Rule 5: Our defenders

May they prosper and be happy:

Remembering the obvious is important

We need to remind ourselves of the downright obvious every so often. Thus Ruth Lieberman, in this Times of Israel article, reminds us of the visual contrast between Israel and Jordan, as seen from 30,000 feet, and what that contrast means.

There, as she says, is the Negev blooming, and there, while returning from Amman, is Jordan failing to bloom. Here (in Israel) is technology employed to utilise every drop of water available, every brain cell willing to devote itself to economic and scientific advancement; there (in Jordan) is a king who "has asked his cabinet to come up with a plan to revive Jordan’s failing economy and promote growth. Compared with Israel’s huge defense budget, Jordan does not bear that burden. And yet, the Hashemite kingdom has not found a way to channel its resources for its own prosperity."


No, rather they choose to hate and blame those they hate for their own failures (even if the Hashemite kingdom does have a peace treaty with Israel and that argument may not apply, totally, to Jordan as to others), rather than work out how to use what resources, human and physical, they do have.

Read the whole of the article and see how much you think her argument holds up.

By Brian Goldfarb.

Justice can be done!

It's nice to know that, every so often, justice is done - or so we can hope. As this article from The Alegemeiner shows. It's opening words are balm for the soul of the virtuous (and Zionists and anti-Islamists everywhere: "After a decade-long extradition battle, Abu Hamza, the head preacher of North London’s Finsbury Park Mosque, will begin his trial in the U.S. on April 14 on charges of supporting global terror."

According to the article, "U.S. federal prosecutors will charge the fiery Islamist preacher, who has one eye and a hook for a right hand, with 11 counts of criminal terrorism going back to 1998 and occurring in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia." This is after we Brits have spent years and millions of pounds trying to get him convicted and/or out of the UK. As we have with Al-Qwadari, now in Jordan.

Their major defence was always on the grounds of their human rights: they wouldn't get a fair trial and/or the evidence against them would be based on the torture of witnesses. I'm, just about, prepared to grant that evidence gained via torture might, possibly, be a tad tainted and unreliable. But their human rights? What about our human rights? Like the right not to be blown up or otherwise harmed by acts of terrorism?

There's more. Let's hope the US justice system rolls remorselessly over him, leaving only bits to be imprisoned for a very long time.

By Brian Goldfarb.

Add to your pocket dictionary: “emotional” is a new synonym for "putz"

At least for Turkey. So says the head of the Turkey’s Constitutional Court. And he knows better.

A soldier's book: The Bloody Thirteenth by Dick Stanley

Edward P. and Mary Lenora Stanley

Rev Edward P. Stanley, the great grandfather of Dick Stanley**, pictured with his wife above, contributed in at least three ways to the book in question. First of all, by being a soldier of the 13th Mississippi Volunteer Infantry Regiment for three bloody years, before a cannonball took a part of his leg (and, possibly, saved his life to marry and father children, thus begetting the author of the book - the second way). And the third way Edward P. Stanley contributed to the book is by being a private. It is only my guess, but this is probably what made Dick Stanley to eschew the usual pitfall of many historians: writing about wars from a colonel level and beyond, making the war look more like a set of an eagle-view battle formations, fitting a standard page in a book. (That and, of course, the fact that Dick Stanley himself was an infantry officer, going with Vietnamese militia units through the treacherous paths of Vietnam.)

The Bloody Thirteenth is mostly a book about soldiers*: southern farmers most of them, who volunteered to fight for a cause we are rejecting today, out of faith we do not share (nor does Dick Stanley, I haste to add). But, putting the matters of politics and faith aside, a reader will definitely admire the selflessness, the courage that sometimes bordered craziness, the iron will of soldiers who went through the harshest and the cruelest conditions one could imagine - and fought till the bitter end.

