Uhh… are we supposed to be surprised?

So Lance Bass, former member of the bastion of male-straightness known as ‘N Sync, has come out of the closet. Worlds are crumbling. All that I have known, all that I have considered sacred and true, all of it has been thrown into doubt.

What’s next? I mean, next thing you know, Redman and Method Man are going to announce that they like to smoke marijuana.

As for Lance Bass, don’t worry dude. Not all ex-boyband members can be as not-gay as Robbie Williams. He has a court ruling proclaiming his straightness because there was (and is) some confusion in that department.

The Case For Israel

In light of recent events, I wanted to publish the text of a speech made by Alan Dershowitz making the case for Israel. Far too many people want to blame/criticize Israel for their past and current actions. If you think Israel is some sort of unjust aggressor or occupier, you are - simply put - wrong. This is a long, long read, but it's also eye-opening.

Making the Case for Israel

By Alan M. Dershowitz
June 1, 2004

Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School. He is an internationally respected attorney and human rights activist. At one time he was actively involved as an attorney in the Soviet Jewry Movement and helped to free Natan Sharansky from the USSR. He is recognized as a member of the liberal establishment yet a strong supporter of Israel. He has also become aware of the continual anti-Israel bias that is growing on college campuses in the United States.

Below is an edited transcript of his speech at UC Berkeley, one of the most anti-Israel campuses in the United States. Dershowitz addressed an audience of 1,200 people on April 29, 2004, about the growing problem of anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.

The Case For Israel

I remember so well the early days in the 1970's when I sat down in UC Berkeley. I was there for a year. I was probably defending some of the parents of the kids who are outside protesting tonight.

I defended Angela Davis and many of the people involved in the free speech movement at UC Berkeley. But I was also deeply involved with the Soviet Jewry Movement. Recently I was on a radio talk show and somebody asked me what my biggest fee I ever earned was. Was it Michael Milken or Leona Helmsley? I said it was Natan Sharansky.

"Sharansky?" they said, "We didn't know he had any money."

And I said no. He didn't have any money. I had to defend him at my own expense. But when he walked over the Glienicke Bridge and he threw his arms around me, and he whispered in my ear in Hebrew "Blessed are those who help free the imprisoned." Tears came to my eyes, to his eyes -- I'll never earn a bigger fee in my life than that.

When we were in Jerusalem, we said we'd look back at that time and remember it as a wonderful point in history, when civil liberties, love for Judaism and a love for Israel came together. This week marks the 56th anniversary of Israel. And I'm reminded of myself in 1947 and 1948, watching the UN on television, the division of Palestine into hopefully a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. It was accepted by the Jews, but rejected by the Palestinians.

And then Ben Gurion announced the statehood. It was such a joyous moment! I remember when the director of my yeshiva came in and announced the words from Hatikva [Israel's national anthem] were officially changed from "going back to the land of our fathers" to "a free people in our land."

Those were the days. Those were the days when the Israeli-Arab conflict presented a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. Israelis were Holocaust survivors trying to build a Jewish democratic homeland that would always be open to Jewish immigrants and refugees. Doors to the world had been closed to so many refugees during the Holocaust.

On the other side were the Holocaust perpetrators. We forget too often that the Egyptian army commanders in large part were former Nazis given asylum by the Egyptian government. Amung them was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the recognized leader of the Palestinian people. These were indicted war criminals who spent most of the war years with Hitler in Nazi Germany.

This was a conflict between democracy and tyranny. A conflict between those who wanted to accept the United Nations' plan of a two-state resolution and those who rejected the existence of Israel. Those were the days when it was so clear on which side civil liberties and human rights and progress lied and on which side tyranny and oppression lied. The sad reality is that nothing has changed on the ground. These facts are still the same today as they were in 1947 or 1948, yet the perspectives have changed so dramatically. Even in 1956, even in 1967, even in the early 1970's, most progressive, liberal and centrist people supported the right side of this struggle.

Sure, I favored a two state solution. I've always favored a two state solution. Israel has always favored a two state solution, since 1937, when they accepted the Peel Commission report which would have given the Palestinians a long, contiguous state and the Jews a totally non-contiguous state. The Jews said yes and the Palestinians and Arabs said no.

In 1947, the Jews were offered a non-contiguous state in which Jerusalem was separated from Tel Aviv and other Jewish cities, and the Palestinians were offered a contiguous state. And the Palestinians said no. Ben Gurion and the Israelis said yes. Nothing has changed. Not Israeli actions to be sure.

What changed is the perception of the world. The United Nations tragically has become a mega bomb for bigotry against Israel. If a space alien from another planet were to come down to earth and land at the General Assembly of the United Nations, or at some American college campuses, or many an urban capital, and have to report back to the distant galaxy from which he came, he'd have to report this is a wonderful planet with great countries that love peace. Like Syria, which is on the Security Council. Or Libya, that chairs the Human Rights Commission. But there's this one country, this evil nation that's been condemned by the UN more than any other country or all other countries combined. If the spaceship landed on the Berkeley campus, all the canards and untruths about Israel--genocide, apartheid, all the claims you hear so often, would be heard. And that's the tragedy.

And that's why I had to write The Case For Israel. It's my least favorite book, I have to tell you. It's the book nobody wants to write. Nobody has to write the Case for Canada or the Case for Spain or the Case for Australia. There's so much lying on college campuses today, so many untruths, so many legalese falsities being directed against Israel. But the impetus to write the Case For Israel came when the divestiture campaign began at Harvard and Berkeley and many of our college campuses. No members of the law school faculty, nor of the medical school faculty, nor the business school signed, but many at the other schools and departments signed the petition.

