By Debbie Schlussel
As I always say, it’s really incorrect to call Islam’s non-stop attacks on us a “clash of civilizations.” That would assume that both are civilizations and both are civilized. An entirely incorrect assumption that makes an ass out of . . . well, you get the point.
And to make this point to the dummies who still don’t get it HAMAS, this weekend, celebrated its 21st anniversary of continuous innovation in explosion and murder technology.
To show us just how “civilized” they are, they did a little skit to 300,000 screaming HAMASniks a/k/a barbarians:

Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers marshaled hundreds of thousands of supporters to a huge anniversary rally Sunday, a show of muscle featuring a skit of a mock-captive Israeli soldier begging for his freedom.

Palestinian Barbarians Celebrate Their Anniversary . . .

Sexy: Islamic Supermodels Wear Perfect Flaw-Concealing Accessories at HAMAS Anniversary Rally . . .

That soldier they were mocking is their multi-year hostage, Gilad Shalit. Yup, this is Islamic “civilization,” folks. Surprised they didn’t re-enact the Nick Berg video. That’s the level of entertainment for these animals.
In other HAMAS news, HAMAS announced they’re not going to renew their six-month “truce” with Israel. After daily HAAMAS attacks on Israelis for the last six-months, that’s your typical “truce” with Muslims. There is no such thing. Who needs their “truces”? The day after 9/11 was another example of their “truces.” There is no peace with them, just brief re-loading periods.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank urged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to lessen constraints on the terror-funding Palestinian banking system and stop blocking cash shipments to Gaza, claiming it undermines “the viability of the Palestinian banking sector” and “diverts resources . . . toward unregulated informal channels.”
Yup, let’s make terror-funding easier for barbarians. That’s the ticket.
Exit Question: What do you give Muslims on their 21st anniversary? I say, a special blend of pig-blood.

by Debbie Schlussel
Thomas Tamm, a former Bush Justice Department lawyer, says he’s the one who leaked to the New York Times and other news media, the existence of the Bush terrorist surveillance program. He’s outed himself as some sort of hero to Newsweek. But he’s no hero at all. Saboteur is the nicest appropriate word. The rest, other than traitor, are not printable here without expletive deleteds.

During his childhood, he played under the desk of J. Edgar Hoover.

Hmmm . . . now I know why he leaked the info: Exposure to dresses on men wounds you mentally for life.

The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its story. The two reporters who worked on it each published books. Congress, after extensive debate, last summer passed a major new law to govern the way such surveillance is conducted. But Tamm–who was not the Times’s only source, but played the key role in tipping off the paper–has not fared so well. The FBI has pursued him relentlessly for the past two and a half years. Agents have raided his house, hauled away personal possessions and grilled his wife, a teenage daughter and a grown son. More recently, they’ve been questioning Tamm’s friends and associates about nearly every aspect of his life. Tamm has resisted pressure to plead to a felony for divulging classified information. But he is living under a pall, never sure if or when federal agents might arrest him.
Exhausted by the uncertainty clouding his life, Tamm now is telling his story publicly for the first time.”

So, we’re supposed to feel sorry for this guy who sold out America to Islamic terrorists because the people who helped him do so won a prize, but he’s been harassed? Tell it to the 3,000 graves from 9/11, dude. Tell their families how tough life is.

Tamm concedes he was also motivated in part by his anger at other Bush-administration policies at the Justice Department, including its aggressive pursuit of death-penalty cases and the legal justifications for “enhanced” interrogation techniques that many believe are tantamount to torture.

Ah, now we get to the point of this not-heroic-at-all coward. He has an agenda. He didn’t like U.S. policy. Well, maybe, then, he should have joined the ACLU, not the Justice Department, which also bends over for these terrorists.

He had never been “read into,” or briefed, on the details of the program. All he knew was that a domestic surveillance program existed, and it “didn’t smell right.”

You know what doesn’t smell right? The stench of traitors who jeopardize American lives and boost the chances of success for terrorists. That’s what really smells. He emboldened those who are bent on our destruction–whatta guy. The whole Muslim world is laughing at him. They love, but never appreciate, useful idiots like him. He won’t be getting any awards for bravery from them.

Tamm is haunted by the consequences of what he did‚Äîand what could yet happen to him. He is no longer employed at Justice and has been struggling to make a living practicing law. He does occasional work for a local public defender’s office, handles a few wills and estates–and is more than $30,000 in debt. (To cover legal costs, he recently set up a defense fund.) He says he has suffered from depression. He also realizes he made what he calls “stupid” mistakes along the way, including sending out a seemingly innocuous but fateful e-mail from his Justice Department computer that may have first put the FBI on his scent. Soft-spoken and self-effacing, Tamm has an impish smile and a wry sense of humor. “I guess I’m not a very good criminal,” he jokes.

