The Gospel according to Sand

The long, slightly critical, but chiefly admiring article about the new book by the learned professor of French cinema Shlomo Sand, is behind the Haaretz $ wall. Still, I have read it, and couldn't fail to detect how self-conscious and defensive is this odious character - from the first paragraph:

Professor Shlomo Sand opens his new book, "How and When I Stopped Being Jewish," with a warning. “Many readers will see the main point presented in this book as illegitimate and even infuriating. Many of the secular people among them who insist on defining themselves as Jews will reject it out of hand. Others will see me as a vile, self-hating traitor.”

From one book to another Mr Sand is trying to do his best to be as infuriating as humanly possible, for reasons only too obvious to any publisher worth his salt.

Short-lived sensations, quickly and easily debunked as his previous two books were, they have reached the marketing goals, especially in Europe, one has to admit. Will the audience pine for that new one? I don't know. As this obvious PR shot shows, professor Sand is ready to go to any lengths to make this book a success:

I will never tire to point out that when people delve into domains not theirs, some very strange and laughable results are practically expected. Even this, mostly fawning article about the Tel Aviv University's celeb, couldn't fail to produce a pearl that displays Sand's ignorance. In a passage dealing with what seems to him "inherent contradictions" in definition of a Jew, Sand says:

You don’t have to cover your head — most of Israel’s leaders and army generals don’t cover theirs.

I am a secular Jew (like Sand?), but the fairly basic fact about kippah (yarmulke) not being a mandatory head cover, hasn't escaped my attention. You may call it nitpicking, but this is "professor" Shlomo Sand in a nutshell - a past master of PR, noisy headlines and scant knowledge.

So, back to the quote from the article that this post has started with. Do I consider Mr Sand's books illegitimate or infuriating? Nope, just short-lived scoops by an ignoramus that will be forgotten eventually.

Do I see Mr Sand as a vile, self-hating traitor? Nope, just as a mildly pathetic publicity-hungry clown.

Too bad... but mainly for Tel Aviv university. It could do much, much better.

Numbers - crunching and interpreting

Sturmbannführer Miroshnichenko

Igor Miroshnichenko is a former journalist. Today he is a senior member of "Svoboda",  (previous name "Socialist Nationalist Party of Ukraine") a ranking member of Parliament representing united opposition.    He also chairs the Ukrainian Committee for Freedom of Speech in Verhovnaya Rada (Parliament).

If you have been following the spread of neo-Nazism in Eastern Europe, then Mr Miroshnichenko's Facebook page is well worth a visit. Here he is celebrating the anniversary of formation of the Ukrainian SS division. Apparently, they are "heros":



Here Mr Miroshnichenko compares children-prisoners from Auschwitz with underfed war-time children from a Russian village: .


The not-so sublime message is that Nazi concentration camps weren't so bad.  Somehow Mr Miroshnichenko forgets to mention that the liberation of Auschwitz took place in January. Thick winter coats, provided by the liberating army, make children look sufficiently well-nourished for Mr Miroshnichenko's purposes. Photos without coats are widely available, but apparently they don't suit  the purpose of Holocaust denial:,

The youth division of Mr Miroshnichenko's party claims that Jews are disproportionately represented in the Ukrainian Government:
 

Naturally, the claim is false. It's borrowed from an openly neo-Nazi source, if one can possibly be more open than Svoboda. Last but not least... This is how a popular Ukrainian journalist, named Taras Chernoivan portrays Jews:

Nobody can accuse these people of having too much imagination.

Stop demonizing Islam, Muslims and Palestinians. Please?

There is a site named Loonwatch.com, dedicated to debunking all kinds of slander, libel and falsehoods aimed at Muslim world. I have stumbled on this article while looking for something else and had to read it 3 (three) times to believe my eyes. I have taken a snapshot of the part that matters to keep it for posterity, just in case the author(s) realizes own phenomenal stupidity. So here it is, click on the snapshot to embiggen and read slowly.



(Hint: it's in the last paragraph)

Eva Longoria wardrobe malfunction uncensored

is really a boring subject, so you get to watch another bird here:

In fact, you got two birds: a totally naked and uncensored female of the sand partridge species (on the left) watching her out of focus (ain't they always that way?) hubby.

