The dark side of the world
Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post describes the murder of Ilam Halimi in a City of Light where a dark illumination has begun to shine.
The story of Ilan Halimi's murder at the hands of a terrorist gang of French Muslims brings to the surface the various pathologies now converging to make the prospect of annihilating all Jews seem possible to our enemies. First, there are the murderers who took such apparent pleasure and felt such pride in the fact that for 20 days they tortured their Jewish hostage to death. ...
As Nidra Poller related in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, "One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang [of kidnappers], who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture." ...
It appears that Ilan Halimi's murderers had some connection to Hamas. Tuesday, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that police found propaganda published by the Palestinian Charity Committee or the CBSP at the home of one of the suspects.
The French authorities now believe Halimi's murder was in some way connected to anti-semitism although they disregarded this possibility during the early stages of the investigation into his disappearance.
The police maintained their refusal to investigate the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers in spite of the fact that in their e-mail and telephone communications with Ilan's family, his captors repeatedly referred to his Judaism, and on at least one occasion recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in agony in the background.
The principal suspect, now in custody, is a West African man called Youssef Fofana, who styles himself the "Brain of the Barbarians".
(Hat tip: Debbie Schlussel) From Clara Beyler's excellent account of Halimi's murder on Israel's YNet:
For three weeks, the "Barbarians" detained and tortured Ilan Halimi. When he was found on February 13, he was naked, handcuffed after being dumped near railway tracks in a Parisian suburb. He suffered from severe burns covering 80 percent of his body. Traces of cigarette burns, iron burns, and various cuts (made by knives and scissors) covered his body. He passed away in an ambulance before reaching the hospital.Police arrested about a dozen suspects so far. The gang leader's was finally arrested in the Ivory Coast where he went into hiding two days after Ilan's death. The "baits" used to trap Ilan, three women, are also among the suspects.
However, there must have been many witnesses to the crime, which spread over weeks. The shrieks and screams brought on by torture must have been heard by some of those living in the building where the horrific scenes were taking place. Yet not one soul, not even one anonymous caller, alerted the police in the suburb of Bagneux.
Commentary
In a perverted variation on the theme of multiculturalism, Mr. Fofana may have embodied the fusion of murderous traditions, by combining gang warfare, primitive practices and radical Islamic ideology into one lethal cocktail which the unfortunate Mr. Halimi was forced to drink. Michael Crichton often makes the point that in complex systems like global society, unexpected combinations are to be expected. This is true not only of the mutation found in physical diseases but in memes as well. Ideas, no less than organisms, continuously transform themselves. Notions of good and evil, now derided as hopelessly old-fashioned, were the old bulwarks of mental sanitation. They permitted the public to possess a sense of outrage, a reflexive fear of things that call softly and menacingly out of dark places. They could bring out the village with torches and pitchforks against the Forces of Darkness.
Good and evil was later identified through the mechanism of free speech. But until recently the existence of right and wrong itself was unquestioned. Debate had closure; there were goals worth striving for; causes worth fighting for; and beauties worth dreaming of. Today the sense of right and it's inseparable companion Free Speech stand on the edge of illegitimacy. The light is about to go out from want of air: Ilan Halimi -- and other canaries -- have expired in the coal mine.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/24/2006 01:48:00 PM
106 Comments:
Saudia has the largest reserve of sunshine. It should be turned into one giant solar panel.
let's start with a nice black rock
I just heard of this story today from an offhand comment on the PI thread. This is huge but I didn’t hear it on Fox because between the Dick Cheney hunting accident which is world-wide news requiring 24-7 special coverage and that British chap who whacked his wife and baby… apparently nothing else is news worthy. Didn’t see anything on Drudge either. More and more I get my news right here. Seems like nothing slips by Wretchard or his readers.
The gruesome murder sounded right out of the sadistic sequence on ‘Reservoir Dogs’. This is a populace that is ‘ragin’ out of control and they have the government to step in and coddle them with more eloquent excuse making. He may have been a Joo, but all Joos are rich you know. So it was a crime by the poor against the rich… which is quite understandable of course. This is why I hate ‘hate’ crimes. They protect only the right victims.
