The really real Israel - through Raccoonish eyes

Enemy Of All Mankind

2009-05-11T01:31:00.000-07:00

Pirates are a universally agreen upon evil; the harm they cause is obvious, the need to deter them is urgent. And yet they are not deterred by the "world community"; piracy is rising rapidly and is all the rage in Somalia nowadays.

Easy to understand, really. If you succeed you stand to become a millionaire; if you fail, well, a walk down Bakaara Market on a good day is much more hazardous. And yet when the esteemed magazine Economist raises the inefficiency of deterrence, no mention of the traditional cure for piracy is made.

Throwing easily replaceable guns overboard is a good start. Sending their owners down to Davy Jones and treating pirates as what they are - hostis humani generis - is the only reasonabe way to go about it.

How long before the first batch of 21 century pirates are publicly made to walk the plank by some Chinese or Russians?

Musings on Lebanon: Beavers VS Tsunamis

2009-05-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

Part of my comment in Good Neighbors (a peaceblog) on a thread discussing Lebanon's "cold war", increasing tribalization, Hizballah encroachment and so on:

Lebanon is interesting in that it’s the “demo” battleground for various regional and occasionally global powers. By analyzing the endless multi-faction marionettes’ war in Lebanon one can infer the interests, desires, resources and a whole lot more about the puppeteers. On the results of my feeble understanding of the situation I can but quote the oft-used verse by Yeats:

”
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
”

But no rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem; this turmoil is the natural and inevitable result of tremendous historical processes. The societies of the Missile East were, in brief 70 years, yanked from pre-industrial (and in some cases pre-Iron Age) tribal existence straight into post-industrial nationhood; most of the nation-states these nations inhabit were concocted by decomposing Colonial powers, with borders and national systems slapped carelessly on at the whim of drunk European nobles; the unrealistic but fundamental Arab world view was shattered repeatedly by reality (and hastily patched by idiocy) in the same period; the impact of Western ideas - nigh-impossible to understand without the cultural basis - on Missile East was akin to an autobahn car pile-up at 300kph.

The pressures created by all of the above, the poor pressure valves of Arab culture (being mostly violent since the clampdown on independent thought a few centuries ago) and the increasing pace of progress (exacerbating the cultural gaps and resultant problems) dictate that a massive change is inevitable. China and Japan went through similar processes for different reasons and with different manifestations in the past century. Some systems just no longer fit and are too rigid to be fixed. So they break and are eventually rebuilt as something more viable. I wonder what the collapse of the Arab world will look like. I wonder what the eventual new system to emerge from it will look like.

Peaceblogs to peace are like beaver dams to tsunami.

Barcelona is Yaffo!

2009-05-04T01:15:00.000-07:00

A coworker describing Barcelona after a work trip there:

"It's exactly like Israel, but without the atmosphere of war. Imagine Israel, but without the Arabs. Beautiful land, good food, interesting old architecture... Barcelona is like Yaffo without Arabs"

Warning: emotional post! The Swiss dog & pony show

2009-04-20T04:30:00.000-07:00

Canada, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, Poland and USA.

These are the countries not deserving to be run over by a barbarian horde and enslaved for twenty generations.

As for the rest of the world...

Participation in Durban II, the amazing Swiss dog & pony show with the bombastic name of "World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance", is tantamount to declaring yourself an enemy of humanism and human rights - and much more important, an enemy of me. What are they going to talk about, the best way to re-implement the Final Solution?

A conference on racism and human rights led by Lybia, Iran and Cuba is like a conference on Jewish health led by Dr. Joseph Mengele.

To start an anti-semitic hate-fest led by a monkey who openly wants to genocide the Jews on the eve of Holocaust Memorial day... well, it's like a world-wide White Power meeting chaired by David Duke and titled "Victims of nigger racism" starting on Emancipation Day.

Walla, if Geneva got nuked right now I would perhaps be tempted to give out candy and fire live ammunition into the air from my AK-47.

I am happy that the Kingdom of the Netherlands - much to my surprise - chose sanity this once. Would be a pity to see Amsterdam fall completely to barbarians.

LTNS!

2009-04-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Walla, it has been a long and eventful couple of years. I bred, changed jobs and houses a few times, started a few businesses (none succeeded so far), got significantly wealthier, seen my predictions fail and succeed, started an affair with Classical music. Technology continued its rapid rise to transhumanism. (Foreign) Politics continued as usual, with Olmert faring significantly better than I expected. Here's a brief positive summary of his premiership:

Some of his failures were positive: he failed to throw away our security (Golan and suicidal overtures to Palestinians). He (almost) failed to prevent the military from winning in Cast Lead.

Some of the successes were positive, even: leaving the economy and privatization reforms alone. Giving the green light to a number of difficult and potentially risky military strikes abroad. The reforms in the judiciary system might be a good thing. And he managed to cling to power far longer than expected.

But frankly, I lost interest in short-term politics. I concluded that the Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular are a lost cause for a couple of generations at the very least. Cultural, demographic, ecological, economic and geopolitical trends all point in the same direction: the Arab world will become insignificant in the next 20 years tops. Pakistan, assorted Stans in Russia's imperial area of influence, Iran, Turkey... that's somewhat more interesting, but certainly not the most interesting issues at hand.

Long-term trends in culture and technology will be the determining factors of my and my children's lives. For all practical purposes (with the notable aside of nuclear/biological annihilation), Israel has attained security. We will continue to be attacked, but the damages from these attacks are insignificant when compared to, say, road accidents. Or cigarette smoke.

So, technology and culture. We are in the middle of a paradigm shift, a massive movement of human consciousness brought about by new ways of thinking (enabled, in turn, by technological advances). I am trying to guess where we'll be in 50 years from now culturally and technologically... and I can't. So many breakthroughs. So many exciting developments. So many promising advances, each of which can change the world by itself: genetic engineering. Bionics. Nanobots. Bizarre artificial materials - even new periodic tables. New energy sources. Space Elevator. Direct neural interface. AI. 20 years ago these seemed impossible. 50 years ago these things were hardly imaginable, if at all. And these are merely few manifestations, as well as causes (as is appropriate for Humans 2.0) of the paradigm shift.

Each of the above can alone create a revolution greater than the Industrial one. It's like the dawn of sentience all over again. The difference between a human and an immortal super-being genetically engineered from humans, enhanced with sentient nano-bots... reminds me of The Watchmen and Mr. Moore's fascinating discussion on transhumanist divinity.

But that's all decades away from fruition. For now, two things are on my mind: education and economics. I am learning about both, but not yet enough to provide proper analysis. Politics merely provides the background for these. And I think that figuring all three out to a reasonable degree is the right way to prepare for the future and present.

I will again use this forum to spew the effluvium of my cognitive process. Hey, it's got to go somewhere, right? :)

Shana Tova and Ramadan Kareem!

2007-09-13T07:06:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year, people! May it be one of prosperity, peace, interesting things and lots of tasty food!

And in case you're Muslim - Ramadan Kareem!

This is shaping up to be yet another turbulent year. Could be the herald of disaster or the early breeze of good change; too early to know, but it's always good to ponder.

So, what presents did we get for the New Year/Ramadan?

The most relevant to your truly is the IAF bombing targets in Syria and all the brouhaha around it.

The bombed site was, apparently, a joint North Korean-Iranian installation. The Syrians had no idea what was going on there (the place was "leased" to Iran) and were extremely surprised both by the bombing and by the fact that the site was, apparently, some sort of a nuclear installation.

Another interesting bit about this incident is the Turkish reaction and involvement - apparently, Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) assisted IAF in this operation without the knowledge of the government. I'd say that this was a message more than anything - to Syria that Turkey is ever vigilant, to Israel and USA that Turkey is a staunch ally, to the Turkish government that they're at TAF's mercy. All in all, from TAF's and IAF's point of view, this was a huge success.

Combine this with the reports of USA preparing for a massive strike against Iran, various high-up members of the Knesset urging for such and the recent mewlings of ElBaradei... the picture becomes very interesting indeed.

On the other hand, we have Olmert (AKA The Chief Worm) apparently planning something even more horrible than the Oslo Disaster. According to the reports, he wants to give our dear Arab cousins everything; the only question remaining is whether we'll build concentration/extermination camps for ourselves or tie ourselves down so that our dear cousins can have some fun with us before we die.

Will this cretin be able to implement his mad plan before his Government of Worms is removed from power? Will something else happen before this mad capitulation can occur - such as our dear cousins jumping the gun again, a massive war in the Middle East, a nuclear/chemical/biological strike against Israel, the people of Israel waking up and hanging the worms?

No way of knowing. But it sure shapes up to be an interesting year :)

Interesting times - in new and exciting edition!

2007-09-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

Life often does the strangest flip-flops.

Let me tell you about the last few peculiar days...

It all started when I was sitting with a friend and discussing a game we think of making. Gameplay - graphics - time tables - levels - funding - publishers - target audiences - investors - coders - animators... In the middle of it all, I discovered that I was out of smokes and went down to the street to get some.

That was when my life became a Tarantino movie.

A really weird guy was with me at the convenience store, smiling like a baboon on acid and inquiring about weed smoking implements (Do you have any bongs? - no. How about glass tubes? -no. How about...). With every question the man glanced at me and grinned a deranged grin. I bought my smokes, got back home, finished discussing the potential game and went to sleep.

That is when the pains started, like someone lighting matches in my shoulder, growing stronger and stronger. I took two Advils. I tried every conceivable position to lessen the pain, but to no avail - it only got worse. Eventually I was in too much pain to think. I woke up my wife, asked for help and tried not to scream. The most beloved decided it's time to get me to the hospital when we could not think of anything better and I was crying like a baby - it was probably the worst pain I have ever felt with such a duration, and I have felt quite a lot of pain over the years. There was one problem with this plan, though... we didn't have any cash and a huge minus at the bank (a temporary cash flow problem with a very bad timing). We decided to convince a cabbie to accept a cheque and went down to the street again.

It was 4 in the morning, however, with no cabs in sight. A guy working late shift at a nearby cafe noticed me squirming and sweating - Gods bless him. He gave us enough cash to get to the hospital and back, helped us get a cab... and here were were at the emergency ward. I was too far gone to notice much by then. People in hospital coats running around. Me on a hospital bed. A nurse commenting on my muscular buttocks before injecting a horse-sized doze of painkillers into them. Getting X-rayed and biting hard as the doctor arranged my shoulder before the scanner. Another doctor, red-eyed and bleary, examining me and declaring that I have apparently had a partial tear between one of my shoulder tendons and a muscle, along with a nice inflammation in that area. Listening to a junkie gibber in the bed next to mine about the broken needle in her arm. Nurses quizzing a guy in another bed about how he managed to get deep cuts all over his body and apparently not buying his story of falling on a glass table. I had a glass of liquid painkiller, a proscription for the inflammation and the pain and we were on our way, with me too fucked up on agony and drugs to understand anything at all.

I woke up the next evening, confused. My shoulder hurt, but not horribly. I had some 20 unanswered calls on my phone. The cats were sleeping on my chest and head. A glass of water, a bite to eat, a pill (thank you, bleary-eyed doctor!) and I started calling people back. First of all I have discovered that me and the lead programmer were fired. Apparently the CTO was unofficially accusing us of sabotaging the project and selling company secrets. Arranging a meeting with the guys from work, listening to all the perplexing details, wondering what to do next. Since the company owes me a month's notice, I have a month's worth of paid vacation. Setting up a work interview for the next day, taking more painkillers, going to sleep.

The interview - for a position as QA manager in a company making an MMORPG - went swell. Right after it I got a call and an offer for a job as senior QA at Oberon (the company publishing my first game). In the evening, meeting up with two different people about the possibility of starting a new project with them. That was when I discovered that apparently a whole bunch of my friends I wanted to start these projects with were offered extremely well-paying jobs in yet another project someone else was starting. Half a year long... and they might be looking for a QA manager/level designer/content writer (a Raccoon, in other words). Wife, in the meanwhile, got absolutely fascinating and lucrative offers for freelance work in her area. And I have realized, while walking around a friend's wedding in the woods, that had I wanted I could start my own project. In the same wedding another friend reminded me to finish writing the script for a movie we're doing. And in a phone call with the owner of the company that fired me, it was agreed we'll meet and he'll get some explanations about the real reasons we were fired. The pain in my shoulder subsided to a mere throb, but the assorted options remained.

Life is weird. Two years ago, I was a penniless student getting by; four years ago, I was a backpacker working for the Yakuza; six years ago I was a soldier being shot at. I can't imagine where and what I'll be in two years more.

My first game has been unleashed upon this world... I give you... MARBLEZ!

