This Jewish Joke Is 100 Years Old, At Least

This happened 100 years ago in Czarist Russia:

An Orthodox Jew and a Russian Anti-Semite are sharing a compartment on a train traveling through Russia, when suddenly the Russian asks, "Why are you Jews so smart?"

The Jew is quiet for a moment and then says "its because of all the herring we eat."

A few hours later the Jew takes out some herring and starts to eat it.

The Russian asks "how much herring do you have?" and the Jew answers "a dozen pieces".

"And how much do you want for a piece?"

"20 kopecks" (a lot of money).

The man hands the money over and the Jew gives him a piece of herring.

The Russian takes a bite and says "I could have bought this same herring in Moscow for a few kopecks".

To this the Jew responds "see... you're getting smarter already."

Bush Voters are Crazy, Literally

A study reported in the New Haven Advocate found that there is "a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush."

The study "found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush."

"Plumb Out of Mission"

Writing in the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson concludes his column as follows:

"Or we could, I suppose, wait it out. About 100,000 Iraqis now flee the country every month for Syria or Jordan. At that rate, if we just hang on for 20 years, Iraq will be completely depopulated. The insurgency will be vanquished; sectarian strife will subside. Victory will be ours, and we can go home."

Oh, no! Not go home at all. Stay and benefit from the oil. That's what Bush was after when he went in. And that is still his goal. Oil for Bush, his family and his father's friends who saved him every time he f---ed up.

A Love Story

This 80 year old woman was arrested for shoplifting.
When she went before the judge in Cincinnati he asked her,
"What did you steal?" She replied, "A can of peaches."
The judge then asked her why she had stolen the can of peaches
and she replied that it was a thrill. The judge then asked her
how many peaches were in the can. She replied 6.
The judge then said, "I will then give you 6 days in jail."
Before the judge could actually pronounce the punishment, the
woman's husband spoke up and asked the judge if he could say
something. The judge said, "What is it?"
The husband said, "She also stole a can of peas."

See a picture of the couple.

Getting Out of Iraq

Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator from Nebraska concedes in today's WaPo that Iraq is hopeless and argues for a phased withdrawal under the heading: "Leaving Iraq, Honorably."

What a miserable cop-out!

How can this smug S.O.B. ask our young men and women to continue risking their lives just to try to save the Republican party's honor?

If the Republicans had any honor, they would impeach and remove from office Cheney and Bush, the perpetrators of this disaster and then try them in a special court for crimes against humanity. That would be "Leaving Iraq, Honorably."

If they moved quickly, they could accomplish this before the new Congress is sworn in and they would get Denny Hastert as President. Next year, they get Nancy Pelosi. Their choice.

How American Airlines Took My Money and Gave Me Nothing in Return

American Airlines offers so-called free upgrades to frequent flyers.

The word upgrade in their lingo has two meanings: permission to fly business class even though you bought a coach ticket or, a virtual coupon worth a 500 mile upgrade. So to move from coach to business on a flight from JFK to SFO, you need 6 upgrades, one way. You buy upgrades for $4o each on the internet.

This used to work fine. You bought the upgrades and 24 hours before flight time you called up and after a brief conversation you had your upgrade to business.

Then it stopped working. You buy the upgrades. When you call up, no business class seats are available for upgrading. Only for full-price purchase.

I complained to American Airlines and got a song and dance but no upgrade.

So, I wrote to their CEO, Gerard Arpey. I asked for a refund of my money. I pointed out to him that I have accumulated more than one million miles on AA. He has not answered.

American Airlines has $240 of my money and I have nothing.

Stunning Painting

Saw a stunning painting of Anita Berber at the Metropolitan Museum today, on loan from the Stuttgart Museum.

Let's Think Impeachment

What options are there when a President and his Vice-President continue to pursue a deadly unwinnable war in spite of wide-spread national opposition?

Let's advocate impeachment of both Bush and Cheney to our representatives in Congress.

"No One to Lose To"

This is how Dowd's best column ever opens:

After the Thanksgiving Day Massacre of Shiites by Sunnis, President Bush should go on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and give an interview headlined: “If I did it, here’s how the civil war in Iraq happened.”