Fear is Islamo-phobia. WTF! We fear those who would ‘ terrorize us’ and we are phobic? Damn right! It is not phobia but a sober sense of self defense. A self defense is going to rely more and more on a sober offense.
National Public Radio (NPR) reported that a woman was used to lure a random victim into a trap. Supposedly, the gang didn't know he was Jewish until they had him in custody. Multiple phone calls and ransom demands were made to the victim's family although the kidnappers made no serious efforts to pursue their monetary demands.
The NPR correspondent made clear that the gang were of West African descent but never said "Muslim". Although, in fairness that could be like calling Timothy McVeigh or Adolph Hitler, a Christian. My understanding is that most of these "youth" are secular. On the other hand, the Islamist literature was found.
I don't think these guys were "Islamist" in the classic sense any more than the Lord's Resistance Army is Christian. My own experience with primitive cults suggests that if you provide any convenient justification for rape, robbery and torture it will be incorporated into the drill. That's why you have these millenial cults or barbaric "militias" in Third World countries with amulets, pig-Latin incantations -- and not incidentally -- Koran recital. It adds a kind of cheap "class" to the proceedings.
But normally we are able to denounce these things are primitive, ignorant, stupid and OK, "barbaric" practices. It's only Youssuf who has the temerity to call himself the "Brain of the Barbarians". Had anyone else said this, say, a cabinet minister in Italy, he would have lost his job. What's wrong with this picture?
Theodore Dalrymple describes the young Muslim thugs:
Young Muslim men in Britain—as in France and elsewhere in the West—have a problem of personal, cultural, and national identity. They are deeply secularized, with little religious faith, even if most will admit to a belief in God. Their interest in Islam is slight. They do not pray or keep Ramadan (except if it brings them some practical advantage, such as the postponement of a court appearance). Their tastes are for the most part those of non-Muslim lower-class young men. They dress indistinguishably from their white and black contemporaries, and affect the same hairstyles and mannerisms, including the vulpine lope of the slums. Gold chains, the heavier the better, and gold front teeth, without dental justification, are symbols of their success in the streets, which is to say of illicit enrichment.
Many young Muslims, unlike the sons of Hindus and Sikhs who immigrated into Britain at the same time as their parents, take drugs, including heroin. They drink, indulge in casual sex, and make nightclubs the focus of their lives. Work and careers are at best a painful necessity, a slow and inferior means of obtaining the money for their distractions.
This is fascinating reading.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_suicide_bombers.html
Wretchard wrote:
But normally we are able to denounce these things are primitive, ignorant, stupid and OK, "barbaric" practices. It's only Youssuf who has the temerity to call himself the "Brain of the Barbarians". Had anyone else said this, say, a cabinet minister in Italy, he would have lost his job. What's wrong with this picture?
Caroline Glick writes:
According to the press reports, the French government was at least partially motivated to suppress the issue of anti-Semitism because it feared inflaming the passions of the French Muslims who make up between 10 to 13 percent of the French population and comprise a quarter of the population under 25 years old.
Could it be FEAR?
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Horrifying details on that torture and murder in France. But thank you Rikard for illuminating more on the darkness.
And the piece on the post Spain Phillipines was tremendous.
W,
Most UAE residents are nonunion, noncitizen port workers. So what possibly could be wrong with the picture?
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Hey mom look at me! I'm blowing up other peoples children for the god of the wicked.
"but even so, they are not tempted by this life"
Mein Gott! We must nudge these people into the dark realm, post haste, be the tempted for that.
And what, my fellow Clubbers were the "Barbarians" up to during the nights of the Francofada?
A little CarbQue perhaps.
Some Smash & Grab?
The wound is self inflicted and the cure could kill 'im
What's a Frenchie to do?
From The Time Machine:
The sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden realization of my ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing came home to me very vividly in the darkness. I shouted at them as loudly as I could. They started away, and then I could feel them approaching me again. They clutched at me more boldly, whispering odd sounds to each other. I shivered violently, and shouted again rather discordantly. This time they were not so seriously alarmed, and they made a queer laughing noise as they came back at me. I will confess I was horribly frightened. I determined to strike another match and escape under the protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out the flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket, I made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel. But I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the blackness I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves, and pattering like the rain, as they hurried after me.
