THE DIOGENES REPORT
The Wit, Wisdom & Wituperation of Emanuel L. Strunin
“a few steps ahead of the curve”
March 2007, VOL. VII, #4
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(Items marked with an * were written by Diogenes.)

I SHOULD STOP PILLORYING ISRAEL’S LEADERS
(ALTHOUGH THEY DESERVE IT)*

As I read the remarks at the recent Herzliya Conference about the performance of Israel’s military and political leadership during the run-up to the war in Lebanon and during the war itself, I was overwhelmed with the mixed emotions of laughing and crying. Their performances were not as clever as the Marx Brothers although a smidgen funnier than the Ritz Brothers. Unfortunately, when I viewed their performances in the context of Israel’s future, I had a pain in my heart and I was moved to tears.

Then, I realize that, for the most part, this is the way of man. Aggressive, self-serving scumbags propel themselves into positions of power. But in “democracies” such as the United States and Israel, the aggressive, self-serving scumbags are helped in their drive by the voters. In the United States, it doesn’t much matter. As a nation, we are to powerful to be brought down by this kind of leadership, at least in the short run.

Abraham Lincoln said this very aptly in his first inaugural address: “While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the space of four years.” 

Hanging by a thread

Israel, however, is in a different position. It is very, very far from having the power of the United States. As a matter of reality, its future hangs by the proverbial thread. And yet, its citizens continue to elect administrations of wickedness and folly time after time. So it’s way past time to ask where is the “virtue and vigilance” of the citizens of Israel, the electorate?

One excuse is that despite all the talk about “democracy,” the Israeli electoral system is in practice very undemocratic. The voters do not vote for individuals but for parties. The members of the Knesset do not represent individual geographical districts and, in essence, are not beholden to individual voters. The prime minister and his cabinet officers are equally removed from the voters. So it’s essential for the voters to become active within the parties to shape their platforms and select leaders that reflect the desires of the voters. That is, if such leaders can be found in the Jewish state.


Nostalgic for the Kremlin

It is also very unfortunate that too many of Israel’s citizens still have their hearts in the old Kremlin. That’s not the Kremlin based on its actions but the Kremlin based on the “humanitarian” outlook and actions it demanded of others. The Jews early on jumped on that philosophy and while most everyone else in the world jumped off, the Jews are still trying to ride that dead horse. That’s a big curse that is dragging Israel down. 

Another unfortunate aspect of Israeli politics involves the “holier-than -thou” communities. The rabbis who lead these communities have become politicians, in the worst sense of the term. Ethics, morality and welfare of the nation are unknown commandments to these politician/rabbis when they interfere with their drive for power and money. They are willing to support any government, no matter how corrupt or detrimental to a strong Israel, if they get to keep their political prerogatives and get money for their yeshivas. They never seem to consider that without a country there will be no place for their yeshivas.

To help change the political outlook, it is incumbent on the “holier-than-thou” voters to recognize that their rabbinical leaders are not their best political leaders—and do something about it. Most of the politician rabbis do not reflect the strong national feelings of most of their followers. The followers can work within parties with a strong national platform, or at least vote for those parties. Let their rabbinical leaders stick to religion and not stick it to their followers.

Change the system

Something is very obviously wrong with a political system where the politicians change their politics and parties more often than they change their underwear. Opportunities are developing to effect changes in the system, and it is time for the people who are unhappy with rockets raining down on them, with Jewish communities being uprooted, with money and weapons being turned over to the people that want to destroy Israel, with corruption in just about every place, with police brutality, with so many people living below the poverty line, with incompetence in the military, and with the many other sins of commission and omission, took make their voices heard and their presence felt.



WINNING NUMBERS

Jacob is one of the lucky ones because he's the only one of his family to have survived two years in a concentration camp. He's now nearing 90 and his only remaining joy is the national lottery, which he's been playing for years without success. But then he wins the big one, a prize of $10 million. A journalist from the Times calls on him for a story. 

