The Story of the Good Mooselim

1. It was a dark but not a stormy night probably around 12:30 in the morning on a very heavily traveled road outside of a major metropolitan center.   Mark was driving and he was exhausted having just finished a challenging take-home engineering examination that was more math than English.  He and his older brother, Jason, already out of college and working in a similar field were driving home to spend the holiday with their parents, two hopeless romantics with useless degrees in liberal arts, but I digress.  Suddenly up ahead Mark saw a car spin completely out of control, he had no idea what had happened, all he could see was the headlights of a car as it spun around and landed in the median strip.  As the brothers came closer they could see that two cars had collided and that the damage was severe.  Mark pulled over to the side of the road and the brothers called 911 and exited their car to see if they could offer assistance to the victims.

Abdul was driving about a full minute behind the engineering brothers.  In his mid forties, Abdul spoke English with a very heavy accent.  We don’t know what he was doing out driving at such an ungodly hour, maybe he worked in a local restaurant and had just gotten off his shift?  He never said, the brothers never asked.

Abdul didn’t see the accident happen, but as the silhouettes of the cars and the brothers standing near at scene came into focus he could see that this accident could very well  have fatalities. Abdul pulled over, phoned the police and got out of his car to lend a helping hand.

One car, badly damaged on one side, held a couple with a very small child.  The mother got out of the car carrying her little one. Both seemed okay and those who had stopped, the two brothers, Abdul, and a fourth person, checked them out.  The husband managed to get out of the car, told the fourth person that he was okay, and then lost consciousness.  At least he had someone who was with him until professional help arrived.

The other car posed a more serious problem.  The front end was shattered, glass was everywhere, twisted steel from the car looked like someone’s idea of a metal sculpture you find in front of government buildings sometimes.  The engine was still running, the brothers and Abdul could smell what seemed to be leaking fuel, possible leaking oil as well.  There was no light in the car, no one was getting out.  Mark was torn between his real fear that the car could go up in flames at any moment and his feeling of responsibility to help whomever was inside. From a distance none of them could tell who or how many were in the car.

Abdul led the way, followed by the older of the two brothers, Mark was behind them.  Abdul went right up the driver’s side door and tapped on the window. The older brother held a light to the window, using his cell phone as a flashlight.  The door opened slightly, inside was a young woman,  barely conscious. Abdul whisked her away immediately taking  her to the safety of his vehicle where she sat until help arrived.

Once he was satisfied the woman was okay and safe inside his car, Abdul went back out and talked to the brothers.  They exchanged first names and chatted.  The older brother asked Abdul how the young lady was. Abdul told him that she appeared to be okay, but that as he had half-carried her to his car he could smell the alcohol.  “That’s was probably what caused the accident,” he said.  The older brother nodded.

Helped arrived.  The handful of people who had stopped to offer help spoke with the police about what they saw.  No one can count the number of cars that had driven by right when the accident happened and which did not stop of offer assistance or to bear witness.

When they were done and all of the victims were in good hands, Abdul returned quietly to his car, started it up, and drove off alone  into the darkness.

This is a true story. The two brothers, whose names I have changed, are my sons.  Abdul was the name the al-Khidr like stranger gave them. He was a hero that night, and we don’t even know his real name.

2. My favorite line of poetry is the opening couplet from the Masnavi.

Listen to the reed, how it tales its tale

Complaining of separations

The scene at the airport was riveting, though I was the only outsider who knew what was going on. Nobody else noticed a thing.  In fact, I knew more than at least one of the people who were actually involved.

There was a family there, a husband, a wife, and a daughter in her very early teens.  The father and daughter had come to the airport to pick up the wife and the three stood at the luggage carousel waiting for what seemed to all of us who had been on the plane like an eternity.

The wife hugged her daughter for quite some time as the three waited. The separation had not been a long one, she had been away on business for just a few days. But mother and daughter are very close, so close that the youngin is never embarrassed at having her mom with her, never.  And the mom never ever tires of talking about this daughter, a lovely young lady whose facial features reflected the best of her mom’s.

But this was a special hug, a special return and the mom knew it as she held on to her dear one. The youngster did not know what was about to happen, though I suspect that she did have some suspicions.

The dad knew.  The mom knew. I knew. Thank God some friends of mine who were also on the plane were waiting – did I mention it seemed like forever? – at the carousel too and I was able to distract myself from the portrait of a soon to be broken family that was standing just a few feet away.  It really was a portrait-like scene, a handsome man married to a beautiful woman and their gorgeous and precocious child with a refined ability to drive her older sister nuts.

The marriage, in any real sense, had ended years earlier. He, for whatever reasons, and the mom has postulated many – all of them plausible, lost his ability to show, to offer, to give – love. She could not  live without it, at least not for the rest of her life.  A lifeless and loveless marriage had become more than she could bear. Nonetheless she always remained faithful.  It’s just the way she is.

After years of trying to help  her husband and to get him to be something resembling the man she had once married, she gave up and told him a few days before this trip that she was leaving.  He was okay with it.  They’ll share the kids.

The children did not know.  Not yet.  But that knowledge was just a few days away.

As I stood at the carousel looking at these three souls, I was ever so thankful that I was going home to my wife and that the two brothers in the first story above were going to be with us.

3. As long-time readers of this blog know, one of my favorite blogs is the Mermaid’s Sea, a blog by a young Egyptian woman with an artistic and spiritual bent.  For those of you who may read my blog but are not very family with Middle Eastern or Muslim culture, her blog would be a interesting place to start as it reflects the very obvious (except to Americans) fact that our Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters are real multi-dimensional human beings who would much much rather be friends with us and that having friendships with them is a great thing.  But in a “culture” and I am using that term very loosely, that raises charlatans like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin to iconic status and that in opposition to such cretins is only able to idolize the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert,  things that are obvious to everyone else on the planet remain as mysteries wrapped in an enigma. Anyway, she writes in both English and Arabic so don’t let not knowing Arabic be a barrier.