North Korea fires a projectile into the sea

That's what they say.

North Korea fired a projectile into waters off its eastern coast Sunday, a day after launching three short-range missiles in the same area, officials said.

Translated from the Norks' sign language, it probably means that the situation is defused and the world can rest for a few months now.

Still, one has to wonder: what will be a normal country's equivalent of firing three missiles and one "projectile" into the sea for no discernible purpose?

I guess something like "Prime Minister of ... was photographed urinating from the balcony of his residence" will do. Well, any other ideas will be gratefully accepted.

To scientists at Harvad university

Dear Sir/Madam,

I acknowledge hereby the receipt of your e-mail with the following subject (click to open fully):



Please be aware that your insinuations about my appearance ("ugly guy") will be addressed by a libel lawsuit for a considerable amount - as soon as my legal representatives establish the location of Harvad university.

Simply put: we'll show you who is ugly.

Your humble servant.

Is the Venezuelan revolution going down the crapper?

Amen to that.

Oh, and anyhow it's the NorteAmericanos whodunit.

And he considers it a compliment!

I mean this:

The man obviously is ignorant of the ancient joke about the walking eagle* .

Details.

(*) In this case the joke was applied to Blair, but it is so old that no politician of any standing escaped it.

Grizzly bear ate his GoPro camera

Call me a coward, but I prefer to watch the bear's dentistry from the comfort of my chair.

I've also looked up that GoPro widget. Oh well... as far as I am concerned, that grizzly can have it.

Hunting pressure cookers or how to deal with a SNAFU

In the aftermath of many tragedies, clowns play an important role, at least for outside observers (I doubt that the families of dead and wounded of the Boston bombing will be ever able to see anything funny in the situation).

To start with, the newly hatched obsession with the pressure cookers:

A Saudi student living in Michigan was questioned in his home by FBI agents after neighbours saw him carrying a pressure cooker and called the police. Talal al Rouki had been cooking a traditional Saudi Arabian rice dish called kabsah and was carrying it to a friend's house....While armed agents surrounded his apartment block, other agents, asked a 'nervous' Mr al Rouki if they could come in to question him.

I bet the guy felt like a pressure cooker inside (in a sense), seeing all these black-clad horribly armed people surrounding his place. But the obsession for Saudis with pressure cookers didn't stop there:

A Saudi man arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after federal agents said he lied about why he was traveling with a pressure cooker is due in court.

Following this line of logic, some other categories of people should be at least put under tight observation (if not outright arrested):

• Plumbers of Saudi extraction: they deal with pipes, and pipes, you know...
• Pharmacists of same origins: knowing chemistry is practically a dead giveaway for a bomb-maker
• Saudi chefs that work in Chinese restaurants - lots of rice is being cooked there and, while the population of Saudi chefs in Chinese restaurants must be small, it will only make the observation easier

Etc. By now you can follow the general outline by yourself, and so can FBI and DHL... sorry, DHS.

While some officials are busy pursuing pressure cookers, other, higher officials are busy stonewalling and assigning the blame all over the place. The peak of that activity was reached when the accusing finger was pointed at the Russians:

Russia withheld a crucial piece of information from the U.S. before the Boston bombings, U.S. officials say, bolstering a concern that distrust between the two governments erased an opportunity to avert the disaster.

Quite illogically, the next sentence says that Russians issued a warning regarding the Tsarnaev character:

In 2011, Russia sent an alert to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about alleged bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, prompted in part by text messages between his mother and a Russian relative. The texts suggested Mr. Tsarnaev was interested in joining militant groups that Russia blames for attacks in the Caucasus region, according to U.S. officials briefed on the investigations.

The rest of this somewhat confused and in places self-contradictory article doesn't add clarity, that for sure. But we all know that finger-pointing is the next best thing to stonewalling. And that so called "security officials" all over the world must have been trained in the same stonewalling academy...

But of course, the chase after the suspects has produced a few high points in this clusterfuck, and additional details keep coming:

Police fired nearly 300 rounds of ammunition within five to 10 minutes as they confronted the suspects -- 100 more than initially reported. And that included one round that nearly killed Massachusetts Transit Police Officer Richard Donohue. (Others bullets struck the Tsarnaev brothers, seriously injuring Dzhokhar and contributing to the death of Tamerlan.)