What did it call for? It called for no further investments in Israeli industries. What are Israel's main industries? It's not Jaffa oranges, it's high tech, life saving medical equipment, like kidney dialysis machines. Israel per capita saves more lives than any other country in the world.

I said cutting off this industry was immoral, so I challenged one of the leading pro-divestment professors at one of the Harvard colleges to debate me in front of his students. I challenged him to debate the morality of signing the petition to divest from Israel, but not from North Korea, not Cuba, not China, not Libya, not from Iraq in those days, not the Sudan -- only Israel. This was a man who taught the Christian approaches to the Old Testament. He said to me "Professor Dershowitz, my knowledge of the Middle East ended with the death of Moses." I invited those students to see me, watch me debate him or a surrogate. When nobody showed to take his position, I set the petition on a chair as a token surrogate and we had a dialog.

Many of the students who attended were not Jews and held no firm views of Israel. They all came up to me afterward and said the same three words: "We didn't know!"

"We didn't know Israel first offered a two state solution, a Palestinian state, but the Arabs rejected it!"

"We didn't know in 1967 Israel accepted Resolution 242, in which the United Nations called for the return of territories captured in exchange for full peace and secure boundaries."

All Arab states rejected it saying, "no peace, no recognition, no negotiations," but students today said, "We didn't know!"

These Harvard students didn't know that in the years 2000 and 2001 Ehud Barak along with President Bill Clinton had initially offered the Palestinians everything they were asking for -- a state made up of 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, a capital in Jerusalem, control of East Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount, 30 billion dollars in a compensation package, and symbolic return of several thousand refugees. Instead of accepting it or coming back to the negotiating table, Arafat walked away and started the intifada and all the violence. The Harvard students kept saying, "We didn't know!"

"We didn't know that Prince Bandar at Taba called Arafat's rejection of the offer a crime against the Palestinian people and against all the people of the region."

The students just didn't know.

I came away with a different view than my friend Natan Sharansky. He came away with a sense of hopelessness. When he toured American campuses, he believed that America was becoming like France [which is exceedingly anti-Israel].

I came away with a very different, optimistic view. To be sure, 15 to 20% of students on college campuses -- perhaps more at Berkeley, Michigan, or Rutgers, fewer at Harvard and Yale -- you can't argue with them. It's like putting a dollar in the soda machine and the soda doesn't come out and neither does your dollar. You just can't argue with them. You want to kick the machine but you can't do that.

You cannot convince people like Noam Chomsky. And there are 15% on the other side who are clearly favorably disposed to Israel. But then there are 70% on college campuses with open and unfortunately empty minds when it comes to Israel. They take what their peers and professors say the Gospel truth. It's crucially important to fill that information gap.

During the same divestiture campaign, a young student came to me from Harvard College and asked me for forgiveness. I said, "What do I have to forgive you for? I don't even know you."
He said, "I never speak up on campus, in my classroom, in my dormitory, at dinner. I never speak up in favor of Israel even though I've been there on Operation Birthright and I know the facts and hear the lies."

"Why not?" I asked.

He replied, "Because if I am perceived as pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, in favor of Israel, I won't be able to get dates with young girls."

It was as simple as that. It's not cool to be a "Zionist." It's not cool. I thought I should start a program at the Harvard campus: "Date a Zionist Tonight!" That's the way he put it -- Not cool to be a Zionist. It's really a problem.

I decided to make it cool again to support Israel and show you can support Israel from a progressive, liberal perspective. Indeed, I support Israel not in spite of my history as a human rights activist, but because of it. I support Israel because I support female rights, women's rights, feminism, and the Palestinian Authority does not.

I also support gay rights. I saw a student at a college campus hold up a sign that said, "Gays For Palestine." I said to him "Imagine what would happen if you carried that sign in Ramallah. You'd be killed." I support Israel because I support gay rights. Recently a progressive congressman, Barney Frank from Massachusetts, worked with me and Israel to grant asylum for 40 Palestinian gays.

"Environmentalists For Palestine" is another ironic group. Palestinians are utterly insensitive to environmental concerns. Israel is the most environmentally sensitive country in the Middle East.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which an Arab can file a case against his country in the Supreme Court. Israel's Supreme Court is among the finest courts in the world today. It enforces the rule of law on a daily basis against inevitable abuses that occur when a nation is at war. As we look at the United States Supreme Court this week there are two big cases -- the Hamdi case and the Padilla case. At question is if we can detain and hold terrorist combatants at Guantanamo indefinitely, while deciding if they are prisoners of war or common criminals. One has only to look to Israel, which see resolved these things 20 years ago.

We see that the Israelis routinely decide in favor of the Palestinians against their own government. In 1989, Justice Brennan, perhaps the most liberal justice in America's court, went to Israel at the invitation of Justice Aharon Barak of the Israeli Supreme Court. Brennan said, "God forbid that terrorism should ever come to the shores of the United States. At least we in America have the model to help balance the needs of security against the needs of liberty. That model is Israel."

I think the American courts today will look to that model, just as the United States Army looks to the Israeli army as a model to fight guerilla wars against terrorists with "holiness of arms." I recently attended a hearing of the Ethics Committee of the Israeli Army which decides when it's appropriate to consider somebody a combatant and target him for killing when he can't be arrested as a terrorist. The Ethics Committee consisted of a professor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University, a human rights activist from Bar-Ilan University, several lawyers, mathematicians, and experts on how to evaluate potential collateral damage -- civilian deaths in numbers. They were debating how to value the life of a Palestinian civilian against the life of an Israeli soldier. The Ethics professor said the Israeli government has the right to balance and to value the life of its own soldiers over enemy civilians. And the Israeli general disagreed and said the Israeli soldiers must die to save the lives of civilians even if they are enemy civilians.

