“How long did it take you to qualify as a sharpshooter in the IDF?”

“Not too long. I had a natural aptitude with the rifle. I started out at 15 meters, then moved up to 30, 50, 100, 400 then all the way up to,” she hesitates, “classified meters.”

Israeli soldiers are famously and appropriately tight-lipped regarding training and operational details.

Yael—not her real name—is an unbelievably beautiful young Israeli woman. Her moca skin—flawless, like dark glass—testifies to a Bukharin father and Yemenite mother, a genetic mix I strongly recommend. She looks like the American supermodel Tyra Banks, only slimmer, more beautiful — and far more lethal.

Yael sits ram-rod straight. Her neck is swan-like, and her fingernails—lacquered red as a Chinese vase—are sharp as switchblades. Melting over her head is raven hair with a sprinkling of bronze highlights that give her the look of a post-punk goddess.

It’s Friday night, Shabbos in Israel, my wife Karen and I are visiting our childhood friend Deborah. We all went to the Yeshiva of Flatbush together. Deborah married an Israeli and has been living in Israel ever since. Yael is Deborah’s daughter-in-law.

“Are you also proficient with a pistol?” I ask

“Sure, I qualify with the polymer Jericho.”

“I understand you’re also a black belt in Karate.”

“Yes.”

I look at Yael’s husband, an unassuming and bookish young man.

“What happens when you guys have an argument?”

“She wins,” he deadpans.

“When you shoot do you have such long fingernails?”

She glances fondly at her dagger-like tips, shakes her head side to side.

“No, of course not. When I shoot, these are off.”

She folds her hands in her lap. Yael’s fingers are long and tapered, perfect little animals for trigger-pulling. I notice that she has the ability to stay still as a pilaster. Her stillness is taut, like a coiled steel spring, stillness that reminds me of a cobra.

Welcome to Israel, where men and men and women are, um, beautifully lethal.

“The Mossad tried to recruit me to go to foreign countries to train special units in counterterrorist tactics,” Yael says.

“What countries?”

“Tsk, tsk, I cannot say.”

“Fair enough.”

“We know how to operate in urban environments, three-dimensional warfare. We have lots of experience,” she adds.

Hmm, I have heard rumors that the U.S. has quietly brought over Israeli soldiers, consultants to help train our troops for the rigors and complexities of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, warfare against the Islamist enemy.

“They were paying so much money,” she sighs.

“What happened?”

“I decided to stay home. Take care of my man.”

“Lucky guy.”

“Yes, he is.”

Yael’s husband cheerfully nods.

“Tell me something, what was your motivation?”

“Moti-what?”

“Your reasons for becoming a sharpshooter?”

She shrugs, ponders a moment: “It was a challenge. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. That I’ve got the talent.”

Talent.

“That’s it?”

“What, there has to be more?”

I’m just a dopey screenwriter. I expect grand speeches about patriotism, fighting the Arab Muslim terrorists, protecting the Jewish state.

But Yael is a tough Israeli woman. She lives in a dangerous neighborhood and that’s something she takes for granted. Thus, her motivation boils down to a somewhat casual, but down to earth approach to her craft.

“What about the future,” I probe.

“Children. I want to be a mother.”

Yael glances at her husband. He offers a crisp salute.

Like a little girl, the sharpshooter giggles.

Deborah’s husband, Yael’s father-in-law, fought with General Ariel Sharon’s brigade in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the unit that crossed the Suez and enveloped the Egyptian Third Army, Operation Gazelle. He promises to sit down with me and record his memories of that legendary maneuver.

Karen and I walk back to our hotel.

We pass the Cafe Hillel.

A tiny gasp bobs from Karen’s throat.

We remember Dr. David Applebaum, his daughter, Nava and seven innocents who were butchered by an Arab Muslim homicide bomber.

Further down the block we pass another cafe that has twice been targeted by homicide bombers, but each time brave security guards blocked the terrorist’s path.

How long will it be before these homicide bombers explode themselves in cafes in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. I have no doubt it will happen, for Israel is the testing ground for all murderous jihadist tactics. And when the world excuses their Jew killing, when the world willingly accepts their lies and their grievances as legitimate, well, the terrorists are emboldened, and they realize that any dumb, half-baked grievance will do, because grievances are a dime a dozen — thus the Islamist fascists are given the green light to kill anyone, anywhere.

