DEFIANT PRIME MINISTER

Talk about arrogance! Olmert is unbelievable. He has pretty much told our High Court of Justice that he intends to defy them and to keep their nose out of his business. The three hospitals closest to the border have demanded that government build more protection against rocket attacks for them. They were all hit last summer and Olmert is refusing. When the hospitals threatened to go to the high court he announced that decision is the government's, not the court's and the court had best stay out of it. ECUUUUSE ME. Those are front line hospitals. Those are the hospitals the wounded are taken to. Civilian and Army. AND HE DOESN'T WANT TO BEEF UP THE PROTECTION? The guy has to go and if not for the whopping 3% popularity he presently enjoys, then for his complete and utter incompetence. He should get treatment for his delusions of infallibility. The guy is a menace. He just handed 30,000 guns over to Abu Mazzen's "security forces" along with millions of dollars. It's a given that it won't be long before it all falls to into the hands of Hamas, and turned against us. It's not paranoia talking, just listen to the Hamas. Olmert is much worse than Sharon, or even Rabin. You really have to be deaf dumb (as in stupid) and blind to think that any amount of aid from Europe and the US and Israel will stop Hamas and be able to prop up Abu Mazzen who is himself a terrorist.
Lately he's been paying lip service to idea of acknowledging Israel's right exist. It might be a good idea to listen in on his speeches to his 'people' in Arabic. He has talking out of both sides of his mouth simultaneously perfected.
Olmert is desperate for a visit to Stockholm to pick up a Peace (piece) Prize with his good pal the blind Syrian eye doctor who recently met and closed a deal with Achmedinajar for modern weapons and training. Nassrallah of Hizzbully fame was there too, and they are planning their next war to get rid of us, if we don't give them what they want. Assad wants the Golan, and Lebanon. The Iranian dictator has agreed to back him up on that with hizzbully help. And as usual, the whole world is not saying so much as one word about it.
Does no one understand that if we go, Europe and the US are next? Actually they don't much care about the order. They plan to have it all.

FROM WORSE TO WORST

Things are spinning further and further out of control by the hour. Mr. Arrogant Olmert is openly defying the government ombudsman and the members of the Winograd commission and has stated that he will not, repeat resign. He's even trying his trusty method of getting his most vociferous opponents to join the government. That's the method he used to in effect destroy Avigdor Leiberman, who was an outspoken opponent of Olmert until he was lured into a cabinet post that has shut him up. Poor Yvette thought he'd be able to change things from inside the inner circle. He kind of forgot that it doesn't work like that here. Now Olmert is trying to get Bibi to join up. I'm hoping and praying that he won't. In fact I'm pretty sure he won't. Bibi is smarter than that and he knows that he must find a way to bring about Olmert's downfall as soon as possible. The other Ehud has to go too. This is by far the most corrupt bunch of politicians it has been our misfortune to vote into office yet, and we've had some pretty bad ones. These are the worst. They are sitting back waiting for a miracle to make the Hamas stop shooting qassams at Sderot, and actually seem to think that Abu Mazzen is one of the good guys, and will renounce terror once his little kingdom in the West Bank is stabilized with the help of Tony Blair and Olmert. Ain't going to happen.
It's long past time that we tell everyone involved and those who think they want to be involved that we are not making so much as half a concession to Abu Mazzen until he makes good on all the ones he was supposed to fulfill after Oslo. It really is that simple.
But our government is a bunch of balless wonders who are scared of their own shadow. They are the original 'cut and run' bunch.

TALK ABOUT THICK SKINNED

It's starting to look like Olmert is never going to get the message. He clings to his position irregardless of the investigation reports that lay the blame for the fiascoes of last summer's war, not at his doorstep, but squarely in his lap. It's not bad enough that Olmert and his merry band of men(?) were criminally negligent towards the civilians during that war, he is now doing everything in his power to strengthen the PLO while they sit back and laugh out loud at the Israeli suckers. Abu Mazzen is no better than that Iranian nut case-Achmad in a jar. They are both holocaust deniers. In fact Abu Mazzen wrote his doctorate on the subject. If anyone is naive enough to think that so much as one dollar of the money being sent to the PLO will be used to improve the lot of the so called palestinians, they had best think again. It is also not beyond the realm of possibility that Hamas and PLO are working in lock step against us.
For the life of me I can not fathom why we don't demand that the so called palestinians are held just one of things they've agreed to over the years before we hand everything to them (including our heads on a silver platter) There won't be that much left after the functionaries siphon their cut straight into their Swiss bank accounts. Their people are useful for one thing and one thing only-to be used as pawns against the West.
It's not like we don't have enough trouble with the so called palestinian lot, now we have Assad Jr. telling us and the world that he'll be happy to negotiate a peace treaty with us right after we give him the Golan Heights. It's infuriating that I can actually picture him and Olmert accepting Nobel Piece prizes in Stockholm which is so very close to Oslo, where the whole mess pretty much started. Ah, yes, Oslo. That lovely agreement that only we are held to. The so called palestinians have not implemented so much as one clause of that travesty, whereas we are forever being pressured to give them just a little bit more to build trust. Enough I say. I'm not even going to whine about the rest of world demanding that we concede in areas that no one else has ever had to, nope, instead of whining, I'll just angrily mention it.
Just keep in mind that we go down, the rest of the world won't be far behind. And believe you me, that's no consolation.