Now, however you decide what is the right result, the interesting point is Israel is debating these issues. The Israeli Supreme Court is debating these issues. They're trying their very best to fight within the constraints of the Rules of War. Laws are enacted that give terrorists an advantage in this fight against democracy. You know, Israel has nothing to be ashamed of in its general record. It's fought terrorism for over 56 years.

There was the massacre in Hebron in 1929 before the advent of Israel, before the occupied territories, before the settlements. Hebron's Jewish population was subject to a massacre at the whim of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The victims were not armed Zionists, but primarily yeshiva students and rabbis and they were massacred because they were of the wrong religion. In all its years, Israel has killed fewer civilians than any other comparable country.

Israel is the only country in modern times that has never dropped bombs on enemy capitols in retaliation for bombs dropped on its own civilians. People forget that in 1948, Egypt dropped bombs on a Tel Aviv bus station, killing many people. The '67 War began when the Jordanians lobbed 1600 bombs into downtown West Jerusalem. In the '73 War Syria tried to kill civilians in Galilee. But Israel never bombed Cairo or Damascus. When Israel did bomb on the outskirts of Beirut during the Beirut War, it tried its best not to kill innocent civilians.

In fact, in order to destroy a terrorist base in the middle of Beirut, Israel sent Ehud Barak dressed as a woman on a raft to eliminate the base so as not to drop bombs from the air.

The United States today, when they go into Fallujah from the air or on the ground they use Israel as the model. Israel went in on the ground in Jenin and lost 23 soldiers, yet it's called a massacre: first they claimed 5,000 people were killed, then 500, then 100. In truth, 52 people, most of them combatants, were killed. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers were killed in the process. Israel can be really proud of the way it fought terror and efforts to destroy it over the years. And Israel can be proud of the fact that it has constantly been willing to support the creation of a democratic, peaceful Palestinian state.

Look, I know there are people outside claiming they are Jews for Palestine. I suspect many of you in the auditorium are Jews for Palestine. We favored a Palestinian state in '37, in '47, and we favored Resolution 242. Many offers of statehood were made by Ehud Barak. It was not we who turned them down. It was Yasser Arafat. It's not we who stole money from the Palestinian people, not we who turn Palestinian children into suicide bombers. Yasser Arafat's primary victims have been the Palestinian people. He has stolen his people's lives from them.

There was a cartoon in the Berkeley Daily Planet. It shows a picture of a man holding a Palestinian flag that says. " State of Palestine," and it shows an American flag and a man with a Jewish Star of David stabbing him in the back, as if Israel denied statehood to the Palestinian people.

Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian member of the peace delegation, said if Arafat had accepted what was offered by 2001, we could be celebrating the third year of Palestinian statehood. Palestine could have been one of the wealthiest states in the Middle East, with all kinds of money pouring in from Europe, with great medical care and good education.

The best thing that could happen to the Middle East would be the existence of a democratic, economically viable Palestinian state. It is not Israel that has prevented that from happening. It's the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinians should value having their own state more than the destruction of the Jewish state. But it cannot come without, it must be a condition of, recognizing the existence of the state of Israel.

And statehood cannot come as a reward for terrorism. As Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times, if Palestinian statehood is a reward for terrorism, then terrorism is coming to a theater near you. The world learned a terrible lesson when it rewarded Palestinian terrorism at Munich in 1972; when it rewarded Palestinian terrorism in Turkey and in France; when it rewarded Palestinian terrorists in Italy and Israel, as well. Indeed, I think Usama Bin Laden learned an important lesson from Arafat -- that terrorism works because the United States doesn't have the backbone to stand up to it.

Many European countries become complicit with terror by making deals with the devil, like when Germany's Wily Brandt freed the murderers of Munich after the fake hijacking that he arranged with the Palestinians. This is the kind of cowardly act which results in spreading terrorism around the world. And it's the United States that shares this same destiny with Israel. Both are victims of terrorism against civilians. They fight for the preservation of democracy in a world where terrorism is tolerated; a world where terrorists think they can change the outcome of elections the way they did in Spain, and hope to do in England, Australia, Untied States and Israel. These democracies have to be able to stand up to the tyranny of the world.

Israel can be proud of the way it stood up to terrorism. Israel should be proud of the way it has fought the wars that were thrust upon it for so many years. The last thing Israel wanted to do was fight the wars. Not in 1947, in 1948, not in 1956, not in 1967, not in 1973 and not in any era since. All Israel wants to do is live in peace and prosperity and openness and become a center of science, of intellectualism, of art and culture.

You know you hear excuses all the time that democracy is only for secure nations. "It's only for rich nations. It's only for old nations. Don't expect democracies too quickly in Iraq, don't expect it in other parts of the world. Don't expect it in China. It's a luxury. The United States can afford it, Western Europe can afford it." Israel puts the lie to that.

Israel has been a democracy since the day it was born. Israel never gave up democracy even when faced with genocidal attempts to destroy it. Even when faced with a war and the potential for major, major destruction, it never gave up on democracy. There is no question Israel will remain a democracy.

And as a democracy, Israel can take criticism. Israel is a country with a thick skin. It has had to develop that thick skin over a number of years. It will remain a democracy, believe it. That's a given. Just go online and read the Israeli press. If you want to see criticism in Israel just read Ma'ariv or Yediot Ahranot or Ha'aretz. They tell the joke of the Israelis who were stranded on a deserted island. They were rescued after five years and they had 15 political parties and several newspapers. And American Jews shouldn't be timid to criticize policies of a particular Israeli government. You hear Michael Lerner and others say that to criticize Israel you are called an anti-Semite. That's just nonsense.