2007-08-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yei! Finally, all these long hours, terrible worries, furrowing of brows and gnashing of teeth have brought forth a fruit; the first Raccoon-made game in the history of Earth is on the market! You cannot imagine how happy I am that this has finally happened... please check it out - and I would love to know what you think of it!

Yei! Yei! Yei!

Long live Raccoons and gamings! :)

PS

You can probably imagine why I haven't had much time to blog lately. Another project is nearing fruition; three others are in various stages of progress; a few others are being pondered and described. I hope to vacate some mind-space in the coming month or so... and in the meanwhile, please enjoy the fruits of Raccoonish labors!

PPS

It feels like 13 tonnes have dropped off my chest, leaving only 7. I can almost fly :)

The Future

2007-07-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."

- George Orwell

In thinking of the future, one should look to past.

I am reminded of the jolly 90s, when we had daily suicide bombings - under the misguided leadership of Yitzhak Rabin.

You'd get a call. It's a friend or a relative.

They: "You OK?"
You: "Yeah. Why?"
They: "There was another bombing in [insert city here]"
You: "Kama-kama? [Hebrew for "what's the score?"]"
They: "2/12 [first number being killed, second wounded"
You: "Oh, OK. Is [family member/friend] alright?"
They: "I don't know, didn't call everyone yet."
You: "Call me if someone doesn't answer, please."
They: "OK. Yalla, I have to go. Bye."

"I've seen the future, brother: it is murder."

-- Leonard Cohen

The miserable death of a warrior

2007-07-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

My grandmother has died. It was not a pleasant death - she died in poverty, having first lost her mind, control of her body, her friends, her family... everything.

She was buried in a military funeral arranged by Russia. She had to be buried in a coffin, given the condition of the body. The Russians could not find a coffin with a Star of David, so someone had to remove the cross from the lid and paint a Star of David on. The funeral was attended mostly by WWII veterans. At least she was buried in a Jewish cemetery - her mother bought a plot there many, many years ago.

Grandma Ida was a warrior and a doctor. Doctor by profession; warrior out of necessity. Most of my family were doctors by profession and warriors out of necessity - she was following clan tradition, you could say.

She also followed clan traditions by being a teacher. She has introduced me to Dickens, Verne, Dumas, Doyle, Homerus and a cornucopia of other classical writers when I was but a cub. She taught me great many things I am sure she had no intention of teaching - simply by living her life of dedication, self-sacrifice and suffering.

The most memorable part of her life occurred, it seems, during the second world war. She was drafted for the Winter War as a doctor, and spent some half a year in hell, mending Russian slave-troops frozen and shot to bits. A short while later Germany invaded the Soviet Union; Grandma Ida became a partisan; was captured by the Nazis, saved in the last moment by her partisan mates when she was on her way to a concentration camp; continued to fight...

She has never married and never had any children. She is Grandma to me because she is the sister of my maternal Grandmother and because she had a significant part in my upbringing. All her life, she lived for others; she refused to go home to Israel when she could because she felt she was needed in Russia... even though the Russians have killed off most of her family. Her dedication earned her a pension she could not live off of, a humble military funeral, a bagful of medals and a lonely, miserable death.

What can one say of such a life and such a death?

At least she didn't die the traditional way of my family - violently.

Gotta love the Left...

2007-06-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a little movie on a psychotic leftist Israeli website.

Watch it, it's pretty interesting (despite being horribly long - just skip the whole middle, really) as an example of Leftist propaganda.

Here's my reply to it:

I am really, really overwhelmed with sadness. Especially from the music - tragic. Absolutely heart-wrenching.

Other than that, this sentimental piece of one-sided propaganda is ignoring some interesting points.

The most interesting and relevant - pay attention to this, Kaya - is that this is the way the Israeli bureaucracy functions. A decision is made in some office somewhere to move, say, a sewage pipe through your land. You can theoretically appeal against it. But you’re seldom told long beforehand, and to appear you’ll need to fill in endless forms and wander the maze of government offices until you find the right person, give him the right papers and pray to God(s) he’s in a nice mood.

Usually a compensation is offered, but that is only if the office in question has record of you actually owning whatever it is they want to ruin… and even then they might just ignore it and wait for the lawsuit. Which a private citizen has almost no chance of winning, and it’ll take years (during which your property will probably be ruined anyway).

This happens to everyone - Jews, Arabs, Circassians, Gypsies or Mongolians… as long as they’re trapped in the Israeli bureaucracy.

Welcome to Israel.

Oh, and do you need some tissues for all these tears?

PS

Kaya is some kiddie who commented on the thread there with something along the lines of "we're so evil, something like this would have never happened to a Jew", blah blah blah.

One of the best speeches in the history of UN (and probably the truest)

2007-06-26T13:23:00.001-07:00

An excerpt:

"Israel is a social democracy, the nearest approach to a free socialist state in the world; its people and government have a profound respect for human life, so passionate indeed that, despite every conceivable provocation, they have refused for a quarter of a century to execute a single captured terrorist. They also have an ancient but vigorous culture, and a flourishing technology. The combination of national qualities they have assembled in their brief existence as a state is a perpetual and embittering reproach to most of the new countries whose representatives swagger about the UN building. So Israel is envied and hated; and efforts are made to destroy her. The extermination of the Israelis has long been the prime objective of the Terrorist International; they calculate that if they can break Israel, then all the rest of civilisation is vulnerable to their assaults....

"The melancholy truth, I fear, is that the candles of civilisation are burning low. The world is increasingly governed not so much by capitalism, or communism, or social democracy, or even tribal barbarism, as by a false lexicon of political cliches, accumulated over half a century and now assuming a kind of degenerate sacerdotal authority.... We all know what they are...."

Conclusion:

For the past 30 years, the West has been declining with ever-increasing speed. A tide of barbarism, aided and concealed by a vile film of political correctness, is washing over the remains of our civilization(s). And people still can't wake up and see it coming.

Read the whole thing here . It is as brilliant as it is true... and fell on the same deaf ears as all words of sanity do now.

So, what did we miss?

2007-06-16T03:46:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while. Was busy - lots of pressure at work, I am trying to start a new company, have two new kittens (Freja and Skadi - despite their names, they seem to be almost purely Egyptians), a large minus in the bank and a wife who's trying to do 25 different things at the same time while taking medications for ADD and OCD.

I hope this Raccoon is forgiven... but here're the important Israel-related events since the last post:

The genocidal barbarians who are slightly more genocidal and barbaric than their opponent have taken over Gaza.

Hamas have won, and are behaving like psychotic, murderous brats that they are - looting, lynching, burning and, of course, killing people for fun.

Oh, and "the world" wants to solve the problem by... you guessed it - giving Hamas lots of money!

I hope that our government is mature enough to do what's needed - cut off water, electricity, all access, all supplies and everything else to Gaza... and if these monsters attack us again, Dresden them. But the chances of our government actually acting in our interests are somewhere around 0.0027%.

In the meanwhile, Palestinians are also acting up in Lebanon. Or, to be more precise, Iran and Syria are taking turns to rape Lebanon, using the Palestinians as a strap-on. Sounds fun, doesn't it?

The Lebanese Army is shelling Palestinian refugee camps, enforcing curfews and in general trying to do the barest minimum to protect the Lebanese from a barbarian horde.

Of course, when Israel did even a tenth of that with ten times the reason, the world cried "genocide" and tried to pressure us into marching happily into the gas chambers. Lebanon is (when not ignored) applauded for the same actions (only they're much more intense).

Israel's economy is rising regardless of all the difficulties, and is now considered to be the 36th largest in the world. Economic ties between India and Israel are tightening, in the meanwhile.

Other'n that, things are same old - Iran is rushing to make nukes, with the world jaw-jawing, kowtowing and appeasing in hopes of being the last to die; Russia's imperialistic ambitions are manifesting in a new Cold War that every Leftist blames on America/Zionists (along with tsunamis, wars, famines, diseases and every conceivable problem up to and including not doing your homework); Europe is busily becoming Islamic, with the pathetic Dhimmi natives licking the feet of their future masters; it's still fashionable to be a genocidal anti-Semite in the Leftist circles.

As the ever-brilliant Michael Totten puts it, "
The Middle East feels different to me now than it did a few years ago. Something big is going to happen, but I don’t know what and I don’t know when."

In other words, SNAFU. Get ready for a nuclear Holocaust.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind

2007-05-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

Gaza is on fire. Terrorists are shooting left and right; total anarchy rules. The said terrorists are blaming everyone but themselves for this, and trying to drag Israel back into that New Mogadishu by firing more rockets than usual at Israeli civilian homes, schools and kindergartens.

Just in case you'll want to make your own hellhole, here is the recipe:

How to make a New Mogadishu:

Take an overcrowded, poor city with little infrastructure. Make sure the populace has a culture of violence and no respect for life. Indoctrinate the said population for a few decades in radical Islam, death-worship and blind hatred. Make sure the population is broken up into numerous clans, factions, gangs and groups loosely united by genocidal hatred of someone else. Add a liberal sprinkling of weapons, drugs and unregistered money. Let it simmer for a while and remove the unifying agent. Garnish with corrupt media headlines and serve to the TV-watching masses from a safe distance.

Conversations with Eris

2007-04-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

"Hey, Eris..."

"Hello, little one. You seem a bit down. Have a joint and talk to Momma. What's up?"

"You know... all kinds of heavy stuff. War is in the air. I am a bit sick. Time is scarce. People keep insisting on killing each other and - worst of all - me. The kitten has diarrhoea, too. What kind of a kitten can't hold her food down, you tell me?"

Eris smiles mysteriously and takes a sip from her Martini glass. Hey ancient eyes twinkle with mischief.

"What is it in your hand?" she asks.

"Uhm... a joint. Why?"

"And whose picture is that on your keychain?"

"Heh, cm'on, Eris, you know my wife" I smile.

"And that glass by your elbow, what is in it? I might want to have a taste, you know."

"Mandarine juice. They didn't have any oranges at the store, but this is tasty."

"Well, I wouldn't drink it, myself... but what is it there in the fridge?"

I look. It's the leftovers of yesterday's would-be Chinese noodles with lots of tasty stuff. I drool. I lurch for the fridge and eat. Ninlil the Kitten tries her best to climb up my trouser leg, failing miserably. I eat. I sit back down, smoke my joint, drink my juice.

Life is good, and Eris is no longer stretching on my sofa.

And hey, the Kurds have a good chance to actually make it... and the Palestinians have this guy (or so Nobody claims :) ).

So, as it has been said by Eris the Wisest (and arguably prettiest - sorry, Goddess, my wife beats you, I think) - bugger it, no? :)

Holocaust Rememberance Day

2007-04-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Today is Holocaust Rememberance Day. This is the time when we dwell upon the horrors of the Holocaust - remembering the inhumanity, the cruelty, the monstrousity of it. Remembering the 6 million dead Jews murdered by the Nazis.

It is a sad day in Israel.

But for me it is not a sad day. It is a day of rage. Now, 62 years after WWII ended, people rise to destroy us as then. The same lies; the same uncaring (at best) world; the same implacable enemies who will not rest until we - or them - are dead. The same blind hatred. The same blood libels. And the same monsters in different skins, starting with denying the very Holocaust we remember today.

There is only one difference... we are no longer helpless refugees in foreign lands. We are home, and we are armed, and we will NOT walk again like sheep to the slaughter, regardless of the desires of our enemies and the Psychotic Left. And those who will try to destroy us... I will rip out their hearts and erase their names forever from history, if I can. And if I cannot, I will fight to the last.

This is Holocaust Rage Day. This is a day to train in arms, a day to think of vengeance, a day to meditate on the destruction of those who rise again to genocide us. For the memory of those who died - and for the lives of those who did not.

Am Yisrael Khai!

PS

A word for those who are now being slaughtered like we once were: fight.

PPS

A word for those who try to undermine us by blabbering about a 'Palestinian Holocaust': die.

Happy Spring Holidays!

2007-04-03T03:47:00.000-07:00

Happy Pesach, Passover, Easter or whichever holiday you have to celebreate the coming of the spring!

This seems to be a good spring for Israel - the malkosh (last major rain of the season) came before the counting of the 'Omer (a small measure of wheat ceremonially cut before the real harvest, which happens on Shavuot - seven weeks since Pesach). Which means that the crops will do well, and the first harvests will be rich.