The Mermaid’s most recent post ties in closely with the couplet from Rumi I mentioned above. It is a story about separation, longing and love.  It’s a true story.  It is her story. With her permission, I have translated it into English here.  Note to Shas Party members, it is very short, so your attention span won’t be stretched and I bet even you Shas Party guys can see some of the connections in these three stories.

Here is her story.

An Empty Place in My Memory

Photo by the Mermaid

You have not yet arrived, but I am preparing myself well for your coming.  I always write down whatever happens to me compiling the memories and precious things that happen so that I can share them all with you when you come.  I even store within myself the very flavor of my morning coffee so I can give you a taste of it. I am storing up the scent of the vanilla and berry flavored candles that I am always lighting so that you will know what comforts me on cold winter nights.  I will take hold of your fingers so you can trace the tracks of my tears on my cheeks, tears shed over many years. My conversations with my closest friends, these I commit in their entirety to memory so that I can recount them to you. My graduation photos with me smiling, somewhat confused, the many months, winters, and tales that have taken place between me my friends – all of these await you. I have left my footprints along the streets of my beloved hometown so that we can follow them together.  I  am saving my favorite dress from when I was a child so you can see my innocence. And I am keeping my warmth wrapped up in my shawl so you will be able to feel it.

I know that when you do come, you will come longingly to me and that we will build our memories together.  But, my dear, you must know what has happened in my life so that you can help create our reality.  I need you to taste my past, to breath in the fragrances of bitterness and joy in my life.  I need you to experience the tenderness as well as the harshness of the nights I have spent. I need you to embrace within yourself my past so that it can illuminate for you the winding roads my soul has taken.  I am a woman in whose heart the scents of coffee and dark chocolate are mixed with the sound of joyous laughter tinged with bitter tears .

And that is why in the reaches of my memory, I leave an empty place just for you, empty until you come both to share in my life and to make it new.

4. I was hesitant at first to post the video below, but it really is worth watching as well as listening to. If your heart is cold, it will warm it up, if your spirit is dark, it may lighten it for at least a while. It takes a  minute or two to get going, but the scenes and imagas are great and I love the song and the music.

Please note, the video contains an advertisement for the album of which it is a part. I have nothing to do with this album and do not know anyone involved in making it. In addition, the video at the end gives a tribute to two shaykhs. While I know of them, I do not know them and am not in any way affiliated with them and their organization. Though quite frankly, if I were ever to have the chance to meet either of them, I’m sure it would be an enriching experience for me if not for them.  And I’m thinking about buying the DVD too.

I hope you will enjoy the very well known Madad Madad, done here by the Burdah Ensemble,  as much as I did. (It even has a pretty good English subtitles so linguistically challenged British puppet monarchs can follow along.)

Pigs, Piper and Palestine

1. Israel Recognizes Palestine? I don’t think so.

It's not something that's granted, it's something that's taken

Photo courtesy of the great Skulz Fontaine.

2. I am attaching at the bottom of this item a link to an audio excerpt of Michael Collins Piper’s radio program from November 12. For those of you who do not know of Piper, and I expect many in our foreign audience may not, Piper is a diehard anti-Zionist gadfly who has written a number of very controversial books, writes for what I consider to be a worthwhile though quaint weekly newpaper, The American Free Press and hosts a radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, a network I’ve both praised and criticized.

One of the things I like about Piper is that he likes Eric Cantor about as much as the tuyuur here at Mantiq al-Tayr do and he’s gone off on Cantor lately in print and on his show. Here’s a link to an online American Free Press (AFP) article by Piper about Cantor and the latest US elections that you’ll find worth reading. Please note, although AFP does have some of it’s stuff for free online, the bulk of the weekly paper is not online but you can subscribe to its online edition real cheap.  (Scroll down the page on the link I just gave you till you see AFP ONLINE SUBSCRIPTION in red caps. )

Now here is the link to an excerpt from Piper’s show during which he goes after Cantor. Enjoy.

Piper on Cantor

BTW, the next segment of the program is even better than what I have put in the link above. You can get RBN’s previous programs for $1.33 a month. That’s not much and you can subscribe here.  From RBN’s main page you can also listen to their shows live.

3. While the now lame duck Israeli Vice President for American Affairs (IVPFAA) Barrack Obama was away all the rats in the US decided to play.  Israeli Prime Minister and US Congressional Whip Bibi Netanyahu came to the US and has almost literally occupied it since then the way Israel occupies East Jerusalem. One would think that when Netanyahu speaks of a “united Jerusalem” he doesn’t just mean stealing the rest of East Jerusalem but also including in his version of tikkun olem the uniting of Washington and Jerusalem for eternity.  He has made considerable progress in this regard this past week. He has managed now to turn much of the United States’ government against its president in his meetings with the likes of Cantor, Clinton, Biden and Shumer.