I have challenged Michael Lerner, I have challenged others both in the Bay Area and other places too. Show me a single instance where a major Jewish leader or Israeli leader has ever said that criticizing a particular policy of Israeli government is anti-Semitic. That's just something made up by Israel's enemies. It is not something that can actually be argued today.

It is anti-Semitism to single out Israel -- to single out the Jewish nation and blow its faults out of proportion and beyond any kind of recognition, and it is anti-Semitism to continually compare Israel to Nazism.

I was accused of carrying my own anti-Semitisic agenda the first time in my adult life when I spoke at Fanueil Hall and received an award from a Jewish organization for my work in human rights. As I walked out there was a group from the hard Left chanting "Dershowitz and Hilter, it's all the same, the only difference is the name!" and "Dershowitz and Goebbels, all the same, the only difference is the name!" They were chanting that Jews who support Israel are worse than Nazis. Norman Finkelstein has said he doesn't understand why Israel isn't flattered by the comparison with Nazis.

You'll notice these people never compare Israel to others -- to dictatorships, to China, never to Pinochet, never to Cuba, never even to Mussolini and never to solve anything. And that is anti-Semitism. To compare a democratic state that is trying so hard to conform to the rule of law and has never killed innocent civilians deliberately or willfully to the Nazi regimes that killed Jews can only be motivated by hatred and bigotry. So criticism is there. Criticism should be comparable, contextual, constructive. Israel thrives on criticism and the Jewish community thrives on criticism. All I want when I come to Berkeley is to confront those people, those professors, those Israel haters.

Again, I say I'm pro-Palestinian. The only difference between me and other pro-Palestinians is they are anti-Israel. I could debate them because my goal is simply to bring more nuances in the discussion of the Israeli/Arab Palestinian conflict to the college campus. Enough of the shouting, enough of the polemics, enough of the extremism, enough of the ignorant comparisons to Nazism or to apartheid. Enough of the thoroughly non-intellectual sloganeering. Let's have a real intellectual discussion, let's have a real conversation. Let's have a real case.

But you can't buy that case unless there's elimination of the extremist rhetoric -- this sense that Israel is demonized, de-legitimized in the world. In fact, the extreme criticism makes it hard to get the nuances of criticism of both sides. And what happens is each side gets polemical views and that doesn't make progress toward peace.

So I ask those in the progressive movement, who support feminism and civil liberties, -- the kind of political theories I've supported all my life-- to come join an effort to support Israel and support Palestine. To support a democratic Palestinian state to be sure. Take the position you want on unilateralism, or on the fence; they are issues about which reasonable people can disagree. Israelis disagree.

The fence case is now in the Israeli Supreme Court as well as the International Court of Justice. The Israeli Supreme Court will resolve it fairly. The International Court of Justice won't. Why? Because the International Court of Justice is just like the Mississippi Supreme Court in the 1930's.

There was a Mississippi Supreme Court that could do justice only for cases of a White against a White. It was an all White court. It could in a paternalistic way solve a case of a Black against another Black, but it couldn't do justice in a case involving a Black and White. It would always find in favor of a White in such a case.

The same goes for the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice, which is a United Nations court. It can do justice in some disputes, but when Israel is involved it is incapable of doing justice. Like the Mississippi Supreme Court, it used its credibility that existed in some cases to pretend it was doing justice, but no perspicacious students of the International Court of Justice will be fooled. But many people are not perspicacious. They'll see judges with robes declaring the use of a fence to prevent terrorism not only a violation of international law, but a grievous one!

Among cases now pending before the International Court, there are no cases pending involving genocide or slavery, or oppression of women. There are no cases of oppression of people because of their religion. There are no cases involving events in Algeria or the Sudan or Rwanda. But Israel builds a moveable fence, a fence that three times already has been moved by order of the Israeli Supreme Court and by the Israeli government in response to changes on the ground, and that seems to be the greatest violation of international law.

There is a clear effort on the part of those who want to demonize and de-legitimize Israel to win a struggle for the hearts and souls and minds of the next generation of American leaders. The generation educated at Berkeley, at Stanford, at the University of San Francisco, today's students at UC Santa Cruz. Students from all over the state of California and all over the United States. Fifteen to 20 years from now these will be the congress people, the senators. These will be the judges and business leaders. The President of the United States and international leaders as well. The goal is to make these people so knee-jerk anti-Israel that they will resemble typical French or most Western European leaders of today. That's the goal of the divestiture campaign. The leaders of the divestiture movement knew it couldn't work. Noam Chomsky knew it. He said he never believed in divestiture, yet he supported it. Why? Because it would cause students to be misled by the context of the petition, to believe Israel deserved to be singled out as a great human rights violator of the world.

So it is a struggle for the hearts and minds of the students. "College is a dangerous place," Chomsky said. Your children and grandchildren and the children and grandchildren of our friends, they come from high schools, many from a Jewish education, and they are directed into classes that present a totally one-sided perspective. And when somebody tries to speak up for Israel they are demonized the way I have been demonized.

My book has been attacked viciously. I've been accused of plagiarism when I have all my original hand written copies. Norman Finkelstein said I didn't write it. People are prepared to make all kinds of false allegations not only against Israel, but against any Israel supporters also. Martin Gilbert, Stuart Eisenstadt, Debra Lipstadt, Elie Wiesel -- everybody who can speak in favor of the Jewish community -- is subjected to a well-organized, well-orchestrated and well-financed attack.

But they cannot stop us. They know they are not going to stop us. They know they aren't going to succeed in discrediting me, but they are sending a message to young assistant professors that "if you write a book that is pro-Israel or you write an article that is pro-Israel, we will savage you, we will accuse you of plagiarism. We will savage you, we will call you a fraud. And Dershowitz may be able to survive those charges, but you won't; when your tenure comes up those charges will be there, they will be in the air."