The latest fashion in makeup for female Israeli soldiers.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

Once upon a time Hollywood had no problem distinguishing our enemies from our allies. Now our allies are often shown to be feckless and evil while our enemies are either ignored or made out to be mere puppets of our evil leaders.

For example, last season of “24″ had an African dictator’s troops invading the country and trying to unleash a deadly virus, but of course, they were working for an evil Blackwater type military contractor run by a right-wing “patriot.” Patriot is Hollywoodese for crazy nut job. The same kind of villains were used in this year’s “State of Play” which had evil government contractors murdering people to cover up their evil conspiracy. Or last year’s “Body of Lies,” also starring Russell Crowe, which showed the CIA as a bunch of lying killers who have Arabs picked off with abandon for the aims of US policy. And let’s not forget 2007’s “Valley of Elah” in which American soldiers are portrayed as soulless killers made that way because they were exposed to combat. Or how about “Syriana”, in which a fat George Clooney wanders around the Arabian desert learning how evil the US is while boring the audience with an obscure plot.

And now we have the upcoming “Green Zone” with Maaaatt Daaaamonnnn. The villains appear to be evil American contractors again. Sheesh, are they done with Nazis now as the cliched Hollywood villain? Oh, I forgot, they’re busy making Nazis more sympathetic now.

Hollywood seems to have it in their head that Americans are the bad guys.

Meanwhile, Muslim fanatics of the Al Qaeda variety don’t exist in Hollywood movies anymore. You have to go back to 1994’s “True Lies.” Yet James Cameron’s movie didn’t exactly take the threat of Muslim terrorists seriously. It treated them more like typical goofy movie villains for the hero to punch out. And now, when Islamo-fascists are referenced at all, they are usually shown to be tools of evil Americans (with the exception of a handful of art films, mostly foreign, like 2007’s the “Kite Runner” in which the Taliban were shown to be the murderous thugs they are.)

Hollywood once had no trouble showing us the villains of the world. The Nazis were an easy target. After all, they were vanquished. Yet they took on the Soviets on occasion. They also had no problem coming up with all kinds of diverse antagonists of every nationality. Not anymore. Now they can’t even deal with the most clear cut bad guys around, the Islamo-Fascists.

Not Muslims, Islamo-Fascists. There’s a difference.

The fact is, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda are not loved in the Muslim world despite what some would tell you. They’ve killed more innocent Muslims than any combatants in recent wars. The Taliban are oppressors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US, on the other hand, has done a lot to build schools, hospitals and infrastructure both in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Hollywood makes our contractors as sinister villains. Both TV and film are knocking out one hack script after another. And our troops are often shown badly as well, despite the fact that we have the most disciplined armed forces in the world.

Once upon a time Hollywood used to make films for the war effort showing the free people of the world what we’re fighting for and why. Now they make movies that do the opposite. They question our motives and make us out to be the villains.

So whose side are you on, Hollywood? If your goal is to make money, you keep failing. The movies I listed above, that made us the villains, were all failures. Movies that make us heroes tend to be successful. Are you using Obama math now?

To paraphrase your favorite president, George W. Bush, either you’re with us or you’re against us. We’re not feeling the love right now.

In case you don’t get it, Islamo-fascists shut down all media when they get into power. They kill gays, lefties, intellectuals first. Are you telling us you approve? Because there’s no point in attacking your own side otherwise. Not unless you want us to lose.

Oh, I know, you don’t think these terrorists are any real threat. That’s why all those lefty “comedians” aren’t afraid to mock Islam and terrorists, right? Oh, yeah… they don’t do that. They mock Christians instead. Because they know Christians won’t kill them.

If you’re afraid of fatwas, Salman Rushdie is still picking up hot women and hanging around parties. All those Danish cartoonists threatened with death are still around years later.

So in other words, are you a bunch of spineless cowards? A pack of gutless, cringing eunuchs? Are you are letting the world know this by attacking your own side, hoping the bad guys will treat you better if they win? Like those Jews who worked for the Nazis in Poland as ghetto cops, thinking they would be spared the cattle car treatment?