Let’s look at the Hillary Clinton meeting first. My take on this meeting is, as you would no doubt expect, quite different from the views put forth by such mags and rags as Foreign Policy. I think the real point of the meeting was so that Hillary could shore up support for running against Obama in 2012.  She knows she’s got stiff competition from Joe “I am a Zionist” Biden and from the Republicans, especially now with the ascendency of the creepy Eric Cantor. So while Barrack is overseas where he is far more popular than he is here, she uses the cover of the completely fake peace process to get the Israeli leader on  her side.  Look at what she is reported to have conceded to Netanyahu and this is right from the stodgy Foreign Policy website:

“In a Friday morning conference call with Jewish community leaders, notes of which were provided to The Cable, the National Security Council’s Dan Shapiro described several of the incentives Clinton offered Netanyahu. They included increased U.S. diplomatic opposition to efforts to delegitimize Israel in international fora, continuing to block efforts to revive the Goldstone Report at the United Nations, promising to block condemnation of Israel at the United Nations for its raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara, and defeating resolutions aimed to expose Israel’s nuclear program at the IAEA, and increasing pressure on Iran and Syria to stop their nuclear and proliferation activities.

In other words, a complete cave in to Netanyahu on just about everything. Oh, I can hear you now, “Oh but Mantiq, Hillary is holding fast on her opposition to settlement construction, so won’t we have peace in our time?” Oh Ye of little ‘ilm.

Hello no, she caved totally on that too basically saying the Palestinians, for whom she got 150 million in hush money earlier in the week, need to go to the peace negotiations no matter what the Israelis do. As Shapiro – could you imagine the outcry if this guys name was Tillawi?- but I digress. Anyway, on the issue of settlements, Shapiro reported:

“The U.S. position on settlements has not officially changed, Shapiro said. The United States still believes that the Israeli settlement moratorium should be extended, but that Palestinians should stay in peace talks even if it is not.”

A complete total cave in.  Hillary is telling Bibi, that she can play ball with him. It probably won’t work Hillary, these folks hate you about as much as the tea party types hate you. But at least you get a Eruv for effort.

Cantor’s meeting with Bibi is even more interesting because it appears he has basically entered into a coalition with Netanyahu to screw Obama.  That one has been all over the media and the Internet.  Could you imagine if some Muslim leader were to meet with the in-coming majority leader of the US House of Representatives and get a commitment from that majority leader that he and his party will work together with the Muslim leader to thwart the policies of the President of the United States?  Well that has just now happened openly with Cantor and Netanyahu.  Ron Kampeas comments on this mess here and he includes Cantor’s statement about the meeting, one that is well worth reading.  Here’s just a couple of snippets. Oh wait, hold on, I just got a text message from Ovadia Yosef the head of the Shas Party.

“Mantiq, is the red highlighting in your last post yours or is it like that in the original source?”

Yes, Shas Party members, the red highlighting is always mine. Always, red highlighting is the eternal capital, err, never mind. But yes, the red highlighting is mine.

“Eric made clear that he believes that it is time for the administration to fully and aggressively implement the Iran Sanctions Act passed by Congress earlier this year. . . .”

Running this through the Tafsiranator we got “We are going to declare war on Iran as soon as we have the American people distracted enough . . .”

“A unilaterally declared Palestinian state will only create more distrust between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and move the process further away from peace. “

This means “Although the United States declared its independence unilaterally Palestinians must not because if they exercise their “inalienable rights” it will piss off Zionist Jews who are stealing their land.  This is what we mean when we say we are bringing you democracy.”

“Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington. He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.

Cantor’s post-meeting statement is about as close as it comes renouncing your own US citizenship without actually do so, in my opinion. No doubt Cantor’s office would strongly disagree with this. But change Bibi’s name to Bashar al-Asad and put out a similar statement about how Cantor would work with President al-Asad to thwart Obama by  putting a “check” on his Administration for the sake of Syrian interests and you’d see all  hell break loose.

You know it would be kinda fun.

Now we come to someone who has become a sort of favorite Mantiqiyyan whipping boy – a guy who may just become the next Israeli Vice President for American Affairs, Joe Biden.  Like Clinton and Cantor, Biden also met with Bibi on Bibi’s “Take Over America Tour” and ass kisser par excellence that he is, he thoroughly outdid Cantor and Clinton combined.  He not only met with Bibi and no doubt swallowed the full Monty, he then basically gave us his version of “Biden does B’nai Brith” during his speech at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly.  The speech is so obsequious it qualifies as pornographic. Not surprisingly, another Mantiqiyyan whipping boy, the National Jewish Democratic Council loved it.

For your amusement, I present you selected highlights of Biden’s address. You can also read the whole thing here.

Ready? Please don’t read this while sipping milk or something, it’ll end up going right up your nose.

First of all, Americans are going to be forced to support Israel until Judgment Day.

“And it’s the reason why, like all of you, I feel so absolutely certain that our support for Israel must continue in a way and forever.“

Biden loves Bibi.

“Since that day, I have had the extreme pleasure and honor of working with nine Israeli Prime Ministers, some of whom would become close friends over the years, but none closer than Bibi, who I met me earlier today.  We spent an hour or so together talking about our relationships and the future of the great state of Israel.”

I guess it wouldn’t have occurred to Biden to discuss America’s interests or America’s future.

Now tell me if Biden doesn’t sound like an abused spouse in this next quote:

“And I can tell you, and I’m sure he will tell you as well, that the disagreements when they’ve existed have only been tactical in nature.  They have never been fundamental. “

It’s like saying “Yes, Israel did try to sink the USS Liberty and managed to kill 34 Americans that day, Israel killed a US citizen on the Mavi Marmara, and Israel stole uranium for the US and damn they might have even helped off JFK, and then there’s Pollard and all those other spies and Rachel Corrie too, but really Israel only beats us when it’s drunk. It’s not always like that.”