As Churchill said, "A lie can make its way half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on."

That's the goal, that's the purpose. And let there be no mistake about it. This is a battle for the hearts and minds for all of our future generation. That's why you all have to become Op Ed writers, you all have to become the people who call the TV and radio stations. You all have to write letters to the editor. You all have to support your local federation in the best defense of Israel.

When things don’t go according to plan

So imagine you’re desperate enough for money that you commit to robbing a grocery store. You steel yourself for the deed, equip yourself with a pistol and stroll in. You jump on top of a small freezer, point the gun at the store owner and that’s when things start to go sour. For example, you’re grabbed from behind by one of the customers… who happens to be 5-foot-4. And 66 years old. The old-timer smashes a can of applesauce into your dome a few times before you accidentally shoot yourself in the head with your own gun and then pass out. That’s what life is like for Thomas Reyes right now. He still has an attempted murder charge, an attempted robbery charge and some other charges to look forward to too

I think there’s a lesson here…

…I just can’t figure it out. Oh wait, yes I can: BUY A FUCKING VIBRATOR YOU DUMB-ASS!! Seriously, there are any number of options available to you when you aren’t seeing enough action. What’s wrong with using your fingers? Purchasing a sex toy? In what universe does someone say, “hmmm. I wonder how good my kitten’s cunnilingus skills are?”

Well, in the funniest bestiality incident since the dude in Washington died after having sex with a horse (if you are not familiar with this story, the dude was not trying to penetrate the horse; he was receiving. From a horse. A horse. A motherfucking horse! In any event, the horse got a little too excited and rammed his horse cock through the dude’s colon. How monumentally awesome would it have been if the horse had punched through the guy’s skull? It’d be like that “punch-it” game from The Price Is Right, except with horse penis through brain and bone rather than a hand through some flimsy backing. But I digress…)

So where were we? Oh yeah: in the funniest bestiality incident since the dude in Washington died after horse cock blasted through some vital organs, we are presented with the case of a Russian woman who suffered injury to her nether regions after the cat she coerced into going down on her suddenly attacked. Her friend escaped injury. Yeah, you read that right. Her friend came up with the diabolical scheme and was apparently brought to conclusion before the cat was pressed into duty again. Who knew that if you poured valerian over your box a cat would go down on you? Vera did – and she successfully talked Svetlana into giving it a go. The only problem was that the cat apparently overdosed on the valerian and went into a rage, seizing Svetlana’s squish mitten with its claws and teeth. She had to go to the hospital and tell her husband what happened. He kicked her out of the house and is divorcing her, adding insult to very funny injury.

Folks, there is no happy ending when you force your pets to perform oral sex. Well, unless you’re Andy and you get your dog to lick peanut butter off your junk when no one’s looking. But Svetlana still should have known better. I mean, doesn’t everyone know that a cat, left to its own devices, will attack fish? Perhaps the cat was just confused…

I couldn’t believe it and I saw it…

So I took a walk through the Olympic Park yesterday. (Side note: I wanted to visit the old Olympic Village and check out the memorial to the Israeli athletes that were murdered here but couldn’t find any monument. It turns out, at least according to Wikipedia, that the Germans have decided against putting up a memorial to the Jewish athletes that they let get slaughtered because it might “alienate other members of the Olympic Community.” Are you fucking kidding me? Because it might offend FUCKING TERRORISTS?!?! Nice grip on reality there…)

Anyway, as I was walking through the park I watched some elementary school-aged children playing a game of soccer. That was cool; kids playing pick-up soccer. Then there was some controversy which ended up with one team receiving a corner kick. There were no lines on the playing surface so I wondered what arbitrary boundary marked the goal-line but whatever… So the kid lines up his corner and another kid heads it towards goal and misses. Corners and headers from little ass kids!

Then it happened.

There was no slide tackle, nor any contact to speak of, yet there lay a child writhing on the floor in mock-agony after an opposing team member CLEANLY STOLE THE BALL FROM HIM! He rolled around clutching his shin or ankle as his mates gathered around him to observe his “injury.” Then his team was awarded a free-kick! A free-kick!! There weren’t even referees! How the opposing team relented to a free-kick after a very clear dive is completely beyond me. Kids are stupid. Or maybe not. Maybe being a cheater and a diver pays off. I guess you learn to be a pussy here at an early age, something that’s anathema to my American sensibilities.

Speaking of pussies…

Mark Coleman and Wanderlei Silva are Homos

You think me foolish? Lay you eyes upon this crap-fest. This video (from Japan, of course) is gayer than eight dudes blowing nine dudes. I’ll let you be the one to tell Silva and Coleman that they’re a couple of nancies for doing this though…

A response for Oscar

What are you talking about, "reverse jinxing Italy"? Look man, I still hate the greasy Italian team but realize that the U.S. is the ONLY TEAM they played that they didn't beat. And we were playing with nine men! That makes us the second best team in the world right? Right? That's how I choose to see it anyway...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAH...

...HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA HAHAHAHA HAHAHAHHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAH!!!

Come to the U.S., Klinsi!

Alright, I’ll say it: I’d like Jürgen Klinsmann to be the next coach of the U.S. Soccer team. Although there hasn’t yet been any final decision regarding Bruce Arena’s fate, there is a lot of speculation that he will soon find himself without a job. Naturally, we’re going to need to find a replacement and Klinsmann could be a great land. He took a German team that wasn’t as good as it’s been in past years and reached third place in the World Cup finals. His team simply overachieved and the home grown folk loved them for their soccer intelligence, attacking tactics and discipline – all of which reflects back on the coach. Throw into the mix the fact that Klinsi (the Germans’ nickname for him, not mine…) LIVES IN CALIFORNIA and loves it there and you have a nice candidate for the job should Arena move on or get canned. There is, however, something more and I’m wondering if Klinsmann doesn’t feel it himself. Simply put:

Germany doesn’t deserve Jürgen Klinsmann.

