Israellycool

Our “friend” Michael has hit some rough times with his ever-so-witty blog Israellybigot - Inside the mind (a really scary place) of an ex-Aussie bigot. For a start, he seems to be spewing his bile to a rather tough crowd, with comments ranging from “Its a pity you cant also ‘export’ yourself permanently. Believe me, nobody would miss you” to “wow, you are a complete douche and a jerk.” But for mine, you can’t go past “I’ll keep this short and sweet. You are a stupid f****!” for brevity.

And I anticipate even rougher times ahead for Michael after his latest post.

I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but the ever alert Michael seems to have missed the minor point that I did not write the post. That would be Israellycool contributor Brian of London, as evidenced by the Shire Network News logo and words “Brian of London” prominently displayed.

But don’t let these hiccups stand in your way, Michael. After all, you’ve got all that time on your hands. It would be a shame to spend it on something constructive.

Update: Michael has made minor modifications to his original post to cover for his embarrassing error. Attaboy!

Well it took over 5 years, but I’ve finally hit the big time, with the first Israellycool “impostor” site.

Israellybigot - Inside the mind (a really scary place) of an ex-Aussie bigot.

The URL is the equally clever http://aussiedavebigot.blogspot.com/.

As you can probably tell, “Michael” is quite the wit. (Although I suspect I may only be half right).

Clearly with an abundance of time on his hands, Michael also runs a number of other anti-Israel blogs, including dis-Honest Reporting, devoted to making an ass of himself trying to criticize Honest Reporting.

Please join me in wishing Michael a hearty “good luck finding gainful employment.”

Gabbyspoppy at Pro-Semite Undercover has seemingly set off anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein with some comments that include this:

He [Silverstein] also has for sale his photography (which mostly consists of pictures of his kids) cornering the pedophile market. But what the heck, a dollar is a dollar.

Silverstein’s response to this is predictable. He tries to turn it around, suggesting that the pedophilia reference would seem to suggest Gabbyspoppy’s predilection for it.

I am not stupid enough to suggest Richard Silverstein - as loathsome as his views and his treatment of people with whom he disagrees are - is a pedophile. But I do find it offputting that he would be offering for sale personal pictures - including those of his children - given the very real risk that pedophiles could purchase them.

[click on picture for large version]

I think Gabbyspoppy has a point. Silverstein does seem to be putting his pursuit of money ahead of the welfare of his family.

I install Intense Debate as my commenting system and the world takes notice.

Automattic, the company behind the popular WordPress blog publishing software has acquired blog commenting service Intense Debate.

We’ve covered Intense Debate in the past. The service provides web publishers a replacement for the default comments systems supplied by WordPress, Blogger, and Moveable Type and other blog platforms. By installing the plugin, you get threaded comments, reputations, and other advanced features. And readers can track their own comments and those left by others across any blogs or web sites that use Intense Debate.

Intense Debate will continue to be available for use on blog platforms besides WordPress, but Automattic plans to add some features, like threaded comments to WordPress 2.7, which will be the company’s next major release.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for an account if you haven’t already.

* Manual spam is created by a person who actually read the blog post, and composes a related response. At first glance, it may look like a legitimate comment, and is usually only identified as spam by its URL.

Look who the terror-supporting Free Gaza tools are publishing on their site.

This points to an article by the bearded sham, which includes gems such as this:

The original mission was motivated by the sheer economic misery caused by Israel’s siege, instituted after Hamas won legislative elections in 2006.

Leaving aside the fact it is not a siege, Israel’s actions were clearly the result of continued Qassam rocket attacks and other terror attacks from Gaza, and not the mere election of the terrorist organization Hamas. But Silverstein never let’s facts get in the way of a poorly written article.

Meanwhile, I thought I hit the comedy gold jackpot when I stumbled on this yearbook photo of a Richard Lee “Moby” Silverstein. After all, there is somewhat of a resemblance to the old version.

But given that young Richard L Silverstein’s yearbook picture is from 1978, that would make him approximately 60 years younger than the old, unhinged version. In any event, young Richard seems way too sporty to be mistaken for old Richard.

I’ve become a real fan of the Intense Debate commenting system I implemented on this site a number of weeks ago. Sure, load times are slightly lower, and you sometimes need to login more than once. But I think overall it is easy to use, and I like the ability to rate comments and have a list of top commenters.

It is really important to me that Israellycool develop more of a community feel. There are blogs with less traffic but way more comments, and when I visit them, I do have a dose of blog envy. Sure, I realize that one reason for the relatively low number of comments is the nature of my posts. The majority are my thoughts on a story, and not in depth or personal posts which are more conducive to attracting feedback. Nevertheless, I believe more of you can comment, even with the current format.

With this in mind, I implore you to sign up for an Intense Debate account, upload your pic or avatar, enter some profile information and start commenting! Become more than an occasional commenter or lurker. Let’s get a real community going.

The top commenter (besides me, of course) will receive a yet-to-be-determined incentive. In fact, heck, I’ll open the floor to you to suggest what that incentive should be. But you’ll have to sign up to Intense Debate first.

In the meantime, I will be looking into other possible enhancements to the site in order to increase the sense of community and reader participation. Again, I invite your comments if you have any suggestions.