The next quote highlights what I just wrote:

“When a dispute arose on my last trip to Israel in March, the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government worked closely together to work our way through it.  And the way we did was Bibi had me over to his house.  We sat at his dining room table and we talked it through. And even as we did so — and we talked it through and worked it out as friends and brothers — I told an audience at Tel Aviv University just two days later that this administration represents an unbroken chain of American leaders who have understood this critical strategic relationship, one in which we will not yield one single inch.”

Every American reading Biden’s quotes should feel ashamed.

Biden even wants to strip naked for Bibi and Israel. Here’s his version of “Stand by Your Zionist.”

“I am proud, and I’ve always been proud, to stand with you. Our nation has been proud to stand with Israel from its founding 60 years ago. And I absolutely guarantee you as long as there’s a breath in me, this government, this nation, will stand with Israel. It’s in our own naked self-interest beyond it being an absolute moral necessity.”

I mean, can’t we just get a divorce? Shapira law does allow that you know.

Please note that the “no day light” clause below was also said on the occasion of Bibi’s bitch-slapping of Biden back in March. I guess Bibi kind of liked it and is asking for more.

“Folks, no administration has done more than ours to bolster Israel’s ability to defend itself. . . .When it comes to Israel’s security, there can be virtually no daylight, no daylight between the United States and Israel, under any circumstances.”

In other words, no matter what evil things Israel does to the Palestinians or even to Americans, we all have to support Israel.  Biden is giving Israel carte blanch to carry out ANY CRIMES against humanity it wants.

There was also the usual Iran bashing stuff – I’m telling you that war with Iran is a coming, but it wasn’t as funny as the rest, so I’m skipping that.

Anyway, Israel has the right to commit any crimes against humanity it wants which is why:

“That’s why in the wake of the Goldstone Report, we loudly and repeatedly claimed our support for Israel’s right to defend itself and the ability of its domestic institutions to conduct their own investigations. “

Can it get any funnier or any worse? Yes it can. Remember, killing US citizens is something we should support when Israel does it.

“Indeed, at the President’s instruction, we were the only no vote on two Human Rights Council resolutions in September—one, the flotilla incident and, one, the follow up to the Goldstone report. That’s why, at the direction of President Obama, as Bibi will tell you and the ambassador will tell you, I spent hour after hour in the aftermath of the flotilla incident, trying to put it in its proper focus and ensure that Israel had its right to conduct its own independent investigation.”

You know, I think Bibi should  have worn a wife-beater t-shirt to the conference.

Biden is against any efforts to “delegitimize” Israel. This is an absolute bullshit term and is a cover for combating any and all efforts aimed at either criticizing or stopping Israel’s gross human rights abuses.  Those crimes are to be ignored and replaced by fake threats, as usual.

“It’s also why the Jewish Federation’s recent initiative to counter de-legitimization attempts through Israel Action Network is so important and so appreciated by the President and me.  And it is why, as I will say more about in a moment, we think it’s critical to keep the international spotlight on the genuine threats in the region like Iran’s nuclear program, not Israel.”

You know, this entire talk to a group of mainly American Jews was ENTIRELY about Israel and the only time Biden mentioned America was in contexts where it is there to be Israel’s bitch.  So, clearly Biden must believe that Israel is more important to American Jews than America is.

Sing it loud, I’m Zionist and I’m proud.

“I am proud, and I’ve always been proud, to stand with you.  Our nation has been proud to stand with Israel from its founding 60 years ago.  And I absolutely guarantee you as long as there’s a breath in me, this government, this nation, will stand with Israel.  It’s in our own naked self-interest beyond it being an absolute moral necessity.

I know, I already quoted this. But is just such a nice quote I thought I’d do it twice. That quote is immediately followed by an invocation for God’s help for Israel and for America. Israel is mentioned first. I believe that is quite revealing.

“So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all.  May God protect Israel. May God bless America and keep our troops safe.  Thank you very much for the work you do.  You guys are the best.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.”

Yeah, may God bless America while our troops are out fighting Israel’s enemies.

And that pretty much tells you why there’ll be no peace in the Middle East until pigs fly.

4.  “Tell them Palestine belongs to us.”

Hala Layya. A lovely Palestinian lullaby by the handsome and charismatic Nabil Mansour who is rapidly becoming our favorite Arabic speaking musician. The female tuyuur  here keep fainting and swooning whenever they see a new video by him, frankly it is a little annoying, but شو بدي اعمل؟ .

Nabil has provided English subtitles so therefore King Abdallah will be able to understand it.

A Veterans Day Lament

1. Happy Veterans Day folks. Today we have at least 150,000 troops, likely more, fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and we have G-d knows how many troops involved in one way or another in conflicts in places like Yemen and Somalia. In fact, name a country and you’ll most likely find at least one US base there and you are also likely to find some sort of military or paramilitary shenanigans taking place there that can be traced either directly or indirectly back to the US.  Today, we should all sit back and reflect on how all these military actions are protecting our freedoms. . .

2. Speaking of freedoms, you have no right to privacy anymore. If you don’t like it, go fuck yourselves and while you are fucking yourselves don’t be surprised if your self-inflicted orgasms are being monitored by all sorts of entities, many of them American, well, sort of. Hell, thirteen years ago Blowjob Bill knew that the Israelis were monitoring his phone sex with Sunni Muslim extremist and agent for the Taliban, Monica Lewinski.   Well the situation today is much much worse and no matter how many young men and women we send overseas to kill Muslims we still keep losing our  privacy rights.  How could that be?  I mean George W. Bush said these Moozelims hate our freedoms and we went out to kill them in droves and yet somehow all kinds of laws got passed and statutes enacted and private companies set up that are depriving US citizens of their rights. How were those wily sand niggers able to pull this off and how do they keep on doing it?

