Everything was going fine until... *Updated*

So Hasbro is holding a vote for cities to appear on its World Monopoly Board. Like good little boys and girls, we all got out and voted for Jerusalem, raising its rank from #21 to #4 in a week. We're doing better than Paris, which was #2 for a while.

Hasbro has gotten all political by removing "Israel" as Jerusalem's country! What the fuck is that all about?

Here's my letter. Email wcharness@hasbro.com

Mr. Charness,

I am outraged at your cowardly behavior by removing Israel as the country name from the Jerusalem from the Monopoly World Vote web site.

It was pathetic enough to only focus on the Christian aspect of Jerusalem in the description of the City considering its been free under Jewish control since 1967, but to try and eliminate the association of Jerusalem from the sovereign nation for which Jerusalem stands as the capital is the most puerile behavior I can imagine. Jerusalem was considered the center of the universe for hundreds of years by all the major religions. Just because the Hasbro's World Monopoly board doesn't say Israel doesn't change reality.

If you choose to play politics with your product line, consider that it isn't only Jews who are going to be interested in seeing Jerusalem, Israel on your monopoly board, but millions of Christian Zionists as well. Since a wholesome family board game is what you're looking to sell, you're talking about alienating your target market. That's stupid. Consider as well that Jerusalem went from #21 to #4 within a week. There are obviously THOUSANDS of people who have a vested interest in seeing Jerusalem place well on the board. Think about how many of them won't be purchasing your product, and will probably boycott your other products.

After the half-point dip your stock has taken since yesterday, presumably when you pulled this stunt, I would think you would want to avoid compounding your company's foolish decision. I recommend that you reconsider your company's churlish and immature decision and return Israel to Jerusalem's profile immediately.

A potential customer

*UPDATE*
Now they removed all of the country names from all of the cities.

It's just sad.

Sderot Not Part of the "Occupation"

I'm not going to deal with the issue of "occupation" at this time. We'll get to that in due time.

Sderot was originally an immigrant absorption camp, established in 1951. While I realize that most leftist morons don't recognize the linear nature of time, 1951 preceded the 1967 reclamation of Israeli territory by some 16 years.

Sderot has always been within the contiguous, internationally-recognized borders of the State of Israel. Before it there was nothing; no ancient Arab ruins, orange groves or any of that crap.

The constant attacks on Sderot have nothing to do with the Geneva Convention. That is for countries who are in dispute with each other. Technically what is happening is that a non-indigenous, subversive element in Israel is launching rockets from the Gaza region in Israel (which the government of the State of Israel has turned over administrative responsibility to the Arabs) into an area of Israel that is under the administrative responsibility of the government of the State of Israel. It is therefore an internal security matter.

On the Maiming of Children

I admit that when children are portrayed as suffering in movies, it fills me with an irrational urge to break something. It's only a movie, I know, but to me watching a child treated badly isn't what I consider entertainment.

Remember the name Osher Tuito.

On February 9th, Osher woke up, got dressed and expected to have a normal day. "Normal" of course being relative to the fact that he lives in Sderot, where terrorists continually assault the city with artillery, and his government is too cowardly to act in the interests of securing its own citizens. On February 9, 2008, the missiles didn't land in empty fields or uninhabited areas. On February 9, 2008, a missile made a direct hit.

On February 10, 2008, doctors had to amputate Osher's leg because it was damaged beyond repair from a Kassam rocket attack. Not even this is enough to provoke Israel to one of their limp-wristed "measured responses."

Obviously these ghouls are waiting for a direct hit on a nursery to justify the ass-kicking the Palis deserve. You would think that after Nasrallah candidly admitted that he didn't expect Israel to respond the way they did, Israel would be looking to overwhelm their enemies with superior force as a way to deal with this. Every. Single. Time.

What the fucking hell is it going to take for the State of Israel to protect its citizens? If for no other reason, these people pay taxes. I mean, come on! If people die, that's less revenue, you vultures. Think about how much this kid's rehabilitation, medication, and hospitalization is going to cost the State. Hell, they're going to have pay for every new size of prosthetic leg as this child grows up. This is costing money! Bullets are a much cheaper solution.

Bottom line is child was hurt. Badly. He's going to be in pain for months. He is going to be scarred for life. He's going to have to learn how to walk again. He isn't going to play football (soccer) with his classmates. He isn't going to be inducted into the IDF, which is a major cultural issue. And Olmert is too inept, incapable and unqualified to do anything expect cling tenaciously to a government that should have been dissolved long ago.

So the next time someone gets in your face about the "innocent Palestinian children" who are "suffering at the hands of Zionist aggression," ask them about Osher Tuito, and what exactly he did to deserve being maimed and crippled at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

Power Talking

Power has been on the minds of Israelis and Israphiles quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. First, there's the buzz that Israel is going to pull out all the stops to create an electric car industry including car power stations, sales, and so on. The second is the power feed from Israel to the Abandoned Gaza Zone.

Going nowhere fast

Electric powered cars are a very sexy, futuristic, science-fiction-into-fact item that has been on the back burner for a very long time. In America it won't get off the ground until you get a Government that can will it into being, right in the face of the automotive industry. Can you imagine the trillions of dollars lost in infrastructure investment, factory redevelopment, mechanic retraining and who knows what else? Forget it; it's a lost cause without serious merit. Even the Prius is only a novelty.