Jacob tells him, "As I'm the only one in my family to have survived the concentration camps, this has helped me decide how to make use of my large win. So, I've decided to donate $5 million to the Save the Children Fund, $3 million to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, $750,000 to the Jewish Museum, $750,000 Hadassah Hospital and $500,000 to be shared amongst my friends. I'm also thinking of donating $1 from my pocket to the Nazi party." 

The journalist is surprised. "But Jacob, how can you think of donating even $1 to the Nazi party after everything that’s happened to you and your family?" 

Jacob rolls up his sleeve, points to his arm, smiles and replies, "It's only fair. They gave me the winning numbers."



MAN OF THE HOUSE 

The husband had just finished reading a new book entitled, 
"You Can Be THE MAN of Your House."

He stormed to his wife in the kitchen and announced, "From now on, you need to know that I am the man of this house and my word is Law. You will prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I'm finished eating my meal, you will serve me a sumptuous dessert. 
After dinner, you are going to go upstairs with me and we will have the kind of sex that I want. 
Afterwards, you are going to draw me a bath so I can relax. You will wash my back and towel me dry and bring me my robe. Then, you will massage my feet and hands. 
Then tomorrow, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair?" 

The wife replied, "The fuckin' funeral director would be my first guess."



HEADLINES AND COMMENTS*
Headlines from the world’s press. Comments by Diogenes

Olmert, Abbas To Meet Every Other Week
That’s not fair! It will not give Ehud enough time to completely wreck the IDF and work on his real estate and bank deals.

Baker Group Advisors ‘Surprised,’ ‘Upset’ At Report’s Israel-Iraq Link
1. Could we expect any less from a group headed by Jim “fuck the Jews” Baker?
2. But, on the other hand, why should we be surprised at this connection when it is commonly known that it is in Israel’s power to end all of the world’s problems. Some examples of this power follow:

When Israel gives in to Arab demands, China will let Taiwan to become an independent country

When Israel gives in to Arab demands, Mexico will stop its people from sneaking into the U.S.

When Israel gives in to Arab demands, Bobby Brown will stop using drugs. 

al-Sadr: Baghdad Security Plan Is Doomed
Is this a non-binding or a binding opinion?

JetBlue’s C.E.O. Is “Mortified” After Fliers Are Stranded
I think the fliers would rather see him “crucified.”

In Iowa The Living Room Has Fallen Out of Favor
But the bedroom and the barn are still hot.

No Progress In Middle East Talks
That’s progress. Anything, is progress as long as they don’t agree to dismember Israel.

South Of Thailand Is Rocked By 28 Bombs
The followers of the religion of peace certainly do get around.

Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen To Regain Power
When will the U.S. jettison its “war lord” approach to tribal and religion dynamics?

2 Car Bombs Explode In Busy Baghdad Market, Killing At Least 60 People
As he was being carried away on a stretcher, one of the wounded was heard to yell, “this is not a civil war, it’s merely sectarian violence.”

Iraqi Sunni Lands Show New Oil And Gas Promise
I know they get the gas from eating too much hummus, but when were they able to drill for oil given the level of sectarian violence?

Anti-Terror Operations In Shechem Ending
Thank God, the IDF got rid of all the terrorists.

Neo Nazis Attack Berlin Chabad Kindergarten
“Chabad rabbi shocked.” Why? Doesn’t he know that Berlin is not 770 Eastern Parkway?

Service Members Sign Appeal Calling For Troop Withdrawal
They’ve got the answer to: “Do you want to protect our troops?”

Diocese Files For Bankruptcy
Moral or ethical?

Car bombs, Attacks Kill 18 In Baghdad
How soon before Detroit produces no-frill cars for car bombers?

Russia Likely To Block U.S. Resolution On Iran Arms Embargo 
The Tsar And Stalin wanted to take over Persia—and Putin is in the process.

Russia Moves In Support Of Syria, Iran, Hamas-Led PA
In return the U.S. and Israel should recognize an independent Chechnya government. 