Hitherto I had merely thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of the little people, and by some unknown forces which I had only to understand to overcome; but there was an altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks - a something inhuman and malign. Instinctively I loathed them. Before, I had felt as a man might feel who had fallen into a pit: my concern was with the pit and how to get out of it. Now I felt like a beast in a trap, whose enemy would come upon him soon.
The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. It was the darkness of the new moon.
Rest in peace, Ilan Halimi.
Victor Davis Hanson, Back from Iraq.
by Hugh Hewitt
February 24, 2006 08:31 AM PST
A must read. Excerpt:
hughhewitt.com
---
Victor expects recent violence to unite the country.
...100,000k released prisoners impeding rebuilding.
W,
The meme which has not changed and which influences all the rest remains the most deadly one.
With so many subconsciousnesses infiltrated with its undercurrent, how could what was once easily recognized as right (or a right) stay certain? People perfectly innocent of any once easily recognized wrong now must justify their right to exist to the ostensibly non-barbarian Western deep thinkers.
When many in the West remains concerned about useless eaters, how can anyone keep their sanity in the manner you refer?
In this light, I find it much less surprising than you that Western leaders seem to unable to stand up to monsters who committed this awful torture. Many more and worse will follow as they remain paralyzed -- or delighted -- as such attrocities go unrevenged.
Poor, poor guy. Lived through the three weeks of infinite hellishness with monsters feeding on him, then found himself in the ambulance, back in the hands of civilization, and died of the relief.
In the city from which the Ayatollah loosed this evil cult.
Yeah but, buddy, he didn't build a "Network" there. Nah, he wouldn't have done that, not in the 20 years or so he was exiled there.
Even if he had built it, they'd have abandoned it, upon returning to Iran. Don't need no Agent network in France. Not one 40 years in the building.
No good could ever come from it.
Iran would never need the "muscle"
Sure.
Why worry about Nuclear Bombs when there is a People Bomb within your midst?
Wretchard 2:27 PM,
New lefties over time came to see the 'Panthers as a cover for Punks.
Most just slunk off to academia or government to lie about it evermore.
(Saw Todd Gitlin's name in a comment recently:
Example of lifetime liar in "Radical Son.")
Horowitz could not live with the lies, ...and deaths.
Hey Buddy, would you or Aristides have that link for Pascal?
I think he'd be interested.
Remember which thread it was in?
Stupid, stupid, stupid West.
So liberal, so enlightened, so beautifully diverse; basking in the humanity of mankind.
Look at what we have done.
If you're talking about the Eric S. Raymond essay, here it is.
You might also be interested in this essay by the Australian historian Keith Windschuttle, The Adversary Culture.
Morlocks. The solution to the problem of the useless Eloi, and, in fact, the creation of the Eloi.
Perhaps these savages that Europe has taken into its bosom and continues to coddle, nurture and pay to replicate are that most sincere form of self criticism - suicide.
Maybe Europe wants to die.
Aristides 3:36 PM,
We'll all appreciate, I'm sure.
Do you mean "Armed & Dangerous"?
God may not exist, but whatever happens when we forget about him, certainly does.
Talk about in a nutshell:
"The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own."
Mika,
What kind of friggin reactor is that at Haifa?
A metal containment? (lead?)
See also this report from Haaretz. The times in which we live seem very much like October, 1962, with the difference that the American public seems generally unaware of the seriousness of the days.
- Hewitt
Must be Aluminum Paint!
Just imagine what a non-PC west would've done to the Islamism meme while it was still incubating, before it busted out of France's chest like the baby Alien in the movie.
How far we've come:
"In the 19th century, several European nations had been so revived, perhaps the most celebrated being the Greeks, the heirs of Classical Athens, in 1829, and the Italians, the heirs of Classical Rome, in 1849.