Israel, with it's smaller size and greater ability to develop and adapt to new technologies (drip irrigation, cell phones, Internet usage), is a prime candidate to have a go at the electric car industry. We hate suckling at the teat of Arab oil almost as much as we hate the US Secretary of State opening her stupid yap. So great, we'll just abandon our gas-guzzling cars and all buy brand new $30,000 electric cars! Right? Wrong.

It's all well and good that instead of the pump we'll go to the plug, but if you trace that wire back into the wall, it connects up through the local transformer, across the high-voltage lines, through the substation, back through the transmission lines, all the way into the power plant. Now electricity is created in these big ol' machines called generators, which use heat to make them spin. Guess what they burn to produce the heat. Go on, guess. Did you guess oil? Good guess. So if we're consuming more electricity, we're still burning more oil.

In order to make this work, Israel has to consume its own fossil fuels in the form of natural gas from the Med fields it needs to assert its claims on in order to power it's electricity generating stations, macro and micro. Second, it needs to develop in tandem renewable sources of energy to feed the grid. The solar panel farm idea in the negev is a good start, but if we're looking at exponential in electricity consumption, we're going to need more than even the proposed 1GW plant to start. And while they're at it, the need to create a battery that can store the energy. Oh yeah, investments, too. And after all that, they're still going to have to fight it out with the major car companies whose imports may be significantly impacted. I'm thinking hydrogen in the 22nd century.

Oh, and if when Israel does bring it to market in whatever form non-fuel transportation takes, it'll be another interruptive technology, like cell phones, MMX microchips, bluetooth and all of the other great stuff we've done. I think a big ol' Made In Israel sticker on each one would do very nicely.

Collective punishment my ass

As a measured response to the ongoing terrorism coming from the Abandoned Gaza Zone, Israel has decided that it is going to reduce the amount of electricity it supplies. How much you ask? 5 percent in one of the ten power lines that supply the region For all you mathphobes, that 0.5%. Of the 120 megawatts (~120,000 homes) that's the equivalent of 6000 homes. Not exactly punitive measures for an area that has 1.3M people living there. Oh and it sucks for the Palis too because of their little stunt last time, with the candles and the meetings in darkness in the middle of the day (shades drawn, for effect). Now that's all played out. Even the media didn't feed on that with the same voracious appetite that they usually have for All Things Pali. This time they'll ignore it.

Israel has no responsibility whatsoever to keep the power on. It is a hostile territory. What about the women and children? They hand out candy when suicide bombers strike, so I could give a shit. If they want to keep the power on, the next time they see someone setting up a rocket launcher out their window, call the IDF.

Quite honestly, the way they live they only need it to power their television sets anyway. Think about it. New York City peaked at 13141MW. Gaza uses only 1% of that for 1/6 the population. We're not talking about a lot of power consumption to begin with, and since Hamas would rather drive everyone back into the ninth century anyway, Israel is actually advancing Hamas' political agenda. What about Egypt? What about them? It'll take eight years to build a generator station to supply the needs of Gaza, and they're in no particular hurry to please these Hamas pricks who encourage the Islamic Brotherhood.

So to recap: electric power is still fossil fuel power until Israel creates a real renewable energy loop and technological framework, and the Gaza power cutback serves to remind Hamas that they exist at the end of a leash Israel firmly holds.

Not five minutes...

.. into setting up this blog, and already the anti-Semitic subtleties of Google are apparent. While I was setting up the Blogger account, and under time zones, "Gaza" is listed but not "Jerusalem."

Does Jerusalem not exist for these morons?

I couldn't find Jerusalem listed in the time zones under Settings->Formatting->Time Zone.

The last time I checked, Jerusalem did exist and was just as real as Cairo, Baghdad, and Riyadh.

Tel Aviv, while it has its unique charms, is not the capital of Israel, and is not the principal city of the country by which Israelis identify the GMT zone they live in. Gaza isn't even a city and its listed in some farcical attempt at giving credence to the Palestinians.

Correct this blatant attempt at delegitimizing the capital of the State of Israel. It's offensive.

Click here to view the post. Get busy, people.

Put On Notice

I've had it. I'm sick and tired of reading about how Jews and Israel get kicked around with no one of us having the balls to take a stand and push back. Well, guess what? The world isn't a polite place. Hell, civilization as we know it is crumbling before our eyes. So what's the point of being civil anymore? It's time to cop some attitude and get some pride on.

This is Hasbara With Attitude. When something nasty hits the news, don't expect to find apologies here. Or explanations. Or self-recrimination. Expect to find in-your-face, bring-it-on pushback. And when there's nothing, I'll dig up one of the thousands of rants stuck in my head, waiting to be let go. And you know what? When some little tidbit of news fails to impress the mainstream media, you can be sure we'll have a thing or two to say about it.

When you read something you like, say it to yourself a few times. Get r-e-a-l comfortable saying it. Then get out there and get in the face of some apologistic, leftist, athiestic moron and give 'em a long overdue lesson in what it means to be G-d's Chosen. You have my permission to be as rude as you want, and if they don't like it, tough shit.

So that's it. I'm putting everybody on notice that we're through with the nonsense, the soft talk, the justifications. We are who we are, and we're damn proud of it.

Welcome to my world.