And to any Egyptians reading this - hah! We got away from y'all... now you can build your own damn Pyramids ;P

How heroes fell

2007-04-02T06:41:00.000-07:00

There was once a mighty and proud nation. This nation has built the largest empire in history; it has graced hunamity with many great inventions; its thinkers shaped the way we see the world; its scientists explained the world for us like never before; its warriors stood firm against all aggressors; its culture became the shaping force of the West. Its language is the one I write in - this great nation was England.

The fascinating thing here is how fast - and how low - this great nation fell. From a stiff upper lip and not giving in an inch to Jerry mere 60 years ago they went to pathetic outbursts of emotion where there should be none and grovelling in the dirt in front of barbarous enemies.

The last nail in the coffin of this once-great nation is the kidnapping of 15 British soldiers. These soldiers went down without firing a shot. They are being humiliated, shown on TV like animals in a circus, forced to spew Iranian propaganda. The purpose of this atrocity is, of course, to humiliate the West, to show that Iran is strong, score points home and among the other Muslims... clear, plain, and obvious.

And the British response? They are, it seems, folding and groveling. But it is hardly surprising. Their highly trained and well armed troops were not only caught by surprise, but they also surrendered without firing a single shot. The progeny of heroes who fought tooth and nail against the Nazis, of men who fought on no matter what, were caught like sheep. And sheep they are. And so is their government. What further shame will the British heap on the memory of their ancestors? Surrendering to murderous, misogynic barbarians in their own homeland; suppressing their own history and heritage; cowering and apologizing for being British instead of being proud of it... and now this.

What more can be done to the British? I think that at this stage, if Ahmedinejad would rape the Queen, the British would apologize and grovel. They are a dead nation. And I lament their death.

Madness

2007-03-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

I would have loved to have been to this event with about 30 mates, trained for fighting in phalanax formation and armed with clubs and shields.

Maybe the Jews and just normal sane people there should start organizing and training for this.

Outraging news link dump.

2007-03-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

Is this another nail in the coffin of France?
(Update: possibly it's not a nail at all.
Thank you, Nomad, for making this Raccoon feel a bit better about the world :) ).

And is letting this slide another nail in Israel's coffin?

How about this?

And this is nothing but the twitching of a society that killed itself in a suicide bombing.

Ah, bugger it. The whole world is disintegrating, and we're just enjoying the ride.

Belated happy Purim.

Sanity break

2007-02-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

This Raccoon is climbing on walls. He never realized that he's a workaholic - he is now unemployed for a week, and it feels like at least half a year.

Blogging grinds to a halt when one is dripping liquidified brain matter all the floor and worries oneself to death. One actually gets angry by things like this, or like this ... or like this.

But to counter all this, there are things like Panchatantra Tales, showing that insanity and stupidity have forever been the way of hunamkind... and that there were always those who managed to counter the general suicidal trend.

Tagged!

2007-02-15T12:37:00.000-08:00

I got tagged by The Usual Suspect... so here're some random things you (probably) didn't know about me:

1) I was a semi-professional pickpocket when I was very young.

2) I have negative cooking skills. I can actually ruin an omlette - I can even ruin frozen food!

3) My first attempt at writing a novel was when I was 5 years old. It was an utter failure - I got disparaged after only two chapters or so, when my mother told me Qatar is the name of a country. In my abortive novel it was supposed to be the name of an alien race.

4) Me and wife were minor celebrities once in the state of Kerala (in India). We built a bamboo raft and sailed it down Kerala's swampy backwaters (until we got into a major storm and I got really sick). A friend told us he'll bring a local journalist friend of his for the raft's launch - but at launch we had cover from about 5 newspapers and 3 TV stations. As a consequence, EVERYONE we met while on the raft knew our names.

5) I always find myself in the strangest places and meet the strangest people. Usually both the places and people are unsavory - I know the only Israeli guy to be accepted into the family by a Yakuza clan, for instance (he was a very good hitman).

6) I have a very long "index" toe, and really enjoy having it pulled. If it's pulled hard enough for the knuckles to crack, I am almost having an orgasm.

7) Me and wife met over the 'net. Kind of. A friend of mine (Y) was chatting with a girl (G) online for quite a while and they decided to meet up somewhere nice and neutral (McDonald's in Tel Aviv new Central Bus Station). G was paranoid and asked a friend to escort her; I was bored and came along with Y. T'was 9 years ago (minus three days); the G's friend is now my wife. Y and G were together for about a month.

Pfeh. Nobody, Drima and Hipster - consider yourselves tagged! :)

Insanity at Temple Mount

2007-02-09T16:26:00.000-08:00

I wish I could travel back in time and see the world as it was in the generations preceding us. Just for a comparison, really – was the world always insane? Or is this a recent development?

Just consider the following situation:

There is a mosque built on the single holiest Jewish site. OK, fine. But when the Jewish state has retaken this site from enemies striving to destroy Israel, it gave control over it to Muslims. Who then promptly proceeded to destroy every shred of priceless archaeological artifacts from beneath and around this mosque. These artifacts are not only priceless in an archaeological sense – they are also probably the holiest artifacts of Judaism and Christianity (and would probably be very holy for Muslims). Israel ignores this... atrocity and discourages Jews from visiting the site.

Sounds bad not not world-shattering to me. But this is only the beginning!

The Muslim world decided, in its infinite sanity and wisdom, that the Evil Jooz (tm) (AKA Piggy Ape Zionist CrUSAders – thanks, Drima ;) ) are evilly plotting and scheming to destroy their precious mosque. For over 40 years. Which makes us Evil Jooz (tm) not only the most inept genociders in history, but also the most incompetent demolitioners in the world.

Alright, so this is remarkably stupid, illogical, pathetic and insane. But hey, wait, there's more to it.

Recently, the State of Israel started renovation works on a walkway leading to the aforementioned mosque. A walkway used almost exclusively by Muslims (and the occasional police officer). We Evil Jooz (tm) have this thing about not wanting walkways loaded with people collapsing – the expenses on healing them all are quite high, you see. Not to mention the costs of clearing the rubble. Reaction of the Muslim world is – you guessed it! - psychotic conspiracy mongering, hysteria, hyperbole and violence. So far, dozens have been wounded – both police and rioters, as latter started rampaging around the Temple Mount in “protest”.

OK, this is really bonkers, isn't it? But wait, there is MORE!

An “Israeli” Arab leader is inciting thousands of other “Israeli” Arabs to continue their barbaric violence. In our Evil, Racist, Apartheid Israel. And nothing is being done about it.

We all live in insane times. The rants of raging psychotic barbarians are taken as holy writ; Horrible monsters are honored (and I am not talking only of Arafat); heroes are derided and spat upon; massive evil is rising, and people whose ancestors fought and died to be free cringe and lick the toes of tyrants. Vile and obvious lies are taken as clear and self evident truths; self evident and clear truths are not only thought to be lies but thoughtcrimes. I am disgusted beyond belief by the actions of hunamity, and horrified to see darkness engulf the world while its victims strive to extinguish all light.

It's the waiting that's getting to me – why don't you hunams just get it over with and bash each others' brains out with clubs, as you all know you want to?

Sorry about the drama and all. I am just so sick of this fucking bullshit. Just get it over with - regain sanity or die already, you primates.

Save the world - stop Ahmadinejad!

2007-01-31T15:42:00.000-08:00

Not that the UN will actually do something... but we must try, mustn't we?

UPDATE

There's also a letter to AJ and the Iranian people from the Israeli public. Israelis - please sign it. It's better to drop letters than bombs.

UPDATE

Here's what Kamangir, bless 'im, has to say about this:

sign the petition!

What can I say to this? "Sorry, bro. I hope it won't come to this... and am doing my limited best to make sure it won't."

UPDATE

Meanwhile, in Gaza... and in Moscow(HT - Roman Kalik)... a bad broth is stewing, stirred by AJ's hand. Or perhaps it other hands stirring AJ's broth - who can tell at this point?

Light blogging... again.

2007-01-27T05:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the light blogging, people. There are loads of interesting things I'd like to write about - the fascinating social and political occurances going on in Israel at the moment (when will Katzav find the remains of his honor and fall on his sword?), the emerging new dynamics between Iran, USA and the Arab world and a whole bunch of other less current things...

But I am busy looking for work. And I am having some bad neurological regression symptoms. So between being busy, having nightmares, suffering from splitting headaches and occasionally losing control over parts of my body and being wrecked by insomnia, I am finding it difficult to write.

Will be back when I get better.

Random thoughts

2007-01-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

"Give me liberty, or I'll rip off your head and play football with it"

A day will come (and it's not too distant) and an orbital resort will be set up. It'll be called Heaven. Or maybe Paradise. And the owner will be an Israeli guy named Gad. Or even more amusingly, a Chinese-American woman named Lu Sipher. Oh, the gnashing of teeth!

Negative stereotypes:

Muslims - fanaticism, burqa, terrorism.

Jews - kippa, money, controlling the world.

Christians - KKK, serfs, Crusades.

Lebanese Civil War, Round II?

2007-01-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

Update:

It seems that the Iranian terrorist group and it's satellites decided that maybe a civil war at this juncture is not the best course of action. So they called it off. If the passions they managed to enflame calm down, it was only a small turd. If it doesn't... we'll, Lebanon's lifespan will be clearer by tomorrow noonish. Good luck to Lebanon.

It seems that the feces have impacted the rotating blades in Lebanon. The only question is whether it's a small turd or a whole sewer of it. If it's the second, Lebanon will be destroyed. It's like rewinding everything 25 years back - total chaos, invading foreign armies, total destruction of everything and many thousands dead. This is sheer insanity - how can anyone (even the Hizballah psychotic, murderous thugs) do this to their own country?

Eris shelter and protect them if it's another civil war. For Lebanon, 23rd of January 2007 might be remembered as "The Day Armaggedon Began".

Some more Nuclear Holocaust (AKA Holocaust II, or Return of The Holocaust)

2007-01-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

Update:

Newt Gingrich seems to agree with me.

Why did his parents call him Newt, anyway?

I just read a very interesting article by Benny Morris. The man's a (probably) reformed member of the psychotic ultra-liberalist leftie fringe. Basically, he says we're headed for a nuclear Holocaust and there's no way to stop it. I disagree - Israel still have time to become a Fortress State. It can still get some allies, sign some secret agreements (with India, for example). It can still issue an ultimatum and follow up on it - Iran will open ALL of its nuclear facilities or be attacked. When Iran fails to comply, Israel can lob a tactical nuke on some remote Iranian military facility, and explain that the next one is going to be on every suspected nuclear site. Just Raccoonish thoughts here - we have some of the brightest minds in the world right here, I am positive that they can come up with a solution.

There are things that can be done. But they will take some major balls, crativity and an iron will. None of which seem to be present in any of the Israeli (or indeed any other Western) leaders.

Here's the article (ht - LGF). And here's some info on Mr. Morris; and here's what he wrote when he (apparently) got sanity.

And here's another interview with the man. He's a whinger, he's ignoring half of Israel and the man's who interviewing him is a pathetic Leftie moron... but Benny makes a lot of sense in what he says. Now only if all of Israel understood what he did, we could take care of the problem.

I know it's all old news... but still.

Liberalism and grumbling ancestors

2007-01-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

I love capitalism. It's a great system, when combined with the spirit of Liberalism (not the current, psychotic version of ultra-Liberalist fringe but the real deal). It's a system that ensures that you will make it as big as you can… or as small as you want. Democracy, after all, is also the freedom to starve to death. That's the beauty of democracy – you are in charge. You have the ultimate responsibility for yourself – the good and the bad; it's all yours to take.

But hunams are stupid and petty creatures. When left to their own devises they usually collapse into anarchy and start killing each other like overcrowded rats in Calhoun's experiment – because in modern times, hunams are perpetually overcrowded.

Enter Law. Law is the system of solving disputes while maintaining public order – not necessarily just, but hopefully secure. Hunams cringe before Law – it is the great, amorphous Alpha Male, terrifying and protecting. It is Law that holds democracies together.

But soon hunams forget that there are other options – tyranny, anarchy, slavery, theocracy. They forgot the lawless times when their ancestors were running around the prairies, clubbing each other on the head, raping the females and enslaving the young. They grow fat and comfortable in the security of Law. They forget that life is a battle, always and forever. They forget that the membrane between them and (now unimaginable) barbarism is a very thin one – Law, Democracy, Liberalism, Responsibility.

And these petty, fat, complacent hunams want MORE. They want more comfort, and more fat, and more security. But they are so used to Law providing them with everything that they no longer feel responsible.

They become like spoiled children, coming to Father Law with their silly disputes: John won't let me play with him! Dana said a naughty word! Ed looked at me funny!

And they cry and whine and bitch when Law arbitrates their disputes: I want MORE money! I am a VICTIM of Law! I don't CARE that I did bad, I will weasel my way out of punishment!

