Name:     Michael L. S.   [E-Mail]
      Location:  Earth
      Website:  Middle East Resource Center

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So, up to two dozen "humanitarian activists" have been terminated by the Israeli commandos when the latter descended on the former's vessels illegally bound for 3Aza. There were six such vessels. On five of them no resistance was offered and no casualties were sustained. On the sixth the "humanitarians" attacked the boarding forces, resulting in six injuries to our soldiers and the aforementioned casualties among the "activists."

The self-righteous Euros are up in arms. Sweden, Greece and Spain (all bastions of left-wing lunacy) have recalled the Israeli envoys and something called "baroness" Ashton of the E.U. proto-state department is apoplectic with rage.

My questions:
(1) Since when does a "humanitarian convoy" include 600 "activists"?
(2) Since when does a "humanitarian activist's" equipment include knives, axes and bats?
(3) Why did the activists sail from Turkey and not from, say, Egypt? (Answer: The Egyptians, Palestinian Arab brothers, would not have allowed it. They'd probably have sunk the ships!)
(4) Why did the "humanitarians" not try to enter Gaza via Egypt? (Answer: (A) The Egyptians would not have allowed it, and (B) the "humanitarians" would have gotten no photo opportunity.)
(5) Why do the "humanitarians" no organize "aid convoys" to Sudan, Congo, Yemen and a dozen other places in far dire need than Gaza? (Answer: No Israel is the picture there, so no brownie points and no photo op.)

Face it: These are not kindhearted humanitarians who care about the welfare of the people of Gaza. They are shameless opportunistic hypocrites and terrorists who went on this expedition fully intent on physical conflict with the Israeli Army.

They got their just desserts.

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Came across a delightful story earlier today. An open-air jacuzzi in a hotel in Africa saw its water deplete daily despite being refilled regularly. The plumbers called in to investigate could not find a leak to explain where the water has been disappearing. Well, here's the culprit:

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I'm quite a fan of the Star Trek genre, to wit, the Next Generation and Voyager. The original series I found to be terribly anthropocentric and devoid of imagination, whereas D.S. Nine was boring as shit.

Anyway, so I was watching an early episode of Voyager the other day and one character retorted to a jealous boyfriend:

HOW CAN I ARGUE WITH SOMETHING THAT EXISTS ONLY IN YOUR HEAD?

And I thought: What a perfect way to view religion and its aficionados!

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Remember this from 13 years ago:



Or the way the hordes at the gates were baying for Neil Hamilton's head?
OUT! OUT! OUT!
Well, tonight it is Brown's turn. It is a feeling that defies description harking back to 13 years, the jubilant march into power by Blair and "New Labor," and now seeing them all wiped away... It also reminds me that I'm 13 years older *cringe* but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, I guess you gotta feel for Brownie. Blair, junior to him, snatched his prize right out of his hands (at least Brown always saw it thus); at last he got what he wanted after having to wait and fight off the piranhas for more than a decade and a half, and now it is all ending in tears, bitterness and rejection.

Ouch.

But hey, the fun ain't over yet! You thought it couldn't get worse? How's this - David Millibrained below is the leading contender to succeed Gordon Brown as leader of Labor, the main opposition faction in Britain:

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Remember 1997: "Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiings can only get BETTER!" with a triumphant Tony Blair practically floating on the hands of the stage-managed crowds into power? Well, yesterday that was supposed to happen to Cameron and the Tories.

So, the Conservatives won the election in Britain in terms of getting the most popular vote and the highest number of seats in the parliament but not even remotely securing an absolute majority of either. Incumbent prime minister Gordon Brown's Labor faction got 6% fewer votes and 7.7% fewer seats. The Liberals, despite much hype and great expectations many had had of them, acquired 57 seats, actually losing some on their previous tally. (We'll get back to this in a second.)

Neither political party can thus form a majority government and both depend on a coalition with or, at a minimum, support from the Liberals. Brown is clinging on for dear life and refuses to vacate his residence, as is, in fact, his legal right: The sitting premier has the right to a first shot at forming a new government. Nick Clegg of the Liberals had said though that he would first talk to the party with the parliamentary majority. So, not Brown.

Oy vey zmir!

Well, I used to be a diehard Tory up until and quite a bit after their crushing defeat in 1997. I then switched to the Liberals, right around 2003/2004, either of which could be described as my annus horribilis. But I digress. When Brown succeeded Blair - whom, to my belated credit, I could never stomach, what with all his fakery - I took to him for the whole of 2-3 months before realizing he was as big an asswipe as Blair had been if for somewhat different reasons.

