Mel's Mug Shot

Hmm. I guess this proves that one can be a drunken, deranged 50-year-old anti-Semite and still look pretty good. Glad to see that the Biblical beard is gone.

You know whose opinion I'd love to hear on this scandal? Pope Benedict. I bet I can summarize his thoughts in one word: Schadenfreude

Ribery Stays with Marseille

The nerve!

I'll never get to watch him because I don't have access to any French Soccer Network!

Apparently nobody in the football world takes MY feelings or needs into consideration.

I am officially in a snit. Hmph!

My Latest War Analysis

Israel can't win, and I think they realize it. Their goal of destroying Hezbollah was too ambitious. I just saw a headline in the Jerusalem Post that the army needs 10 to 14 more days to complete its mission. If they think they will be done with it in 2 weeks, then clearly they have changed their objectives 'cause everybody knows they cannot finish off Hezbollah in that time. If ever.

I guess the new goal is creating a buffer zone, or pushing the enemy back far enough to make their rockets useless? That's the most they can achieve, I'm guessing.

So if the pattern is this:
1) Hezbollah launches rockets from within populated areas, inviting retaliation
2) Israeli army retaliates, killing innocent civilians in the process
3) Israeli government apologizes
Repeat Steps 1 through 3.

Nothing is achieved, except Hezbollah gets more support, while world opinion sinks Israel even lower. What a waste of time. And lives.

Mmmm, Celebrity Gossip

When the world is filled with doom and gloom and tragedy, there are four words always guaranteed to cheer me up: Mel Gibson, Drunken Tirade.

Due to some lapse in judgement, I skipped this story when I first saw the headlines. I saw Mel Gibson Arrest for DUI, and I remembered that yeah, Mel had or has had a drinking problem forever, so he fell off the wagon. Big deal. It just didn't strike me as interesting.

But tonight on CBC they got into the details of Mel's abusive, anti-Semitic rantings, and I thought wow, how could I have missed this.

Not to worry. I'm sure Mel's dad, that noted holocaust denier, will clear this all up.

Steve's Office Replied

quote
Please know that your e-mail message has been received in the Prime Minister'sOffice and that your comments have been noted. Our office always welcomes hearing from correspondents and being made aware of their views.
Thank you for writing.
Sachez que le Cabinet du Premier ministre a bien reçu votre courriel et que nousavons pris bonne note de vos commentaires. Nous aimons être bien informés del'opinion des correspondants.
Je vous remercie d'avoir écrit au Premier ministre.
unquote.

So personal, so intimate! I expect to see a change in his attitude very soon.

Italia !

I've got an airline ticket in my hot little hands.
I have succumbed to the siren call of the Azzurri.
Nine weeks from today, I am on that plane headed to Florence.
I'm going for one week, but maybe I'll never come back....(more likely, I will indeed come back, just 10 pounds heavier.)
Mamma mia!

On Writing the Prime Minister

You know, it works.

The only other time I wrote the PM, it was to complain about his decision to bar the media from broadcasting the arrival of the coffins of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Well, 50,000 people sent letters to the Prime Minister about that issue, and right now, as I type this, I am watching Live on CBC Newsworld, broadcast coast-to-coast, the repatriation of the two coffins of the soldiers killed last Saturday.

This proves that Steve will back down if enough people complain. So, I'm going to continue complaining.

Tour de France, Part Deux

I'm starting the rumour that Oscar Pereiro's parents spent 3 days in church praying non-stop and God rewarded them. It could happen.

I'm guessing that religious party in Pennsylvania got even more quiet today. Even the sarsparilla dried up.

Steve! He made me do it again

He MADE me write him another e-mail. Here's my e-mail to the Prime Minister's office.

"I was disturbed by yesterday’s comments by the Prime Minister which implied that UN observers killed by Israeli bombing were somehow responsible for their own deaths by remaining in the line of fire.

The UN’s role is precisely to be near the source of a conflict to work as unbiased witnesses to it. How else can an observer observe if he or she is not on site?

UN facilities are clearly marked, and if reports from the field are accurate, the Israeli forces were asked several times to avoid the UN site. I realize the Prime Minister cannot be held responsible for the negligent actions of the Israeli military, but implying that the victims are to blame because they remained at their posts and did their jobs as international civil servants is just too much.

I am concerned that the Prime Minster’s pro-Israeli bias is clouding his judgement.

Thank you for your attention."

