Your minimum daily requirement of a hard slap to the face

From the @IDFSpokesperson Twitter feed.

So, you see, in reality, the bombs dropped on Gaza by the Israel Defense Force are just delicate kisses, mere angels' tears, on the foreheads of Palestinian children . . . .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has quickly replaced Dick Cheney and John McCain as my preferred "STFU [fill in the blank with the unfeeling, aggressive, rigid, dissembling, hard-to-believe-they're-human political figure of your choosing]!!!" scream at my TV whenever I watch the news.

And I can assure you that is no small accomplishment.

Congratulations, Benny. You've just given birth to a million new jihadis. And a billion others like me, ineffectual bystanders, people who would never take up arms against anyone yet who feel for the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and Palestinians everywhere, but who can only blog about it, tweet about it, post articles about it on Facebook, and yell at their TVs.

Stockholm syndrome

Why is it that everytime I see a headline that reads something like "Cheers as Abbas take stage at U.N." or "Abbas returns to hero's welcome" or "Abbas declares 'spring'has begun," for a moment I forget myself and muse, ahhh, at last, the liberation of Björn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida is nigh!

Rather obviously, the cobwebs haven't been cleared out of my mind since 1974. Here's to peaceful co-existence in the Middle East--and blue sateen forever.