Birthday Rock

So I just surfed and now I'm going to see Sublime and a dear old gang of dudes I ran with in high school... Thanks all who've sent birthday wishes!

Euro Thrash

DEAD COUNTRY | MySpace Music Videos

Israeli Attack on the Mavi Marmara // Raw Footage

I wasn't going to post today... or really this weekend... but... HOLY SHIT!

This was Lara Lee’s hour long footage from of Israel’s raid on the Mavi Marmara on May 31st.


Update: Netanyahu's Dilemma, by Jeffery Goldberg... a King Hell Bastard of a blog post!

June 12

June 12 is:

1. My birthday
2. The day I'm going to this kick ass concert with Sublime
3. The 1 year anniversary since I was blogging the Golan Heights
   
4. The 1 year of the election in Iran.

And on that note, I read a most striking Haaretz ANALYSIS on Iran... that sounded remarkably like the hindsight fall of the Soviet Union: It caved from internal rot.

The regime is beginning to be consumed from within, and as a result, Ahmadinejad has become a danger to Iran itself, to such an extent that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has on several occasions had to contravene the president's decisions and set down a policy that did not square with Ahmadinejad's pretentious aspirations.

So I'm going to issue a Casbah Fatwa to read the rest of this thing... cuz I'm off for a birthday & Sublime!

Necktied analysis on Iran

Over at the ultra-serious Iran blog, Uskowi on Iran, a commenter had a profound analysis on why Lebanon chose to abstain from the UN vote on Iranian sanctions. Brazil & Turkey were against it; the five permanent members supported it. The commenter explained Lebanon's position:

Lebanese despite having a 70% Shia majority have the old French imperialist disproportinate government representation that gives the Zionist allied Maronites and the Wahhabi puppet Harriri greater say in the government. Eventually the Shia will take over Lebanon, it is only a question of time.

Not that I take this sap seriously, but entertaining, especially on the Uskowi on Iran, a blog followed by the most humorless elements of the CIA and the Clandestine Services.

In other news, check out this dullard trying to surf in Oman:

Update: A very cool NYT piece on how Jews are related.
Update II: Crazy video on Gaza; so much for American public support for Israel's blockade.

Well, I finally managed to connect the Muslim Brotherhood, Hunter S. Thompson and Hamas in a Casbah post!

This is going to be a controversial post; but that's fine with me.

I was reading two things this morning: the LA Time blog, Babylon & Beyond and Hell's Angels, by Hunter S. Thompson.

So down to brass tax: Babylon & Beyond ran the story:

"After being stranded at the Rafah border crossing for nearly 24 hours, nine members of the Egyptian Parliament were told Tuesday that the construction materials they had hauled for hundreds of miles would not be permitted into the Gaza Strip. The politicians had little choice but to walk in alone.

Organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and two independent MPs, the convoy included several trucks carrying 1,000 tons of steel and 5,000 thousand tons of cement, items not considered humanitarian aid..."

What this says to me is that the Flotilla Strategy--of goddamn knowing the Israeli blockade and causing a scene by showing up with a bunch aid--has inspired a wave of like-minded support. What's interesting here is this stuff seems to be going through Islamic channels--Islamic charities in Turkey (and Erdogan); Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood; Iran? I don't mean to over-generalize, but seems the Islamists are leading the charge (and getting the credit) on this one... Can anyone think of any more examples?

OK. Now to the Dr. Thompson stuff... "Far from being freaks, the Hell's Angels are a logical product of the culture that now claims to be shocked at their existence."

And may I ask: Could we replace Hamas with the Hell's Angles here? Isn't everyone "shocked" by Hamas? Liz Cheney sure was this week.

And to further this Thompson thing on the Hell's Angles, he starts the chapter (which has no name or number) with this quote on criminals:

No more self-defeating device could be discovered than the one society has developed in dealing with the criminal. It proclaims his career in such loud and dramatic forms that both he and the community accept the judgment as a fixed description. He becomes conscious of himself as a criminal, and the community expects him to live up to his reputation, and will not credit him if he does not live up to it.

~Frank Tannenbaum, Crime and the Community

Is this not how the international community has dealt with Hamas vis-a-vis the Gaza siege? I don't condone Hamas (or really any other band of loons that shoots rockets at someone else) but it does seem that the demonetization of Gaza--and the Palestinians--has led to a sort of natural disintegration now called Hamas. Just another freak from Israel-Palestine? It seems.


Update: Crocodiles can Surf.

Why doesn't Franco comment on my posts?

... Unless, of course, Rooster comments on them first, Franco doesen't like to comment on my posts... :(

So it's the mean cold-hearted bummer of blogging the casbah that I am commentless from Franco... maybe now he'll have the chutzpah to sound off a bit more!

We're cheering for you Franco... Peck away!

Helen Thomas is Lebanese

Not that anyone really cares, but Helen Thomas, the White House correspondent who just "retired" over some "get the hell out comments" towards Israeli Jews, IS Lebanese.

Yes; Helen Thomas was raised in (want to guess?) Detroit, Michigan. Her parents are Lebanese of Greek Orthodox decent, from the Tripoli area in northern Lebanon, from the base of the same hilly escarpment Khalil Gibran wrote The Prophet.

So not that anyone really cares, but her comments on telling Israeli Jews go "go back to where they came from... Germany, Poland... America", was probably more rooted in her PLO/Lebanese Civil War experience than with a traditional European anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, her comments were not taken kindly in D.C., and she will now have the rest of her life to ponder if it was worth her job.

Jon Krakauer - Where Men Win Glory

If you've ever wondered about those journalists who work in Afghanistan, well check this out.

I can't figure out how to put the video on this page, but trust me, it's good.