Sarah Palin is still Sarah Connor

And the machine still wants to destroy her.

Why do they hate and fear her so? Especially feminists?

1) During the election, it was sound and fury. Or, as some have called it, projection. Create a huge fog of accusations, charges, and complete lies, and the focus would be on Ms. Palin (and the refutation of those lies, to be conveniently ignored) rather than on the Empty Suit Known as Obama.

2) She scares a lot of feminists. Look, everyone does what they think will make them happy. I wonder how many of those who hurl the factually-deficient hate have a secret fear in their heart: I made my choices, and they don’t make me happy. She made similar choices for herself (with a different political slant), and she’s been incredibly successful based on her own hard work…and, damnit, she looks happy. Ms. Palin’s success and apparent happiness might just mean the hate hurlers made the wrong choice (you can say a lot of things about Hillary Clinton, but can you really say she looks…you know…happy?).

3) Finally, this is more about the Proudly Public Leftists than feminists. Sarah Palin has actual achievement to her name. For the Proudly Public Leftist, saying the Correct Things is much more important than Actual Achievement. Thus, The Empty Suit Known as Obama can talk about Hope, Change, etc, while not having any real accomplishments to his name, and He Is Praised. Ms. Palin, who has a number of real, verifiable accomplishments on her resume, says the InCorrect Things (personally pro-life for instance), and thus, she is The Anti-Christ in Heels.

Movies n' stuff

Okay, I'm falling apart. I turned 50. Tennis elbow, for one thing. Now my right shoulder is acting twitchy and tender, aches after I swim. MyIronMan is just over two months in the future.

To say nothing of Obama's continuing campaigning. The man certainly isn't governing (see his undignified bashing of the previous occupant of the White House). He's breaking his promises left and right (so to speak).

Gotta love his choice for Supreme Court.

Says Judge Sotomayor, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Just pause for a moment and savor that. What is she suggesting…pick our judges by their experience and cultural harmony with the case? Or, imagine the uproar if a Bush judge has suggested that a wise white male, because of the richness of his experience, would be more likely to reach a better conclusion than a Latina Woman. (cue the pitchforks and burning torches for the evil Republican)

This stuff is just maddening. I could not care less if the next Supreme is black, Latina, Asian...who cares, as long as they know the law are are willing to follow it where it leads? See another quote by de Judge where she identifies the place policy is made as being...not the Administration. Not the ballot box. No, in the appeals court.

Anyway.

Go see "Night at the Museum Two" A lot of fun, sweet, and with some very nice acting turns by Amy Adams (who captures the 30s Movie damerhythm perfectly) and Hank Azaria, who's just insanely funny.

Thank you, obedient Obidiots

Thank you, obedient Obidiots (Obidiots = idiots who voted for Obama/Biden)

Thank you for the crushing debt you have allowed to be placed on our children, their children, and likely their children's children.

Thank you for showing your true lack of principle: ignoring Obama's mis-steps, mis-speaking, and his forgotten campaign promises because he's Your Guy, while knowing full well had President Bush done any of these things, it would have been a sign confirming The Republicans Are Evil.

Thank you for showing us what you really are.

Another perfect movie

Not "Star Trek," although that was a fun day at the movies.

I'm thinking of "Serendipity." A Romantic Comedy with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsdale. Like most RomComs, it is largely improbable, but saved by the charm of the cast, and the heart displayed in the relationships between the friends as well as the would-be lovers.

Netflix is our friend

Thanks to the miracle of Netflix, I've been able to watch a number of films and TV series that I'd never have had the time (or patience) to watch otherwise.

A few worth seeing:

"Let the Right One In." A Swedish film, a coming of age story about a tormented nerdly boy (maybe 12 years old) and his new friend. A wonderful, suprising, affecting, and scary film.

"Primeval." This is a series from Britain, which sounds like cheese on rye: holes open in space and time, allowing large and usually hungry visitors from the past into our world, and an intrepid team of scientists work to contain the threat. Fun for the family (AdventureBoy gets to call out the dinosaur names), but engaging, funny, thrilling. Great acting, too. Get the whole series.

