Counting Qassams and Shaming the Media

Congratulations to Elder of Ziyon, a blogger who I knew in cyberspace long before he ever became a blogger. He has been cited by HonestReporting for his running tally of Qassam missile attacks launched by the palestinians against Israel on his daily Qassam Calendar carried on his blog.

Elder is an extremely bright, dedicated Zionist and, as such, is one of my internet heroes. You can find a link to his site on the right hand of this blog under "Blogs of Those I Know and Respect" (those are reserved for people who I "knew" before I began blogging although I respect some of those in my "other sites I like" equally as much).

I just wanted to tip my hat to Elder; he's one of the bloggers whose work spurred me to write down my own thoughts on this much lesser forum.

It's too bad he has to do the media's job for it because the media is too damned lazy to do its own work. Anyone interested in Israel and the incessantly biased reporting against the Middle East's only democratic nation should definitely check out Elder's blog and add it to their blogroll. He is truly ahead of his time in countering the typical pro-arab BS that runs through media outlets - particularly Reuters, AP and AFP - when it comes to the ME.

HonestReporting's citation came in response to Hamas' announcement it was ending its so-called ceasefire with Israel after the Israelis sent a bunch of pali terrorists to meet Allah in hell this weekend. The fact is, of course, that there was never any such ceasefire; the palis continued to lob Qassam rockets into Israel on a daily basis and to send terrorists out in the hopes they would infiltrate Israeli borders and kill more innocent Israeli civilians. Yet, the world media never, ever reports these attacks and only seems concerned with promoting the terrorist agenda of the hamassholes and their supporters.

Elder, btw, also keeps a running tally of the number of palis the palis kill in their never-ending gang war. It will be of no surprise to any thinking human being that the palis kill far more of their own citizens than Israel does and that they fire off weapons nilly-willy all over the place all the time, in the process killing many unarmed children, teenagers, women and innocent men. The IDF, on the other hand, targets pali terrorists who have a nasty habit of hiding behind the innocent and those innocents sometimes get caught in the crossfire. Those deaths, too, lie at the feet of the pali terror factions and not Israel.

As I've stated before on this blog and many other areas whereever I can: the palis are a complete waste of time and are perhaps the least deserving people in history of having their own country. Any other nation, attacked by terrorists on a constant basis as Israel is, would have wiped out the palis decades ago and slept with a clean conscience after doing so. Israel, alas, is often too humane for its own good.

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It will be interesting to see how history portrays Boris Yeltsin, who died a couple of days ago at age 76. On the one hand, his bold actions and statements in the face of an attempted hardline Communist coup in Russia about 15 years ago temporarily saved the nation from a return to evil days of the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, he prosecuted the war in Chechnya which has been both unnecessary and extremely bloody. And, he also anointed Vladimir Putin as his successor. Putin, in his eight years in power, has largely done what those Communist hardliners Yeltsin stood up to wanted to do in the first place.

In many cases, Yeltsin came across as drunken buffoon but maybe it was the alcohol that gave him the cojones to stand on that tank in the first place and stare down the coup. Either way, I think the western world, not to mention the Russians, would have been better off if he and/or Gorbachev had stayed in power and Putin had been relegated to ex-KGB official rather than massively regressive leader.

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It was very interesting to read that scientists have, for the first time, identified a planet outside of our solar system that meets many of the requirements they see necessary for sustaining life.

581c, which hardly seems like a fitting name for such a find, is about the right size and density, astronomers believe. Of course, it's 120 trillion miles away, which, while just around the corner in space terms, makes it difficult to tell. It also orbits a red dwarf sun and until a few years ago, scientists didn't think those solar systems could support life.

This planet, however, seems to orbit its sun at a distance that would set its surface temperature somewhere between 32 and 104 fahrenheit, which most definitly puts it in the right temperature range. It still remains to be discovered as to whether the planet has an atmosphere, what the composition of the atmosphere might be and how dense it is. Regardless, pretty neat stuff for anyone with an interest in the universe outside of our own fairly insignificant little marble.

Personally, I've always been convinced there's life out there among the stars. It's probably just smart enough to stay away from us. They've probably seen the palis in action.

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On the fun side of life, the Vancouver Canucks knocked off the Dallas Stars last night in the first round of the NHL playoffs. They now face the much tougher Anaheim Ducks (the team removed the ridiculous Mighty from their name this year) with their massively imposing defensive corps headed by Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer.

This should be an interesting series. The Ducks are combative, fast and have a great blend of youth and veteran leadership. The Canucks are not nearly as tough, fast or deep but they have Roberto Luongo, the best goaltender in the NHL not named Martin Brodeur, and a coach who seems to know just when to tweak his lineup to get the most from his players.

Additionally, there is some bad blood there. The Ducks GM, Brian Burke, was unceremoniously and unfairly dumped by Vancouver three years ago. Burke lost his job because he refused to play all nice for the media and the fans, basically telling people to get stuffed when he felt they should get stuffed. He took his act and arrogance to Anaheim where he has fared very well indeed. As a person who has more than occasionally been accused of arrogance myself, I had a lot of sympathy for
Burke and couldn't care less what he said to the media if he put a winning product on the ice.

I picked Anaheim as my Stanley Cup winner before the season started - based on the presence of Pronger and Niedermayer - but, of course, will be rooting hard for Vancouver all the way...as soon as the hangover from last night's festivities subsides. Damn draft beer...you figure by the age of 42, I'd know better.