He could describe, hypothetically, a series of naïve, arrogant and self-defeating blunders, including his team’s failure to comprehend that in the Arab world, revenge and religious zealotry can be stronger compulsions than democracy and prosperity.

And the rest is just as good.

Advice for the Next President

David Brooks recommends changes in the President's staff and relationships in today's column. What he fails to recommend is improvements in decision-making processes. See for example, the Wikipedia page on SWOT Analysis or the decision-making process on my website.

"Old" Macs Never Die, They're Sold On eBay

Two years ago, I bought a top-of-the-line PowerMac with extra HD capacity and the fastest video card, for 3400 USD.

Yesterday, I sold it on eBay for 2025 USD.

I wonder what the buyer will sell it for in two years.

Defeating the "Human Shield" Defense

According to an article and reader feedback in the Jerusalem Post, there are several ways to defeat the "human shield" defense successfully used by Hamas in Gaza to protect rocket terrorists.

The first, and most costly in terms of Israeli lives is to use ground troops. Naturally, the Israeli politicians are choosing this method.

Better methods include:
1. Use non-lethal weapons. Google this to explore the huge array of options.
2. Announce 20 targets before the air-strike and let the "human shields" scatter to all of them.
3. Give no warnings. The terrorists will not know that an air strike is coming, so no human shields.
4. Spray the terrorists with liquified pork fat before destroying them. Pork-fatted martyrs don't get into Paradise. The liquid pork-fat strategem may be effective just by itself. (The Israelis could import the pork fat from Germany. They could also hire Germans to do the pork fat spraying.)

You may not believe this, but it's true

A simple 2 by 2 box diagram posted on "flickr" has been viewed 51,583 times since January 27, 2006, as of 4:46 p.m. EST today.

"We'll succeed," Bush added, "unless we quit."

This is what Bush said about Iraq.

Bush says he learned a lot from the Viet Nam experience.

What actually happened in Viet Nam? We quit. Thirty one years later, Viet Nam has a Communist government that applies capitalist methods and entertains the President of the United States and his wife.

So, if we apply the lessons of Viet Nam, we should quit in Iraq and wait 31 years. Right?

And another thing - Bush was speaking in Viet Nam, in the presence of the successors of the regime that we did not defeat and he was saying that we could have beaten (and hanged) their mentors. Now, is that high-class diplomacy or what?

"Iraq Is Gone. Now What?"

That is the title of a WaPo article. The author argues that Iraq is gone as a unified nation of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites to the same extent that Yugoslavia is gone.

The options are not pretty, but we have no choice but to face reality.

Another Bush Gift to Iraq: Corruption

According to Transparency International, Iraq has become the second most corrupt among 163 countries evaluated. Only Haiti is more corrupt.

Saddam Hussein Will Be Hanged - What Does Bush Deserve?

Comparing the harm that Saddam Hussein did to Iraq vs. the harm that George W. Bush did, it seems to me that Bush was much worse.

If Saddam is hanged, that will not be justice.

It will simply prove that whoever is the biggest bully and has the most powerful weapons, gets to do what he wants, including hanging his opponent.

NYT: Some Advertisers Shun Air America

Some Advertisers Shun Air America - let's shun their products.

"When the liberal talk radio network Air America filed for bankruptcy protection last month, some analysts blamed a lack of listener interest in progressive talk radio. Now, it seems that a lack of major advertising dollars are responsible."

Here's the list:

HP, M'soft, Wal-Mart, Visa, Exxon-Mobil, McDonald's, USPS and the Navy.

F--k them, who needs them.

See the whole article.

See some great pictures

It's like visiting Egypt without leaving your chair.

Check out the panoramas, too.

Who made these statues?

During the Summer of 2003 a not very famous artist was permitted to place 1000 statues made from soda cans (mostly Coke) around Stillersee Lake near Zermatt, Switzerland.

See a photograph of the statues.

We were there at that time and took lots of pictures. We did not record the artist's name. Can anyone help? (Reply to: lwiner9@yahoo.com)