, Rabbi Moshe Yehuda Leib Landau, and Rabbi Tuvia Weiss, head of the Edah Haredit's Rabbinic Court, joined the opposition against the monitoring system. However, none of the rabbis explained why the Zomet Institute's halachic opinion was wrong.

In contrast, Zomet's Rosen explained why he permitted the use of the bracelet. "In the prisoner's house there is an electronic receiver that constantly receives broadcasts from the ankle bracelet," explained Rosen.

"The prisoner's movements do not activate anything. As long as the prisoner does not leave the perimeters of the house he remains within broadcast range of the electronic receiver and no alarm is activated. There is no difference between the ankle bracelet and any conventional battery-powered wrist watch."

I am far from an expert on Halacha, but it seems to me that in this respect, the Haredi don't have a leg to stand on. So to speak.

The post Haredi Chooses Jail Over House Arrest appeared first on Jewcy.

500 Publishing Companies Set to Take Part in Riyadh Book Fair

And all 500 will have their own version of Mein Kampf

Number of Kids Smuggled From Yemen Falls

This is what comes under the heading of good news in Saudi Arabia. Yay, we're smuggling fewer Yemeni slaves!

Okay, the Arab News is an easy target. Let's go for some more local news sources.

Hamas reiterates non-recognition of Israel

But the Guardian will take another month to accept this, while the BBC editors and reporters are crying into their beers.

Barbaro Is `Comfortable' Following Surgery on Hoof, Doctors Say

Yes, that is a real headline. No, I did not make it up. Yes, that is a story about a horse. Yes, really. YES. REALLY.

84% of Israelis think gov't is corrupt

Huh. 84%. I think that's even more than the number of Americans who think our government is corrupt. I'm thinking Israel needs a few more checks and balances on its government agencies. Then again, name a single Israeli politician who got caught with $90,000 in cash in his office freezer.

The post Snarks appeared first on Jewcy.

The Central Intelligence Agency has been authorised to take covert action against Hizbollah as part of a secret plan by President George W. Bush to help the Lebanese government prevent the spread of Iranian influence. Senators and congressmen have been briefed on the classified "non-lethal presidential finding" that allows the CIA to provide financial and logistical support to the prime minister, Fouad Siniora.

The finding was signed by Mr Bush before Christmas after discussions between his aides and Saudi Arabian officials. Details of its existence, known only to a small circle of White House officials, intelligence officials and members of Congress, have been passed to The Daily Telegraph.

It authorises the CIA and other US intelligence agencies to fund anti-Hizbollah groups in Lebanon and pay for activists who support the Siniora government. The secrecy of the finding means that US involvement in the activities is officially deniable.

Yeah, well, it's not so secret any more, is it, Mr. Telegraph Editor?

If this is true, it comes at a good time, because a new poll shows that 40% of Israelis don't think the IDF has the stuff to take on Hezbullah.  I can't find that poll anywhere else but at Naharnet, which is a Lebanese source, and via AFP, which is the vehemently anti-Israel French news service, so take it with a grain of salt. Or let me know if you can find another news source for those poll figures.

The post The CIA vs. Hezbullah appeared first on Jewcy.

Scientist James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a Nobel Prize winner, says anti-Semitism is justified, in a recent magazine interview.

Watson, 78, who lives in Cold Harbor, N.Y., tells Esquire magazine in its January edition that anti-Semitism, in some circumstances, is justified.

In an interview profile for the magazine Watson asks rhetorically, "Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark?" He answered: "Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you can't be criticized, that's very dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society."

I feel like making an anti-Watson remark, involving swear words. But wait: There's more.

Apparently a firm believer in eugenics, Watson also feels "Ashkenazi Jews" – Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities in the area of Germany – have higher intelligence than other people.

"I've wondered why people aren't more intelligent," Watson says. "Why isn't everyone as intelligent as Ashkenazi Jews? And it may be that societies work best when there's a mixture of ability – the bright people would never be an army."

So he's an anti-Semite, a bigot, and a believer in "master race" bullshit. Plus, I wasted hours of my life in high school bio class reading his Double Helix book.

I always liked Crick better, anyway.

The post Double Helix Double Talk appeared first on Jewcy.