3. Can you believe that there is concern that Google and Facebook, not even government entities, are invading your privacy?  Today’s Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post reports:

“The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday it is investigating whether Google violated communications laws when it collected data from WiFi networks in U.S. homes through its Street View mapping program.

“The probe comes amid U.S. and international government regulators’ growing concerns that Web companies such as Google and Facebook are operating fast and loose by collecting information on Internet users without clear rules to protect consumers.”

Let’s take a quick look at Facebook .  If you go to Google and query on Facebook violates privacy rights you will only get five million three hundred seventy thousand hits, so clearly there’s no problem with Facebook. (Update: I ran the same query again and got over 1 billion hits.)

I mean, just because the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg (who no doubt is known as Abu Khinzir bin Qird to his closest associates), got started by hacking into a Havard database and stealing personal data of his fellow students, this does not mean that any sane Warren-Commission-believing American should ever entertain the thought that he’d ever do something like that again.  Besides:

“Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy, and faced expulsion, but ultimately the charges were dropped.”

Charges were dropped.  Hmmm. Maybe they thought he’d learned his lesson.

You’ll be glad to know that, of course, Zuckerberg did change.  In a few short months later while still at Harvard he opened up another website called thefacebook.com and this one caused no controversy at all. Oh, sorry, there was a tiny bit of controversy, but just a tiny bit. No big deal, nah, you don’t need to know about it. Stop your bitching and moaning.  Remember, thanks to our invention of the FBS here at Mantiq al-Tayr, we know what you are thinking.

Oh alright, if you all insist.  It seems that some people thought that Zuckerberg had screwed them over when he set up his new site and that he had stolen their ideas.  Imagine that, a guy who got his start by hacking into data he no right to then taking other people’s ideas and using them on his own. I’m shocked.

“Just six days after the site [new] launched, three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com, while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product.^[26] The three complained to the Harvard Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. The three later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, later settling.”

I know this may sound strange, but it does appear that Zuckerberg did  indeed steal their ideas. When the three people named above went to the Harvard University administration for redress Larry Summers, yes the very Larry (Abu your money) Summers, said the issue was outside of his jurisdiction. So the three took Zuckerberg to court, suit and counter suit followed and there was a settlement. Zuckerberg must not have done too much wrong because the Winklevoss’s and their associates were only awarded sixty five million dollars. That’s right, sixty five million dollars for what started out as a college website. Read about it on Wiki here on the page for Cameron Winklevoss.  But before you do, I’ve just got to give you a quote from that page, so please hold on. It’s a really cool and really Mantiqiyyan sort of quote.

As part of the lawsuits going back and forth some text messages sent by Zuckerberg to a friend were leaked. In one of them, he explained his strategy vis-à-vis the Harvard Connection.com folks:

“FRIEND: so have you decided what you are going to do about the websites?
ZUCK: yea i’m going to fuck them
ZUCK: probably in the year
ZUCK: *ear”

Looks like Facebook should have been named “Fuckbook”, but I digress.

Now don’t worry about all that personal information about yourself that you have on Facebook, I’m sure it is perfectly safe.  I mean, Facebook’s founder, who happens to own about 25% of the company would never fuck you in the ear, now would he?  You can just forget about those five million three hundred seventy thousand hits.

Of course, Zionists and Pam Gellar fans bitch and moan about how Facebook allows anti-semetic pages and claim that Zuckerman is anti Israeli. Very good cover.  Hey you morons who have befriended the Fuck Israel facebook page, why do you think that page is still up (if it is)? Think, you stupid sons of bitches. And if you can’t figure it out, I suggest you are stupid enough to become members of the Shas party. But I digress.

Zuckerberg is not the only Islamofascist freedom-hater behind Facebook. There is also Eduardo Saverin, who got“screwed” by Zuckerman (I wonder if he got screwed in the ear?) as another Islamofascist coyly observed.

Oh, and there’s also Dustin Moskovitz who  left Facebook in 2008.

Then there is Chris Hughes whose religious background may be different, but at least he played an instrumental role in getting Israeli Vice President for American Affairs Barrack Obama elected.

So let me summarize this for you: Facebook was founded by a Muslim who started out by hacking into a Harvard system and stealing people’s data for which he got off, it seems, Shlomo free.  Then this guy teamed up with three or more other Harvard students who were going to create a site called Harvard Connection but instead he appears to have stolen their considerable work and went off with a couple of other Islamofascists and created Facebook which was worth, to  him,  settling a law suit to the tune of sixty five million dollars.  He then fell out with some of his facebook cofounders and while still in his 20’s is running the multibillion dollar Facebook business which just happens to be all about collecting data about you and doing with it whatever it wants.

I’m so sorry, I amost forgot,  his main financier is not only an Islamofacist too, he’s one with really really close connections to Israel. Damn, what a coincidence that is. That main would be one of the founders of Paypal, Peter Thiel.

“Although the project was initially conceived by media cover star Mark Zuckerberg, the real face behind Facebook is the 40-year-old Silicon Valley venture capitalist and futurist philosopher Peter Thiel. There are only three board members on Facebook, and they are Thiel, Zuckerberg and a third investor called Jim Breyer from a venture capital firm called Accel Partners (more on him later). Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook when Harvard students Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskowitz went to meet him in San Francisco in June 2004, soon after they had launched the site. Thiel now reportedly owns 7% of Facebook, which, at Facebook’s current valuation of $15bn, would be worth more than $1bn. There is much debate on who exactly were the original co-founders of Facebook, but whoever they were, Zuckerberg is the only one left on the board, although Hughes and Moskowitz still work for the company.”