Anyone with even a smidgen of military experience will wonder at the picture of the trials and tribulations that the regiment went through, feeling a deep respect to the soldiers. To see through the routine and matter of fact reports and personal letters how a big (more than twelve hundred enlisted men) unit goes from an inexperienced (albeit willing) gang of rookies to a diamond-hard fighting team - to see this is to wonder and to admire.

Private Newton Nash

And, since personal letters were mentioned, one can't pass over the name of the man pictured above, whose letters provide more color to the story of the regiment than any discussion of strategy and tactics employed by the generals. His constant worry about the problems his wife Mollie (pictured below) experienced during his absence, while he himself shares the ultimate hardships with the regiment, is worthy of admiration.

Mollie

I could go on more about the book, its undeniable impact and its fine points, but suffice to say that the only beef I might have with it is the lack of the Rev Edward P. Stanley's picture on its cover. In my opinion, he deserves it no less than the regiment's first commander, general Barksdale, whose image appears first in the book.

Once again, it is a book about soldiers, and it will definitely help non-soldiers to understand the former. For a purely symbolic fee, I have to add.

***

(*) It is not that the author doesn't mention and discuss the colonels and the generals in the book, but he does so in quite a critical way, frequently using non-complimentary opinions about the former that come from the soldiers and other officers.

(**) More about Dick Stanley, quoted from his main blog:

Retired Texas newspaperman (politics, crime, science, medicine, meteorology), married father of a soon-to-be 14-year-old boy, antique rose gardener, adult student of the violin, fiddle dance-band sideman, independent publisher, and Vietnam combat veteran (MACV, I Corps, 1969).
I’ve written three books of fiction that may interest you. Here, here, and here, and a new non-fiction one here. More about all of them here. Check them out!

More about the 13th Mississippi Volunteer Infantry Regiment in Dick's dedicated blog
13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment. But go there only after you you've read the book!

Rule 5: a touch of mystery is always good

I looked at this picture, then I looked again and again:

It comes from a site that put it under a headline: Perfectly Timed Photos.

I agree re "perfection", but what is that about timing? Beats me...

What say?

Did Adolf Hitler marry a Jewish woman? Cause Eva Braun is associated with Ashkenazi Jews...

I hope they get Independent in that special department in Hell. Anyways, reading Independent in hell is... nah, that's for another post.

The legendary chupacabra of Ratcliffe, Texas

An allegedly mythical creature, elusive for so many years, chupacabra was finally caught and exposed to the media, in a small town of Ratcliffe, Texas. Here it is, alive and in all its glory:

Here is the story of the capture, told by Jackie Stock, the spouse of chupacabra hunter:

"He saw this strange animal sitting up here eating corn," said Stock. “He called me to come and look, and I said, ‘Bubba that looks like a baby chupacabra.’”

Told what to do in no uncertain terms, Bubba has done it. And here is Jackie Stock, a remarkable woman who wasn't afraid to issue the right order at the right time:



Image of the obedient Bubba, the catcher of the chupacabra, doesn't appear in the article, obviously being superfluous to its purposes. As for the fate of the creature:

Mike Cox, spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said, "The land owner left a message on the warden's voice mail this morning that the animal had been euthanized."

Oh well, the meeting of minds was too short to bear fruit...

P.S. Due to time constrains and the pressure to go public, and error occurred in this article: the picture of Ms Stock was switched with the recording of the legendary chupacabra. I hope that a discerning reader noticed this and that any possible mental anguish was avoided.

The Council Has Spoken!

Council Winners

• *First place with 4 1/3 votes!The Noisy Room – Leland Yee – Gun Runner, Terrorist Enabler, Progressive Communist


• Second place with 3 1/3 votes – Joshuapundit-Sharia Rears Its Head In Pennsylvania


• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Simply Jews – Peter Beinart on Russian and American neocons: an imaginary symmetry


• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes –VA Right! - Eric Cantor Planning to Bankrupt Virginia’s Republican Party to Regain Control


• Fourth place with 1 vote –Nice Deb – The Horrendous Criminal Enterprise Known As The Democrat Party


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Bookworm Room – The view from the trenches puts the lie to the media's gloating about 7 million Obamacare new enrollments


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – Cracked.com's '5 Disastrous Attempts at Political Commentary in Comicbooks'


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Right Planet – IRS Scandal: Not a ‘Smidgen of Corruption,’ Huh?