"Shackelton" A BBC miniseries about the great Explorer who almost made it to the South Pole just before the first world war. With Kenneth Brannaugh as the ill-fated Shackelton, an amazing, gripping story of how their ship became frozen in the ice, before being ultimately crushed by the moving floes. Yet, Shackelton lead his men across the ice and water to safety and final rescue, and didn't lose a single member of his crew. My retelling does no justice to the tale...well worth your time to rent.

Good stuff

I have my little sayings, such as, "There is no good thing that is impervious to a human being's ability to use it for evil purposes."

The printing press is one thing. Guttenberg published a Bible, then, probably, published a girlie calendar next.

The Internet. Many wonderous things...sadly, probably outnumbered by the garbage on there.

Yet, there are fine and encouraging things on the Internet.

Who hasn't seen Susan Boyle singing her heart out?

Here's another one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w5Y05f0Lig

A fine song, uplifting even.

Enjoy.

Getting Jiggy with it Again.

I'm back.

My blogging fell off during the spring. Lot of stuff going on: death in the family, work turmoil, white-trash tragedies.

To say nothing of the continual onslaught of the duplicity, lies, doubly-standard procedure, and hypocrisy that is the Obama Administration and his enablers in the House and Congress.

But, I have returned. As noted above, there is a lot going on politically, but I've been asked by one of my Dear Readers to focus a bit more on, you know, the rest of life.

So, it begins.

Just busy

Due to a lot of stress at work and at home, I've not been blogging much.

I'm wickedly weary all the time. Makes it hard to concentrate on anything but what is right in front of you. I want to read, but the effort involved in paying attention to complex thoughts does me in. I find myself reading old paperbacks of Dilbert cartoons.

AdventureBoy has had a long week, too. He's in JV tennis, practicing a lot and just started playing in games against other schools. He's tired tonight, too. I heard him in the other room, flipping pages. Asked what he was reading. "Audubon," he replied. He's reading a huge hard back of John J. Audubon's work.

At least he's reading something useful.

Doubly Standard Procedure Watch: Government Spending

Sigh.

Back in 2006...Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the Republican budget “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” because it increased the amount of U.S. debt held by foreign countries. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of going on “an unprecedented and dangerous borrowing spree” and declared GOP leadership “the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of our country … no other president or Congress even comes close.”

Yet, strangely, when given control of the purse strings, what did the Budget-conscious Pelosi and Reid do?

They wrote a bill (1100 pages, which few in Congress have admitted reading before they voted for it) that gave us an $870 billion tab for our kids and grandkids to pick up (Remember, sticking the tab to our descendants was a BAD THING when done by Republicans).

And there’s this tidbit from our Dear Leader, Obama:

According to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Obama's tax plan would add $3.4 trillion to the national debt, including interest, by 2018.

And the silence from Pelosi and Reid is deafening.

Doubly Standard Procedure: It's the new true!

Hope and Change Watch: Free Speech

If Bush did this, it would be evidence of the trampling of our civil rights.

The police officers who stopped Oklahoma City motorist Chip Harrison and confiscated a sign from his car told him he has a right to his beliefs, but the Secret Service "could construe this as a threat against President Obama," according to the incident report released this morning.

The sign? "Abort Obama Not the Unborn."

Cast your mind back for a moment onto some of the vomitous bile that was piled continuously on President Bush.

Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint, a novella conversation between two people about the advisability of assassinating the president;

– “Art” exhibits like this one:

And yet...these brave artists didn't have their means of expression taken away. I doubt the Secret Service paid a visit to Nicholas Baker. And don't forget the hip "Abort Palin" stickers, posters and tee-shirts.

Free Speech: Speak Freely (and correctly) about our Dear Leader.

Shame on them

The Democrats, with help from just three "moderate" Republicans, have passed the Stimulus package.

Known variously as Porkulus or Paybackulus, it is nearly one trillion dollars. That's $1,000,000,000,000.

The written bill, itself, was over 1100 pages long. It was voted on in less than 48 hours. Do you think the entire bill has been read? Do you know what is in it? You hide a lot of stuff in 1100 pages and $1,000,000,000,000.