Something's rotten in the West, methinks. Maybe hunams are not made for the good life; maybe Jung's analysis of desire is spot on; maybe hunams are just too stupid to have something good for long; or maybe I am just a stupid and bewildered Raccoon.

But I can feel the ancestors of these hunams – the very ancestors who shed so much blood and tears, who overcame the impossible, who sacrificed everything to give their descendants a chance they never had – grumbling and moving in their graves.

A very interesting presentation on the Israeli War of Independence

2007-01-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

Check this out.

The beautiful, scarred Golan

2007-01-19T02:44:00.000-08:00

A week ago I went to a vacation in the Golan with my wife. Only now I get around to writing about it.

The Golan highlands is a place of low mountains and rocky valleys. Some three thousand years ago it was part of the Kingdom of Israel, part of clan territories of Naphtali and Half-of-Menashe. It was a forested land back then, with pine and gnarled oak covering the land. The Assyrians exiled the clansmen from their wooden fortresses. Much time has passed; empires came and went. The forests were dwindling. Then came the Turks, and cut down most the remaining forests; the British who came after them finished destroying the nature. The barren and tortured land was given to the French, who, by UN decision, left it to the newly invented Syria as they ended their mandate.

Syria, in its turn, turned the land into a staging area for attacks on Israel. These rocky highlands are perfect for artillery, katyushas and hidden terrorist bases - lots of caves to hide in, lots of deep valleys to place weapons in, many hilltops that can be fortified. And the whole place overlooks the most fertile, populated and vital parts of Israel - just take your binoculars, pick a nice kindergarten, hospital, old people's home or even just a regular buildings block and fire away. Then send your terrorists down through the porous border to kill and maim the survivors. Which is exactly what the Syrians did.

In 1967 Syria and Egypt were preparing for a join attack on Israel - their forces were amassed, the UN observers were kicked out, the war plans were drawn, the guns ready. Israel didn't wait for them to attack, though, and attacked first, winning thoroughly against both of them and Jordan (that attacked Israel during these 6 days). Golan was taken from Syria, making sure it will not be used again to terrorize Israel.

We took quads and drove around, near the Syrian border. It's a beautiful place, if horribly scarred - we drove between the ubiquitous mine fields and replanted forests, ruins of Syrian tanks and ancient synagogues, abandoned outposts and cultivated vineyards, bomb craters and blueberry fields. Herds of deer and wild boar returned to the Golan now, and wolves came with them. Small settlements make a living there, mostly from agriculture and viticulture. Herds of cows and sheep roam around, sometimes stepping on mines and blowing up. But the place prospers now. The scars of war are healing, growing over with replanted forests and fields and wild bushes. In 50 years time, if the mines are cleared, this will be just a beautiful, green highlands.

And suddenly we get this. Syria wants the Golan... for "peace". The same Syria that maintains and commands Hizballah, Hamas, and a whole menagerie of other genocidal terrorist organizations. The same Syria that made deception into an art form. The same Syria that is ruled by a weak dictator and psychopathic behind-the-scenes strongmen. The same Syria that is best friends and quickly becoming the client state of Iran. Why doesn't this fill me with confidence about peace?

Let us consider a metaphor here. A gangster comes to you with a bunch of his mates and tries to kill you. You kick his ass and take his gun away. This gangster then hires people to harass you and starts working for a psychopath that is obsessed with killing you. And what does the gangster do then? He demands his gun back in return for not killing you. And by-the-by this gangster is known to be a pathological liar that is really keen on holding grudges.

What would you do? Return the gun? Or what?

Is it just me or the whole situation is insane?

Victim Mentality

2007-01-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

There's a story I wanted to share about victim mentality. A few years ago, me and wife were in Mysore, in the state of Karnataka in India. It's a nice city, with lots of interesting temples and ruins around it… we weren't planning on staying for long, but wife got a nice tropical stomach disease around that time and we ended up parking our bike and taking a room for two weeks.

Well, there's not much you can do with a very sick wife in Mysore. Since she had no appetite, I tried tempting her to eat by going to more or less every respectable restaurant in Mysore, and it was in restaurants that we spent most of our time there – when wife was not in bed watching telly and suffering. One of these restaurants soon became our favorite – she would actually eat the food there (they had excellent paneer tikka), and they had live Western music played on traditional Indian instruments every night. Most of the other people in that restaurant were usually European businessmen and their Indian colleagues – Mysore is a major industrial city with huge exports.

One evening we were sitting in their huge shady courtyard and I was trying to convince wife to eat something while distracting her with silly Raccoonish antics. On a table next to us, a dour German businessman was silently tucking into his food. All was calm and quiet – candles burning, people quietly closing deals, white-clad waiters gliding about. And then an apparently drunk guy sidles up the dour German, beer bottle in hand, and starts whispering to him. The German ignores the guy. The guy keeps whispering. The German keeps ignoring him. After a while, the German tries to explain to the guy that he just wants to be left alone and finish his food. But this has the opposite of the desired effect – the guy just sidles closer and starts whispering right into the German's ear.

Eventually the German guy has enough, calls the waiters and asks them to escort the drunk out. The drunk doesn't like it, causes a scene and is escorted out by about 5 waiters… we chuckle and believe it is all over. And then I see the guy literally creeping back in along the wall – like a thief in a cartoon. He sneaks to the middle of the room, jumps on a table and starts screaming at the top of his voice "I'M BALEZDINI! I'M BALEZDINI! THEY'RE THROWING ME OUT BECAUSE I'M BALEZDIIIIIIIINI!"

This resulted in about 10 waiters jumping on him, tackling him to the floor, bodily picking him up and throwing him out.

At the time, it left me thinking "WTF?!" – I didn't know about this. And I didn't think about this. And the whole victim mentality of the Arab/Muslim world in general and Palestinians in particular was just not something featuring in the Raccoon Universe.

Since then I have seen countless other examples of this mentality – not all as comical as the one in Mysore, but most comical through being incredibly and utterly ridiculous.

Why can't Palestinians just grow up, accept the consequences of their actions and move on?

PS

There are no victims. There is no justice. There is no *right* - there are only the dead and the living, and those to whom death will come sooner rather than later. To the strong and wise it comes later. To the weak and foolish it comes sooner. Sometimes the dice falls badly, and you die sooner than you expected even though you were wise and strong - it only means you were not strong nor wise enough.

I think of the Holocaust. Six million dead - that is a lot of people. A lot of hands to hold weapons. A lot of legs to run. A lot of teeth to bite with, if need be. My family fought like mad beasts when the Nazis came, or ran and hid. They survived. Some of them did, anyway - those who were wise and strong enough for the moment. Some of those who survived faltered later on, and were not wise or strong enough. They nourish the earth now. Are they victims? No. They're just dead.

The History of the Hebrews (according to the Raccoon), part II

2007-01-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

.And so a King was elected by the people and anointed by Shmuel, the great prophet It was three thousand years ago, and the King – Shaul was his name, He-Who-Is-Borrowed – struggled to unite the clansmen. But he was of the clan of Benyamin, small warrior people from the Southern deserts, and the rich Northern clans resented his rule. So Shaul fought their enemies – the Amalek and the Invaders, Ammon and Moav and many others. Some say that Shaul, in his quest to unite the clans and forge his kingdom, turned to dark magics; some say his desire for victory drove him mad. Either way, he lost his life on the Mountain of Gilbo'a in battle against the Invaders, and his son Ishba'al – an idolater and .
worshiper of Ba'al Zvuv - became King in his place.

But Shaul had a popular general who would not accept Ishba'al as King. This general was a great warrior, slayer of the Invaders' greatest hero – Goliath of Ashkelon -,a famous poet, unrivaled musician and, some say, the lover of Shaul's son Yehonatan. The general's name was David, of the Southern clan of Yehuda, and during his life Shaul feared David's popularity. At the end, Shaul's fears were not baseless – David led a rebellion, and upon the assassination of Ishba'al became King.

This is where the United Kingdom of Israel really begins. David was indeed beloved of his people, and a cunning politican to boot. Through a combination of military conquest and political marriages, he has not only united the 12 clans and smashed their ancestral enemies – driving the Invaders from the Middle East forever – but expanded the borders of his kingdom far beyond the traditional lots of the clans. His kingdom was mighty, his children numerous, and his armies were unmatched in that time. David moved the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel from Khevron to Jerusalem, and the small Yevusite township became a mighty fortress-city, overlooking the major trade lanes which were the lifeblood of David's kingdom.

The Kingdom held for some hundred years, until the Northern clans rebelled. They held the rich lands of the North, the forests and the hilltop fortresses. For hundreds of years their have intermarried with the Phoenicians, and the riches from Tyr went through their lands. With their implacable enemies defeated by David, the taxation and rule by the Southern vexed them, and after some 60 years of bitter civil war – the Northern clans fighting with their swords and bows and oiled shields, the Southerners with their chariots and spears and slings – the kingdom was split in two. In the North was the Kingdom of Israel, with the 9 Northern clans. In the South was the kingdom of Yehuda, with the two Southern desert clans. And the landless Levi roamed the land between them, respected by all.

The Northern Kingdom continued with its rebellious ways. The Northern Kings seldom lived to ripe old age – many were assassinated by their successors, or exiled, or deposed. The South was more sedate – the desert clansmen respected their rulers, and kept to the old ways. So it was for two hundred years, until the Assyrian king Sargon II conquered the Kingdom of Israel and banished the 9 clans from their kingdom. Not much is known of their fate – it was the way of the Assyrians to displace the people they conquered – but survivors of Clan Menashe were discovered in India. They have returned home now.

The Kingdom of Yehuda fared better than Israel. The desert clans held on to their kingdom, prospering and trading, sometimes abandoning the ways of the forefathers and sometimes restoring them, until the Babylonians conquered them in 586 BCE, under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II, who exiled the remaining clans to Babylon and destroyed the Great Temple in Jerusalem that David's son Shlomo built.

This exile did not last long, though. Soon the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, and Koresh the Great – known as Cyrus II – released the clans from Babylon back to their ancestral homelands, with great wealth and a decree to rebuild the Temple. It was 539 BCE when they returned, and much has changed. The clans were no longer clans, but one people – the Jews. Only Levi continued to exist as they always did, landless priests respected by all. And no longer did the Jews have self-rule.

They remained in their land, and it became a province of different empires. The Jews lived and studied and bickered and evolved, developing their laws and their knowledge and their religion. So it was until the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus took a dislike to the Jews and tried to wipe them out. The Jews rebelled – again – and overthrew their Hellenist occupiers, establishing a new Jewish Kingdom, the Second Kingdom of Israel. It held for only a century, though, until the Romans came – internal strife and misplaced ambitions tore the Second Jewish Kingdom apart, and it was easy pickings for the Legions of Pompey.

For a while, the Jews fared reasonably well under the Romans. They were a client Kingdom, with the Herod dynasty ruling the Kingdom of Yehuda (or Iudaea, as it was known to the Romans). But things deteriorated with time. In 6 CE, Roman procurators started ruling Iudaea. They were corrupt and violent more often than not; and when Mad Emperor Caligula declared himself a living God and demanded that the Jews worship him in the Great Temple, things were ripe for yet another rebellion. And so it was – in 66 CE, the Jews rebelled against their Roman oppressors. At first, the rebellion went well – whole Legions were destroyed, and it almost seemed that Yehuda will be independent again...

But Rome sent more and more legions – an endless wave of professional soldiers with short swords and long spears and huge shields. By 70 CE, the first rebellion was crushed. Over a million Jews were massacred; hundreds of thousands were enslaved; hundreds of thousands more were exiled. The Second Great Temple was destroyed, and it seemed like the end of the Jewish people.

But the Jews survived and continued to revolt. They revolted in 115 CE, all over the Empire, and were crushed and slaughtered again. They revolted again in 132 under the leadership of Bar Kochva – known as the False Messiah – and had some success. The Jewish Kingdom was re-established and independent again, but only for two brief years: the Romans gathered a tremendous army and succeeded in crushing this rebellion, too, albeit after suffering tremendous losses. The rebelliousness of the Jews irked the Romans greatly, and this time they not only slaughtered and enslaved many thousands of Jews, but outlawed the Jewish religion and renamed the land of Yehuda Palestina – Invaderland in Hebrew – after the bitter ancestral enemies of the Jews.