Ben-Yehuda was deeply influenced by such revivals and came to the conclusion that the European concept of national fulfilment should also be applied to his people, the Jews"
the queer part is that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all have the ten commandments in common; yet, none condemn these acts as wrong!
And there are causes worth killing for, as well.
The light is about to go out from want of air: Ilan Halimi -- and other canaries -- have expired in the coal mine.
Israel (the nation and the Jewish people) is the canary in the coal mine. If the Arab Muslims can abide Israel, they can abide us. If they can't, it's clash of civilizations to the death.
If Israel is annihilated, who believes these death cultists will simply lose focus and eventually wander off the world stage? Isn't it more likely they'll identify new victimizers (with Western liberals eagerly auditioning for the role)? Ending Israel will not fix failed Arab cultures nor will it satiate leaders who bitterly recall a golden age of Islamic empire.
We can let the canary die, but that won't make the mine any safer.
Buddy Larsen said...
Just imagine what a non-PC west would've done to the Islamism meme while it was still incubating, before it busted out of France's chest like the baby Alien in the movie.
Great imagery. Next comes "Mother", who will lay eggs to begin a new generation of parasites that kill their hosts.
Quick! Let's split up!
Doug, (Thanks Aristides, Buddy).
Sorry I missed the context in which the reference was made. What thread?
Aside from keeping me occupied Doug, why'd you want me to read these? How do you think they help or hinder, add to or subtract from, my conclusions? Increase or allay my concerns?
See, I'm not unfamiliar with Gramsci and his adaptation of Hegel. His aim to destroy logical progress and to create disarray of counter offenses are clear enough.
While I read these, how about perusing this: THE ANTI-WESTERN IMPULSE
Been reading Mr John O'Sullivan for years. Smarter than me, that's fer sure.
Thx Pascal
He seems an honest man, doug.
Not the limelighter that our other Senator is.
Just thought you might be interested.
---
'Rat,
Pascal's link was recommended by Kyle:
I think he's the smartest guy in Congress.
---
Reminds me:
Chuckie Schumer wanted to make sure that Ships *Manifolds* were securely checked.
Such a bright group on that side of the isle they are!
Buddy/Aristides - link was tangentially related to the thread:
Remember which it was?
Storm Clouds Over Baghdad.
Thanks, again.
He's condensed "2000 years of anti-Semitism" into less than a half hour
Mao comes off as the most egomaniacal:
instead of brushing his teeth, he "cleaned" them with tea, and he also avoided bathing, claiming,
"my genitals were washed inside the bodies of my women."
Rosenblatt's "Human Remains" has the same title as the Terry Allen opus which is about the same thing. Odd.
Factoid:
I just did a search for "Ilam Halimi" on the NYT.
Nothing.
I read about the story in the EJ Press on 2/15 (I think it was.)
Still nothing in the NYT -- fear is winning.
raw data, that is a mind-blow.
How low the NYTimes has sunk.
The queer part is that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all have prophecies and promises (e.g. 1,260) in common; yet, none condemn these acts as wrong, or choose to recognize the Coming of the Promised One in 1260AH!
Doug,
You might want to take another sip from
The Devil's Cup. Archive pic says Dimona.
Btw, you can thank Coffee for the present decline of Islamic glory. Europeans got a hold of it through encounters with the Ottomans. Coffee was originally refined and utilised by Sufis to help with mystical visions. (Doug, we will use it as a psychedelic analgesic for your therapy). Because some Ottoman extremist hated Sufis (Islamic extremists usually do), they tried and made coffee illegal. It was later banned in Mecca.
The coffee house was the place where European political and intellectual malcontents gathered. While in the beer houses, the usual crowd of idiots was busy getting itself into the usual stupor of happy singing.
Follow the rise of Western intellectualism and the decline of the Islamic world, and you will find a direct correlation to the popularity of coffee in these places. :P
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Too much of it makes you see double, tho.
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Orlandoslug comments that no one in the monotheistic religions has risen to condemn these acts.I think I've heard a few voices,but if not let me be the first.
This was the act of sub human vermin,men without souls ,demon inspired monsters who should be led from the courthouse to be hung from lampposts until their putrid bodies rot and turn to dust while their tormented souls burn in hell forever.