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Razor – Neocons Revile Obama not Putin


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Rhymes With Right – Is Pratt Resignation/Withdrawal Actually About The Latest Criminal Complaint?


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Independent Sentinel – Police State Law Enforcement Comes to Long Island


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Ask Marion – Harry Reid… in a Class by Himself When It Comes to Dirty Laundry

Non-Council Winners

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The Dissing of the President mystery

Hard hitting Bret Stephens has written a piece The Dissing of the President. By itself, the article is not mysterious at all: Stephens lists various (too many, way too many) cases where the world leaders of all kinds demonstrate their disrespect of Obama and/or his administration.

The mysterious part for me was related to the lede: "The world is treating Obama like another failed American leader." The devious Mr Stevens mad me go through the whole article before I stumbled on the identification of that "another failed leader". Here it comes:

All this in just the past four months. And all so reminiscent of the contempt the world showed for Jimmy Carter in the waning days of his failed presidency. The trouble for us is that the current presidency has more than 1,000 days to go.

OK, now it is clear. Good.

P.S. My browser played up, apparently, since I didn't see the picture placed by the author (or the editor) somewhere in the middle of the article. It shows the "reference POTUS" in the midst of one of the most infamous moments of his career.

Bar Refaeli’s banned racy muppet ad

They say it was banned in Israel, so here it is, as a compensation, for the few Israeli readers of this blog:

Watcher’s Council Nominations – April Fool’s Edition

Council Submissions

• Liberty’s Spirit – OK, Since Everyone Else is Writing About Gwyneth, So Will I (No, it’s not mean)
• Simply Jews – Peter Beinart on Russian and American neocons: an imaginary symmetry
• The Noisy Room – Leland Yee – Gun Runner, Terrorist Enabler, Progressive Communist
• Joshuapundit-Sharia Rears Its Head In Pennsylvania
• Ask Marion – Harry Reid… in a Class by Himself When It Comes to Dirty Laundry
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Jihad Civil War
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Cracked.com’s ’5 Disastrous Attempts at Political Commentary in Comicbooks’
• Rhymes With Right – Is Pratt Resignation/Withdrawal Actually About The Latest Criminal Complaint?
• Bookworm Room – The view from the trenches puts the lie to the media’s gloating about 7 million Obamacare new enrollments
• The Glittering Eye -Your Language Lesson for the Day
• The Independent Sentinel – Police State Law Enforcement Comes to Long Island
• The Razor – Neocons Revile Obama not Putin
• Nice Deb – The Horrendous Criminal Enterprise Known As The Democrat Party
• The Right Planet – IRS Scandal: Not a ‘Smidgen of Corruption,’ Huh?
• VA Right! - Eric Cantor Planning to Bankrupt Virginia’s Republican Party to Regain Control

Honorable Mentions

• Right Reason – Trevor Loudon: “Our allies are freaking out!”
• Blazing Cat Fur – Wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may never be found
• The Mellow Jihadi – Rush order for 432 vestal virgins
• The Pirate’s Cove – How Doomy Is The “New” IPCC Hotcoldwetdry Report?

Non-Council Submissions

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Selfies: I couldn't say it better

Are the Israelis Planning Another 9-11 Using the Missing Flight 370 Boeing 777?