So. These buffoons voted for a bill they could not have humanly read and they are spending our money to do it. Take a quick look at your own life. If you are in debt, say by $100,000 dollars, would you go out and spend another $100,000 to get out of debt. How would you do that? How would that help you? You can't get out of debt by getting into more debt, can you?

Remember the promises of the campaign?

How many have been broken by the Candidate of Hope and Change?

There's only one answer. Throw the bums out.

Doubly Standard Procedure Watch: Conspiracy Thoughts

If I were conspiracy minded, I might think this was all part of The Plan.

Here's an example. I've long thought that one reason for the yo-yo on gas prices is about conditioning the consumer. That is, prices periodically spike to about twice what we have come to expect. There's concern and the usual outrage from the do-nothings in Congress, and the price eventually settles down to our great relief. But the price never settles back down to what it was before. It settles to a new "low," which, strangely, is always higher than our previous normal. But, since it's not the shocking high of last summer, we think "This is all right." We have be come accustomed to the new normal.

(And remember, next time you see the gas prices creeping up, and you reflect that your money is going to our "friends" the Saudis, ponder this: the Democrats are against domestic drilling. They like Americans to be hostages, if not to the Dems and their government largesse, then to somebody. A hostage is usually happy for whatever crumbs the captors give them.)

Back to The Plan.

There is so much DSP that it's hard to keep up to date. That leads me to wonder if possibly that is The Plan: flood us with so much DSP that we become numb to it after a while, and then our Dear Leader and His Devoted Servants can do whatever they want.

A few examples of the current Doubly Standard Procedure.

President Obama hits his head on the door of a Marine Helicopter.

Waiting for the SNL skit of how stupid he is for doing that. The Jon Stewart show? Anyone to make fun of him?

Uh, huh. That’ll happen.

During the campaign, now Vice-President Joe Biden suggested paying higher taxes is more patriotic, especially for wealthier Americans.

"We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people…”

Unless, of course, you are a powerful Democratic member of Congress, like former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

“The disclosure -- involving unreported income and the use of a car and driver provided to Daschle -- comes 2 1/2 weeks after Obama's choice to head the Treasury Department, Timothy Geithner, admitted that he had not paid about $43,000 in taxes.”

Daschle owed about $140,000 dollars in back taxes. Oh, wait, there’s the new Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, mentioned in passing above. And Charles Rangel, too. These weeds have no problem wanting to take our money, and wanting to tax us over and over...yet they have a real problem with paying their own taxes.

I guess they’ve discovered patriotism about the same time the public discovered their tax problems.

And, just for fun, imagine the mad dog Media pursuit of scalps that would have ensued if a Bush nominee hadn’t paid their taxes until they were being considered for a high government post.

Yet…it’s rather quiet on that front.

Other DSP that I don't have time to go into: Obama was about Hope and Change, and yet, he's peddling fear. "Pass the political Payback...er, Stimulus Package now, or the crows will peck the flesh from your cold dead bodies!" That's hopeful.

Doubly Standard Procedure: It's the New True!

Reality Check

Who is shaping your reality?

It's an important question. The world is far too large for us to understand, so we make models of how we believe the world to be. Some of those models come from our own experience (fire burns, water is wet), but much of the information we add to our model comes from other sources.

It's the sources outside of your own experience that need watching.

For example, in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had a great deal to do with shaping "reality." They defined right, wrong, good, and bad for a lot of people, if not directly, then indirectly by their influence and power over Kings and other rulers. History shows that for a while, the Church may not have been as interested in being the Rock upon which Christ built his house as the they were in consolidating power for themselves.

Fast forward to today. What shapes our reality, at least in the West? Modern media, in many cases. You know Sarah Palin never said, "I can see Russia from my house." That was Tina Fey in her parody of Sarah Palin. And, to be fair, Al Gore never said "I invented the Internet." Yet those mis-constructions of reality are perpetuated over and over.

In the case of our currently elected/sanctified President and His Good Works, much of the information we're getting is...skewed. It's not the Catholic Church doing it this time, to bolster their power and earthly treasures. It's a lot of the modern news and popular media.

And we have to ask: what's in it for them? While today's Catholic Church (to name but one example) has made mistakes and errors -- errors the press has reported on repeatedly -- they don't define our reality today with anywhere near the reach and power of NBC, ABC, the AP, and Reuters.