Will that do?
As one who has read parts of Bat Ye'or's books on what she has coined as dhimmitude, the inhumanity of the islamist fanatic does not surprise me. I have not been able to read all of anyone of her books because they read so much like the account of the murder of this poor unfortunate. Somewhere she reports of Islamic women and children dousing "infidels" (also women and children) with gasoline and burning them alive. That's (some) Islamic women and children! Yet, they achieve the lowest level of refinement in the art of "slaughter", which is the correct word to use here. To slaugter is to sacrifice to God, mere murder is senseless. Can you understand the distinction? Of course not, it is not to be understood outside their theology of a God who is hate, not love. And for more refined slaughtering, one need only turn to the terrorist-religious leaders themselves, such as those who worked on the unfortunate Ilam Hamili.
It is a mistake, I think, to say Islam is only a religious aberration. I am getting close to thinking that it is not even a religion, but a cult. As a cult, it is a sect with a certain view of the world and an interpretation of reality that simply cannot be criticized from within. Before it sins against human life, it already has sinned against the human intellect. Its life style is simply dysfunctional. In particular, women in Islamic society barely count as human beings: they are the property of their husbands who can divorce them practically at will. In the notorious "honor killings", men can even kill their women with the complicity and blessing of Islamic society. Of course, the humanizing influence of women on society is reduced to nil even while the vices of men, especially the sexual drive, is given free rein. As if this were little, the men themselves as a rule have a sexual inferiority complex. Why does any wife beater beat his wife? Because of his own sexual insecurity and lack of identity as a man: he feels stronger and more manly if he beats his woman, thus deluding himself about his own wretchedness and avoiding his real underlying issues. The Islamic culture is driven by a cult that fosters sexual insecurity in men and violence against women. The religious aspect fosters this attitude, and pretends to provide a "theological" justification for the whole society's continued sexual dysfunction. Thus, the psychological and social sickness of the Islamic society self-perpetuates through the generations.
True, not all Islamic people are like this. Yet, this is an excuse we have made too many times on Islam's behalf. A Moslem Egyptian statesman or religious leader (sorry, I forget who it was)has wondered out loud, "Alright, not all Moslems are terrorists, but why are all terrorists Moslems?" (Sure, the IRA and the ETA are also "terrorists", but I presume he meant terrorists who kill indiscriminately and in mass.) Someone else has astutely observed "the problem with Islam is not the fanatics, but the moderates". Right on. We too have our extremist fanatics, but the moderates in our society do moderate them. But women cannot sufficiently influence under Islam to tame the Islamic beast.
Conclusion: Islam must be fought as a cult, therefore, on the level of religion, of morality, of philosophy (using the brain applied to ideas, like: Where did the Koran come from? What proof is there of its true origin? What about all of Islam's contradictions... Force those brainwashed cultees to think! "Deprogram" them!). To be sure, the war has its necessary military dimension: it must keep us alive while we challenge them to think, a dangerous task indeed, as is deprogramming any cultee.
wretchard said...
I don't think these guys were "Islamist" in the classic sense any more than the Lord's Resistance Army is Christian. My own experience with primitive cults suggests that if you provide any convenient justification for rape, robbery and torture it will be incorporated into the drill. That's why you have these millenial cults or barbaric "militias" in Third World countries with amulets, pig-Latin incantations -- and not incidentally -- Koran recital. It adds a kind of cheap "class" to the proceedings.
except these "sub-humans" are allowed and encouraged by their parents to hate the west and jews, within their newschannels and music the themes of jew hatred is a-1 part of their world, all they have to do is look to the elders of the islamic world for advise, and what they see is simple...
kill the jew...
from saudia arabia, indonesia, malaysia, iran to palestine, the so called leaders call for blood
Mika 2:42 PM,
Much like the NY Times, data like that is deleted from our collective memories, the better to sleep.
Hewitt did not want to try anymore today, nor did I.
If things go wrong, everyone will listen to his interview with the Coast Guard Admiral and exclaim:
How could we have ignored that?