I guess one of the downsides to working in a country that, you know, actually gives a shit about soccer is that one has to cope with a great deal more scrutiny. And the pressure on Klinsmann was intense before and at the start of the World Cup. The Germans got their asses handed to them 4-1 by Italy and almost everyone was calling for a new coach. Then they beat the U.S. C-team by a score of 4-1 and, though it relieved some pressure, it didn’t exactly secure Jürgen’s job because, after all, it was just the US’ C-team. If the Germans had lost that game too, Klinsmann would have certainly lost his job. He was under fire for everything from his training methods to his tactics to his personnel. When he released the World Cup roster, people howled in disgust that he’d selected an unknown named David Odonkor and that he’d picked Jens Lehmann to be the starting goalie rather than Oliver Kahn. All those people have had to politely shut the fuck up considering how far Germany advanced when they weren’t expected to do squat. Now everyone knows and loves Odonkor. And Lehmann only blocked some penalty kicks in the Argentina game; can’t complain about that either.

Now that the German run through the cup is officially over and the unexpected happened, everyone here is calling for Klinsmann to stay. And he’s remained non-committal about the whole affair. Maybe he’ll stay but maybe he’s entertaining other offers. Who knows? What I DO know is that all of his new “friends” are the people who wanted him fired just a short while ago. The tabloid newspaper Bild, which campaigned for his firing, started a drive to collect signatures as a petition to get Klinsmann to stay in his role as Germany’s coach. Germany’s Pope of soccer, Franz Beckenbauer, was highly critical of Klinsmann too and now he’s practically begging for him to stay.

On top of that, there’s the reaction of the “civilian” soccer fan who also wanted Klinsi gone but is now his best friend. But there’s something more at the heart of that as well, something that bothers me tremendously: they don’t even know what they’re talking about. For example, I watched last night’s third place match with Vroni, Kathi and Florian. Vroni doesn’t give a monkey’s ass about soccer but Kathi and Florian were super excited and singing their chants and whatnot. Then, a sub was checking in. “Who’s that?” they both asked. I said rather nonchalantly, “Oh, that’s Mike Hanke.” Later on Kathi asked, “What team does Odonkor play for?” I told them Borussia Dortmund. Later on they both asked what team Thomas Hitzlsperger played for and I answered that question too. Then it hit me: why is it that I know more about the GERMAN TEAM than German’s who were so excited about this game that they had their faces painted and were singing their chants? And this isn’t to say anything bad about Kathi and Flo, they’re both great people and two of my favorite friends here. It’s just that I would label that sort of ignorance the norm rather than the exception and it’s a little frustrating that this is the collective “wisdom” that wants to influence who coaches the national team. Another example: Vroni, Kathi and Flo were all pissed that Lehmann was in net rather than Kahn. They don’t even know their own players so how can you take that criticism seriously? During one of the other games Kathi was calling for Odonkor to get put in and I asked, “Say… weren’t you one of the people who were super pissed at Klinsmann naming him to the team? Why the change of heart now?” She answered it was because no one knew who Odonkor was before the cup. I responded that perhaps that was the reason Klinsmann was the coach and not her. She was anti-Klinsmann and now it’s safe to say she’s pro-Klinsmann. WTF?

Say what you will about soccer in the States but at least we don’t have pseudo-fans. Either people like the sport and the team and can speak intelligently about it or they don’t. Those that don’t like it may develop a casual interest in the World Cup for a moment but they don’t pretend to know enough to call for a coach’s firing or to criticize his methods and tactics.

Come to the U.S., Jürgen. Germany doesn’t deserve you.

What's so great about America?

Happy birthday and well wishes to the greatest country in the world: the United States of America. I could write a lot about why I love my country so much but, honestly, it'd probably degenerate into me calling Europeans lazy and detached and launching another assault on the whole breed of "man" that walks the streets here. So, with that in mind, I will simply put up an article by an immigrant to the States who realizes the greatness contained therein.

America, FUCK YEAH! (or for the handful of readers who also speak spanish: ¡America, puto sí!)

What's So Great About America?
By Dinesh D'Souza

The newcomer who sees America for the first time typically experiences emotions that alternate between wonder and delight. Here is a country where everything works: The roads are paper-smooth, the highway signs are clear and accurate, the public toilets function properly, when you pick up the telephone you get a dial tone. You can even buy things from the store and then take them back if you change your mind. For the Third World visitor, the American supermarket is a marvel to behold: endless aisles of every imaginable product, 50 different types of cereal, multiple flavors of ice cream, countless unappreciated inventions like quilted toilet paper, fabric softener, roll-on deodorant, disposable diapers.

The immigrant cannot help noticing that America is a country where the poor live comparatively well. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s, when CBS television broadcast an anti-Reagan documentary, “People Like Us,” which was intended to show the miseries of the poor during an American recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with the intention of embarrassing the Reagan administration. But it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans had television sets and cars. They arrived at the same conclusion that I witnessed in a friend of mine from Bombay who has been trying unsuccessfully to move to the United States for nearly a decade. I asked him, “Why are you so eager to come to America?” He replied, “Because I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”

The point is that the United States is a country where the ordinary guy has a good life. This is what distinguishes America from so many other countries. Everywhere in the world, the rich person lives well. Indeed, a good case can be made that if you are rich, you live better in countries other than America, because you enjoy the pleasures of aristocracy. In India, where I grew up, the wealthy have innumerable servants and toadies groveling before them and attending to their every need.