Tories' Cameron came to the scene at some point, I doubt anyone remembers when, and he began harping on about "change," but it was very obvious very early on that the only "change" he had in mind was replacing Labor with his Conservatives. Forget about proposing any measures to deal decisively with soaring crime, a failing public education system, a diabolical national medical care system, a societal disintegration (involving everything from seditious immigrants to a violent underclass), a shambles of a social security system (which means that it is as profitable to stay at home doing jack as it is to go out and work, and of which millions of the lumpenproleteriat and other deadbeats have been happily availing for years), the crapulent Europhobe vs. Europhile jousting, and so back and so forth. Most of his proposal were stunts, gimmicks and vacuous escapades to portray himself as e.g. "green" (cycling to work and having his chauffeur follow him by car) or "caring" ("hug-a-hoodie"). But I divagate again.

After my brief flirtation with the Liberals, I decided I didn't really care anymore. When this election started going down, however, I wanted to see Brown and Labor out but I was not overly concerned about who would replace them. The first electoral debate - which Clegg nailed - and the subsequent nauseating assaults on the Liberals in the right-wing media changed that. The more vociferous those attacks got, the more they endeared Clegg to me. Plus, he had some good policies: Slimming down Britain's defense expenditure, making a firm and positive stance toward the E.U., having a clue about how to deal with immigration, etc.

Anyway, the election happened; I stayed up all night to watch the results streaming in (yeah, sad), and here we are. For any deal to be sealed, Clegg demands, inter alia, a reform of the electoral system. The extant system hails from the Victorian era and means that a defined district (constituency) returns the one person who courts the most votes. So, if we have an extreme situation of four candidates who score thus:
Candidate A - 10,000 votes
Candidate B - 9,999 votes
Candidate C - 9,999 votes
Candidate D - 9,999 votes,
Candidate A is returned to represent that district even though at least 75% of the electorate did not vote for him/her!

The Liberal faction is deeply unhappy with that. And who can blame them! This time around, they garnered 23% of the popular vote but attained 9% of the parliamentary seats. A system that produces such a result is anomalous, inequitable and unrepresentative. In a word: Undemocratic.

The Liberals are totally right to demand it be changed and, if the Tories and Labor had any moral fiber in them, they would want the same. But, of course, all they crave is power and to hell with morality and fairness.

You see, if Britain adopted the proportional representation system or any system that roughly translated the accumulated number of votes into a corresponding number of parliamentary seats, it would mean that Britain would likely never again have a majority government, as there was only one time in the past 130 years that a political faction gained more than 50% of the popular vote! So, Labor would invariably have to form a coalition and would hence be beholden to another party (most probably always the Liberals) and the Tories would likely never see themselves in government again as there is no way they would find any faction large enough with which to form a coalition. So, both Labor and the Conservatives would prefer to retain the old way of doing things, even at the expense of disenfranchising a huge part of the electorate.

The Liberals are now putting the screw on both of them and militating for a change. The Tory-supporting media are vituperating them for it, depicting the situation as a small "loser" faction holding a triumphant Cameron to ransom.

What bullshit.

Fact is that after thirteen years of a thoroughly abysmal Labor government, which ruined Britain to such an extent that many of its aspects are unrecognizable from even just a decade ago, and I don't mean for the better, the Tories should have cruised to a landslide victory. But they didn't. They didn't capture the public's imagination, address the public's concerns in a comprehensive and realistic manner, or present themselves as much other than new New Labor. Rather than sneering at and lambasting the Liberals who did absolutely nothing wrong in this campaign or election, why not ask how come the Tories failed so miserably?!

I expect there'll be more to come on this.

* * *

The election itself was the main theme last Thursday but there was a glittering sideshow, too: Hundreds of people being turned away from the polling places because too many people had shown up, because they had run out of ballots, because the ballots had misprints, etc. Britain thus proudly joins the illustrious ranks of the Third World in yet another way.

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Shalom rav!

Well, a "friend" took a few photos of me the other day and I thought they turned out surprisingly flattering, so I am pleased to share a couple with y'all.





Oh yeah, there are elections going down in Britain. Hoping the Liberal Democrat faction does well but I'm guessing Labor will end up second. The Conservatives are sure to win, if not outright. I'll post my cogitation on the matter when I've caught up on the sleep I'm bound to miss tonight waiting for the results to be called!

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Well, my dear gentlemen and dearer still ladies, I finally did it: I got my second master's degree, this one being in Law. Public International Law, if you please. Actually, I was awarded it at the end of last year but, due to legendary modern British efficiency, I only today received the diploma, transcripts and fliers advertizing all manner of outrageously expensive services (note to University of London: TACKY!), q.v. brass copies of the diploma, frames costing a couple of hundred bucks, etc. Six years overdue (I started studying for it way back - in, what was it, 2003, 2004? - but got, erm, sidetracked, let's say, in Bedford) but better late than never. Barukh gural, when there's a will there's a way and all that.

Now on to my third one: M.S. Computer Science, and then probably a doctorate. In what, vous demandez? Yeah, I'll get back to you on that.

Only a few more months till my glorious vacation in my new apartment in Tenerife. The swimming pool awaits and I may have a go at bocce as well. I just hope I don't get run over again in the meantime. That would suck major ass! My knee is now back to normal; I'm doing everything I used to and then some *wink wink*

~Shavu3a tov!

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