On a bad day Five years ago, on this day, I was on the phone with Nix. We
were watching a bunch of webnews streams and stuff as usual.
Of course, "usual" was only until the first plane hit the WTC.
When the second one hit, it was pretty obvious what was going
on. Still, Osama didn't even cross my mind. The "palestinians"
did. And sure enough, a few hours into the day a Palestinian
group actually claimed credit - the PFLP if I remember, but my
memory may be slightly off.

Later, the world was in shock and the Palestinians celebrated.
Dancing and ululation was everywhere, much shooting in the
air, and cakes. Funny thing that, about the Palestinians: you'd
think they'd be relegated to eating rubble, poor and down-
trodden as they are, not to mention constantly blowing things
up. But the land is flowing with cake. Maybe that's why the
French love them so, because they've taken Marie Antoinette's
advice to heart?

Matter of fact, all the Arabs/Muslims celebrated, but the Pali
celebrations seemed somehow the most orgiastic and insane.








Still later, it became obvious just how much depravity there
was among Americans. The left demonstrated - and made their
views clear:







And a vile website, the Church of Euthanasia, put up one of
the sickest videos I've seen on the web.

The "Church" is here:

Church of Euthanasia video

It might be a good thing if the "Church" got a certain level of
feedback.

So. Against that backdrop of vileness and perversion, a couple
of items popped into my head. Maybe to balance things out a
little. They're both quite unrelated to anything, but they both
form sort of a tenous link between Norway and Israel.

Item one.

When I was a kid, I used to have this neighbour who was, among
other things, a true technical genius. For example, back not so
long after WWII, having a tractor was somewhat uncommon up
north. But this guy built one for his dad, out of scavenged parts -
a dead gearbox here, a crankaxle there, an engine block... you get
the idea. More examples: he set up a large sort of garage, mostly
as a hobby, and handbuilt most of the power tools. If he had a
dead motor, he'd rewind and rewire it himself. He got into ham
radio in middle age, and having gotten his license went about
building equipment and unceremoniously plonked a 50ft selfbuilt
radio tower next to his house. It looked like the bloody Eiffel tower.

He was also a gun nut. And I guess it rubbed over, somewhat.
And when I sold my 12ga over/under, he bought it and was
pleased about it - and he was pleased to lend me his M1.

He was a big, frequently redfaced man with a terrible temper
and a huge heart. God bless him.

So what does that have to do with Israel? Nothing. Maybe.
But his Dad's name was Meier. Never struck me before.

Item two.

This is a sort of linguistic link. See, we'll soon be coming up
on Christmas. And of course, in October, Sukkot.

One of the important ingredients in Norwegian baking for
Christmas, used in the Christmas Cake, is something called
Sukat. It's green (looks like diced snot, actually), but still
tasty. It's used along with raisins. With me so far?

Sukat, it turns out, is a glazed citrus fruit peel. Guess what
citrus fruit? The Etrog.

Meanwhile, out there in the real world, Mark Finkelstein
is reporting on the days nastyness from the New York
Times. Quote:

"On a day when we should be coming together, the Times
does its best to tear us apart. On a day when the focus should
be on the terrorists who threaten us and the brave people
who have defended us against them, the Times trains all its
bile on the Bush administration".

The New York Times. Where every column is the fifth column.