Like the Church then, the Press now has lost its moral compass. When was the last time the press reported, honestly, on their mistakes, omissions, and own biases?

Take a look at your mental map. Question the received wisdom. You might be surprised at what you find.

Doubly Standard Procedure: Hollywood

Elia Kazan was a very famous Broadway and film director (Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, On the Waterfront). He did some serious work in the early fifties.

He had also, at one time in his youth, been a member of a secret cell of the communist party. During the so-called Red Scare, he “named names,” that is, revealed the names of individuals with whom he’d associated in his days as a communist. Some people in the industry lost their jobs and livelihoods, it must be noted.

But it is equally important to remember that the Communist Party’s avowed goal was total world domination. That fact is downplayed a lot, and a lot of blame is put on the US (evil capitalists) for turning the Worker’s Paradise in the Evil Empire (read about the forced famines in the Ukraine that the New York Times lied about for one example of their real evil the Communists perpetrated).

Anyway, Hollywood finally wanted to give Mr. Kazan an honorary Oscar for his years of work in the Industry. There were protests. Some actors in the audience stood with their backs turned when the Oscar was presented.

Then we have Roman Polanski. Renowned director, right up until the time he drugged a thirteen year old girl and sodomized her. I apologize for being so graphic, but it’s important to understand what happened. Polanski was caught,

“..and was allowed to plead guilty to one of six charges, unlawful sexual intercourse, and was sent to prison for 42 days of evaluation.

Lawyers agreed that would be his full sentence, but the judge tried to renege on the plea bargain.”

So he did what anyone else would do. He fled the country to continue making movies and to win an Oscar in exile.

Now he wants the case overturned for prosecutorial misconduct.

So, he gives a 13-year-old girl Quaaludes and has sex with this child. Among the other crimes are the idea he could only get 42 days of time for this. The man should have been horsewhipped out of town. Children are the most defenseless of our citizens. They need our protection from predators. We want people to understand it is a BAD thing to drug them and then have sex with them.

Yet, are there protests in Hollywood against Polanski? Did anyone stand up and turn their back on the presentation of his Oscar (accepted by someone else) for The Pianist?

Am I missing something here?

Doubly Standard Procedure Watch: Democrats in Power

Isn't it amazing? Now that Democrats are in power, what a change in Washington:

FEMA failure during a weather related catastrophe that is happening right now. No problem.

Of course, when it was Katrina...It was Bush's fault. NOT.

Two of the president's cabinet picks failed to pay taxes to the tune of about $150,000 dollars (that we know of).

They get a pass.

To say nothing of Charles Rangel and Chris Dodd (google them yourself). Think Foxes whoring out the Henhouse.

There is so much DSP going on I don’t have time to capture it all. But it’s easy to see. Just ask, “If it was President Bush or a Republican who said or did this, what would the reaction of the press have been?”

Quick examples:

“If President Bush was meeting to discuss a major economic stimulus package with the Democrats, and he rebuffed their concerns by saying, ‘Hey, guys, I won,’ what would the press have said?”

“If a Republican nominee for Cabinet had failed to pay 100s of thousand of dollars in taxes, would he have been given a pass?”

Doubly Standard Procedure: it is the New True.

Learning new things...

One of the goals for 2009 was to learn more about Neuro Linguistic Programing. Briefly, NLP is about taking charge of your brain, re-coding your experience (basically, it's what we think about what happens to us that makes us feel bad or good) . I've tried a couple of their techniques in the past, and they seemed to work, and much it makes sense, on a strictly rational level. Anyway, you do exercises with some of your own memories, and try some of the techniques.

One of the first exercises is something like, "Take a memory of the last time you felt really good about something..." and that was where I got stuck. I was having a hard time coming up with a sterling memory on which to work. There were things I was satisfied about, or felt a sense of accomplishment, but, strangely, no recent event where I "felt really good."

I'll have to ponder that.

The End

About two weeks ago, I went back to Arizona for my grandmother's funeral. Born in the deep south in the 1920s, she was married at 14 and gave birth to my father at 17. She had four more children, and died at 87. She was preceded in death by one son (a suicide) and her only daughter, my Aunt Susie. She still had three sons alive.