Yeah... I only wonder about that miracle where no more innocents were killed or injured, especially after seeing this picture (made during the final "stand-off"):

I am not an expert in uniforms, but it looks like only wives and mothers-in-law didn't take part in this hunt... all other armed branches are present, apparently.

And to my American friends: don't take it personally, SNAFUs are happening everywhere. But the current proliferation of  security outfits with overlapping and vaguely defined responsibilities is practically guaranteeing that more of that will occur in the future.

Too bad.

Galtung's Law

The post below is cross-posted from a blog Nick Nipclose, a new and promising venture. Enjoy.

I stopped using the 'godwin's law' neologism after Godwin gave us an example of Poe's law by comparing Gitmo to Auschwitz. Obviously a statement so anti-Semitic and idiotic discredits Godwin but that and a recent outburst by psuedo-intellectual Johan Galtung gave me a name for a very annoying phenomena that is useful only as example of the corruption of discourse. Galtung has a habit of comparing whatever he doesn't like to the third reich or "fascism", usually western democracies.

Galtung's other views include praise for Mao's China which exceeded fascism's death toll and support for the Soviet union. Galtung revealed his anti-Semitism by claiming that Mossad was involved in Breivik's massacre, telling people to read the protocols of the elders of zions forgery and claiming that nazi anti-Semitism was justified by resentment of high position enjoyed by German Jews. Galtung is only useful as an example of how public intellectuals and academic celebrities are in reality some of the most witless dullards ever to pollute the human gene pool. The fact that a man can become a celebrity by making predictions less accurate than psychic friends hotline answers and feeble ratzi comparisons that sound like the sort of insults made by a fifth grader at a hated gym teacher is a stupefying example of how discourse has become intellectually stunted and worthless.

In the dishonor  of both I coined Galtung's law which is the "likelihood that people who make hyperbolic nazi or fascist comaprisons will have anti-Semitic, extremist or views similar to the NDSAP." Since nazism is synonymous with evil it has become a very potent political weapon, compare a state to the reich and it becomes irredeemably evil: a monstrosity that must be destroyed. For anti-Israel activists on either side of the political chasm it has become their favorite tool.

According to CIF watch "attempts in Europe to portray Israel as the modern incarnation of Nazi Germany were once the preserve of the extremists. Islamists, fascists and communists — each acting for reasons of their own — have employed the technique to portray the Jewish state as the epitome of political evil with which no compromise can be made...Indeed, narratives which characterize the Jewish state as morally equivalent to Nazi Germany have been codified as anti-Semitic by both the European Union and the U.S. State Department."

Examples aren't hard to find:

Noam Chomsky loves to compare western democracies that the axis powers dedicated themselves to destroying to their third reich. The Faurisson affair makes it an example of Gaultung's law as Chomsky signed a statement endorsing Faurisson's 'findings.' He appeared on Iranian state media to offer support to a regime more abhorrent than fascist Spain and compared the west to nazi Germany on an outlet that promotes neo-nazis and holocaust denial.

Julian Assange revealed his anti-Semitism by comparing gitmo to Auschwitz. Assange employs a neo-nazi named Israel Shamir whom he has defended. When the captive people of Belarus rose up against Europe's last dictator Julian and Shamir aided the regime's suppression by giving the state stolen documents to allow a dictator who praises Hitler to kill, rape and torture democrats.

John Pilger made a rambling attack on Argo which had no substance, he argued that the film is propaganda without any supporting evidence Pilger compared the movie to nazi propaganda: a silly argument to make in defense of a state that denies the Shoah. Its an example of Galtung's law because Pilger praised a neo-nazi named Gilad Atzmon and John's anti-Semitism is well documented.

The Lew Rockwell site is an odious far-right odious hate site that denounced civil rights as an evil socialist plot. (Its decades after King's murder yet white supremacists cannot invent new scripts.) LW compared David Frum to Goebbels, an example of the anti-Semitic tactic of weaponizing the Holocaust to use against Jews. Lew Rockwell published material in praise of David Duke who was described as a victim of "a massive campaign of hysteria, of fear and hate."

