Category Archives: 2014

Deja vu all over again Middle East-wise

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

All this new slaughter in Gaza isn’t really new, is it?  Neither new, nor unexpected.  In fact it qualifies as habitual, maybe to the point of addiction.  And  possibly another land-grab for which the two sovereign nations involved are famous from so long ago the years ran backward.

I posted this a year ago because a lot of people tend to forget what’s behind the post-1947 troubles in the area.  Forget that people lived there since anyone could remember and viewed it as ‘their’ land.  When European Zionists began pouring into the country pre-WWII after being absent the place for 2000 years, it wasn’t empty.  The houses had people living in them.  The farms had families working them who had been working them hundreds of years.  Palestinians.

And it’s legitimate to ask whether the current slaughter is part of another Israeli land grab.  Once they conquer a place they tend to send in settlers, and think in long terms.  Heck, they invaded Lebonon and occupied it almost 20 years before they decided they just couldn’t stand the price of annexing it.  And when they retreated they left chaos behind them.

So buy yourself a bag of popcorn and cheer for the Israeli Army out there snagging some more real estate.  Luckily it’s just Palestinians they’re taking it away from.  They’re used to it.

A year is so short everything in it looks the same:

 

Israel and Ireland Boundaries – A cause for Non-Zionist Confusion

Reference the preceding post: I was probably negligent by not pointing out part of the reason for sustained peace in Ireland is the respect for established borders. Borders between Ireland and Northern Ireland haven’t changed significantly since they were agreed to by both sides. No understanding would be gained by posting a map of Ireland.

Israel is a comparatively young, new nation. Zionists evidently tend to harken back to Biblical times when they consider boundaries. They probably don’t understand that the older, more mature nations take borders seriously.

And the borders of Israel haven’t changed since 1966. The Palestinians own East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Syria owns the Golan Heights. However, 300,000 Israeli settlers occupy the West Bank. 200,000 Israeli setters live in East jerusalem.

map israel UN partition 1947

On the other hand, here’s a map of Israel when it was established by the UN in 1947, and recognized by the US in 1948.

map israel pre 1967 borders

Here’s a more detailed map of the pre-1967 borders of Israel with later claims by Israel shown in red.

Here’s Israel and the occupied areas today.

Map israel and occupied territories

In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza. But it maintains a strong security force in both places.

Every country probably wishes more land was contained within its borders. However, most modern countries recognize if they attempt to occupy territories belonging to other countries they’ll draw criticism from some quarters. Often the people living in the areas being occupied.

Israel could make a far stronger case for being a peace-loving country, a more believable case in the eyes on non-Zionists, by withdrawing to areas the world recognizes are contained within its established borders.

Otherwise it will forever having to fall back on the argument that everyone just hates Jews is the only reason for all the problems with neighbors. An outward sign of a desire for peace sometime during the past 50 years might have gone a long way toward achieving it.

Some strategy along the lines Ireland’s used, maybe.

Old Jules

Steamed rice under curry chicken with bean sprouts, broccoli, green onion and cranberries.

Low sodium, no MSG

Low sodium, no MSG

And of course it’s all no sodium/low sodium.  Stir fry it or steam it with the rice.

Once it’s all in the bowl steaming sprinkle coconut across the top and a splonge of fig preserves on the side to simulate chutney.  Chopped cilantro, ancho molido, minced garlic and minced ginger to taste.

Raw peanuts sprinkled into it and you’ll be ready to rock and roll.

Believe me when I say it’s easy to discover you’re going to have to put some leftovers into the freezer.  It’s containerized cargo for the digestive tract.

Don’t try this anywhere but home.

Old Jules

Olathe Free Concert in the Park – Brody Buster opens for Paul Thorn

Brody Buster One Manning opening for Paul Thorn

Brody Buster One Manning opening for Paul Thorn

 

Paul Thorn Band

Paul Thorn Band

Hi readers.  When Jeanne’s oldest son, Kenneth, called around 6pm last night Hydrox and I were wondering whether to pester Shiva all evening.

Kenneth:  There’s a concert down at the Olathe Park tonight.  We were wondering whether you’d care to go.

Me:  Does the Pope crap in the woods?