Intelligence Chief: Hizbullah Stronger Than Before The War
1. Israel weaker than before the war.
2. It’s time to turn southern Lebanon and the Lebanese-Syrian border into free fire zones. If this isn’t carried out now, the time has arrived to turn the offices of Israel’s cabinet members and the prime minister into free fire zones!

Saudi Arabia: 7 Return From Guantánamo
Did they get a Bush family parole or a Jim Baker parole?

Splits Emerge Between U.S. And Europe Over Aid For Palestinians
Those Europeans Always Trusted the word of Herr Hitler.

A 9/11 Conspiracy? ‘I Would Not Be Surprised,’ Tikkun Editor Says
I’ll bet he also would not be surprised if Israel warned 4,000 Jews not to show up for work that day.

Experts Questioning Boycott Of Hamas 
Times haven’t changed. In the 1930s, American Jewish leaders said that we shouldn’t boycott Nazi Germany.

Olmert Promises Foreign Press Withdrawal Is A “Process”
Does he mean withdrawal from Israel?

France Will Help Hamas/Fatah Government
Vichy strikes again!

Fatah-Hamas Violence Leaves Five Dead
When will the IDF stop using rubber bullets? They can’t depend on the Arabs forever

Israeli Official: Syria, Hizbullah Will Attack If Iran Is Hit
The Israelis are fortunate that their government has the Maginot Line defense in place.

Two Muslim Ministers In The Netherlands 
Since when do towelheads and tulips go together?

Smith To Be Buried Near Son In Bahamas
1. At last they’re together.
How nice. Anna Nicole and her son?
No, her legs.
2. Some Egyptian priests also want her body. 

Heinz Berggruen, Influential Picasso Collector, Dies At 93 
This German-born Jewish art collector made a “powerful gesture of reconciliation” by moving his collection to Berlin. I trust that his heirs will be able to retrieve the paintings after the Germans requisition them next time.

4 French Sightseers Killed Near Saudi Holy City
1. What is this world coming to, they weren’t even Shias? 
2. Did the tourists inform the murderers that they were on their side?

Noted Arab Citizens Call On Israel To Shed Jewish Identity
The “notables” were led by the Directors of the Arab-Israeli Suicide Bombers Coalition.

Police And Protesters Clash In St. Petersburg
And it’s not even Spring Break.

Uneasy Copenhagen Braces For More Violent Protesting
I’d like to read Hans Christian Anderson’s report on the events.

Obama Had Slaveowning Kin
That was on his white side. Suppose his kin on the black side sold tribesmen they had captured to the slave ship captains, would that equalize the equation?

Led Astray By A Dead Sea Latrine
Everyone thought it was a free Essene toilet but it turned out to be an Arab pay toilet.

Layoffs Follow Scandal At Colorado Megachurch
I just hope they don’t lay off any of the male prostitutes.

Baghdad Car Bomb Kill 20 On Booksellers Row 
The Muslim answer to literacy volunteers.

PA Textbooks Incite Hatred, US Funds Terror-Center Schools
1. Obviously this supports the calls for negotiations by Israeli and American Jewish premature universalists.
2. Is America funding this way of fighting terror?

BBC Partial Information On Poll: Israel Deemed Very Negative
The participants must be listening to the BBC.

Books On Atheism Are Raising Hackles In Unlikely Places
1. 5 Hollywood actors active in the Kabala Center plan to sue the publishers.
2. 7 mullahs, 11 imams and 3 ayatollahs are sending their suicide bombers to the publishers’ offices.
3. One well-known Christian fundamentalist preacher has sworn off gay sex for a month.

No Peace At The Carter Center
A lot of the Jews on his board are jumping ship after Jimmy’s latest Israel-bashing book.
My question: why did they get on board in the first place when Jimmy always was an Israel-hater? 
.
Bush Tries To Soothe Ties With Mexico
Does this mean that if ties aren’t smooth, they’ll stop exporting Mexicans to the U.S.?

Iranian President: Sanctions Won't Work
Maybe a small nuclear explosion at each bomb-building site might work.

Polygamy, Practiced In Secrecy, Follows Africans To New York 
Would I be PI (Politically Incorrect) by noting that we may have representatives of two polygamy religions (the Mormons and the Muslims) vying for president of these United States?