Our Signals department never sleeps. Well, at least not when on duty, which excludes Saturdays, some important dates* and holidays. And the rewards of vigilance are rich, such as the case that came recently to our attention. Some people are getting wise... but watch this first:



So we have a plane looking just like the one that has been already disappeared by Mossad. Then we have George Soros, Tel Aviv airport (read Mossad again), Zionists - an explosive mix, no pun intended. Now to the details, generously provided by another truth seeker. I wouldn't exhaust your attention by extensive quotes, aside of mentioning that Rupert Murdoch, an "Israeli agent and Zionist propagandist" was nailed by our truth seeker here together with Soros. Which makes the whole even more believable and more sinister (of course). And now to the conclusion, reached by the seeker, which reveals almost all of the diabolical plan:

The disappearance of the Malaysian Boeing 777 looks like something from a Batman movie plot - or a bad Israeli screenplay by Arnon Milchan and his business partner Rupert Murdoch. The missing plane is bound to turn up sooner or later. The hijackers - or Israeli computer hackers - didn’t pull a fast turn to the west and make professional moves with the plane in order to simply drop it in the Indian Ocean. Or maybe they did. In any case, all of the events going on with the missing Boeing and the Ukrainian crisis look like the making of a perfect storm - or perhaps another false-flag terror spectacle like 9-11.

I said almost. Because, being devilishly clever, the truth seeker still doesn't have all our means and ways at his/her disposal. He/she doesn't know about the third identical plane, purchased by a straw company in Guinea (where a concocted by Mossad eggheads outbreak of Ebola will effectively prevent anyone from looking too close).

The first plane, the one from the flight MH370, was spirited away as an exercise and proof of concept. The second, the one in Tel Aviv, is being stuffed to the gills by explosives and prepared for a remote controlled action. And the third one, mentioned above, is going to be broken down, with easily identifiable parts smuggled into Iran and hidden in private residences of leading Ayatollahs and other public figures of Iranian regime, to provide irrefutable evidence.

Of course, you would like to know the target, wouldn't you. OK, for once I am allowed to tell it all, since no one is able to stop the operation anyway. You see, it started with a bet between the Elders' Chief of Operations and the Chief Scientist, when the latter bragged that the newly created explosive, judiciously placed in a properly sized container, will easily obliterate the famous Kaaba. COO says no way, and thus a bet was born... Since Iranians will be blamed anyway by their rivals the Saudis, once the evidence is found, we can talk about it openly now.

Now that you know the whole, I still have to compliment the truth seeker for some important and even startling insights into the life and deeds of the Elders. How, for crying out loud, has the man (woman?) grokked the Tel Aviv address he/she placed on that map at the bottom of the post?

If you click on the "View on Google Maps" and then ask for the street view on the new screen, you will be facing this picture:

The fourth floor, the one with the reflective windows right above the innocent-looking "Domino's"... nah, it is worth more than my life to go into further details... unbelievable what a dedicated truth seeker guy/gal, moronic and frothing at the mouth as the case might be, could disclose accidentally.

But you really don't wish to know too much, I can assure you. So just relax and wait for further developments.


(*) Not in the sense of a calendar date, but of a date like in "dating".

Update: Them truth seekers never rest. And by now they have succeeded to add another chief co-conspirator to Soros and Murdoch: no other than a scion of the topmost conspiracy generator family, one Jacob Rothschild:

One more question mark is added to the muddled equation is a report that four members of a patent semiconductor were in the jet, leaving the fifth co-owner of the patent the sole owner now. And that person happens to be billionaire Jacob Rothschild, an alleged Illuminati member, sparking more conspiracy theories about the aircraft's disappearance.

But wait, this is not all:

Among the other "intriguing factors" of Freescale are that its shareholders include the Carlyle Group of private equity investors with past advisers that include former U.S. President George Bush Sr and ex-British Prime Minister John Major. Here's another one, Carlyle's clients include the Saudi Binladin Group, a construction company owned by the family of Osama bin Laden.

Oy vey. It is all out now, dangling in the sunlight... lost... kaput...

Forum: If You Were President Obama, How Would You Handle The Situation In Ukraine?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question: If You Were President Obama, How Would You Handle The Situation In Ukraine?

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