Glenn Greenwald revisited - still a douchebag

Extremist responses to anti-US atrocities fall into two categories: denial which spawns troofer movements or justification with dismissal. Glenn Greenwald’s latest article is an example of the second category, it’s his automatic response to Islamist terrorism.  When the Oslo slaughter was believed to have been caused by salafis he justified slaughter by writing that Norway “prompted” (defined as to cause or bring about something) the attack. When news about Breivik came to light he changed his tune and decried how horrible the Oslo attacks were since it was now something he could exploit. The only conclusion to make is that Greenwald believes mass murder is justifiable depending on the perpetrator’s political and religious views. He justified the Boston bombings in an article that is an example of Comment Is Free depravity which published articles in support of North Korea and FGM.

This, and much more, by a better person than I'll ever be, who wasn't too squeamish to wade deep into the creepy mind of that character.

So, enjoy reading Glenn Greenwald’s Justification for the Boston Bombings by Marcus Brutus.

Glenn Greenwald or the douchebag's lines of defense

G.K. Chesterton, in The Innocence of Father Brown, says:

Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.

In a certain way, these words are applicable to the body of work created so far by Glenn Greenwald, a valuable gift from one bastion of progressive thought (Salon.com) to another one (The Guardian).

Aside of his inordinate fervor to be heard and to lead the progressive masses somewhere, Greenwald has hardly an original thought or original idea to his name. Most of his "creative" activities are dedicated to hiding this sorry circumstance, and even in this he is not very successful. Here comes an example: on April 20, only five days after the Boston Marathon bombing, Ali Abunimah* publishes an article in the infamous Electronic Intifada (no link, as per our custom), titled "Obama’s rush to judgment: Was the Boston bombing really a “terrorist” act?". In this article, Mr Abunimah says:

There can be no doubt that the Boston Marathon bombing was a murderous act, but does it –– based on what is known –– fit the US government’s own definitions of “terrorism”?

It is important to recall that other, far more lethal recent events, including the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado and the school massacre at Sandy Hook, Connecticut have not been termed “terrorism,” nor their perpetrators labeled “terrorist” by the government. Why?

Being an attentive colleague of Ali Abunimah (if the assorted bunch of CiF contributors could be called "colleagues"), in no more than two days, on April 22, Greenwald fires off a broadside of his own, titled Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine? Well, you might say, great minds think alike. Even to the tune of writing in that April 22 opus the following:

But beyond that issue, even those assuming the guilt of the Tsarnaev brothers seem to have no basis at all for claiming that this was an act of "terrorism" in a way that would meaningfully distinguish it from Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine.

You may have noticed the creative element in that last quote: Greenwald added Tucson and Columbine to the Abunimah's list (I bet one of the two is less of an ardent Michael Moore's fan). Anyway, this is a good example of that Chesterton's leaf, and Greenwald does his best in this article to hide it in a forest of verbosity he grows, that will literally leave you buried in similar decaying leaves. Like his (and Abunimah's too, accidentally) reference to the point made by Alan Dershowitz and totally misinterpreted by both thinkers, like the quotation marks used for the word 'terrorism', like the vague and vacuous nods at the definition of terrorism (why the dictionary one is insufficient for the likes of Greenwald and Abunimah is known only too well). Etc.

But, thankfully, the time passes. Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the little brother, started to sing in jail, and one of the first things he blurted out was the motive. Boston Marathon bombing was clearly understood to be another terrorist act. And Mr Greenwald, like a cat that has done that thing cats prefer to do in sandboxes, applied a similar cover-up technique (I mean feverish use of hind legs, throwing sand over the proceeds). The result, which indeed reminds of feline excrement thinly covered by sand, is his article of April 25: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over. Like a wounded but brave cat, Greenwald retreats fighting. The fight starts with the already familiar quotation marks around "terrorism" and continues with the picture heading the article:

A banner reading 'United We Stand For Peace on Earth' outside the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

One doesn't have to be an imam to understand the meaning of that picture, does one? I say it's a good preemptive measure, if a reader had a tactless remark or two about RoP in mind.