In the United States, on the other hand, the social ethic is egalitarian, regardless of wealth. For all his riches, Bill Gates could not approach a homeless person and say, “Here’s a $100 bill. I’ll give it to you if you kiss my feet.” Most likely the homeless guy would tell Gates to go to hell. The American view is that the rich guy may have more money, but he isn’t in any fundamental sense better than you are. The American janitor or waiter sees himself as performing a service, but he doesn’t see himself as inferior to those he serves. And neither do the customers see him that way: They are generally happy to show him respect and appreciation on a plane of equality. America is the only country in the world where we call the waiter “Sir,” as if he were a knight.

The moral triumph of America is that it has extended the benefits of comfort and affluence, traditionally enjoyed by very few, to a large segment of society. Very few people in America have to wonder where their next meal is coming from. Even sick people who don’t have money or insurance will receive medical care at hospital emergency rooms. The poorest American girls are not humiliated by having to wear torn clothes. Every child is given an education, and most have the chance to go on to college. The common man can expect to live long enough and have enough free time to play with his grandchildren.

Ordinary Americans not only enjoy security and dignity, but also comforts that other societies reserve for the elite. We now live in a country where construction workers regularly pay $4 for a cappuccino, where maids drive nice cars, where plumbers take their families on vacation to Europe. As Irving Kristol once observed, there is virtually no restaurant in America to which a CEO can go to lunch with the absolute assurance that he will not find his secretary also dining there. Given the standard of living of the ordinary American, it is no wonder that socialist or revolutionary schemes have never found a wide constituency in the United States. As Werner Sombart observed, all socialist utopias in America have come to grief on roast beef and apple pie.

Thus it is entirely understandable that people would associate the idea of America with a better life. For them, money is not an end in itself; money is the means to a longer, healthier, and fuller life. Money allows them to purchase a level of security, dignity, and comfort not available in other countries. Money also frees up time for family life, community involvement, and spiritual pursuits, and so provides moral as well as material gains.

Yet even this offers an incomplete picture of why America is so appealing to so many outsiders. Let me illustrate with the example of my own life. Not long ago, I asked myself: What would my existence have been like had I never come to the United States, if I had stayed in India? Materially, my life has improved, but not in a fundamental sense. I grew up in a middle-class family in Bombay. My father was a chemical engineer; my mother, an office secretary. I was raised without great luxury, but neither did I lack for anything. My standard of living in America is higher, but it is not a radical difference. My life has changed far more dramatically in other ways.

Had I remained in India, I would probably have lived my entire existence within a one-mile radius of where I was born. I would undoubtedly have married a woman of my identical religious, socioeconomic, and cultural background. I would almost certainly have become a medical doctor, an engineer, or a software programmer. I would have socialized within my ethnic community and had few real friends outside that group. I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance; indeed, they would not be very different from what my father believed, or his father before him. In sum, my destiny would to a large degree have been given to me.

Instead, I came to Arizona in 1978 as a high-school exchange student, then a year later enrolled at Dartmouth College. There I fell in with a group of students who were actively involved in politics; soon I had switched my major from economics to English literature. My reading included books like Plutarch’s Moralia; Hamilton, Madison, and Jay’s Federalist Papers; and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. They transported me to places a long way from home and implanted in my mind ideas that I had never previously considered. By the time I graduated, I decided that I should become a writer. America permits many strange careers: This is a place where you can become, say, a comedian. That is very different from most places.

If there is a single phrase that encapsulates life in the Third World, it is that “birth is destiny.” A great deal of importance is attached to what tribe you come from, whether you are male or female, and whether you are the eldest son or not. Once your tribe, caste, sex and family position have been established at birth, your life takes a course that is largely determined for you.

In America, by contrast, you get to write the script of your own life. When your parents say to you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” the question is open ended, it is you who supply the answer. Your parents can advise you: “Have you considered law school?” “Why not become the first doctor in the family?” It is considered very improper, however, for them to try to force your decision. Indeed, American parents typically send their teenage children away to college where they live on their own and learn independence. This is part of the process of forming your mind, choosing a field of interest for yourself, and developing your identity.

It is not uncommon in the United States for two brothers who come from the same gene pool and were raised in similar circumstances to do quite different things: The eldest becomes a gas station attendant, the younger moves up to be vice president at Oracle; the eldest marries his high-school sweetheart and raises four kids; the youngest refuses to settle down; one is the Methodist that he was raised to be, the other becomes a Christian Scientist. What to be, where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, what religion to practice—these are all decisions that Americans make for themselves.

In America your destiny is not prescribed; it is constructed. Your life is like a blank sheet of paper and you are the artist. This notion of being the architect of your own destiny is the incredibly powerful idea that is behind the worldwide appeal of America. Young people especially find the prospect of authoring their own lives irresistible. The immigrant discovers that America permits him to break free of the constraints that have held him captive, so that the future becomes a landscape of his own choosing.

If there is a single phrase that captures this, it is “the pursuit of happiness.” As writer V. S. Naipaul notes, “much is contained” in that simple phrase: “the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation, perfectibility, and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known [around the world] to exist; and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away.”

But where did the “pursuit of happiness” come from? And why has it come in America to mean something much more than simple selfishness? America’s founders were religious men. They believed that political legitimacy derives from God. Yet they were determined not to permit theological differences to become the basis for political conflict.