My Uncle Ron, who's nearing the end of the warranty period on his transplanted heart, drove down with his wife for the service and funeral.

Her other son, my Uncle Danny, was unable to attend. He was a guest of the Arizona Penal system. Sixty years old, and a jailbird.

Most funerals are weird, I suspect. There wasn't any crying and rending of garment, no shrieks of "Take me, Jesus!" or anything like that. We spent a lot of time together at my parents' house, Lady Jiggy, Uncle Ron and his wife, my brother and his ladyfriend.

What struck me as weird was what we talked about. We didn't spend a lot of time saying, "Grandma was a great old gal," even though she was okay. She didn't smoke or beat her kids or cuss those damned immigrants who were moving into her neighborhood. What we talked about was how much of a screw-up, pain-in-the-ass thief, drug addict, and drunk was my Uncle Danny.

Because Grandma"took care" of Uncle Danny. Which amounted to letting him stay at her house, not turning him into the cops when he stole her belongings, enabling him, over and over, to keep from facing the consequences of being a life-wasting sluggard.

I heard tales of his attacks on other members of the family, and the times he burgled from them in the past. Since I've been away for years, I avoided much of this. I heard how he was a force for eroding my grandmother's house (purchased by my parents) and destroying her belongings and property. I learned that when my brother and father finally moved her, more or less by force, into my parents house, that in less than 12 hours Danny and his fellow druggie buddies had descended on her home and stolen televisions and stereos and other personal belongings. These scumbags couldn't manage to hold a job, yet, when the opportunity to steal from a sick old woman presented itself, they had motivation and ambition. They had a plan! (personal opinion: may all of those thieves burn in hell)

What I took away from this...a gentle reminder that I may want to live my life with the end in mind. When I die, people may have the odd unkind thing to say (insert name of former wife here with a very different opinion of my actions), but overall, my goal is have people say, "Lord Jiggy was pretty decent guy. Hey, you remember the time he dressed up as the Zombie Stand up comic, Rotting Dangerfield, for the Halloween party?"


So, how are you living your life?

Hollywood's Born-Again Americans

A bunch of celebrities got together to reaffirm their belief in America, and they made a video called "I Pledge." It’s pretty hard to watch without wanting to reach through the screen and slap them for the hollowness of their new-found faith.

The promises they’re making are pretty good. Recycle. Plant trees. Be decent to their neighbors. Walk the walk. Proudly support our country.

The question is: what stopped them from making these promises and taking action before? The evil BushCheney storm troopers? You know, the ones who blacklisted them for having the wrong political beliefs? The ones who called into radio shows to prevent them from having their say?

What brought these well meaning if fatuous fools back to the true faith, to Born-Again Americanism?

None other than the election of Barack Obama.

My disgust with this video robs me of rational thought. During the horrible 8 years of Bush (the concentration camps for the opposition, the mass beatings, the disappearances, the constant drumbeat of pro-President propaganda from the State Media --- oh, wait, none of that happened), people all across America quietly, even reverently went about their lives, fulfilling these kinds of pledges without the need to advertise it on You Tube. Some people even proudly supported our country and didn’t stand on a video soapbox to proclaim their virtuous intent.

It reminds me all too clearly of that line in the New Testament (yes, that oppressive ancient text which strangely does not call for the death of unbelievers, but merely points out a reward for them in the afterlife), when Jesus talks about praying (Matthew, Chapter 6):

"(But) take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; ...When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others...When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them.”

The Hollywood hypocrites were standing on the street corner, making their Pledge.

Doubly Standard Procedure Watch: Obama

You have to love the Democrats. The economy is President Bush and the Republicans’ fault. Yet, the coronation/beatification of Barack Obama is going to cost upwards of $150 million.

Yet, when it was President Bush’s inauguration in 2005, people with a D after their name were worried about how it would look:

In 2005, Reps. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., asked Bush to show a little less pomp and be a little more circumspect at his party.

"President Roosevelt held his 1945 inaugural at the White House, making a short speech and serving guests cold chicken salad and plain pound cake," the two lawmakers wrote in a letter. "During World War I, President Wilson did not have any parties at his 1917 inaugural, saying that such festivities would be undignified."