On a lighter note

If someone says “Jewish” and “male”, who pops into my mind first:

Woody Allen
Bob Dylan
Ben Stiller

You see where I’m headed with this, right? Runts!

So how come the Israeli army turns out to be so hot-looking? From the generals on down the line, the IDF are uniformly (!) rugged, handsome and manly. Where do they get these guys? This is military eye candy.

I wonder if the IDF has its own soccer team? What would they look like? Thud.

(Sorry, flipped over backwards in my chair. Ow. That hurt.)

In my next life, I want to come back as an Israeli army recruiter.

So, Who's a Killing Machine?

What’s going on here?

I’m reading different stories that describe Hezbollah as disciplined, tenacious, determined, tough, etc. And about how they have put up far more resistance than Israel expected. What are they? A militia of Supermen? The Islamic Borg?

Who is being served by this narrative? This reminds me of back in the months right after 9/11 when Al Qaeda were all devilishly clever highly-trained tough guys. If I recall correctly they were disciplined, tenacious, etc., too. And we were all told to be scared of them. Then Richard Reid and Zaccarias Moussaoui showed up and suddenly Al Q didn’t seem all that bright anymore. But we had been trained to be scared.

So SuperHezbollah is now fighting away in the desert like something out of a David Lean epic. Let us all be in awe of this fighting machine; that way we will be supportive and understanding of the even more severe action Israel will need to take to conquer this beast. The West will understand perfectly well that Israel has to hit harder and harder and wider and more unrelentingly because, lookit, they are up against 3000 of the toughest most disciplined killing machines on earth. CNN said so!

Go ahead, Israel, hit harder. No time to talk about cease fire.

The War

CNN reported tonight that it is estimated that Hezbollah has a total of 3000 fighters in its militia. Huh? Is that all? If you had asked me how many of them I thought there were I would've guessed 10 times that number.

This makes Israel's bombing even harder to understand. How can dropping 500-lb bombs and all those rockets accurately target 3000 guys over a pretty wide area. It seems so random. No wonder there are so many innocent bystanders getting hammered. This makes no sense to me. Wouldn't a ground assault be better? One that swarms in and engages these 3000 guys face to face and then captures as many as possible, without hitting civilians in their homes? If you want to destroy Hezbollah, hey, I have no gripe there. Go ahead engage, kill and/or capture actual Hezbollah guys, but not anybody else.

The Israelis want Kofi Annan to apologize for his statement. Give him a break. The man is pissed off. I can't believe they are asking for an apology. That's chutzpah, baby. They are totally on the offense about this. Yes, they are apologizing and regretting their mistake, but man, who do they think is going to back them on this? Short answer: nobody. I won't be surprised if even Bush avoids touching this one.

It's hard to keep bragging about pinpoint precision when you hit a clearly marked UN outpost that you've been asked to stay clear of. Maybe the Israelis can blame their stinky American-made weapons?

Watching TV

Don't watch much teevee these days other than news, but I am enjoying Hell's Kitchen again. I assume the appeal of this show is the same for everyone: the hysterical rantings of Gordon Ramsay. How loud can he shriek? How profane can he be? God, I'd hate to work for him.

This week's highlight: "When you cook something in a non-stick pan, it doesn't stick. That's why it's called F**KING NON-STIIIICK!!!"

Onto CNN. I figured out why CNN keeps Paula Zahn on the network. Clearly they don't have to pay her. Her salary is covered by the Israeli govt. Appalingly biased woman.

I like the queen bee, Christiane Amanpour. She used to bug me, but the more I watch her the more seriously I take her. I saw her on Charlie Rose's show last week, where she could talk for longer than a 3-minute segment and she was interesting.

I can't watch any story about Israel without thinking of Joe Schlesinger. He said: "Jews are news". And that always pops into my head.

But the thing that is keeping me tuned to CNN on a daily basis? The steady, unfolding deterioration of John Roberts' hair. The perfectly coiffed silver helmet of JD's first days is long gone and now he has war-torn bed head. I wanna see how bad he can look. The worse his hair looks, the more cred I will allot him.

He'll need to take lessons from uber-smooth-Euro Alessio Vinci, who keeps looking fresh and seductive, despite endless boring duty at the port of Larnaca where basically nothing much is happening anymore. Time to send Alessio to a hot spot, where he can continue to look smooth and seductive in far worse conditions. I stay tuned.

The Good News keeps on comin'

"AFGHANISTAN’S notorious Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was set up by the Taliban to enforce bans on women doing anything from working to wearing nail varnish or laughing out loud, is to be re-created by the government in Kabul.