I think you better get your priorities straight. Pronto.

So, PBS, if it is true, as VP of Sesame Workshop Sherrie Westin indicated in the above segment, that the GNN (Grouchy News Network) clip exposed by Big Hollywood three weeks ago was in praise of Fox, then how do you explain this?!?!:

I don’t know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn’t do it through the kids. -PBS Ombudsmen Michael Getler

I guess that means you were against Pox News before you were for it, or something?

Westin’s explanation is enough to make one’s BS detector go haywire.  First, spinning the “trashy news show” comment to be not just a compliment, but “highest praise” is so outrageous I had to watch it a few times just to make sure she was being serious.  Tack on the fact that the PBS Ombudsmen already acknowledged this line was a “shot at Fox News,” and one would recommend Ms. Westin check her shoe to see if she did in fact step in it.

Next, Westin states that the “Pox News” line was a throwaway to entertain adults, which does not comport with the last clause of the Getler quote cited about.  And even if we granted her that the “Pox News” comment was directed solely at adults and would 100% fly over children’s heads (which we won’t), wouldn’t it have crossed the producers’ minds that the line might offend/disappoint/trouble/piss off parents that watch both “Sesame Street” and Fox News?  Not like any such parents exist… We think it did cross their minds, and we think they decided to send their hostile, anti-Fox message anyway.

Stage Right posted the “Pox News” clip on Nov. 3rd, the PBS ombudsman weighed in on November 5th, but three weeks later on November 24th, all of a sudden the explanation has completely changed?  Perhaps the reason is Sesame Workshop and PBS Ombudsmen Getler did not coordinate responses on this one, but we certainly hope they do, because at this point they have a lotta ’splainin’ to do.

On a lighter note, Spill O’Reilly was a delight.

–

Yikes. Someone got the talking points. Can you say, “Peer reviewed studies?” Methinks those leaked emails that pretty much show Global Warming is … what’s the best way to put it?… the big fat freakin’ lie we all knew it was, has stirred our friend Ed up some.

You know what he sounds like? Someone who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old trying to explain away a dinosaur fossil.

Oh, that old time religion…

Could this be true?

Barack Obama does not have Angelina Jolie’s seal of approval.

“She hates him,” a source close to the U.N. goodwill ambassador, 34, tells the new issue of Us Weekly (on newsstands now).

“She’s into education and rehabilitation and thinks Obama is all about welfare and handouts. She thinks Obama is really a socialist in disguise,” adds the source.

But don’t expect to see the Salt actress rally against Democrats on Fox News like her staunch Republican father, Jon Voight.

“Angie isn’t Republican, but she thinks Obama is all smoke and mirrors,” the source says.

Could this be some kind of watershed moment where one of Hollywood’s most popular and beautiful stars, an Academy Award winner, no longer fears retribution from the Hollywood Left for saying such things … out loud?

Wouldn’t be the first time Jolie went against the leftist grain. In February of 2008, when most of her Hollywood colleagues called for abandoning the Iraqi people — Cambodian Holocaust 2: The Middle East – this breath of mature, compassionate air appeared in the Washington Post.

When Leftists are winning the day, they’re just plain arrogant. When Leftists are losing, they’re a helluva lot of fun to watch. Case in point: Alec Baldwin’s latest incomprehensible attack on Republicans courtesy of HuffPo. Here are my favorite snips, but read the whole thing and count the number of times you say, ”huh? — whuh?” Don’t make it a drinking game, though. Suicide’s illegal:

The Pentagon wastes more money on more crap that you and I don’t need and gets it wrong, on a policy level, more often than not since 1960 (I’ll give them a pass on Korea, due to all the Cold War anxiety at the time).

How nice… Baldwin gives the Pentagon a pass on Korea… I’m sure a wave of relief swept through the Military Industrial Complex. “Hey, you can exhale now, the ‘30 Rock’ guy says it’s okay…” And don’t you just love when a Leftist decides to get all bent over government waste? It’s always the military, always the most successful — by a long shot — of our government agencies.

The health care industry wastes untold billions, then passes those costs on to insurance companies who then exploit your fear and pass them on to you. Fear of Al Qaeda. Fear of getting sick without insurance and, therefore, access to effective medical care.