The thinking was that, with the nation at war, excessive celebration was inappropriate. Four years later, the nation is still at war. Unemployment has risen sharply. And Obama pressed Congress to release the second half of a $700 billion bailout package in hopes of rescuing a faltering banking industry.

Oh, yeah, it’s always different when it’s our guy.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, educators are on the lookout for inappropriate chatter about the next President.

"Inappropriate comments that may make other students, staff or families feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in school or on the bus will not be tolerated," Superintendent Kevin Bright said in an e-mail sent to parents Monday, Jan. 12.

The district, he said, expects students and staff to show respect for President-elect Obama and the incoming administration, as well as President Bush and the outgoing administration, and recognize that "while the election is a competitive process, our nation's greatness is displayed when all sides come together for a united country."

I’m pulling out my pointed hat with the stars on it, and I’m going to make a prediction. I predict that Superintendent Kevin Bright never issued an email telling staff and students he expected them to show respect to for President Bush and his administration at any time during the last 8 years.

I’m also going to bet that Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid can’t be bothered to scream about censorship or the crushing of dissent, since, you know, we’re talking about Their President.

Doubly Standard Procedure. It's the New True!

It's Official

I'm a right wing crank.

Why? Because I want the U.S. out of the UN.

Good intentions don't justify enabling terrible behavior.

What good has the UN done, lately?

Darfur? Nope, hands off.

Rwanda?

Gaza...have they managed to get Hamas to stop sending rockets at civilian targets in Israel? Hell, no. (Here's a sobering lesson: try to find out how much International aid has been sent to the Palestians...and then take a look at infrastructure of Gaza. For the many billions that have been sent, the place should be a paradise, yet, strangely, it's a festering slum. You may want to blame that on Israel...but who has been governing the area for years?)

There's so much the UN hasn't done...but, by golly, they can denounce Israel for pounding the snot out of Hamas.

US out of the UN. Kick them the hell out of our country. Let them be a dictator's boy's club on someone else's dime.

2009

Will, for me, be a year of doing.

In recovery circles, they stress we are human "beings," not human "doings." What they want to convey is that we are more than our accomplishments. I am not my car/clothes/fashion accessories, for example, but we have a worth separate from the externals we use to busy up our lives.

While there is value in remembering that, it seems to me that too much of my life, and modern life, is about observing/reading/commenting on other people's lives, failings, and foul ups, and far too little about the ways I move in the world. If I'm commenting on the Emperor's new clothes, that takes time away from my opportunity to be God's hands and feet in the world.

Looking out there keeps me from being right here.

Anyway, my goals for 2009:

• Finish the Ironman (cramped up badly on last part of the bike ride, and only got out 8 miles of the run)
• Start a Podcast of my novel, The Big Bang
• Get a script to Hugh Jackman's company
• Finish another script
• Learn and use Neuro-Linguistic programming (yeah, it's kind of wacky, but parts of it seem to make sense...

More goals will be added, I'm sure, as they occur to me.

More Doing, Less Watching

Doubly Standard Procedure Watch: Israel

Here's a prime example of Doubly Standard Procedure in action.

Israel has been subjected to a multitude of rocket attacks from Hamas, an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The armed element, called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, conducts anti-Israeli attacks, including suicide bombings against civilian targets inside Israel. The rocket attacks come from Gaza, just across the border from Israel.

Think for a moment. Recall any protests about rocket attacks on Israel? Rocket attacks that kill women and children...civilians. To say nothing of protests against the suicide bombing.

I can wait while you rack your brain. I'll go rebuild the engine on my car...

...That took longer than I thought. Oh, right, protests over the attacks by Hamas on Israeli citizens. Yeah, outside of strong protests (including sanctions) by some Western leaders, it's pretty quiet.

Now, I'm going out on a limb here, but do you think there are any protests about Israel going into Gaza and targeting Hamas?

Just a few, headed by the usual suspects.

Wow. Hamas bombs Israel, and nobody but the West says anything. When Israel has had enough and defends itself, they are suddenly the bad guys, and people are out in the streets.

Doubly Standard Procedure, at its best.