One would have thought that such trials and horrors would end the Jewish people for sure. But the Jews survived. Some remained on their ancestral lands; most, scattered throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, established Jewish enclaves, continuing the traditions and laws and culture. They were often slaughtered by the barbarian people among whom they were forced to live; sometimes they returned to the land of their forefathers and tried to re-establish their Kingdom again. But to no avail – for almost two thousand years, the enemies of the Jews were too strong, their friends too few. They suffered greatly in diaspora, inequities and humiliations and assaults too numerous to mention and too horrid to contemplate. But they not only survived – they have prospered, and grew stronger, and dreamed of returning to their homeland one day.

In the late 19th century, the dream became possible. The rulers of the land of the Jews were weak and corrupt. They let the land go wild and desolate, and the inequities which the Jews suffered in Europe were too great to bear; and so, the Jews began returning home, dreaming of establishing their independent state again. They bought back their lands, and they took a wasteland and made it bloom again. They were attacked constantly by the squatters now living in ancient Jewish cities, but the returning Jews fought back and survived. They were oppressed by the foreigners occupying their homeland, but they came back anyway, and prospered.

And in May 14 of 1948 of the Gregorian Calendar – the 5th of Iyar of 5708 – the Jews had their homeland united and independent again. They named it Israel, in honor of the vanished ancient Northern Kingdom. Many foes tried to destroy the re-established Jewish state (the Third Jewish Commonwealth), but they have failed. Many foes still try to destroy this state... and they will also fail.

Am Israel Khai!

There. It was a bit long, I know, and a bit mythical... but this is the story of my people as I know it, from the dawn of history until today – from tent-dwelling desert clansmen with chariots and bows to a united nation dwelling in great cities, with satellites and biotechnology companies.

The History of the Hebrews (according to the Raccoon)

2007-01-07T11:29:00.000-08:00

The RR&R (Raccoonish Rest and Recreation) time is over. Europe has been conquered; my new lair has been properly furnished and no longer leaks; I have finished a course in programming and am now writing a silly game as my final project. T'is time again for blogging, revolution, cabbages and kings.

I thought to start with a brief and somewhat poeticized history of the Hebrews, AKA Jews, as the Raccoon knows it.

Thousands of years ago a bunch of people emigrated from Ur in Mesopotamia, led by a religious figure named Avraham. Their new and strange religion led them to a distant land, on the far tip of the Fertile Crescent – a land of harsh rocky deserts, forested hills and coastal plains. The land was known as Cana'an, and in it Avraham and his tribe settled, following the decrees of his God.

Time has passed, and Avraham's adherents multiplied. This was the dawn of these people, and not much is known of it – but they came from the desert, and they conquered, built, and lived in the wild land Avraham led them to.

But these were harsh times. Sometimes the land could feed the people; sometimes a disaster struck, and the people died. One such disaster continued for too long, and the people moved to more fertile lands, for they were nomads – herders and hunters, with few possessions but their laws and their religion. They came to the great empire of Misr – Egypt - to escape the inhospitable times in their homeland. In Misr, however, they did not fare too well, for they were enslaved by the Pharaohs.

A time came, and a great leader of the Hebrews rose in Egypt – a man named Moshe. Some say he was a prophet; some say he was a charismatic politician. Prophet or politician, Moshe did the impossible – he led his people out of Misr, back to their home in the wild land of Cana'an. This was fitting – the people of the deserts came back from the deserts again, after many years. But this time, they came in force, for the Hebrews multiplied in Misr and grew strong and lean through hardship – a race of survivors. They came with their chariots and iron-tipped arrows, with their spears and swords. The land was re-taken by them again, divided among 11 of the Hebrew clans, with the clan of the priests left landless. An era of Judges began.

The 12 Hebrew Clans lived and fought in the land, building again, settling down, becoming farmers and wine-growers and merchants – for the land was a crossroads between the continents, and many goods moved through it. Sometimes they befriended and married the other people living in the land; sometimes they fought to the bitter end, and the hills ran red with blood. One such nation, a terrible enemy to the clansmen, was the people who came from the sea, known to the Hebrews simply as Invaders – Plishtim or Philistines.

The Judges led their clans well, but the bellicose neighbors were uniting into kingdoms, and the Hebrews were losing to their amassed might. And so the clansmen voted on electing a king, to unite the people and drive out their enemies… and especially the hated Invaders.

To be continued…

Raccoonish R&R

2006-12-31T10:51:00.000-08:00

I have finally finished building a room and clearing out our old lair (half a ton of garbage made its way out along with me). So I am taking a well-deserved vacation of sorts... I am conquering Europe. Currently my armies are poised to take Nuremburg, Cordoba and Krakow. There is a rebellion in Oslo to crush, a nephew to dispose of (Robert the Mad. Drooling and ordering random people executed) and my diplomat desperately needs to reach Novogorod and forge an alliance with Rus against Poland. Milanese traders have been trying to take over the French wine industry from me for a decade now, and I need to marry a princess to a relative of the Pope - the Papacy has been trying to stop my just and righteous war of conquest lately. And then there is the secret army I am building up at Nottingham and York which should be ready for a naval invasion of Portugal in a couple of years... in other words, I have left this time and place for a brief vacation in Medieval Europe.

I am also pleasantly recovering from the space chocolate served at my housewarming party... baruch ata adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, bore kne bosem. Blogging will resume after the R&R :)

Rain and poverty don't mix.

2006-12-26T05:24:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up because wife was frantically shaking me and urgently speaking something about roof, water, and storm. I leapt up, put some pants on, and ran after her outside....

To a scene from Hell. The room I have built with Herculean effort in the past two weeks from stolen logs, nylon and ropes was a mess. Flying water everywhere. Puddles on the floor. Madly whipping nylon flaps. The wind shrieking like a banshee, wife running around in circles trying to contain the disaster... I got to work, tying ropes, adding bits of material, inventing solutions on the fly – and all the while the wind was doing its best to drive frozen rain through my skin.

Two hours of mad, desperate effort later, and the makeshift room was waterproof again. Kind of, anyway.

I hate being poor... especially in the winter. The apartment itself is too small for me, I can only sleep there (and even that if I manage to subdue the claustrophobia – this place is a friggin' rooftop dungeon). So I don't really have much choice about the makeshift room...

*sigh*

I love rain. But not when it's freezing cold and trying to kill me.

Here's to hoping I manage to become richer soon :)

PS

Yes, I am a whiny Raccoon. Just the way I like it :)

Update

The makeshift room succesfully survived today's storm. My joy and relief are boundless. Eat my shorts, Ozymandias! Ha! :)

A personal post of no particular importance

2006-12-24T11:08:00.000-08:00

I had a mad and extremely busy couple of weeks – moved apartments, built a kind of a tent/additional room in the new one, helped me wife with her decisions and lack thereof in a problematic time (for her, and therefore for me), dealt with by far too many things… all in all, it can be summed as too little sleep, too much stuff to do and by far too much pressure. So blogging has been light.

But I just seen an interesting post at Hipster's, and decided to go for something similar – a personal post about the last year and the up-and-coming one.

So… what're the highlights of past year for me?

- Blogging. I got into it in the past year, sinking ever deeper.

- Politics. My interest in politics in general grew tremendously in the past year, along with my knowledge of it.

- Resettling in Israel. It was only a year ago or so that we got back from Australia. And this year was one of finding my beloved Israel again, getting together with old and new friends, and building a comfy lair in TA. Mission accomplished, and I am getting restless to go again.

- Studies. It is only this year that I have decided, after 22 years of being in the workforce, to get a proper profession. Admittedly, it was after some tentative searching – I could have continued as a marketing person or a journalist… but the first is not creative enough, and the second is just too damn evil. I refuse to work for the Dark Side! So programming is the chosen way… like almost every other male under the age of 50 in my family. We'll see how it goes after I finish my studies in a month or so.

- I also got married. It wasn't a major event as it didn't change much (it mostly means I have more pressure on me to show up for family dinners). We decided to get married when we were in Australia and discovered that transferring car ownership costs 400$, unless you're married. So after 8 years together, it seemed reasonable to make it even more official and get the perks 

- I let myself go physically. It was a very frantic year, with strange hours and no organized schedule. So I couldn't really practice kung-fu much… and it is the first time in my life that I have a bit of fat on me – a small ring of flab around my midsection, like some sort of alien amoeba living under my skin. A torn ligament, damaged femurs and eroded meniscuses are not an excuse. Were I Japanese, I would surely commit seppuku.

- I also started a company with me wife. Import of fancy shirts – not the best of choices, but we wanted to see how it goes. It was a lot of effort, very interesting, and eventually we came out even without managing to score any large contracts. Since our tailor is a Pakistani Muslim living in Southern Thailand, we decided to discontinue the whole thing after the military coup there.

- I survived another year, which is a wonderful thing.

So… it was a good year. Flowed smooth like silk, no particular pressures, no particular difficulties – good company, easy living, good friends… I'm only sorry it went by so fast. That's the downside of being a raccoon – time has little meaning, and unless every moment is crammed with new and interesting experiences, it just… doesn't exist in the long run.

And for the New Year: there is the strange tradition of New Year resolutions. I am not making these, but I am making many plans, backup plans, and divergent contingency plans and paths. So this is for the up-and-coming Gregorian New Year;

- Finish studying and get a steady, well-paying job. Should be a breeze – the contacts are there, and I am aiming for a personnel-deprived field.

- With the steady hours and good pay of the aforementioned employment, I should be able to have regular training sessions and the funds to pay for them. This should take care of the godsdamn flab. I need to lose 2 or 3 kilos of subdermal alien amoeba and gain back 10 kilos of muscle.

- If I'll be lucky and persistent enough, I'm hoping to start a grassroots socio-political revolution in Israel. Will see how it goes, but I am cautiously optimistic. Time and money are a problem, but maybe these can be procured.

- Quit smoking. Wife really hates it… and I don't like being in the thrall of dried vegetation. Some people are lucky in being able to smoke when they want and not feel any particular cravings when they are not smoking. Me, I am a junky – last time I tried quitting was 3 weeks-long living hell of physical withdrawal symptoms.

- Make enough money for our next bout of random roaming. Funds permitting, we'll go from Alaska to Terra Del Fuego by land. Should take about a year… and satisfy our wanderlust for a while longer. Should also serve as a test-run for freelancing employment for both yours truly and wife – a preparation for the future.

- Survive another year.

There. A personal post of no particular importance – the best my tired and stressed-our psyche is capable of right now.

Snakes!

2006-12-21T04:32:00.000-08:00

This photo is just irresistible:

Damn, Snake Manu has some weird hobbies! :)

I mourn for Jericho

2006-12-18T18:52:00.000-08:00

This is an old reply I left at some blog a few months ago. A discussion thread on Mideast Youth forum reminded me of this. Here we go:

When we left Lebanon - and good riddance, too! - I was transferred to the Jericho DCO, part of a support unit for Joint Patrol. Not sure whether you have heard of it, but it was a fairly common practice back in the days of the hudna; IDF and PA police patrolling PA-controlled turf together. In Jericho, it mostly included driving around in Jeeps a bit and then having coffee and houmus under an old tree for a few hours.

Well, Jericho of these days was a splendid place. The casino was bringing in the big bucks, the city had more restaurants and gift shops than population, agriculture was booming, the streets were clean... Really a good place to live in, save for the godsdamn heat. Oh, sure, we had our share of unpleasantness - petty crime, the Jericho psycho that got the kicks out of raping young boys (we got him in the end), the daily heart attacks among the tourists in the casino... but it was nothing major. The biggest thing we had there during that period was the time when the Islamic Jihad, IIRC, threw a Molotov cocktail into a passing car and burned alive an Israeli woman and her 2-year-old girl. But, as I said, it was the exception rather than the rule.

But there was this feeling in the air... a feeling of foreboding, you know? Eveybody knew it was a hudna and not a real peace. Khaled, the big chief of our Palestinian counterparts, smiled secretively when he remembered his good old days in the first Intifada (he was crazier than a loon, but that is normal for a paramilitary commander). The Force 17 fucks gave us all dirty, knowing looks... but most of all, there was the feeling in the air. Like a gathering storm you cannot see.

And boy, did it break. Old Yasser - the Rayiss - pushed the button that started the new intifada. And within the span of a single day, everything changed. The guys we had coffee with on a daily basis suddenly started shooting at us. Khaled stopped being nice and let his inner beast surface. The casino was occupied by gunmen that constantly fired on us. The old tree under which we drank coffee was blown up. Shops were looted by militias. Restaurants closed. Hothouses were shattered. The streets filled with gunfire and rubble.

Our base was burned down and riddled with bullets - where once we had only plaster walls, now stands reinforced concrete. The casino was shelled to get rid of the snipers. The local population descended back into violence and poverty. And me - I had a severe nervous breakdown and was transferred away from the front.