He’s quite fond of Israel and confident of its future as he told the Israeli-based Adelson Institute of which he was a guest in 2003 along with Richard Perle, another Islamofacist.

“Thiel, who participated in Perle’s briefing, said that there is an incredible gap between Israel’s reality and its potential. People talk about China, India and Brazil as emerging market countries, he added, while Israel is underrated. According to Thiel, all it takes is a short visit to Israel in order to appreciate the incredible talent, intensity and drive of the Israelis.”

Thiel told the Institute:

“I believe the future is not in cheap labour or cheap capital or in real estate. I believe the future is in technology and in that sense perhaps Israel is truly the country of the future.”

Readers of this website might want to know that the Adelson Institute was founded by that great Islamofascist humanitarian, Natan Sharanksy.

I also strongly suggest you look at Thiel’s start up investment for an Israeli information gathering company that remains in “stealth” mode for now.  Looks like a nice way to get all of your Facebook info right directly into the hands of an Israeli company if it isn’t there already.

Hope you sleep well tonight. Just to make sure you don’t, go here and here to read all about Facebook.  The first link has lots about Google too. You’ll love Google even more than you do now after you read that one.

Anyway, back briefly to the story quoted near the top about Google getting probed by the champion of the rights of little people, the FCC.  Let me give you my favorite quote from the article:

“In May, Google admitted that cars it sent roaming around the world to take pictures of homes for its Street View application were also rigged with software that collected data about the location of residential WiFi networks, which let users connect devices wirelessly to the Internet over short-range airwaves. The firm wanted to compile WiFi network location data so it could use it for future mobile phone applications built around users’ geographic location.

“The software installed in those cars, however, collected more than just the locations of such networks. Last month, Google said it was “mortified” to discover that the Street View cars also vacuumed up e-mail addresses and passwords and histories of the Web pages visited by users.

Foreign governments have been quick to criticize Google.”

The US government is having the FCC investigate. Fortunately for Google, it was  founded by Islamofascists. If Zionist Jews had founded Google and sent people around the country doing this, the FBI would be all over them.

4. It is Veterans Day and I here wish to make mention of four of them in honor of all of the vets.  Their photos and links to memorial sites for the four are below.  Please take a moment and look at their brief bios on the links and maybe take a moment longer to visit the guest book pages I found for a couple of them.

A. Alan Blue

B. Army Sgt. Cari Anne Gasiewicz.   Sgt. Gasiwicz’s Honor the Fallen Page.  Her Guest Book page

C. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Christopher G. Nason.  Sgt. Nason’s Honor the Fallen page. His Facebook page.

D. Army Spec. Farid Elazzouzi.   Spec. Elazzouzi’s  memorial on the Iraq-Nam blog.  His Guest Book page.

5. The Uilleann pipes are the national bagpipe of Ireland. Rich and tinged with a a tone of sadness, they are an ideal instrument to hear in times of reflection. In honor of the four veterans above and of their innumerable colleagues past, present and future, here is the Irish Lament from Riverdance, by the great Davey Spillane playing in Dublin, 1995.  Don’t just grab one handkerchief before you hit the play button, grab two.

كل شيء يرجع الى اصله

The Choice is Clear

Do you like that shit-eating grin? Well, the good news is that you won’t see it in Congress anymore. At least not for the next two years. The bad news you can read about near the end of this post.   On your way there, there are a few goodies in between.

1. Let me try this out for size.

“Alan Derwoshitz is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark.”

Hmm, let’s try that one again.

“David Duke is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark.”

Also not a cool thing to write.  How about:

“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark.”

Highly unlikely.

Let’s try this again.

“Frosty Wooldridge is a respected political analyst. I once had breakfast with him and I like him. I often think his columns are on the mark.” (hahahahahahahahahaha)

Nope. Somehow, I don’t think you’ll find the often excellent Dr. Juan Cole writing sentences like the one above before he then rips the person’s ideas to shreds. But for the moronic David Broder, whose obscene column this past weekend in the Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post has been pissed on by columnists ranging from Pat Buchannon to Steve Lendman (from whom we will be quoting shortly)  and virtually the entire rest of the  non-insane world, and their dogs, cats, and horses, Dr. Cole felt it necessary to preface his total destruction of every stupid evil rotten thing Broder said by saying what a nice guy he is and how he had breakfast with him.  This is why Dr. Cole still gets pushed around by the neo-cons. It’s time to drop the kid gloves, because the other side’s gloves are padded with lead, depleted uranium, nukes,  and virtually the entire elected US government .

You can read Dr. Cole’s controlled demolition of Broder here.  You can read Broder’s evil and stupid column here, please make sure you have a copy of the Nuremburg transcripts with you when you do.

Broder’s argument is that we need to prepare for war against Iran in order to save our economy.   What he is doing is giving a total bullshit excuse for your sons and daughters dying in yet another war for Israel while he continues to pretend that he is not a total suck up to the worst elements of the Israeli lobby.  By the way, in case you did not know, Broder is an Islamofascist.

Cole rips him apart providing very cogent reasons why war with Iran would be a disaster for the United States. (By the way, it would really suck for the Iranians too, but that goes unmentioned.) Cole notes that oil prices would skyrocket – the impact on what’s left of the US economy should be rather obvious, even to Shas Party members.  Cole, who has been all over the Middle East and knows how to use a map and a calculator, also notes that Iran is three times the size of Iraq and that if we were to try to occupy it we’d be meet with a shitload of justifiably pissed off Shi’ites.  We are talking about a potential ass-kicking of 2010 election-size proportions here. We can’t handle a bunch of tribal war lords in backasswards countries and we are going to take on a nation the size of Iran. Sure we could bomb the shit out of them and it would be fun, you know, like it was in the first US war against Iraq and its “target rich” environment.  We’d get to kill a bunch of Mooselims, also always fun, just ask General James Mattis, the new head of CENTCOM.  But if we actually tried to take over the country, well we are kind of like the Israelis – we can dish it out, but we can’t take it.