So sad, too frickin’ bad. A lot of attorneys–like me–are having a tough time in this economy. And some of us didn’t jeopardize America’s national security like he did.
At the very least, he violated the attorney-client privilege and should be grieved for in whichever state or states he’s licensed to practice law. (The client was us–the U.S. government.) But he should also be prosecuted. It’s a crime to leak information about espionage activities. Isn’t that what all the liberals were whining about over Valerie Plame?
So, when will Thomas Tamm get the Lewis “Scooter” Libby treatment? I guess we’re only in the business of prosecuting non-leakers (ie., Libby) not going after real, actual leakers who broke the law, like Tamm and Richard Armitage (the real leaker of Plame’s CIA status).

By Debbie Schlussel
As I’ve noted over the past decade, a few bright scientists–and a U.N. report–have admitted that you can’t stop so-called “greenhouse” gas emissions from “polluting” the environment because a good deal of the “toxic” fumes doesn’t come from manmade enterprises, but from the flatulence of cows and other livestock.
But, now, some “global warming” nuts in government–specifically, the EPA–have caught on. And guess what? I kid you not. Under Obama, they may tax cow farts, and farmers are justifiably worried. It’s not just hot air they’re expending on this possibility of Obama passing taxes on passing gas.

Is the Environmental Protection Agency preparing to slap a “cow tax” on bovines for their contribution to global warming?
[I]n recent weeks, farmers and livestock ranchers have flooded the EPA with letters warning of catastrophic consequences if such a tax was imposed.

“If President-elect [Barack] Obama tries to include farmers in some kind of livestock assessment based on greenhouse-gas emissions, I want my Iowans to know that I’m going to stand beside the producers and fight,” Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) said this week.
The idea of a so-called cow tax might seem far-fetched. But the uproar highlights a serious policy decision awaiting Mr. Obama’s administration: whether to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions — effectively branding as harmful pollutants carbon dioxide and other gases generated both by industry, as well as by the digestive processes of livestock.
Many environmental groups want the Clean Air Act used to control greenhouses gases. But business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are resisting. They argue such use of the Clean Air Act would lead to a cascade of unintended regulatory consequences, with regulations covering schools, hospitals, breweries, bakeries and farms.
At the core of the battle is a Supreme Court ruling last year that the 1970 Clean Air Act authorizes the agency to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions if it concludes they endanger public health or welfare. In response, the EPA published a 570-page notice in July that drew no conclusion on that question, but instead solicited comment on options for controlling emissions of heat-trapping gases.
The EPA document only briefly suggested that livestock could be subject to regulation. But the document went too far for the Bush administration, which — in an unusual step — published comments from four federal agencies slamming the EPA’s work. The Agriculture Department said regulating emissions from agriculture could subject “numerous farming operations” — including “dairy facilities with over 25 cows” — to the “costly and time-consuming process” of getting permits to operate. The American Farm Bureau Federation alerted its members that the EPA was on course to saddle them with “costly and burdensome permits,” costing as much as $175 per cow per year for dairy cattle, enough “to force many producers to go out of business.”

Just what we need in this already sputtering economy. Don’t they get that America can’t afford to go green? Apparently not.

But the idea that Mr. Obama’s administration might try to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions isn’t far-fetched. Environmental groups such as [lawyer David] Bookbinder’s group [The Sierra Club] are pressing him to do so, on the grounds that the U.S. cannot credibly participate in climate talks with other nations aimed at forcing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change until it passes climate legislation or begins regulating such emissions.
Talks aimed at forging such an agreement are scheduled to begin in December 2009 in Copenhagen, and it isn’t clear Congress will be able to pass climate legislation by then. Mr. Obama’s administration could move to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions without waiting for comprehensive legislation. Many Democrats expect one of the new administration’s first acts will be granting California’s request for a waiver from the law, so it can regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles — an authority it was denied under the Bush administration.
A spokesman for Mr. Obama’s transition team said the president-elect “believes a comprehensive federal approach” to regulating greenhouse-gas emissions is “far preferable” to using the Clean Air Act to regulating, but that he “intends to follow the law.”