Over a week ago, Israellycool contributor Elder of Ziyon posted about Free Gaza terror enabler Lauren Booth on his own blog, after her idiotic and offensive comments about Gaza being “the largest concentration camp in the world.” As part of his post, he included photos of palestinians feasting at the annual Iftar breakfast, demonstrating the extent of Booth’s dishonesty. It was not surprising that Elder found these photos because he is the only blogger I know of who goes to Arabic sites and uses his Zionist Auto-Translation Tool of Death.^TM

Yesterday, the Jerusalem Post ran an article about Booth’s comments. Besides the fact that it was “old news” - we had been discussing this issue a week earlier - the Post included one of the photo’s on Elder’s blog. Curiously, the Post did not include an attribution to the source of the photo, instead displaying the sloppiness we have come to expect from them (Photo: Courtesy??) More to the point, the Post did not attribute any of this to Elder’s blog, even though I believe it is almost certain they lifted this story from it.

Why am I so sure of it?

1. The Jerusalem Post are not in the habit of visiting the Arab sites like Elder does. If so, how would they have found the Iftar feast photo?

2. The Jerusalem Post have a habit of not attributing scoops to blogs. I should know.

If anyone from the Post is reading this (and I know some of you do read Israellycool), please feel free to prove me wrong. I will freely admit to it if I have made a mistake. But if I am correct, how about giving the proper attribution and developing some journalistic ethics?

Updated

Roseanne Barr continues to cry for mental help on her blog, with her recent attention venom being turned to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

In her latest post dedicated to Palin, Barr lets it be known she would like to kill her.

palin is perfect

for the republicans’ very first ever woman candidate! She has warped ethics, little concern for her family, and likes to draw down on endangered species from a helicopter, steal publicly owned property, and say anything she is paid enough to say.

She is an insult to american women. I would like to challenge sarah palin to a gun dual (sic) in a target practice setting!! I can shoot 100 times more accurately than she can, I just know it!

Perhaps, but Palin would have a much larger target to aim at.

Update: Reader Joseph thinks Barr is challenging Palin to a competition involving paper targets (rather than each other). I am still not sure.

Update: I’ve read it a few more times, and even consulted with the missus. I may have missed the mark on this one.

Meanwhile, here’s a joke Barr deemed fit to post twice.

What’s the difference between a pit bull and the now-famous hockey mom from the RNC?

One’s a vicious, jacked-up bitch that likes to kill animals,

The other one is a dog.

Today there was a first in Israeli politics - the first time an Israeli politician has invited bloggers to cover a press conference.

The politician in question was Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, and the bloggers attending were Rafi G, Carl in Jerusalem, Lurker, RivkA, and Mother in Israel.

You can read about the press conference on their blogs. My main point in mentioning this is to say it is great to see an Israeli politician see the potential in blogs, albeit for a political campaign.

A preferable approach would be to recognize the great value of blogs to Israel’s public relations. One question I asked Bibi at the recent bloggers’ conference was whether he monitors the blogs and comments for “the talking points that hit home.” Implicit in my question was my belief that the Israeli government could learn a lot by paying close attention to the conversations in the blogosphere regarding the Middle East conflict, and learn from them, rather than suggest to the bloggers what they should be writing (the current approach).

I hope today’s press conference leads to a greater recognition of blogs by the Israeli government.

And in case you were wondering, yes I was invited to cover the press conference, but I decided to decline, given it was held in the middle of the morning. Hey, I still have a day job, you know.

On Richard Silverstein’s anti-Israel blog Tikun Olam (link not provided, since he loves getting traffic), “Kane” asks a simple question in the comments:

# On August 26th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Kane said:

Richard,

I would be interested in hearing what you think of what Orgo said (Orgo had commented that there is no evidence connecting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to any terror attacks -ed.) Do you think Haniyeh is a terrorist or connected to terror attacks?

Thanks.

Silverstein responds:

# On August 26th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Richard Silverstein said:

@Kane: Haniyeh is less connected to terror attacks than Yitzchak Shamir was. Let me make clear that I’m no friend of Hamas. I wish there were another authentic, popular grassroots Palestinian political movement instead of it. I don’t like their politics or their willingness to embrace armed violent resistance. That being said, they ARE an authentic, grassroots popular movement. Until some other group can beat them in a legitimate election, they should be recognized as a legitimate government.

So there you have it, folks. Silverstein is clearly stating:

1. The leader of Hamas is less connected to terrorism than was a former Prime Minister of Israel.

2. Hamas engages in “resistance”, not terrorism.

Anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein has long denied he is anti-Israel or a supporter of terrorists.

I have long said he is full of it, and he has just confirmed it with a response to a question I left on his blog under the name “AD” (he obviously was not able to work out that AD stands for “Aussie Dave”):

On August 24th, 2008 at 10:02 am
AD said:

What do you think of the fact these “peace activists” are more than happy to meet with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh? Does that not disturb you?

Here’s a screen shot of Silverstein’s response (I prefer to take screenshots when it comes to Silverstein, since he has a propensity to delete/change his comments when confronted with the truth and is backed in to a corner). You can click on it to enlarge.

Besides the fact he clearly states there was nothing wrong with the Free Gaza people meeting with an arch terrorist like Haniyeh, notice how he places the words ‘Hamas terrorists’ in scare quotes, as if mocking the notion they are actually terrorists. At the very least, he cannot bring himself to use the word “terrorists” when talking of Hamas, an organization that openly talks of destroying Israel and has perpetrated numerous terrorist attacks towards this end.

Disgraceful.