President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet has approved the proposal to re-establish the department, and the measure will go to Afghanistan’s parliament when it reconvenes later this summer. The conservative complexion of the assembly makes it likely to be passed."

Hamid's our man. What would we do without him?

I hope somebody raises this issue with Steve in Question Period.

No laughing out loud? I mean, jeeeez.

Meet Mr. Tamura

He’s the Executive Koala!

He thought he was a murderer but everything turned out okay in the end. Hurray!

Thank god for Japanese cinema. There’s nothing else like it on earth.

Sorry, but the site’s all in Japanese: http://www.koala-kacho.com

More Great News!

It’s all good news these days. All over the world. Wheee.

“A nuclear monitoring institute in the United States has published satellite images of what it says is a new nuclear reactor being built in Pakistan.

The Institute for Science and International Security (Isis) said that it could produce enough plutonium to make 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year.

…Pakistan is unhappy about Washington's recent agreement to share civilian nuclear technology with India.”

Oh stop! Is Pakistan upset, really? Just because Bush is all cozy with India and giving them some sweet deal on nukes? Forget about the geopolitics of the entire rest of the planet. Just dealing with Pakistan is enough to keep any administration busy 24/7. The double-dealing. The scheming. The intrigue. The spying. There’s no end to it.

But, really, what's 40 to 50 nukes a year between friends.

God's Own Tour de France

Last night I saw the parents of the Tour de France winner, Floyd Landis, interviewed.

First of all, who names their kid Floyd? Unless his father’s name is also Floyd. But I just checked. His father’s name is Paul. So why Floyd? Why? So we go from a “Lance”, which is the quintessential make-out-king name, to “Floyd”. Floyd, who has a bad hip. The Tour de France really lost its sexiness factor this year, eh?

But back to Paul and Arlene, the parents. They taped the race and watched it later because they didn’t want to miss church. Your son is in the frickin’ final day of the Tour de France and you tape it? I can’t speak for God (unlike, apparently, a lot of other people these days) but I’d like to think he’d cut you some slack on this if you stayed home to watch the race live. Maybe?

Third thing, the mother said that the victory was owed to God. Just once, I want to see the parents of the 2nd or 3rd place finisher ask: Why did God give my son the finger? I guess Oscar Pereiro’s parents aren’t religious enough. Heathens.

Here’s a mouth-watering headline:

“Landis' Pennsylvania hometown celebrates religiously”

I dare you to think of a party that sounds less fun.

Whoa, go easy on the sarsaparilla there, Paul.

Apparently Floyd left the Mennonite fold a long time ago, and he’s been pedalling away from it as fast as he can ever since. But they love him anyway. That’s nice.

My profound war analysis

“Mideast diplomats were pressing Syria to stop backing Hezbollah as the guerrillas fired more deadly rockets onto Israel's third-largest city Sunday.” (Associated Press, Monday.)

“The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.” (NY Times, Friday)

Translation:
Stop wriggling and sit still so I can whack you with my bigger and better hammer.

Trendspotting

Downtown over the weekend, I noticed several cars with Lebanese flags on them. Whether it's for World Cup or war, it's fun to put a little flag on your car! The day I see a Hezbollah flag on a car, I'll know this trend has really arrived.

Haven't more people been killed in Iraq in the past week than in Lebanon and Israel? I believe so. But the media don't cover it. I get the feeling they were just so sick and tired of reporting from Iraq that they are thrilled to report on different bombing and killing.

The death toll from the Indonesian tsunami is now over 660. Does anybody hear anything about this?

Two more Canadians killed in Afghanistan over the weekend. Sigh.

It was such a beautiful (and peaceful) Sunday here today. Seems so unfair to the rest of the world. What did we do to deserve this? Life on earth is a lottery. You win by being born in the right place. We won by being born in the West. So why don't I feel better about this?

Zizou Update

So in place of a 3-match ban which would be quite a useless punishment to give to a retired player, Zidane has agreed to do some community service.

Fifa said: "Zinedine Zidane has agreed to do community service work with children and youngsters."

Zizou, friend to small children everywhere.

I'm sure every day of his community service will be well documented by the French media and will appear in the pages of Paris-Match. And everyone will love him again.

All's well that end's well....

unless you are Materazzi (boo, hiss) who will miss the first two Euro 2008 qualifiers, one of which is against, natch, France. Now that hurts.

Euro 2008 is a mere two years away. Neato.