German Judge Cites Koran, Stirring Up Cultural Storm
The judge said it’s OK to beat your wife if you came from a Muslim country. She didn’t have to look further than her own culture to see that it was not only OK to beat your wife, as well as other people’s wives. As a matter of record, it was not even frowned upon to murder other people’s wives…and children. 



QUOTES I LIKE
Diogenes considers them clever and/or informative,
Not that he necessarily agrees with them. Not even with his own.

December 7, 1941: The Japanese attack on the American Navy
December 7, 2006: The Rove-Bush attack on the American justice system.
- Diogenes

Risks always pay off. You learn what to do or what not to do.
- Jonas Salk.

A tale of two Monicas: Monica I wouldn’t keep her mouth shut. Monica II won’t open her mouth.
- Diogenes

If there’s a civil war going on in Iraq—as I believe there is—America should stop acting as a referee and stop acting as the third man in the ring. We should smash all sides to a pulp so that the only way to tell Shia, Sunni and al Qaeda apart is by their DNA. 
- Diogenes

Better advice to Muslims: He did not think…that it was necessary to make a hell of this world to enjoy paradise in the next.
- William Beckford (with an assist from Diogenes)

Israel’s version of “Can You Top This?”: Which public official can outdo his or her peers by sinking to the lowest level of ethical or moral misbehavior? In the running, at the last evaluation, are the President, the Prime Minister, the IDF Chief of Staff, cabinet members, Knesset members, the police, tax officials and members of the rabbinate.
- Diogenes

The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry.
- John Jensen

It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another—it is one damn thing over and over.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

I hate small towns because once you’ve seen the cannon in the park there’s nothing else to do.
- Lenny Bruce

Schizophrenia beats dining alone.
- Anonymous

Bad spellers of the world, untie!
- Graffito

A Sanhedrin should be assembled to decide how to spell Hannukah (?) and Rosh Hashanah (?) in English.
- Diogenes

If Hussein is elected President, will he take the oath of office on a Christian bible or a Quran?
- Diogenes

New humor product for Muslim countries: inflammable American and Israeli flags. The funny part comes when they can’t get them to burn during a demonstration. But I don’t know if Muslims have that much of a sense of humor.
- Diogenes

Immediately, Hezbollah pulled out its unconventional weapons. And the two biggest unconventional weapons in its arsenal are Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in New York
- Natan Sharansky

Jewish tourism: being driven from one country after another, after another.
- Diogenes

There are three things a person should do in one’s lifetime: Have a child, plant a tree and 
write a book.
- Jewish proverb

I’ve done the first two and I’m working on the third.
- Diogenes

I turned against the left wing because they don’t like genetics, because genetics implies that sometimes in life we fail because we have bad genes. They want all failure in life to be due to the evil system.
- James Watson

The international language of science: heavily accented English.
- Lipman Bers

Israel: a banana republic with a bunch of smart scientists.
- Diogenes

If civilized countries follow the principles of "political correctness" and observing laws literally, they will again incur innumerable calamities, like those from Hitler and Stalin. The wild fanatics killing absolutely innocent people, women and children, cannot be stopped and rendered harmless without soiling one's hands.
- Vitaly Lazerevich Ginzburg

People don’t like Jews. It’s legitimate to dislike people. But anti-Semitism is liking Jews even less than is permissible in sane discourse. 
- Martin Gilbert

German military command when fighting the French: don’t shoot ‘til you see the whites of their flags.
- Diogenes

To show that the Arabs are willing to be conciliatory, King Abdullah of Jordan changed his name to King Havdalah.
- Diogenes

I hate victims who respect their executioners. 
- Jean-Paul Sartre

History is littered with the wars which everybody knew would never happen.
- Enoch Powell

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.
- C. Northcote Parkinson

Jazz: What a terrible revenge by the culture of the Negroes on that of the whites.
- Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Visit my new blog, DIOGENES # XXI at http://diogenesxxi.blogspot.com/


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