The fighting retreat continues to the next defensive line:

News reports purporting to describe what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told US interrogators should, for several reasons, be taken with a huge grain of salt. The sources for this information are anonymous, they work for the US government, the statements were obtained with no lawyer present and no Miranda warnings given, and Tsarnaev is "grievously wounded", presumably quite medicated, and barely able to speak.

Uhu... indeed, but the bird sings freely with Miranda warnings duly given, so this line is obviously too weak...

By now even Glenn Greenwald must have realized that his position is wide open to any shooter and too vulnerable to defend at this point, so he graciously gives it up:

Those caveats to the side, the reports about what motivated the Boston suspects are entirely unsurprising and, by now, quite familiar...

As you can see, he gives this line of defense up only to come out swinging. And here I have to grant him a measure of creativity, because his logic is (kind of) original. According to Greenwald, various terrorists are referring to the same, more or less, root causes that brought them to try to kill as many people as possible. The causes are (quoted): killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and beyond, United States presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, US terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, feelings about what the United States was doing in Afghanistan. And the aggrieved people quoted above are:

• Attempted "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
• Attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad
• Attempted NYC subway bomber Najibullah Zazi
• Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan

This is a fairly representative group of aggrieved Muslim population, I would say. Of course, the list could be made longer, but Greenwald decided to turn to higher placed sources of grievances, quoting the late Hellfirerized imam Anwar al-Awlaki and even the ultimate expert on grievances, Osama bin Laden.

What can I say? Imagine interviewing Pol Pot and six (or ten) of his henchmen on reasons for murdering people who think differently. Or interviewing several Nazis on extermination of "untermenschen". If you are ready to accept any thesis based on it being supported by a group of people (even of the kind mentioned above), you may remain a faithful reader of that character. Especially since he knows to conclude this part of his article by the ominous:

It should go without saying that the issue here is causation, not justification or even fault.

The article in question could be scrolled down for another meter (3 ft approx.) and commented upon. But by now it should go without saying that The Guardian got itself a bargain: a totally amoral, un-original and quite stupid sleazoid, who is blending in famously with the CiF crowd.

Still, one could enjoy saying it...


(*) Ali Abunimah: this Jew-hater one-stater deserves some attention too. Check the appendix to this post to learn more about this one.

More on the subject by Marcus Brutus at Harry’s Place.

When in Rome or the best and the worst of that trip

Italy is a country to love. The people, the history, the nature, the culture, the food... where do I stop? This is where my traveling journal ends. But first, I have to mention the best and the worst places we have encountered.

First and foremost: Villa La Nina. When you are in the general area of Lucca, which is somewhat close to Florence, don't even think about missing this corner of paradise. Unless you are into five star Michelin-approved super-duper hotels, this place will do - and much more. The friendly and helpful family that manages the place will feed, hydrate and generally spoil you more than you deserve. Very much recommended for a prolonged countryside vacation (I wish...). Oh, and if you are lucky, you may get this too:

Rainbow over Villa La Nina, Montecarlo, Lucca, Italy

Another amazing outfit that has to be mentioned with the best of them, is a family-run restaurant in Rome, which goes under a moniker Colline Emiliane. Yes, yes, it is Michelin-approved, but I didn't know about that when we went there first. Heavenly food, and exceptional service too.

And now about the other side of the coin: the worst place in Italy. We have had a tiring morning and turned back from this charming church, choke-full of culture and stuff:

We were desperate to put out bottoms down and let our feet rest a bit. So we've made that common but unfortunate mistake tourists tend to make from time to time: choosing the first available feeding establishment near a major tourist attraction. And here it was:

There is only one Gran thing about Gran Caffe San Marco: the size of their bill. And there was only one good item in our meal: the mineral water, and that only because it was opened in our presence, I guess. Everything else wouldn't have been seen fit to feed your livestock. Trip Advisor regulars have some true things to say about the place, although there are a few dissenting voices. The latter obviously belong either to the employees and/or owners or to people who were already too high to discern the taste of the garbage they were fed. Anyway, "Ranked #1,281 of 1,480 restaurants in Florence" must be an act of kindness... avoid at all costs!

I know and agree that tourists are born to be fleeced. But there is a difference between being fleeced and being skinned. Besides, even being skinned doesn't mean you have to eat dreck as part of the procedure. Oh well...