“Fear of Al Qaeda”…?

Huh?

Oh yeah, that’s right… Yesterday a letter arrived from United Health: “Vote against ObamaCare or be beheaded by terrorists.”

Health care reform means less money for insurance companies. Thus less money for the GOP. We should pass this bill for that reason alone.

You have to appreciate the honesty of that statement. ObamaCare’s not something anyone can defend. It’s not as if Baldwin’s about to give up his Cadillac Health Coverage to join us in line for Chemo should Obama and Pelosi win the day. So all he can do is fling HuffPoo and hope some of his hateful nonsense sticks. At the end of the day, however, Baldwin’s personal policy decisions — like many of his brethren — really do come down to what will hurt the other side, not what’s best for America or the poor. It’s all about The Hate.

So why the crazy public rant?

Frustration.

Before their very eyes hopeandchange is going down in a big flaming ball of empty suit, and frustration levels on the Left are on the rise.  Even Baldwin’s online hostess, the True Believer Dennis Miller calls “The Smart Gabor,” is publicly thinking “uh,oh.”

As Obama’s public opinion polls plummet lower than a gaff-tastic presidential bow and everything the Left believes in fails to create jobs, make the world love us or convince Independents to climb aboard the Socialist Train to Ruin — as Obama limps his way towards Worst President Ever status and 2010 looms — we can only hope to see alot more of this.

Anyway, I digress. Here’s what I think about “The Blind Side.”

The book was better. But the movie’s pretty daggum good too. I only read the book because a friend told me it would never work as a movie, anyway, and there was no point in waiting. My friend was right, the book is dense and wordy, and roughly half of it is about the evolution of the left tackle position in professional football. The Michael Oher stuff takes up the other half, and that’s what John Lee Hancock focuses on here. He gets the vast majority of it exactly right.

Sandra Bullock is well-cast as Leigh Anne Tuohy, a well-to-do Memphis interior decorator who takes in a homeless kid who is also a very hot football commodity. His name’s Michael Oher, and he’s immense. Huge. Massive. Surprisingly, he’s also quick on his feet, agile, and has a pretty sweet jump shot. The movie finds a clever way to use his hoops skills to introduce Michael to his future high school football coach, Coach Cotton.

The race and class issues are addressed, and as in the book, we get a sense of how political correctness has actually made these problems worse, not better. No one can seem to believe that the Tuohy’s take Michael in for any reason other than personal gain.

You know from the trailer and from real life that Michael is black. For some reason, this matters to a lot of people. And only some of them are openly racist.

The movie, like the book, contains textbook examples of Christian-minded conservatism in practice. Michael’s mom, it turns out, is addicted to crack cocaine. Leigh Anne meets Michael’s mom, and is remarkably non-judgmental. This is a great-ish performance from Bullock, playing an unapologetically conservative woman. Giving great support are Tim MacGraw as Leigh Anne’s husband, who was a star point guard for Ole Miss, and Ray McKinnon as the head ball coach. Newcomer Quinton Aaron excels as Michael Oher, a role that I thought would be nearly impossible to pull off. Several Southeastern Conference football coaches make cameos, to varying degrees of success. I wanted Georgia Coach Mark Richt to show up so that the actor playing Oher could lay him out and maybe knock some damn sense into him, but…

There’s bit of a scuttlebutt on BH over the swipe at George W. Bush. Some folks see it as a typically liberal slam of the former president. I didn’t know about this joke before watching the movie, and I found it rather innocuous. It was a federal government building, and W. was the head man at the time…didn’t bother me. In fact, one of Bush’s problems was that the Federal Government grew under his watch, and he wasn’t as conservative as advertised, so it didn’t bother me one little bit.

If you like football movies, this one’s better than “Remember the Titans,” not as good as “North Dallas Forty.” Good performances, some approaching great, and a lot of humor make this movie an inspirational choice for your family this Thanksgiving.

“The Biggest Loser” has a typical reality show premise. A large group of contestants starts out at the beginning and as the weeks go by contestants are eliminated until the end of the season. Unlike other reality shows, though, this show has an important message to send out to viewers about living healthy, taking care of your body and maintaining your self-esteem.