And this, my friends, is the sad tale of what briefly was the most successful town in PA. It might have many morals, or it might have none at all. Me - well, I take it simply: there is no point in buiding that which will be soon destroyed by stupidity and bloodlust. There is no point in paying the Hamas when they could have easily resurrected the prosperity of Jericho... had they only wanted.

I mourn for Jericho.

Time, time, time... or lack thereof

2006-12-17T11:23:00.000-08:00

Between finishing my studies, work, wife, family, moving to a new place, building another room there, revolution, roleplaying and various other activities I am sorely lacking in time. So blogging will be somewhat light... or rather, lighter.

Pfeh!

Hannukah - a tale of blood, rebellion, fire... and oil.

2006-12-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

First of all - happy Hanukkah! May you have a great and pleasant Festival of Lights.
And now a bit of history...

2,174 years ago the situation in Israel was grim. We were under a prolonged and brutal occupation by the Seleucids, descendants of Alexander the Macedonian's army. The Seleucid Emperor, Antiochus VII Epiphanes, really didn't like Jews – we were a rebellious bunch, with weird traditions, a strange religion and a peculiar ancient culture. So in 167 BCE, Antiochus decided to get really mean. He conquered Jerusalem, tortured the population to death, desecrated the Great Temple and outlawed Judaism. Cultural and ethnic cleansing, in other words. And it worked – many Jews were losing their identity, swallowed by the Seleucid Hellenism. The Jewish people were dying. These were the bad old times… but then again, it was far from the first oppressor of our people, and far from the first (or last) attempt to wipe us out.

An old priest named Matateyahu the Hashmonean started a rebellion along with his sons. It didn't go too well – Jews were cowed and oppressed, their leaders were all dead, the centers of cultural life were destroyed… and it was a bunch of guys in the hills of Modi'in (where my wife's from) against a huge Empire which ruled over most of the Middle East and parts of Europe. The old man died a year later, and the torch of rebellion passed on to his son, Yehuda, nicknamed the Maccabi – the Maul.

The Maul was a shrewd military leader. His small band of warriors hid in the hills, harrying the Seleucid forces in small-scale ambush battles. It was two years before he could score a significant victory – he ambushed a small Seleucid army in Wadi Khermia, near Hebron, destroying it utterly. It seems that the main effect of this was psychological – the oppressed Jews rediscovered a hope for freedom and independence, flocking to The Maul's side.

The mighty Seleucid Empire did not take such a defeat lightly. A much larger force was sent to deal with the pesky Jewish rebels… and again Yehuda's forces ambushed it in another ravine, routing the survivors. It has continued for some time – Seleucids sending ever larger armies marching into Jewish territory, the Jews outmaneuvering and defeating the numerically superior and better equipped enemy. After a fourth major victory, The Maul marched on Jerusalem and on the 25th of month Kislev (14 of December in the Christian calendar, which didn't exist back then) cleansed Jerusalem and re-sanctified the Temple (on Temple Mount, where Al-Aqsa Mosque now stands).

This is the point where Hanukkah celebrations come in. Part of the re-sanctification of the Temple was relighting the eternal flame. According to the legend, the Seleucids desecrated all of the sacred olive oil, and only enough pure oil for one day remained. This single pot of oil miraculously lasted for eight days, until new sacred oil could be prepared. Personally, I believe it was an eight-days-long party – after all, Jews were throwing off the yoke of foreign occupation after centuries of oppression. Either way, we now light candles, eat deep-fried foods and make merry for eight days to celebrate the occasion.

Yehuda the Maul's story didn't end here, though. He struggled to free all of Israel and to save the Jews outside the restored Jewish state for the remainder of his life. A few years after the restoration of the Temple (and the Jewish state along with it) he died in battle while leading his men against an overwhelming Seleucid force. His brothers continued his mission, eventually freeing Israel and establishing a Jewish state which held for one hundred years, besieged from all sides by enemies. It was internal strife that brought it down, bringing about a Roman occupation which led to even greater persecutions, massacres… and, at the end, the Diaspora.

Apparently, I would not do very well as a Great Leader...

2006-12-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

I just took the "what famous leader are you" test (followed through a link at Carmen's blog). I should have guessed:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Ein Volk, eine Abfalldose, ein Raccoon!

LOL :)

Israel, Zionists and Darfur - what gives?

2006-12-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, there is a horrible and bloody conflict going on in the Darfur area of Sudan. The causes and actors are many and complex – ethnic and tribal tensions along with herders versus farmers, socio-economic factors, political rivalries, international pressures, internal African pressures and various other factors. Practically all the participants are Muslim. It's been going on for over 3 years now (and happened right after a protracted and monstrous civil war along with a deadly drought) resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of gang rapes, a completely devastated economy, famine, plagues and much gnashing of teeth. In other words, an utter bloody mess.

The bit relevant to this particular article, however, is that over two million people from Darfur became refugees. And this is not orderly refugees like the hundreds of thousands of Israelis that moved south during the Hizballah-Israel war last summer – this is a flood of desperate, destitute and traumatized people. Children who have seen Mommy being gang-raped and then clubbed to death with rifle butts. Mothers who have seen their children hunted down and hacked to pieces with machetes. People who have seen everyone they ever knew tortured to death, people who have seen everything they knew burned and destroyed.

Some are lucky – or unlucky – enough to end up in refugee camps in Sudan itself and neighboring countries. The conditions in these camps are appalling, and Janjaweed gangs – the government-backed main perpetrators of the slaughter – continue to attack people even there. Truly a desperate situation.

What that has got to do with Israel, Zionism, and Jews, one might ask. After all, Israel is a few thousand kilometers away from Darfur, has no involvement whatsoever with Sudan, and no reason to get involved in any way in a Muslim-vs-Muslim conflict.

Well, in our day and age everything is interconnected. Let's start with Sudan's ruling tyrant, errr, sorry, President Al-Bashir. This particular nice man (directly responsible for the horror going on in Darfur) puts the blame for it on Israel. Why? Why not, apparently. "Blame the Jooooz" is a common and acceptable solution to any problem in the Muslim/Arab world, according to the editor-in-chief of Al-Jazeera. So if you happen to be a Muslim and are busy killing off a few hundred thousands of other Muslims, you know how to get away clean. Just ask Jimmy Carter or Baker and Hamilton – it's always and forever Israel's fault, no matter what "it" might be.

But this is not an article about blame. This is an article about a thorny and bizarre problem. You see, some of these more than two million refugees made their way across the desert to Egypt, where they are not treated very well. And a few of them have actually got so desperate they risked crossing the border into Mordor, the heart of all evil, the HQ of the dark and sinister Elders of Zion, the place where Evil Zionists™ live, feeding solely on Muslim babies – Israel, AKA the Land of Milk and Honey.

These refugees are not exactly expert infiltrators into enemy states (and Sudan is officially at war with Israel), so they are easily caught by the evil Storm Troopers of Zionism – IDF:

And this is where Israel's dilemma begins.
On one hand, these people are citizens of an enemy state. They have infiltrated Israel illegally. They usually have no documentation. They have no money and no useful skills. There is very little indeed they can contribute to Israel. No matter what Israel does, the PR fallout will be negative – take them in, and soon you'll have stories running in the Arabic press about how Evil Zionists™ are eating Sudanese babies, and speculating that the whole Darfur disaster was instigated by the Evil Zionist Entity™ to increase food supply in Israel. Turn them out, and Israel is a heartless bunch of Evil Zionists™ who instigated the Darfur disaster to make poor innocent Muslims walk thousands of kilometers in the desert just to be cruelly humiliated by the said Evil Zionists™. Accepting the refugees might open the floodgate, with millions of displaced hunams baying to be accepted into the Land of Milk and Honey. And it's not as if Israel doesn't already have an internal problem with Muslims.

On the other hand, these are people. They are refugees from the single worst atrocity going on in the world at this time. They have been royally screwed over, and have nowhere to go to. They are traumatized, terrified, and lost. They have been through what can be described as genocide, and Israelis know damn well what that means. They are too few to cause any problems. There are kibbutzim and moshavim willing to take them in – a sure way to assimilate these people into the Israeli society. And, at the bottom line, not helping them would be horribly immoral, against the Jewish tradition and religion (yes, helping them is a religious obligation - din ger, yetom ve-almana) and just plain evil.

In the meanwhile, they are being processed through the system. Like all illegal aliens, they are taken to detention centers and their individual cases are reviewed. Since this is Israel, the red tape takes a long, long while. And since these people are citizens of an enemy state, it takes even longer. They are not particularly unhappy to be in the detention centers… but it's boring, wastes a lot of time, and keeps them effectively isolated from the outside world. The ones lucky enough to be cleared security-wise and to have their refugee status accepted quietly and anonymously move to various kibbutzim and moshavim.

So here's the big question… what should Israel do with them? Are these wretched victims a danger to Israel? Could they be a boon? Or is it just another storm in a teacup?

A big fat thank you to Drima and this conversation on his blog.

UPDATE:

Apparently, the Israeli chapter of the American Jewish Committee has donated 10,000 NIS(about 2400$ US) to the 300 or so Darfurian 'fugees in Israel, to be used for clothing and such. It's not much at all (enough for, say one pair of pants and a few shirts for each 'fugee if you're buying in bulk), but it's a statement.

Viva La Revolución!

2006-12-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

The politics of Israel are in dire straits. Except for among the psychotic fringes, no politician in Israel is trusted. The decision-making process is so rotten that nothing is being done; every suit is plotting and scheming against every other suit; lies and corruption are the norm; favoritism and backstabbing are the only way to climb up the ladder; nobody seems to have a clue, much less a plan.

In the last elections, the situation got so bad that Pensioners' Party got 9 out of 120 mandates in the Knesset. People voted for them almost solely as a protest – since there is nobody people want to vote for, they vote for a small and insignificant party and hope for the best. And voter turnout was the lowest in the history of Israel – 63.2% - shows that people just don't trust the politicians anymore. Everybody has been betrayed, everybody is angry, and many are starting to despair…

Well, it's the perfect time for a revolution. This is something I have been pondering often, watching the situation deteriorate – just change the way the system works. Replace the politicians. Give the people a new hope.

And now, I believe, we have the means. As it happens, most of the people I know are the cream of the intellectual elite of my generation (in their 20s-30s). We have brilliant thinkers, brilliant speakers, brilliant writers; we have a network extending into the academia, military, media, students' unions, NGOs and businesses. And these people, until now, lay dormant, politically speaking. It seemed pointless – why enter a system we all know to be rotten to the core?

This past week I have been preaching about the revolution. About a way to unite the people – a movement based on changing the way the government governs, the way the politicians answer to their electorate, the way they are elected; with a strong focus on education, political transparency, anti-corruption and realistic foreign policies. There are many organizations adhering loosely to the same principles – the Israeli Democracy Institute and the Movement for Quality Government in Israel are two good examples. We hope to bring these disparate movements and organizations together, united by a new purpose.

And I got amazing reaction. People who are generally apolitical support the idea. People from both the left and right of the Israeli political spectrum are agreeing with the principles and asking what they can do to help. It's like there is a void in people's minds that these ideas are filling perfectly.

There has never been such a loss of faith in Israeli politicians. There has never been a time when these politicians seemed to care so little for Israel or Israelis. And there has never been such a yearning – such a desperate need – for change. I really think we can pull this off, create this change, and give everyone the hope and trust people crave.

On the other hand, it may be that I am delusional in my analysis of the Israeli public. It may be that we'll run out of steam. It may be that we'll encounter insurmountable problems – we still do not have a source of funding, we do not have experts on Israeli politics, we do not yet have a concrete manifesto.

But we're starting. This week will be our first official revolutionary meeting, and we'll see where and how we should go. Wish us luck – despite the obvious hardships, this just might be the embryo of a new and better Israel.

Asia Times Online

2006-12-08T05:13:00.000-08:00

I have just discovered the joys of ATO. How come I wasn't aware of this excellent publication before, I cannot imagine... just read this column, if you didn't already!

"May you live in interesting times!" - a Chinese curse

2006-12-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

We seem to live in an interesting age – an age of stark contrasts on every level, of greatest comforts and greatest dangers, of consolidation and segregation, of growing enlightenment and barbarity.

And everything is picking pace, changing faster than we can notice… while staying the same as it has been for centuries.

When Francis Fukuyama wrote his "The End of History and the Last Man", everything seemed shiny and bright – the abomination of Communism was vanquished in Europe, China and South America were moving towards more capitalistic and free societies, Asia was growing richer and more democratic, Islamism appeared to be a weak and insignificant force, the protracted and bloody Arab-Israeli conflict was apparently coming to a close… the heady days of the early 90s. It really seemed back then that the constructive force of Liberal Democracy was slowly but surely transforming the world into a wonderland of peace and prosperity.

