On the one hand, I could really use twenty million dollars. (Heck, I could use twenty thousand.) I certainly need it more than that ridiculous caliph-wannabe in Ankara.
On the other hand, I really disapprove of assaulting IDF soldiers, which is apparently the way to make 20 mil these days. What is a boy to do?
I am put in mind of this, of course, by the bereaved families protesting down the block for the remains of their sons, God strengthen their hands.
But it also occurs to me that this ridiculous amount (not ridiculous for government, of course- you know, "A billion here, a billion there...") is basically yet another sop to ridiculous Muslim ideas of honor. I'm reminded of the time when our great friend King Hussein signed a peace deal with Israel. Wouldn't you know that he managed to find two small scraps of land supposedly belonging to his fake country (which of course is legally all part of Israel) which had been captured in 1948 and which he demanded back (and of course got), just so no one could say that he had signed a deal and gotten "nothing"? (He got plenty else as well, of course, but to the primitive mind land is the main if not only thing that counts.)
True peace will come when non-Muslims have the gumption to tell Muslims to get over their "honor." I imagine it'll really be here when Israel gets those scraps of land (and others) back. It would be symbolic at least.
----------------------------
From last Friday:
On June 5, 1975, the United Kingdom voted in a referendum to join the then-European Communities.
A few months later, a hotel owner in Torquay, in Devon, confessed the following to a group of Germans visiting his establishment: "Didn't vote for it myself quite honestly, but now that we're in, I'm determined to make it work." Devon had approved by a margin of over 72%, so he was in a small minority.
Yesterday, Torbay, which includes Torquay, voted to pull out of the EU with over 73% of the vote. To be fair, South Harris, right next door and also part of Devon, voted even more overwhelmingly to stay, but it looks like Basil Fawlty, at least, gave up on trying to make it work, voted the same way he had over forty years earlier, and maybe even convinced some of his neighbors. I imagine he had no luck (if he needed it) with his wife or staff, but he's probably insufferably happy today. I'll raise a glass of sherry to him.