On last week’s episode though, the show’s message was overwhelmed by a push from the NBC network about staying green. During the ninety-minute episode that aired last Tuesday, there were numerous public service announcements about taking care of the environment. Those announcements tackled such issues as fixing leaky faucets, using less plastic and buying local produce.

Additionally, there was nod to the green movement during the episode itself. The Entertainment Weekly recap of the episode noted the following about an exchange between Bob, one of the trainers on the show, and one of the contestants: 

Bob blessed Allen with some product placement: a stupid Ziploc bag that’s “made from 50 percent wind power.” Allen: “That’s good for the environment!”

Allen’s statement may be true and working to preserve the environment is a worthy cause. However, numerous public service announcements about NBC going green and a mention of a environmentally-friendly product so blatantly in one episode is a bit much.

“The Biggest Loser” may have a lot of great qualities and it may inspire a lot of people to lose weight and change their lives. That is a solid message for a program to be promoting. However, the excessive marketing for a green campaign during  the episode overshadowed the episode itself.

NBC may want to heavily promote going green but an overzealous bid to promote a green lifestyle could turn viewers off quickly and make NBC prime-time the biggest loser after all.

Help me out here. What’s crazier – the abysmal failure the stimulus has been in Los Angeles County (like everywhere else) or how outrageously wasteful the plan was to begin with?

Los Angeles County’s take of stimulus funds is by far the largest in California, which has received $18.5 billion in ARRA funds, intended to create 110,219.36 jobs statewide — a pricey rate of $168,264.08 per job.

But Hollywood is a different story entirely. Hollywood — the geographic Hollywood as found on Thomas Guide map page 593 — has received $23,338,327 in grants, loans and contracting. This money has created just 20.57 jobs. That’s $1,134,580.80 per job. And as interviews with recipients reveal, even that tiny jobs claim is clearly false, with many of the claims of newly created positions either impossible to verify or lower than reported.

Not even 20 full-time jobs have been created in Hollywood proper.

So if the stimulus had worked according to the Federal Government’s plan, $168,264.08 would have been spent to create each job. Again, that was the plan … that would’ve been called a success.

And it once was.

All this changed with the “cultural revolution” of the 1960s when objectivity went out of style.  The argument put forth by the Modern Liberals was that the individual is incapable of being objective.  They argue everything a person believes is so tainted by their personal bigotries – bigotries borne of the color of their skin, the color of their hair, the nation of their great-great-great grandfather’s birth, their height, their sex and their weight, etc. — that the only way to eliminate the evils of bigotry is to eliminate all attempts at rational thought.

Since the 1960s, the Modern Liberal has been preaching that rational thought is a hate crime.

Writing about this phenomenon as it relates to one of the communities most infected with the Modern Liberal dogma, the leftist news media, the great Thomas Sowell argued that the quest for objectivity has been replaced with the quest for  ”neutrality.”  What’s the difference between objective reporting and neutral reporting?

Consider a journalist covering a football game and the Jets have just defeated the hapless Patriots 57-3.  (Hey, this is MY post, I can make up the score.)  An objective journalist would write a report about how the Jets are a better team than are the Patriots.  The story would feature key plays and decisions that highlighted New York’s superiority to the New England franchise on that day.

Consider the coverage of Nidal Hasan’s massacre of 14 innocent people at Ft. Hood.   The objective reporter writes about the clear and obvious link between the murderer and his Muslim faith.  But the neutral reporter — the one who has been taught that he cannot imply in any way that one culture or one religion is better or worse than any other — will not only not write the objective truth, but he will seek to invent a narrative that proves the murderer has been victimized.

Just as the sports reporter could not write that the Jets are a better team and therefore had to turn the good into the bad (the cheater), the neutral news reporter had no choice (i.e. would not be a “good reporter”) unless he ignored the truth, which, in turn, left him no choice but invent a storyline where the mass murderer was the victim and his victims the bad guys.

“Neutrality” is just another form of the indiscriminateness that I write about and another example of how indiscriminateness of thought does not lead to indiscriminatess of policy but rather invariably and inevitably sees the Modern Liberal side with evil over good, wrong over right, and failure over success.