"except these "sub-humans" are allowed and encouraged by their parents to hate the west and jews, within their newschannels and music the themes of jew hatred is a-1 part of their world, all they have to do is look to the elders of the islamic world for advise, and what they see is simple...
kill the jew..."
---
Yeah, but other than that,
there's no connection.
Oh yeah MIka, I knew I was forgetting something:
Don't Worry, Be Happy! :-)
OTOH,
Look at the upside:
In one week conservatives proved they can outdo the libs in playing the race card:
You disagree?
Xenophobe! Islamophobe! Nativist!
Case closed.
...look at the inconvenient arguments?
No thanks.
Melissa, maybe one deep cause of the hatred is the psycho-sexual, the failure vs the successful--and all that implies as males imagine themselves through the eyes of women.
Israel's success is a slap in the face, everyone knows that the bustling successful, forward-edge nation popped up in a few decades from a subsistance-farm region. Ergo, there must be some sort of crime taking place, or else, hmm, no, it couldn't be a problem in Islamic culture, no way.
Buddy Larsen said...
Israel's success is a slap in the face...
Similar dynamic in Los Angeles between the Blacks and the Korean shop keepers. Koreans came here with nothing, not even speaking the language, and within a generation had built all kinds of successful businesses through hard work and cooperation.
Blacks found all kinds of reasons to dislike Koreans. Blacks resented high prices, and did not consider that the Koreans deserved a profit and an additional premium for providing goods and services in high crime areas. Blacks faulted Koreans for selling liquor, which hurt Black people and which nobody forced them to buy. Blacks felt they were disrespected because of Korean cultural norms, such as not meeting gazes or putting change on the counter instead of in someone's hand. And of course Blacks resented Korean shopkeepers being extra vigilant towards Blacks on shoplifting (one might argue out of sad experience).
When the Rodney King riots erupted, it was the perfect opportunity for some Blacks to "get revenge" on Koreans. Most Koreans turned out to be fairly well armed...
But to get back to Buddy Larsen's point, if your pig gets sick, it's much easier and more satisfying to accuse your neighbor of witchcraft, especially if a consequent lynching might put you in possession of your neighbor's pig, by way of compensation for your loss.
"Blacks resented high prices, and did not consider that the Koreans deserved a profit and an additional premium for providing goods and services in high crime areas."
---
Blacks taught in earlier, more primitive days, weren't taught that "Profit" is a sin, nor that the system is rigged, and that hard work won't get you anywhere.
Plus 30 years ago it was kind of a bummer when the Feds came in and shut down their dad's previously legal businesses for pollution violations.
But the work has to get done, and if you are already illegal, you just step right up and take their place with an undercover operation.
...then comes the mantra: Americans aren't willing to work.
...esp now, after 3 generations.
"as males imagine themselves through the eyes of women"
---
Buddy,
Have you actually TRIED that?
Some horror flicks are best unwatched.
Oh, jeez, I can't even imagine the horror. but I know I was momma's lil baby back once upon a time.
Doug,
There might be reason to the madness, after all. Maybe we could through the UAE tip Bin Laden where not not to be, this way guaranteeing an exact hit.
I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is
stalk them and hope they panic and give in.
What if they're not prone to panic? Why not use a club to the head, like the old days?
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Well, I'm taking lessons from these guys....
For years the superior Continentals delighted in pointing out how violent the US is. Well, guess what. The violence has been increasing in Great Britain as well as the continent while dropping in the US.
Celebrate Cultural Diversity!
7:15 AM
Exactly, better safe than sold out.
See, Bud, the problem with taking your point too far, is that while it is useful in describing the suicide bomber's state of mind, the operative question is for who is it not?
Other than those like RR whose accomplisments Nancy really seemed to appreciate?
(and Genius that I am, I would have blown her off in our 20's for being an airhead)
Thanks a lot for the vision, now where's that damned blooey belt?
Mayhem at the breakfast table:
Wife gets up, stumbles around the kitchen as I enjoy my second cup.
(put off your coffee comment, mika, some things are too good to rush)
She's looking for an empty bottle she thinks needs to be washed:
"What did you do with the Dead Juice Bottle"
She says.