Cole also discusses several other factors that would make any pro-American president think twice before invading yet another country that has not attacked us.  The reverberations in Afghanistan, Iraq and even Bahrain, the site of a major US naval base, are things Dr. Cole brings to light.

Cole wraps this argument by saying: [note to Shas Party Members, the red highlights are mine].

“I can’t think of anything that would be worse for the US economy, or for Obama’s prospects for a second term, than going to a war footing with Iran. And, my own experience is that if you go to a war footing with a country, you have to be prepared for things spinning out of control and into actual war. Since Americans go running to their congressmen demanding a repeal of the Bill of Rights every time there is a little pipe bomb somewhere, anything that might cause terrorism on US soil is deadly to our over 200 year old Republic. My guess is that a third war right about now, for the reasons outlined above, would just about finish us off as a nation.”

On this score all the tuyuur here at Mantiq al-Tayr are in full agreement with Dr. Cole. My view is this: any American who is calling for war with Iran, directly or indirectly, is an enemy of the people of the United States who is working to destroy what is left of our country.  Any Israeli who is calling for the US to make on Iran is also an enemy of the United States. Any American who sounds like an Israeli war monger and is calling for the US to make war against Iran is now an Israeli. As the hadith says (in part)

“من تشبه بقوم فهو منهم”

Courtesy of Skulz Fontaine

2.  I am not done with Broder yet.  Broder is a picture perfect example of how mediocrity rises to the top in the American, and I am using that term very loosely, main $tream media, a media that is under the control of Shapira law, of course.  How such a buffoon could be perceived as a sort of Jewish Helen Thomas is utterly beyond me. Steve Lendman, in an excellent piece, finishes off the drawing and quartering of Broder in the wake of Broder’s disgusting article, showing what an obsequious ass-kissing asshole this guy is. One wonders if journalists in wanna-be theocracies like Israel, Iran, or Pakistan have to kiss leadership ass as much as Broder.  Anyway, Lendman’s excellent article is a must read, especially for those who would like to get some insight into how things are in the so called American main stream media.

One juicy quote by Lendman:

“The man is senile. The US/Israeli/UK alliance (the real axis of evil) alone threaten world stability, peace, and perhaps survival, what the “dean” of establishment journalists won’t suggest, not even hint.”

I don’t agree that the man is senile.  He’s just doing what he’s always done. But as for the rest of the quote, amen brother, amen.

3. Getting back to Dr. Cole. But first, I want to apologize to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and to Dr. David Duke for mentioning them in the same item with scum like Broder, Derwoshitz and Wooldridge.  But their name recognition helps highlight one of the points I was trying to make.

Okay, back to Dr. Cole. His blog, “Informed Comment” is one I link to and is one I read on a regular basis. I disagree with Dr. Cole on many points, but his comments are indeed informed and he writes in such a way that non-specialists can be edified by reading him.  He seems to represent about how far out of the Israeli orbit one can go and still hold down an establishment job and still get to speak on National Patrician Radio and the like. A very recent column of  his correctly went off on the right wing propaganda about how Obama’s trip to India is going to bankrupt the United States and maybe cause global warming or whatever bullshit the right wing is peddling. Dr. Cole refutes all of that but his ultimate justification for the trip shows just how morally and economically bankrupt these United States have become though that hardly seems to be his intention in writing the post.

Dr. Cole’s thesis is that whatever the cost of the India trip is, it is totally justified because Obama can use the trip to sell 20 billion dollars of weapons to India and isn’t that just a great thing for the US economy. This, right after arguing, correctly, against war preparations by the US against Iran.  To be fair, Dr. Cole also points to projections for increased civilian trade as well:

“Some analysts think the US could gain $20 billion or so from India in arms sales alone. And then there are enormous potentials for developing civilian trade, as the already-envisaged increase in bilateral trade of $13 bn. over 2009 demonstrates. And since the new deals would be multi-year in impact, the trip would be paid for many times over.”

But it is the arms sales that are the immediate meat and potatoes.  You see, we really can’t do much else as our economy is based on war and credit-default swaps.

Of course selling billions of dollars in weapons to an Israel-friendly country that has had several wars in the past with Pakistan is just too-good a deal to pass up. Plus they both have nukes. The possibilities are endless.

4. Does this quote bother anyone else as much as it does me? It’s from today’s Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post:

“The engineers at Infosys Technologies, India’s second-largest technology company, are at the cutting edge of the country’s $60 billion IT industry, which is shedding its image as a low-cost call center, with young Indians keeping U.S. credit card and banking systems humming all night.

In the latest phase of globalization, some economists say, Silicon Valley is in danger of losing a sizable piece of its knowledge-based industry to India in much the same way Detroit lost its lead to Japan in the auto industry.”