And so it happened.  Kenneth, Andrew, Hailey [Kenneth’s daughter] and I drifted down and got a parking spot about a quarter-to-half mile from the park.  And with a rest stop or two and a bit of heavy breathing, I spang walked down there for a bit of toe tapping and grinning.

Brody Buster – Guy’s a bull-goose harmonica player.  Does a middling fine Creedence Clearwater Revival song or three as a stand-alone.

Paul Thorn Band – Reminds me in some ways of Leon Redbone.  Reminds me in some other ways of early Jesse Winchester.

Heck of an enjoyable evening.  Now that global warming went on coffee break it was comfy enough so all us people in shorts were wondering whether it was worth a walk back to the car for a jacket.

hailey july 2014

Hailey ended up wrapped in that blanket sticking the plastic light sticks out waving them around in the dark.  Me, I figured it was going to be better struggling back to the car in cool night rather than crawling back on all fours in regular old honest late-July heat.

Turned out both bands were sufficiently good to distract everyone from global warming or a hair cool for the choice of clothing.  Got them waving their arms around and clapping instead of talking about the polar bears dying off and Antarctica either melting or not melting.

An evening well spent.  Physical therapy performs wonders.  I never thought I’d be able to do something of that sort again.

Old Jules

 

Back in the game

hydrox june 2014

Hi readers.  Mr. Hydrox explained something for me I’d been wondering about a longish while.

Hydrox:  Meeeeeoooooww. Meeeeeoooooww. Meeeeeoooooww.

Me: Jeeze Hydrox.  Ain’t it a bit late for this crap?  Something bothering you?

Hydrox:  No.  I just got to thinking about things.  Missing Niaid.  All those Y2K chickens and that cabin.  Mehitabel.  Tabby and that mountain place we used to live.  All I’ve got now is this other cat here, Shiva.  You.  And that woman who lives here with Shiva.

Me:  Well you do have that.  You’ve got to live for the moment.

Hydrox: I’m not asking for any of that cheap tripe philosopy.  You asked why I was weeping aloud and I told you.

Me:  I’m glad you did, amigo.  I was afraid you were getting sick again.

Hydrox:  So where’s that woman who lives here?  I haven’t seen her for a couple of days?

Me:  She’s off somewhere else, Hydrox.  It’s just you, Shiva and me for the next couple of weeks.

 Hydrox:  So I can meoooow as much as I want and nobody’s going to be kept awake?

Me:  I’ll sleep right through it.  You know that.  And who cares what Shiva thinks?  She used to be a good cow cat, earned her keep.  Nowadays she’s worthless.  I don’t know why Jeanne keeps her around.

Hydrox:  Yeah, but I’m glad she’s here anyway.  This place almost echoes.  I’d go crazy if there weren’t at least one more cat around.

Me:  You’ve got it then, amigo.  I’ll keep feeding her so long as the food holds out.  Maybe Jeanne will pick up some more when she gets back.

Old Jules

 

 

Audie Murphy, Cuba and a meaner baby face than Baby Face Nelson

Hi readers.  Most of you are too young to remember who Audie Murphy was.  Who he was was a killer the likes of which most wars don’t have the violent potential to produce.  Baby Face Murphy lodged himself on a burning tank with a machine gun and proceeded to mow down close-up and personal more Germans than is possible.  Armed and dangerous Germans.

Well, hell.  That got him the Congressional Medal of Honor because nobody wanted to have him come home carrying any grudges against anyone back here.  Made him a movie star and he stayed one until his death sometime in the 70s.  Free basing cocaine I think it was, and caught fire.  But that might have been someone else.  Maybe Ricky Nelson.

The Gun Runners 1958NR82 minutes A down-on-his luck charter boat captain is ensnared in the deadly machinations of a wily American who is smuggling illegal arms to Cuban rebels. More Info  Starring: Audie Murphy, Eddie Albert Director: Don Siegel

Anyway, most of you probably don’t remember that Cuba used to be a place where a Carib dictator named Batista did what Carib dictators do.  Did it enough worse than Papa Doc Duvallier to cause the US public to cheer the revolutionary splinters operating in the jungles.  Including one carrying the name Fidel Castro

Anyway, streaming on Netflix is the full version of Audie Murphy and wossname, the guy who played Marcus Welby, and a lot of Goldiloxes all getting into a lot of trouble between Key West and Havana.