I say:
"I didn't kill any Jews."
She asks for the local paper, and wonders if I knew they found the missing guy.
I ask what missing man?
She says they found half of him floating down by the hotels.
I say:
"No, Did you know him,
or did you just know his better half."
She says:
"Go to your Computer!"
Fox News just ran a teaser about man eating sharks...
Also, lest we get too smug, a Fox news correspondent described last nights New Orleans Mardi Gras revelry as "drunken debauchery."
Doug,
Here's another little tidbit for the next breakfast roundtable. Prior to the rise of coffee consumption in Europe, the average Northern European, including women and children, drank three liters of beer a day. Try having 3 liters (two six-packs) of strong ale with breakfast tomorrow and see how the day goes. Just in case, better install another computer terminal in the kitchen.
Watch any western and the cowboys are in the saloon half the movie, knocking back straight shots o' fire water. Maybe that's where the country went wrong--it never shoulda sobered up.
WTF, WHY are men eating Sharks?
I thought you were going to wait 'til tomorrow, Doug. :P
Larsen,
History according to Shpielberg?
" Try having 3 liters (two six-packs) of strong ale with breakfast tomorrow and see how the day goes."
---
It would go like the good old days went.
But then it would take 3 days before my wife would give me back my suicide belt.
...doesn't want me to let it go to waste on just myself.
2:22 PM Careful Bud, you're playing right into 'Rat's most devastating argument for cutting and running:
(In "Victory" of course.)
That Lawyer Down!
bottom's up incident.
Shh!
(little does he know it's the secret of W's success, not the evil Rove)
Mika,
Speaking of Ale:
I should have told you to go see Sierra Nevada Brewery on your trip:
Wife had an article that included it in a group of 15 or so Beer businesses that have consistently made money/grown.
They've done it for a looong time now with Zero advertising, just damn good beer.
Run by a Jewish lad named Steve:
I bought his original tanks -
I lost a bundle, he went on to make millions.
Life just ain't fair for us ignorant Gents.
Are you living in Canada?
You can do fillings in Philly, root canals on the Erie Canal, and send your bills from Reading.
Heheh,..
Fill Philly full of fillings. I wonder what genre that would be.
Screw you, Larsen:
It's all your fault.
I finally let my wife see the real inner me and...
Well, I'm not even going to go into any details, but needless to say, I'm looking for a place to sleep, been turned down ten times already, and the last people said they were calling the cops.
I'm so Over.
"Send your bills from Reading"
---
So THAT's how those guys figured out how to get paid each and every time.
Meanwhile I was watching Rockford Files.
Cripes.
Doug,
You can stay over here. Been getting lots of snow this weekend. You do know how to construct an igloo?
Damn, I thought you were back in Israel where you could REALLY put me to work.
Maybe if I turn that knife in for a machette, I can get hired splitting coconuts?
Why travel all the way to Israel for that? What's wrong with the local mosque?
If you really want an exotic locale, maybe give W a shout?
LOL!
But seriously, Jews go to Mosques now?
No way I'm having any sort of fun that could land me in trouble.
Naw, those guys are EXPERTS.
They trim hedges with Machettes here.
...none of that crude sawing action on the old neckbone.
If you're over-charging in Pennsylvania, you have to bill from here.
Heh,
They were really overcharging for a while there at Three Mile Island.
That's because their clients were walking out of clinic with a beautifully serene green glow.
Hi honey, the car broke down and I'm stuck at the Intercourse Motel.
As long as you had a way to shield the film, you could forget the electricity on the X-Rays.
I guess the natural attraction of what they're promoting more than makes up for the misleading advertising:
"Best Western Intercourse Village"
"Got a Bible in my hand and a beard on my chin
But if I finish all of my chores and you finish thine
Then tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1699
So don’t be vain and don’t be whiny
Or else, my brother, I might have to get medieval on your heinie
We been spending most our lives
Living in an amish paradise
We’re all crazy mennonites
Living in an amish paradise"
Ha,
I figured it out:
You delete things, but since you guys run the world, it disappears w/o a trace.