5. A few comments on the elections.  There is so much, so much to comment on. But let’s start out with a real Mantiq al-Tayr favorite, Republican Congressman from the state of Virginia who is likely to become the House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor.  Of all the Jews in the US Congress, Cantor is the only Republican. By the way, the number of Jews in the Congress declined by a few this time around, but Zionist influence has increased. More on that later. Anyway, Cantor is going to be fun to make fun of the next couple of years and he’s already started giving me new ammo. Since, as a Republican, he has to take positions on public policy matters that would have made Nero wince, he has also to show that he is even more pro-Israel than all the other Jews in Congress as well as all the congressmen and women whom the Israeli lobby has bought off and or blackmailed. Sooooo, Cantor’s opening salvo is to advocate that the money ear-marked for Israel each year in the US’ puny foreign aid budged be moved from that budget and voted on separately from the rest of our foreign aid so that the right-wing retards in the tea party can vote against aid to Egypt, the Palestinians and so forth. In fact, Cantor is dead set against aid for Palestinians with an impressive record in fighting aid to Israel’s victims while advocating unlimited US support for Israel.

But, it turns out that the rest of the Jews in Congress are freaking out over Cantor’s proposal to set Israeli aid aside (possibly to even make it part of the US defense budget).

Cantor: “Part of the dilemma is that Israel has been put in the overall foreign aid looping, “I’m hoping we can see some kind of separation in terms of tax dollars going to Israel.”

The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), which ought to be renamed “All the Jews in the US Congress Except for Eric Cantor”(ATJUITUSCEFEC) has taken Cantor to task on this issue. The real reasons you can find by reading between the lines. If aid to Israel is separate from all other foreign aid, then that aid is likely to find itself the focus of increasing scrutiny by out of work Americans who might ask questions like “Why the fuck is all this money going to Israel?” “Why is aid for Israel a separate line item?” Why isn’t there guaranteed aid for Ireland, Greece, Poland, Benin, Zimbabwe – pick a country”?  “Is our Congress under Zionist occupation”?  Yup, these would be dangerous questions and they don’t want you asking them.

AIPAC is against the move and so is the ridiculous “J Street” lobby which I’ve warned you all about repeatedly. Here’s are the opening lines of their statement criticizing Cantor’s proposal.

“J Street unconditionally supports and lobbies for robust U.S. assistance to Israel, and will continue to support such aid no matter what the legislative vehicle.”

Wow. We sure know which side of the street they are on.

J Street is AIPAC without the espionage record (so far). Both outfits should be required to register as agents of a foreign government.

Here’s a couple of Cantorian quotes about how much he loves Israel that you can read to your children at night.

“Israel is a democracy that has always made the sacrifices necessary for peace despite living under constant threats to their very existence. The true barrier to ending the Mideast conflict is the widespread Palestinian refusal to accept and to live alongside Israel as a Jewish state,” said Cantor. “While Israel continues its search for a reliable partner in peace, Palestinian terrorism is still celebrated in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite this reality, since day one the White House has applied a severe double standard that refuses to hold the Palestinians accountable for their many provocations. It makes one wonder where the responsible adults are in the administration?”

“Yes, I would say so. I certainly am a strong advocate for a united Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state and we should continue to pursue the policy of a united Jerusalem.”

6. The NJDC has screwed up again. They went all out for Ron Klein, Likud, Florida, in the elections. He was up against a goy and a black one at that and the race was getting too close for comfort. So, the NJDC did what it thought would help the most, it put out an ad that showed that Ron Klein is more Israeli than Allen West (not actually true, sadly).  The top part of the ad is what you saw at the top of this post: Here’s the rest of the ad and it tells you what your “representatives” are doing when you aren’t looking:

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the choice is clear. . . . but I digress.

So an Israeli firster bites the dust, but sadly the guy who replaced him, Allen West, Likud, Florida, won’t be any better. He’s a pro-Israeli war monger who had to leave the military after more than 20 years of service because of what he did to an Iraqi captive:

“While serving in Taji, Iraq, on August 20, 2003, as commander of the 2d Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel West was in charge of an interrogation of a civilian Iraqi police officer who was suspected of having pertinent information regarding attacks on American soldiers in the area. Interrogators had learned that the detainee had information about a planned ambush. When the interrogators were unable to extract the needed important information for some time, LTC West was asked to come try to obtain the important information. As the detainee continued to hold back the information, LTC West fired his pistol past the detainee’s head into a clearing barrel, frightening (but not physically harming) the detainee and getting him to finally give the information. According to Lt. Col. West’s sworn statement,^[5] the detainee informed West that:

“

[The attack] was to occur Friday morning in Saba al Boor vicinity of the police station by positioned snipers supposedly being brought in from Fallujah. [The detainee] was to ID my vehicle and myself for these rooftop firers. We took this information and the following day established flask CPs and used AH-64s overhead. There was no attack and no further attacks have emanated from the town since the apprehension of [the detainee] and his named associates.

”

“At least one man was apprehended as a result of the information obtained through the detainee’s interrogation. His home was searched, but no plans for attacks on Americans or weapons were found. Colonel West testified that he did not know whether “any corroboration” of a plot was ever found, adding: “At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It’s possible that I was wrong about [the detainee,] Mr. Hamoodi.”^[6]

For West’s revolting positions on Israel see here.

Eric Cantor, meet your new Zionist Bullshitting Friend, Allen West.  You’ll like him. He hates Muslims and loves to fight wars for your favorite country.

7. As just about everyone south of the Canadian border knows, nothing and no one says class, American style, better than Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra.  Yes, I know you all come to the ends of these posts for either funny cat videos (more of those will be coming), inspirational music videos, or anything that shows Haifa Wehbe – even if she is just window-shopping at a Hizballah hijab store.  But this time I want to change genre’s a little bit and since our economy is ruined I thought that the energizing rendition by Nixon and Biafra of the “Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster” might work here. Some good strummin for sure combined with well-placed righteous indignation. For those of you whose native language is not English, the words might at times be a little hard to follow, so here is a link to the lyrics.

I present you with Mojo and Jello:

You know, I really do think the choice is clear.