Poor Baby Face Murphy.  Life was easier for him when he was just shooting a machine gun from atop a burning tank.  Wasn’t as dangerous as free-basing cocaine, either.  Or whatever it was got him dead.

Old Jules

 

God Pledges $5,000 For Cancer Research

News in BriefScience & TechnologyhealthcareNewsISSUE 50•28• Jul 17, 2014

THE HEAVENS—Expressing His hope that the contribution would assist efforts to find a cure for the devastating disease, the Lord Our God, Creator and Supreme Ruler of the Universe, confirmed Thursday that He had pledged $5,000 to the American Cancer Society to help fund ongoing research. “I have the means, so I can afford to give a little bit of money to support such an important cause,” said He Who Commanded Light to Shine Out of the Darkness, describing the contribution as “the very least [He] could do” in the fight against the disease that causes more than 8 million deaths annually. “Now, obviously a $5,000 donation isn’t going to just make the cure appear by itself. Clearly, there’s no magic bullet for this thing. But every little bit helps. And knowing I might be making a small difference in the life of some kid with leukemia or mom with breast cancer just makes me feel like I did my part.” The Divine Creator of Life, Heaven, and Earth told reporters that if the timing works out, He also plans to participate in a 10K benefit run for Hodgkin lymphoma this fall.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-pledges-5000-for-cancer-research,36486/

Maybe to some it was a terrible tragedy. To others likely it was a blessing

Hi readers.  Wil pointed out in a comment that the guy in the White House mightn’t have known yet whether a plane went down when he made his might be a terrible tragedy statement.  I’ve been re-thinking the post and I hope Wil is wrong.

Maybe Wossname, the guy in the White House was demonstrating an uncharacteristic, Zen-like wisdom.  Maybe he was trying to exert some of the world leadership thing presidents are occasionally accused of, albeit wrongly accused.

Fact is, that airplane actually mightn’t be a terrible tragedy because someone the CIA or such had on a list of suspects of being terrorists.  In which case everyone else on the airplane was just part of the price of fighting terrorism.  Maybe the prez didn’t want to stick his foot in his mouth and be forever harangued about it until all the authorities went over the passenger list carefully.

It’s an ill wind that blows no good, any way you cut it.  While it’s tempting to think Wossname wanted to make certain someone he’d personally like to see dead was on the plane, or that someone he had to make a public display NOT being glad as hell, the crash was certainly a secret blessing to some peoople.

People can accurately be described as a pain in the ass to other people.  All of us.  If one of the passengers was the guy next door to someone and had a dog that barked all night, he neighbor would consider the prez a fool, or a liar if Wossname proclaimed it a terrible tragedy.  And so on 295 times.  Plus or minus the airline crew.  Lots of people collecting flight insurance, losing troublesome mothers-in-law, competing people on the career trail, it all reduces the equation when attempting to determine whether there was a whiff of good in the ill wind.

And Wossname!, the guy in the White House, might have recognized this!

Maybe.

In any case, we might as well be ecstatic because now we can make up our own minds whether anyone on the airplane needed killing more than the rest of the people aboard needed to keep living.

Old Jules

Spoof on WWII – A Man Called Sarge – Heluva funny movie

Hi Readers.

This one’s worth the laughs.

You watched this on 7/17/14

A Man Called Sarge

1990PG-131hr 28m

You rated this movie: 4

This parody of WW II movies finds the overly zealous Sgt. Duke Roscoe leading his band of oddballs on a mission to blow up a vital German fuel dump.
Meanwhile, if you agree with me that we’ve been taking a lot of our presidents, particularly Franklin Delano Roosevelt, too seriously, you might enjoy this for a change.
Streaming on Netflix:  FDR: American Badass 2012R93 minutes, After contracting polio from a werewolf bite, FDR and a team of historic figures seek victory in World War II by defeating an army of Nazi werewolves. More Info

Starring: Barry Bostwick, Lin Shaye Director: Garrett Brawith

 

Wossname, the White House Guy, says that passenger plane crash killing 295 might be a tragedy

Hi readers.  I’m thinking terrible tragedies only involve killing 300 or more unsuspecting travelers.  But wossname’s come right out and strongly implied the 295 killed in the Ukraine “might be a terrible tragedy“.