TOO FAST

Things are happening too quickly to keep up. Hizz 'Onner, our mayer somehow got the idiot PM to agree to upgrade the football (soccer) stadium here to the standard required to host matches in the league our football team was elevated to at the end of the last season. That really is the most important thing Kiryat Shmonah needs a year after the war. right? Well, let's see now. 75% of the shelters are still not in any condition to be used. The streets in town are full of pot holes and anyone with a jeep can just drive through town and feel like they are off road; way off road. I've driven on smoother tank trails. Businesses are failing left and right. None of the municipal departments can function properly. And the list goes on. But what we need most is new seating in the stadium. If we were going to have a soccer match to decide a peace treaty, maybe, just maybe, that would justify it, but as that isn't likely, a government that has bazzilions in reserves but is still planning huge across the board cut backs in the next budget just might be able to find something better to put money towards up here.
The only reason Hizz 'onner is still in office despite various legal opinions and a court ruling that pretty much orders the city council to remove him from office is that he is in Olmert's party as is the Interior Minister who has been petitioned to remove him office as well.
We are really losing it. Anarchy is orderly in comparison, and might be better in the long run than the willful disregard for law and order we have now. Oh, yes, there are citizen initiatives to get rid of our mayor but they can't make any progress in an atmosphere like this.
It all goes back to that upside down power pyramid and our losing the only moral guide we had until we became so arrogant. Bibi told me not to despair yesterday and I do think he is the only one who do anything to bring things around, with Uzi Landau, of course. It's not too late, but it's getting close.
There's just no justification for an Israel that has lost her way. We can actually be a Jewish Democracy (not a total contradiction in terms) if we want. All the secular lot has to do is realize that The Torah is what gives us the right to be here in the first place and stop fighting the Religious lot every step of the way. That's not to say that we should be a total Theocracy, but there is room for everyone if only people would stop and think and quit saying "My way is the only way"
There are times when Talmudic Law makes more sense than the system we use today which is pretty much the old British code of law left over from the Mandate, with a smattering of Ottoman leftovers thrown into the mix.
Under Jewish law a criminal owes a debt not just to society as whole, but also to his victim. Somehow that makes more sense to me than the usual 'the criminal must pay his debt to society' and that's the end of it. That bit of law goes back to the days when the Brits were subjects of the crown (owned by the king/queen) making any crime committed was one against the crown. It's well past time for the Jewish State to get back to Jewish justice and become what we are supposed to be- a moral people who can be an example to others rather than craven copycats. That's not to say there isn't room for some modern interpretation. We just have to get back to our roots a little more than we have til now.

OLMERT MUST GO

Never mind all the damage the man is doing to the country, today he went too far, and caused me much discomfort. The most direct rout to the store I need to go to was blocked by security types because Mr. Olmert was in town. I had to go around in a huge circle just to buy some light bulbs.
Our Mayor, who is in Olmert's party has no trouble at all inconveniencing everyone.
Our mayor is on trial now for all kinds of political shenanigans but still in office. An investigation was recently started into the activities of another mayor in the country and if they find anything it's an easy bet that he'll be sent home. Our criminal mayor refuses to budge and even though just about everyone in a position to kick him out is stymied by Olmert and his cohorts. Our mayor is one of the worst in the country. I hope he goes to jail and gets a cell with Olmert, who should be in jail as well for his illegal dealings.
It looks like Olmert's next item on his agenda is to give the Golan Heights to Syria. He must be stopped, and stopped immediately. He called on Assad to negotiate with him and Assad's flunky's reply was, "Give back the Golan, then, we can negotiate a peace treaty" That should have set some warning lights somewhere. What worries me is that the Europeans and Yanks just might try to pressure into doing just that.
I'm wasted from being out way too long today. I'll pick this up later.

GOBSMACKED DOESN"T QUITE DO IT

It's a good thing I was too tired last night to throw a hammer at the TV. Israel 10 did a whole shlockumentary on global warming/pollution and other related stuff. According to the poor misguided gal who narrated it, AlGore is as close to being a god figure as a man can get. And he must be right, after all, he won an Oscar. Never mind that saner voices are now being heard on the subject of global warming-he won an Oscar so he must know what he's talking about. Just look at all the Hollyweird types who agree with him. Come on, Channel 10, there was never an ice age followed by a period of heat? And the other planets are heating up because the populations there are driving big fuel guzzling cars?(tin foil hats, anyone)
This is not to say that we should keep on polluting our world. We really shouldn't, but not because of global warming, rather, because we are doing criminal damage to our environment. Toxic wastes should not be dumped just any old place, sewage should never ever run untreated into our seas, lakes, rivers and streams. That's just plain old obvious, or should be. But not to us Israelis. The Navy is still using a toxic cesspool of a river for training divers. The same river that killed Izchak. I have absolutely no doubt that that river is what made him, and thousands of others sick with strange diseases. Has anything been done to clean it up? Has the government recognized that it killed so many people in the service of their country? Of course not. Are the chemical companies and oil refinery still spilling noxious waste into it? Yes. And is any one doing anything at all about it? No, not one little thing. It seems that if those companies were required to clean up their act, it would be tantamount to admitting that they had been doing wrong for so long and someone just might be liable for it. There's another line of reasoning that says that we have other more pressing issues to deal with;like survival as a country. What they all ignore is that we are going to pollute ourselves out of a country long before the Arabs send us on The Long Swim. G-d gave us this land but it didn't come with a license to destroy it.
We are on a course of self destruction in every single thing these days. We pander to those who would destroy us while ruining the land. The worst part of it is that we are doing it to ourselves at warp speed.