...right now it's still on the other page tho, so don't try tellin me you didn't do it.
...country hens cluck defiance, country lawyers ...dum de dum.
...Prove that we're ill-led and should surrender?
(take some shot for mother and country)
Meanwhile, Dick will have another shot.
Bike ride time.
Wish the wife had not hidden my belt.
I could be Hawaii's first Bicycle Suicide Bomber.
That last sentence will probably attract some customers to the pineapple stand.
MURDER OF FRENCH JEW NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
BY: FERN SIDMAN
The gang that kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered Ilan Halimi, 23, had threatened several prominent businessmen, lawyers and a well-known humanitarian activist, a French newspaper reported Saturday. The daily Liberation reported that the group behind the murder, which authorities have linked to anti-Semitism, tried to extort money from a founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders. Also targeted were the director of the Arte TV channel, a Paris lawyer and the head of a supermarket chain, the newspaper reported, citing police officials.
Police investigating the murder of Halimi earlier this month have made several arrests. The suspected gang leader, was arrested Wednesday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and France is seeking his extradition. Fourteen people have been placed under investigation - a step short of being charged - in the case, and two more people were detained Friday for questioning.
Ilan Halimi was abducted on January 21 after a woman came into the mobile phone store where he worked and charmed him into a dinner date. The first break in the case came after the police released an Identikit image of the woman suspected of "baiting" Halimi. After turning herself in our of fears that neighbors would identify her, the woman claimed that she was indeed asked to seduce a number of young men, but was unaware of the act's purpose. She identified the apartment where Halimi had been kept.
Halimi was found on February 13, tied to a tree, naked, wounded, handcuffed, gagged and covered with burn and cut marks on 80 percent of his body. Authorities found Halimi near railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris a few days after the kidnappers ended contact with Halimmi's family. He died en route to a hospital.
"They acted with indescribable cruelty," the judiciary police chief leading the investigation said. "They kept him naked and tied up for weeks. They cut him and in the end poured flammable liquid on him and set him alight."
Halimi's family received a series of ransom demands - starting with one for nearly $537,000. Ilan Halimi's mother revealed to the Haaretz newspaper that the police told the family to ignore the gang's attempts to contact them for five critical days, after which Ilan was found near death outside the city. "Five days before Ilan was found, the police told us, 'Don't answer the phone, don't repond to text messages.' We saw dozens of calls and ignored them. On Thursday they found Ilan dead."
"We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair," Rafi Halimi, Ilan's uncle, told the press.
"First, because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews, and second, because of what they said on the phone," Rafi Halimi added. "When we said we didn't have 500,000 euros to give them they told us to go to the synagogue and get it," Rafi said. "They also recited verses from the Koran."
Under questioning by investigators, one of the suspects "made it clear that he had attacked Ilan Halimi 'because he was Jewish, and Jews are rich".
"If Ilan hadn't been Jewish, he wouldn't have been murdered," Ilan's mom said. She accuses the police of ignoring the anti-Semitic motivation in the case in order not to alienate Muslims, Haaretz reported.
According to a recent article on this subject by Caroline Glick, she states, "It appears that Ilan Halimi's murderers had some connection to Hamas. Tuesday, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said that police found propaganda published by the Palestinian Charity Committee or the CBSP at the home of one of the suspects. The European Jewish Press reported this week that Israel has alleged that the organization is a front group for Palestinian terrorists and that in August 2003 the US government froze the organization's US bank accounts, accusing it of links with Hamas."
It is clear that the French authorities remain callous and indifferent when it comes to Jews being murdered on their soil or anywhere else. This attitude was evidenced in their initial denial that anti-Semitism played a role in this murder and their expressed policy of ignoring any evidence of anti-Semitism.
This may be the first act of Hamas terrorism directed against a Jew outside of Israel, but clearly it won't be the last. Everyday, we are being saturated with the anti-Semitic diatribes of an Iranian President named Ahmadnajed, of Hamas leaders and leading intellectuals. We can no longer deny it. Anti-Semitism is in full swing. It can only get worse.
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