I really hate to see anyone messing around with the English language this way.  If the word “might” can be placed in a sentence ahead of “be a terrible tragedy” the terms of engagement need to be defined for the purposes of clarity.

Hells bells readers.  You know me.  I’m not pickypickypicky about this sort of thing.  If one policician, or 295 regular normal people, or some specified number of a particular ethnic group is what’s required to make a terrible tragedy it’s no affair of mine.  But planners need to know what the hell is needed.  Who the hell wants to know about non-terrible tragedies?  Which will almost certainly happen now, thanks to this ambiguity created by the wossname, President of the US.

What the hell is the matter with these people?

Old Jules

Everyone In Middle East Given Own Country In 317,000,000-State Solution

NewsPoliticsmiddle eastNewsISSUE 50•28• Jul 17, 2014

NEW YORK—Marking the latest and most ambitious attempt to bring stability to the region, the United Nations announced Wednesday that every single person in the Middle East will receive his or her own sovereign nation as part of a historic 317,000,000-state solution.

The broad and extensive compromise, which affects more than 3,000,000 square miles formerly occupied by the territories of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan, will reportedly draw over 750,000,000 new borders in what experts claim will help drastically curb sectarian violence.

“Given the incredibly complex and volatile sociopolitical landscape throughout the Middle East, a 317,000,000-state solution is the only realistic means of achieving lasting peace,” said U.N. Security Council president Eugène-Richard Gasana, noting that the treaty was reached after lengthy negotiations, which brought together each of the more than 300,000,000 independent factions. “We are pleased to finally come to an agreement that will hopefully stabilize the entire region and adequately satisfy the demands of all parties.”

“We are confident that with every man, woman, and child possessing his or her own autonomous area of sovereignty to run as he or she sees fit, we will avoid many of the conflicts that have plagued this part of the world for centuries and left countless dead,” Gasana added. “This is a bright new future for the Middle East.”

According to U.N. officials, the newly demarcated Middle East now consists of 8,000,000 independent Jewish states, 4,000,000 independent Palestinian states, 112,000,000 Shi’ite Islamic republics, 156,000,000 Sunni Islamic republics, and 19,000,000 Kurdish nations, as well as approximately 18,000,000 territories that include various Christian, Bahá’í, Druze, Zoroastrian, and secular countries.

According to reports, the treaty has largely been met with support from locals, with many praising the division of the region into nearly a third of a billion sovereign states as a practical and desperately needed solution after decades of ceaseless sectarian fighting.

“Frankly, giving every Middle Eastern citizen a country of his or her own is long overdue,” 49-year-old Naseer Khalidi told reporters from his newly formed 400-square-foot independent state along the former West Bank, which is adjacent to nations populated by his wife and two children. “After such a long history of violence and discord, we now have a region that is fairly and evenly divided among all religious factions, ethnic groups, and individual inhabitants. Finally, we can all live without oppression.”

The resolution, however, has not been without various complications, with the U.N. now struggling to accommodate its 317,000,183 member states, and the global economy still reportedly has yet to incorporate each of the 317,000,000 entirely new forms of currency.

Reports also confirmed that several hundred of the new states in what was formerly northeast Saudi Arabia contain highly valuable oil reserves within their borders, with top officials in those nations having already received a number of diplomatic visits from the U.S. and Western Europe, sparking tensions with their tens of thousands of neighboring countries.

“While this idea may work in theory, this is simply another shortsighted plan that will only further strain tensions in the region,” said 54-year-old former Syrian resident Ilyas al-Masry, adding that there have already been some hints of unrest between each of the 246 sovereign states within a 5,000-foot radius of his country. “How can we have stability and peace when more than 300,000,000 nations are inhabiting lands they have absolutely no right to occupy?”

“As long as everyone respects my borders, there will be no issues,” al-Masry added. “But I am prepared to use force if there are any attempts to destabilize or infringe upon my nation.”

At press time, reports confirmed the outbreak of more than 90,000,000 new wars across the region, with sources estimating the current death toll at approximately 700,000.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/everyone-in-middle-east-given-own-country-in-31700,36484/