The American system refused to establish a national church, instead recognizing all citizens as free to practice their own religion. From the beginning the United States was made up of numerous sects. The Puritans dominated in Massachusetts, the Anglicans in Virginia, the Catholics were concentrated in Maryland, so it was in every group’s interest to “live and let live.” The ingenuity of the American solution is evident in Voltaire’s remark that where there is one religion, you have tyranny; where there are two, you have religious war; but where they are many, you have freedom.

One reason the American founders were able to avoid religious oppression and conflict is that they found a way to channel people’s energies away from theological quarrels and into commercial activity. The American system is founded on property rights and trade, and The Federalist tells us that protection of the obtaining of property is “the first object of government.” The founders reasoned that people who are working assiduously to better their condition are not likely to go around spearing their neighbors.

Capitalism gives America a this-worldly focus that allows death and the afterlife to recede from everyday view. Along with their heavenly aspirations, the gaze of the people is shifted to earthly progress. This “lowering of the sights” convinces many critics that American capitalism is a base, degraded system and that the energies that drive it are crass and immoral.

These modern critiques draw on some very old prejudices. In the ancient world, labor was generally despised. The Greeks looked down on merchants and traders as low-lifes. “The gentleman understands what is noble,” Confucius writes in his Analects, “the small man understands what is profitable.” In the Indian caste system the vaisya or trader occupies nearly the lowest rung of the ladder—one step up from the despised “untouchable.” The Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun suggests that even gain by conquest is preferable to gain by trade, because conquest embodies the virtues of courage and manliness. In these traditions, the honorable life is devoted to philosophy or the priesthood or military valor. “Making a living” was considered a necessary, but undignified, pursuit. Far better to rout your adversary, kill the men, enslave the women and children, and make off with a bunch of loot than to improve your lot by buying and selling stuff.

Drawing on the inspiration of philosophers like John Locke and Adam Smith, the American founders altered this moral hierarchy. They argued that trade based on consent and mutual gain was preferable to plunder. The founders established a regime in which the self-interest of entrepreneurs and workers would be directed toward serving the wants and needs of others. In this view, the ordinary life, devoted to production, serving the customer, and supporting a family, is a noble and dignified endeavor. Hard work, once considered a curse, now becomes socially acceptable, even honorable. Commerce, formerly a degraded thing, now becomes a virtue.

Of course the founders recognized that in both the private and the public sphere, greedy and ambitious people can pose a danger to the well-being of others. Instead of trying to outlaw these passions, the founders attempted a different approach. As the fifty-first book of The Federalist puts it, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” In a free society, “the security for civil rights [consists] in the multiplicity of interests.” The framers of the Constitution reasoned that by setting interests against each other, by making them compete, no single one could become strong enough to imperil the welfare of the whole.

In the public sphere the founders took special care to devise a system that would minimize the abuse of power. They established limited government, in order that the power of the state would remain confined. They divided authority between the national and state governments. Within the national framework, they provided for separation of powers, so that the legislature, executive, and judiciary would each have its own domain of authority. They insisted upon checks and balances, to enhance accountability.

The founders didn’t ignore the importance of virtue, but they knew that virtue is not always in abundant supply. According to Christianity, the problem of the bad person is that his will is corrupted, a fault endemic to human nature. America’s founders knew they could not transform human nature, so they devised a system that would thwart the schemes of the wicked and channel the energies of flawed persons toward the public good.

The experiment that the founders embarked upon more than two centuries ago has largely succeeded in achieving its goals. Tribal and religious battles such as we see in Lebanon, Mogadishu, Kashmir, and Belfast don’t happen here. Whites and African Americans have lunch together. Americans of Jewish and Palestinian descent collaborate on software problems and play racquetball after work. Hindus and Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Turks and Armenians, Irish Catholics and British Protestants, all seem to have forgotten their ancestral differences and joined the vast and varied American parade. Everybody wants to “make it,” to “get ahead,” to “hit it big.” And even as they compete, people recognize that somehow they are all in this together, in pursuit of some great, elusive American dream. In this respect America is a glittering symbol to the world.

America’s founders solved two great problems which are a source of perennial misery and conflict in many other societies—the problem of scarcity, and the problem of religious and tribal conflict. They invented a new regime in which citizens would enjoy a wide range of freedoms—economic freedom, political freedom, and freedom of speech and religion—in order to shape their own lives and pursue happiness. By protecting religion and government from each other, and by directing the energies of the citizens toward trade and commerce, the American founders created a rich, dynamic, and peaceful society. It is now the hope of countless millions all across the world.

Dinesh D’Souza, Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author of What’s So Great About America (2002), from which this is adapted.

Goats in the military

So anyone with more than a pea-brain knows that the U.S. Military keeps the free world, well… free. And yes, that applies to our arrogant European cousins who hate our military while living under the freedom it provides. But them’s them breaks and we all recognize that. The question now is: why does Europe depend so heavily on our military? Why don’t they protect themselves? I could provide a long list of reasons but I’ll start with this really simple example (bless the English):

They promote GOATS in their armies!

On the plus side, it’s good to know that they do hold their aluminum can eating comrades to some standards and also demote them when necessary. So what the hell am I talking about?

This news report of a British Army unit demoting their goat after it acted out during a ceremony to honor the Queen. I think this quote pretty much sums things up:

"The goat, which has been the regiment's mascot since 2001, was supposed to be leading the march, but would not stay in line," Coates said. "After consideration, the commanding officer decided he had no option but to demote Billy."

While that may sum things up, these quote also rule:

“Since the goat's demotion, soldiers of a lower rank are no longer expected to salute Billy as a sign of respect, Coates said.”

And:

“Capt. William Rose, a soldier present at the parade, said the goat ‘was trying to head-butt the waist and nether regions of the drummers.’”

Yay for you Britain. Yay for you.