Where did we progress from there?

Africa is one big bloody mess of famine, wars, plagues and tribalism.

Islamism rose like a foul Hydra, like an alien infestation, consuming populations and states all over the world.

Pakistan just barely stands on its rotten foundations, waiting to be felled by Islamists – one successful coup away from a thermonuclear disaster.

Mr. Khan of the same Pakistan is selling nuclear technology to the highest bidder.

The oppressive horror of a regime lording it over North Korea has been given nuclear technology by Liberal Democracies and immediately proceeded to turn them into weapons – weapons which are also for sale to the highest bidder.

Iran is striving to create nuclear weapons as well (cooperating with North Korea and aided by China and Russia) while threatening to unleash a nuclear apocalypse to coax Mahdi out of hiding.

South America is swinging like a pendulum between progress and regression, with Venezuela apparently lost to the latter.

Media became even more entrenched in its insanity, becoming the enemy of the West and the ally of anyone seeking to destroy the Liberal Democratic principles enabling the media to exist.

The Western public, befuddled by the aforementioned media and mistrusting its leaders, is moving to and fro like confused sheep, unsure and ignorant.

Terrorism became the new dictatorship as it became clear that 20 determined hunams with some funding can hold 20 million hunams hostage with impunity.

The Arab-Israeli peace progress was discovered to be a fraud, and the clearly stated intentions of the assorted Palestinian factions to destroy Israel have not changed.

The UN became an even more corrupt and fetid nest of tin-pot dictators, psychotic tyrants, terrorists and their lackeys.

Unelected and unrepresented NGOs and corporations can and do make decisions overpowering those of elected and represented governments.

Environmental deterioration and disease mutations are racing against hunam technological capabilities and seem to be gaining.

The sheer proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons in failed states and among psychtic dictators increases the chance of some horror going off by accident.

Did I forget something?

On the other hand…

Liberal Democracies appear to be spreading like mushrooms after a rain, historically speaking.

Technology is advancing ever faster, and I fully expect to be able to live forever if I can survive the next 50 years or so.

The Internet brings people closer than ever, enabling a sharing of ideas and lives hitherto thought unconceivable.

Equality between genders and races is rapidly becoming the only acceptable attitude.

We have more of everything than any other generation ever in history – the poor of developed Liberal Democracies live better and longer than the kings of yesteryear.

Uhm… did I forget something in this little list?

So where do we stand? Are we on the verge of a horrible apocalypse? Or are we on the verge of a beautiful future of relative plenty and peace? I can hardly see how there can be a combination of the two… and of course it's all black and white, but I like to dramatize.

Coming next – is America going to betray Israel? Will Israel recover from its pathetic dearth of leadership? Will this Raccoon start a revolution?

*dramatic music*

And a big THANK YOU to Red Tulips of the fabled Culture for All for providing interesting links and being somewhat of a prophetess.

PS

Ran out of time while writing this post. Will add more pictures and linkies :)

Prepare for a nuclear holocaust - the clock is at 23:59

2006-12-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

Did Robert Gates, the incoming Defense Secretary of US, just say that Israel will be nuked by Iran and USA will do nothing... or am I missing something?

Let's see... Iran is getting nukes.

Israel has second-strike capabilities.

Iran has stated repeatedly that it wants to destroy Israel. Special fatwas have been issued about using nukes, destroying Jerusalem and killing lots of Muslims in order to kill some Jews.

Israel suffers from an agonizing dearth of leadership and is in the grasp of a political paralyzis as a consequence.

A nuclear strike on Israel will really ruin the day for Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, PA... and every state touching on the Mideterranian.

Israel will retaliate in kind if attacked by nuclear weapons, or if its survival is seriously threatened.

And USA - the sole superpower of our times - just sort of said "OK, well, fine, let 'em nuke each other. We don't care, it doesn't concern us."

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck... I'd wager it's a bloody duck all right.

Is anyone else worried about the coming apocalypse, or it is just me?

Oh, the Hunamity!

2006-12-05T09:43:00.001-08:00

Here's a tale of hunam strangeness for you.

I have two friends who met in New Zealand while traveling. O is Israeli, D is Scottish. Both are secular Jews. They hit it off splendidly, traveling together for a while. When O returned to Israel, D came with her. They settled down nicely – she works and studies for her Sociology degree, he's got a nice cushy high-tech job and is learning Hebrew. They really are a lovely couple – funny, sweet, good-looking, obviously love each other. They have been together for more than a year now.

And yet they don't live together. In fact, they have a major problem – O's parents are trying to make her break up with D. Why? Because they're "too different" – he's white, she's dark-skinned. He's a decade older than her. Her parents are from Persia, he is from Scotland. She is Sephardic, he's Ashkenazi. The parents resent this beautiful relationship so much that they not only refuse O the right to live together with D – they threaten her with not coming to their wedding.

And for Persian Jews, this is almost as bad as disavowing her altogether.

What is it that makes hunams so horribly messed-up?

Just imagine the amount of misery such attitude creates. The endless chain of hunams, each miserable and passing that misery on and on…
The weakening of the hunam genome by people insisting their children mate only with someone exactly like them…

The only good thing I have to say about this is that such cases are growing rarer and rarer, at least in Israel.

And here's to hoping you hunams will grow up, some day.

PS

O's name has nothing to do with French erotic literature. Honesty.

Israeli Soldiers - the images that you see, and the ones you don't.

2006-12-03T17:58:00.000-08:00

UPDATE

Found another good picture of Evil Zionist Soldiers. This time, they are evilly brutalizing Darfurian refugees (hat tip Nominally Challenged:

And here's the story behind the picture.

UPDATE:
Found this fascinating diary by a young Israeli soldier. Highly recommended - a fascinating read with a unique perspective.

Hunams perceive the world mostly through images. These images are sorted in your brain via a complex system which analyzes them, finds the context of each picture, finds patterns in the mess of light and shadow, and selects what the final product in your mind will be; for hunams, the world is images. And most of these images in the modern world are selected for you by someone else - it's images on television, in newspapers, in magazines, on your computer screen. It's someone's face on a T-shirt; it's a discarded flier on the street; it's the sexy chick on the billboard; it's the old man's face on your money. The world outside of your immediate surroundings is presented to you by others through the images they select.

But, well, this is not a blog about the world. Not really. This is a blog about Israel. And what do most people see about Israel? Soldiers. Sorry, not soldiers - images of soldiers, carefully selected by various media people for you. And most of these images have a subtle - or not so subtle - slant. Judge for yourself:

Ooooh, how evil!

Let's try something eviller:

And even eviller. Look, he's clearly going to shoot this poor woman! (hint - not really. This is an excellent photo-lie):

And this image nicely sums up the general drift:

I just thought to bring you a slightly different selection. Slanted, of course, and with an agenda... but given the generally accepted attitude, I feel that this is needed.

An evil Israeli soldier:

A series of pictures about evil Israeli soldiers oppressing Palestinian children:

The elderly are also not spared - here's an evil IDF soldier evilly oppressing an elderly Palestinian man with the aid of an evil Palestinian collaborator. Scratch that, the collaborator is probably an evil Israeli settler in disguise (nobody else could be this evil):

And some more:

Another unbelievably evil Israeli soldier oppressing an elderly Palestinian. Please note the soldier's long blond hair - it is actually a wig, used to hide the horns:

But the horror doesn't stop at this! Here's an Israeli soldier evilly oppressing a Palestinian cat:

Horrible sights indeed. Incredible evil; unspeakable inhumanity. Here is a thank you to the media for telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth:

Oh... and all the images above are, of course, stolen. Boo-hoo. Big surprise - I am a Raccoon, after all.

PS

I had a friend in Japan who was a semi-professional photographer. He took lots of pictures of Tokyo, but made it look like Baghdad.
Or the image most Westerners have of Baghdad, anyway.

The point of this is: you can create a world totally unrelated to the real one with pictures. And this is exactly what the media does.

Not the rapist

2006-12-02T17:27:00.001-08:00

There is a highly publicized case of an escape rapist in Israel right now. The guy, named Benny Sella, escaped from a courthouse, outwitting the police (well, this doesn't require much mental prowess, I'm afraid), and is now hiding somewhere in Israel. The man's a true celebrity. There are posters all over Israel with his name, a number of the police hotline and the words “Let's catch him together!”. And he escaped in Tel Aviv.

So when I saw a mass of policemen, police vehicles with lights on and curious onlookers on Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, I presumed that Benny Sella was caught. From the excited conversations around me, everybody else presumed so as well. Naturally, I went to see what's the fuss all about... and the following conversation's happened:

Me(to a police officer): Say, bro, what's going on here?
Police Officer: It's a demonstration.
Me: Oh. And I thought you caught Benny Sella. What's the demonstration about?
PO: It's against the IDF. They're claiming that IDF are terrorists.
Me: Uhm...what'd happen if I threw eggs?
PO: On whom?
Me: On them, of course.
PO(after a second of thought): Ehh... I won't see a thing, I promise.

There were about 20 people there. Something like half of them were from the assorted “human rights” organizations (they protect the human right of terrorists to kill Jews) – not Israelis. I didn't see a single Arab there.

The protest was, apparently, against IDF operations in Gaza. The operations that IDF doesn't do right now because of the ceasefire, invented to endear Olmert to the extreme Left.

The only question remaining is – what the hell is wrong with these people?!

LOL, The Usual Suspect rules :)

2006-11-30T12:00:00.001-08:00

Bloody brilliant!

Recent Israeli-Palestinian Ceasefire: a tale of rainbows and fluffy bunnies.

2006-11-30T10:55:00.000-08:00

Israel has, once again, agreed to a ceasefire with the assorted Palestinian terrorist organizations, gangs, terrorists' front groups and others of such ilk.

A wonderful idea, on the face of it. Violence is, after all, bad. Therefore, lack of violence is preferable to violence. And the BBC is putting up happy-happy-joy-joy articles about how the citizens of Beit Hanoun are enjoying the peace and quiet. Fluffy bunnies and rainbows are everywhere. Guns are sprouting flowers.

Sounds about right to you?

How about this, then:

Arms smuggling into Gaza continues:

Rockets are still fired at Israeli towns, random attacks on Israelis continue:

Still sounds like a cute cuddly stop to violence? Wait, there's more…

What about the nice bearded men with whom the ceasefire was agreed upon? They are openly stating the sole purpose of this ceasefire is to prepare for killing even more Joooz. How could not not love these people -

Just look at the covenant of the sweet, fluffy, humanistic Hamas:" Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason, and cursed be he who does that". Just one pearl of Hamas' gentle, humane and tolerant ideology. Just the people Israel should be signing peace accords with! They, of course, mean every word when they speak of peace, and are just longing to stop the violence. Yes. Indeed. Don't these guys remind you of someone -

And the even cuter, cuddlier and more humanistic Fatah? Ahhh, just look at THEIR lovely covenant. Especially articles 9, 10, 15… actually, the whole text of this gem of sanity and brotherly love. But wait, wasn't it amended? Why yes, I believe Fatah (also known as PLO) has indeed agreed to do so, and remove some of the parts speaking of killing the Jews, destroying Israel and so on. It was a very nice decision. Pity it was never actually implemented.

And lastly, let's see the Palestnian National Anthem… here are some quotes:
"…With my determination, my fire and the volcano of my revenge…"
"…With the resolve of the winds and the fire of the guns
And the determination of my nation in the land of struggle…"
"…Palestine is my home, Palestine is my fire, Palestine is my revenge and the land of endurance…"
"…By my land and nation, and the fire of pain
I will live as a fida'i, I will remain a fida'i, I will end as a fida'i - until my country returns…"

Fida'i as in Fedayeen. Suidice bombers, for example:

Yup, so it's pretty obvious that they really just want to live in peace, have good, prosperous lives and contribute to humanity by their amazing feats of science, arts, and philosophy.

Pop quiz: what do you think will happen with this ceasefire, given the above information?

Can you think of a reason for Israel not to agree to unilaterally stop fighting with these peace-loving organizations? All they need is a chance, after all. Uhm. You know, kind of like all the other dozens of chances, agreements, ceasefires and gestures of good will that they were given.

And could Olmert, the corrupt pathetic worm, be any more despicable?

This is the Middle East. Business as usual – empty platitudes, bullets and body parts flying all over the place. Welcome.

Update:
And more and more rockets are being fired at Israel. I think someone didn't quite get the "cease" bit in "ceasefire".

Orthodoxy, Dogma and the Erisian Herecy - part II

2006-11-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

So, what's up with all the silliness?

The answer is simple – it works, it's fun, and it sure as hell beats the other option. Discordianism officially strives to make the world a sillier place for the purpose of defeating the Gray Men. This could be a metaphor for random joy and laughter defeating the taboo routine of seriousness… or it could be just bullshit. And since Discordianism by definition has no official position on anything (and doesn't, in fact, exist at all), this could hardly be relevant to anything.

But this post is getting too long, too philosophical and too convoluted. So… enter Pharsh, the Israeli Militia of the Silly Revolution. Unwittingly part of the Global Operation Mindfuck, Pharsh works to break the eternal chains of dogma, bringing about the much-needed paradigm shift.

How do they go about it? By being silly. Free parties are thrown, paid for by donations, with much silliness going on in them (check out the photo galley for an idea of what it's like). Fake demonstrations are organized (like the one against slavery, last Passover in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv), various silly events (like a massive water fight on a central square in Tel Aviv) and other silly stuff like this. Anything that works and is silly and funny enough, really. My plan to build a Trebuchet and bombard random Palestinian villages with candy (each adorned with a little "radioactive" sticker) has been rejected as too dangerous, though. So far. Something like this in the Middle East could kick off the Fourth World War.

So… how about working to bring about the paradigm shift in the ME? It'll be fun, you'll probably get laid in the process… and all of this can be beautifully masqueraded as some soft of Sufi religious activity.

Viva La Revolución!

In the meanwhile, whet your appetite with some select photos of Pharsh activities:

Party!

Build a giant Trojan Llama!

Be creative!

And most importantly - make people wet, not dead:

PS
Does this seem stupid to you? Well, it's less stupid than blowing people up. Uhm. With explosives.

PPS
I stole most of the pics here from the Pharsh Website. But I am sure that the Smurfs in their red hats and white overalls will forgive me. It not, I'll bite 'em and give them rabies. Or Rabbies. Beware of plagiarizing Raccoons!

Orthodoxy, Dogma and the Erisian Herecy - Part I

2006-11-28T08:28:00.000-08:00

Much of the world's troubles stem from orthodoxy and dogma. Not necessarily in the religious sense of these words, but in the mental one – orthodoxy of thought and dogmatic interpretation of the universe. Some would call it closed-mindedness, or reactionary behavior, or traditionalism… words for it are dime a dozen. It so simple – you're told what to do, and you do it. How simple, how elegant – no complicated thoughts, no existential angst and, most of all, no responsibility. This is so ingrained in human cultures that this simple thing – "I'm just doing what I'm told" – that it was the main line of defense at the infamous Nuremberg Trials. And I am sure that Alexander's soldiers, for example, were telling themselves the same thing when they put the population of Gaza to the sword.

Orthodoxy and dogma kill thought and individualism, ladies and gentlemen. It's as simple as that. You humans are lazy beasties… and once a thought or a notion get lodged in your brain, it's almost impossible to evict. Even if this notion is killing you. Even if this notion is causing you to cause terrible harm to others. It becomes a part of yourself, and there are wonderful mechanisms in your brains to deal with the juxtaposition of dogma versus reality – like Cognitive Dissonance, for instance. Once you have the mental routine imprinted on your mind, you're buggered – it's like a trench, growing ever deeper. And it is through these entrenched dogmas that humans see the world – depersonalizing, losing individuality, losing sanity. Finding excuses for anything that fits the dogma. It's a road to hell – just ask the Iraqi people, ask the Germans, ask the Russians, ask any two people who hate each other with a passion for years, causes and reasons forgotten.

So, how can you break away from the ruts of routine? There are various ways. You can try convincing people, but it'll only increase their cognitive dissonance, causing them to dig deeper into the mind-trenches. You can try beating sense into them, but this causes resentment, creating new dogmas, new trenches – and that's if that works at all. Routines are comfortable and humans are, as I said before, lazy beasties.

Well, bugger all of the above for a lark. I am sick and tired of mental trenches. I am sick and tired of depersonalization. And I am bloody sick and tired of delegation of personal responsibility to whomever made up your particular dogma. I want out!

And the solution was presented by Zen and its patron deity in the West, Our Lady Eris Discordia. The only way to get a person out of their deep mental ruts is by giving them a good shake… shock them out. Break the mental constructs and let the individual fall through the cracks.

Zen monks do it by losing their sanity on purpose, destroying every shred of their mental framework, and operating from the Mu emptiness within. The techniques are difficult and demand extreme dedication – not exactly suitable for the general populace. And most people wouldn't even consider this; after all, the sole reason Zen has some sort of a positive reputation in the West is because it's cloaked in religion, and thus is respectable. It's an organization, with goals and headquarters and systems – it's dogmatic, and thus comfortable.

The Western way is silliness. Surprise someone with something silly and weird, and a little bit of their concrete mental universe breaks off – after all, in that universe naked people with fake wings don't run around the mall, throwing candy all over the place.

This is growing long. To be continued.

Media - some thoughts

2006-11-26T05:35:00.000-08:00

This post at Done with Mirrors got me itching to write about media bias, truth and lack thereof.

Gathering material now.

Once upon a time in Lebanon...

2006-11-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

It was back in the spring of 1999. It's a beautiful time of the year in the Middle East, spring - the hills are still covered in their winter greenery, the sun is pleasantly warm, the skies are clear. Everything smells of transition - everything is just born in the winter rains, unscorched by the summer's heat. New and hopeful.

I was sitting with a friend of mine, waiting for a convoy to take us to MarjAyoun HQ. The air was still, sweet and clear. The peaks of Mount Lebanon across the valleys shone with lazy sunlight. A perfect late Sunday morning. It was all quiet except for the booming of Sreyfe Battery's guns - a constant companion in those days. We were going back to the war, if you could call that ambush Guerilla fighting mixed with bush police action that. We were also young and naive, dreaming of the time our service would be over. Talking about where we'll travel, after.

That friend of mine was a biker. Even did semi-professional dirt-track competitions, if I remember correctly. We debated the merits of Europe versus USA as a travelling destination, argued whether it would be better to go to India or South America for a good long chill-out. But we both agreed that traveling by bike is the only way to go, the only way to really get to know the land.

Our convoy has arrived, and life (along with the war) moved on. I found myself, one day, waiting for a different friend at Fatma Gate - a border crossing between Israel and Lebanon, next to Metula on the Israeli side. Usually, it had only IDF troops and Lebanese foreign workers going through it - a fairly grim affair of concrete, barbed wire and gunmetal. That day, though, a couple of European guys on bikes crossed to Lebanon. "Fucking psychos," I thought to myself. "Why the hell are they driving into a warzone?"

And then I realized that beyond the warzone lies Lebanon, a beautiful and fascinating land, full of ancient ruins, green hills, hospitable people and good food. Roads go along the coast to Syria, and continue from there to Turkey. And from Turkey, they go on to the Caucass, to Europe and to Iran, snaking across the huge Eurasian continent. Open roads. You could go all the way from Capetown to Paris, Bangkok or Seoul. All you needed was a bike, some money... and for the fucking war to be over. I knew what I'd do when my service was done with.

Well, it didn't work out as planned. The fucking war ended - sort of. The roads remained tantalizingly open and yet frustratingly closed. I went to India instead, by plane which flew through Africa so that we wouldn't have to fly over the Arabian Peninsula - an emergency landing there and the Israeli passengers are very likely to end their lives in a small cell, tortured to death. Years have passed, and the dream of taking a bike from Capetown to Paris, Bangkok or Seoul passed with them.

Now, though, I have some hope that maybe my children or their children will find these ancient roads open. There's something positive happening in Lebanon. Maybe they'll be able to finally throw off the Syrian yoke. Maybe sanity will reign again in the hills of the Phoenicians. And maybe then the thought of driving from Africa to Europe will no long be a pipedream...

Awww, I'm getting all mushy here. It'll probably end like everything else in the Middle East - in deeper shit than ever before. But hey, one can always dream.

Meanwhile in a different part of the world...

2006-11-23T09:56:00.000-08:00

But not that far away: hunams are killing each other for nothing. Must be really good, nothing. Maybe they're militant Daoists pretending to be Muslims, given their great love of nothing.

These people are insane. I was meaning to write a bit about insanity... but all I have got is this:
Insanity.

In my definition, insanity is acting contrary to your interests even when your actions are clearly wrong and harmful to you. This is a very good example of insanity. So is this. Hunams are so stupid I often think they must be a beta version, pushed through despite some serious design flaws.

PS

A friend commenting on this entry said that my examples of insanity are biased, since they only include Muslims (well, he said Arabs, but AJ is Persian). He thought that I should have included the management of the recent war in Lebanon. But that was stupidity, mostly, not insanity - the mistakes that were made were just that, mistakes; consequences of not quite thinking your actions through, usually.

Although there was some insanity mixed into it... all the pointless shuffling back and forth by Olmert, for example.

With all the mistakes and all, it seems that the war has certainly harmed Hizballah. They did not go rioting in streets of Beirut today, as they have planned. Maybe 800,000 people at Pierre Gemayel's funeral had something to do about it. And Michael Aoun betrayed Hizballah by calling his followers to attend the funeral, too. Very interesting. It almost seems like the sane Lebanese are finally doing something to help themselves.

Reclaim your language!

2006-11-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

Much has been said about racism. So much, in fact, that the term has lost most of its impact and became yet another duckspeak word - spoken straight from the primitive brain and bypassing the cortex on the way to the mouth. It became a weapon, nothing but empty propaganda.

But it doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. The opposite - it flourishes, nurtured by political correctness which emptied the word of all meaning. And since post-colonialism's nonsensical but oh-so-very politically correct meme took root in Western consciousness, racism became something only whites are guilty of. Gates of Vienna had an interesting article about this, naming the phenomen "Caucasophobia". I ran into it in the comments on Sandmonkey - some hunam making baseless claims about USA being racist, and believing that it must be true simply because many of the top administrators in USA government are white.

So, what do we get for slaughtering a vital meme?
Any discourse on racism of non-whites becomes impossible - if the speaker is white, it just means you're being racist (on basis of criticising non-whites). And if the speaker is not white, well, who gives a fuck? You're a noble savage at best. Just ask the academia - you, my dear non-white hunam, are not responsible for yourself. You're just a victim. Shut up and get back to suffering for the cameras. All your problems are the Whities' fault, anyway, and you can't do nuffin' about 'em.

And it works. George Orwell was right - language defines thought. And since from a Western POV Arabs are not whites, this doesn't happen. And all the fascinating things happening in Saudi Arabia, for example. Must look for root causes - Evil Caucasian Oppression. The Jooz are probably involved somehow, too.

Just a random rant. Special thanks to Hipster for a beautifully written post about racism she experienced.

PS

If you're for some obscure reason insulted by the above, there are two options - (a)you have had your sense of sarcasm surgically removed or (b) you're looking to be insulted.

Either way, meditate on this Discordian Koan: "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke".

Myself - The Raccoon

2006-11-22T15:12:00.000-08:00

So... some details:

Name: Alex
Real name: The Raccoon
Race: Procyon Lotor, commonly referred to as "Raccoon"
Nationality: Israeli
Likes: Roleplaying (uhm... not the kinky kind), Books, Programming, Writing, Politics, Martial Arts, Food, Traveling, other things too numerous to mention
Dislikes: Stupidity, Insanity, Bureaucracy, Drudgery.
Greatest Ambition: To become a cloud of eternal nanomachines... just a step to experiencing everything in the Universe.
Greatest Fear: Gray Existence.

I will rant and rave on this blog, introducing various people with their unique stories... so I won't tell mine right away. But is you're really interested, some Raccoonish whinings and observations of various countries is here. It's pretty old, was not originally meant for general consumption, and is quite personal. Moreover, an Aussie friend once said that I have two modes of being - I either dine or whine. You have been warned.

Anyway... welcome to The Really Real Israel - Through Raccoonish Eyes.

PS

There are many terms which need explaining, like "insanity", "Gray Existence", "Race", etc. They will be explained in later posts, along with explanations, photos, and interviews.

Life exists to be interesting.

A bit about me, this blog, cabbages and kings.

2006-11-22T14:44:00.000-08:00

Hello. This blog is meant to expose the real reality of what Israel is through the eyes of a Raccoon. There is too much bullshit about Israel and Israelis... hey, after all, when you hear "Israeli", the immediate mental image is either a soldier or a victim. If you're an Arab, then the soldier probably has horns, too. Huge ones.

Well, here's a blog about the real denizens of Israel. Starting with...