You know what “comprehensive” means. It’s the same code word used for amnesty for illegal aliens as a “solution” to the illegal alien invasion. It’s also now apparently the code word for regulating cow farts.
Is this a sign that the apocalypse may be upon us? Hard to tell. That may come when they start taxing human, um, “emissions,” and we can no longer eat Mexican food. No more twice-baked potatoes (or even those once-baked).
From The People’s Cube . . .

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s a good thing they were just shoes, and that President Bush has great reflexes and dodging abilities. Not so much so for White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, who has a black eye. Again, lucky it was just a pair of shoes.
Then, there’s the PPD–the Presidential Protective Detail–of the U.S. Secret Service. Whoever headed this shift needs to be reassigned to checking fake currency in South Dakota. Not only did the guy succeed in throwing one shoe at the Prez, but had time to “reload” and throw the second one, too. And his aim was perfect and unfettered each time (great passer–get him a tryout with the new NFL Franchise that will replace the Lions, the Dearborn Jihadists). That’s the problem with the Secret Service. Their protectee gets shot, they get assigned to the next protectee.

I studied and wrote a thesis paper on the Secret Service in college, and read everything ever written by any agent (including “Confessions of an Ex-Secret Service Agent,” about aloof Special Agent Marty Venker, who’d guard the Prez, then hit the club scene and hang with Madonna at night in the early ’80s). My conclusion: They need to run the agency like a meritocracy, not just another government bureaucracy. Given the shoe incident, my recommendations stand.

By Debbie Schlussel
Not much worthy at the box office, this weekend. The best stuff–I’ve seen most of the new releases–comes out on Christmas Day. For this weekend, at least, the best movie is a remake far inferior to the original classic. (Will add my review of “Beauty in Trouble,” soon.)
* “The Day the Earth Stood Still“: There’s not really much objectionable about this remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic about a spaceship that lands on earth, with an alien, Klaatu, who warns of our imminent doom. It’s just that–like most remakes of classics–the rehash isn’t nearly as good. It’s yet another on-screen version of “If It Ain’t Broke . . . Don’t Remake It.”

Then, there’s the tad of leftist green envirocrap inserted in. In the original, an alien comes to earth to tell them the earth will be destroyed unless nations get together and make peace. It was allegedly a reference to the nuclear arms buildup and the Cold War. In this version, Keanu Reeves says that we earthlings are destroying the planet. He never says how, but apparently he means we are wrecking it environmentally. It’s not very in your face, so I wasn’t too offended.
This version was longer than the original, and seemed much, much longer. It was slow and boring. It missed the charm and class of the original. It did have better special effects, but we expect that when it’s a 2008 flick versus one from the early ’50s. The only other difference seems to be what I call the Obama movie factor–everybody’s in interracial families and relationships in so many movies, lately. In this version of “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” the single White mother (Jennifer Connelly) has a Black kid (Jaden Smith–Will’s annoying, whiny son), whose father died in Iraq.
Like I said, the movie wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t great. You can definitely take your kids to it. But best to rent the original.
TWO REAGANS

* “Frost/Nixon“: Hmmm . . . When are they gonna make “Frost/Clinton” or “Walters/Lewinsky,” or “Barack Hussein/Jeremiah/Khalid/William and Bernadine”? Don’t hold your breath. Never before have I wasted two hours watching the description of how someone prepared for a TV interview trying to “get” someone.
This movie is about journalist David Frost doing the first, in-depth TV interview with former President Richard Nixon, post-Watergate/Nixon resignation. Nixon is played by Frank Langella. And while he looks the part, David Frost looks like Tony Blair (no surprise, since the actor who plays him played Blair in “The Queen”).
Frost and left-wing journalists Bob Zelnick and James Reston are shown trying to get the Nixon interview, trying to pay for it, and most importantly, trying to “get” him. Gotcha journalism is loved by liberal movie critics everywhere, who are raving over this okay, but not very interesting movie.
The best parts of this movie are when–for about 2/3 of the way–Nixon outsmarts his lesser interviewer. That was entertaining. I found myself quietly rooting him on against these arrogant, unduly indignant lefties who really weren’t interested in real journalism, so much as they were solidifying the left’s takeover of Congress and other institutions. Also well done is Kevin Bacon, playing his Vietnam War Vet chief of staff and trusted adviser and protector. I probably should have nominated him for Best Supporting Actor for the Detroit Film Critics Society.
But mostly, this film was just a sneering exaggeration of the real Nixon. And, admittedly, some of it is made up. Shocker.
Do you really need to waste your time and ten bucks seeing an interview you didn’t really watch or care about in the 1970s? Do we really need to relive and relive a tiny blip in repeated leftist media victories that weren’t so victorious for America’s long-term survival?
In history, this interview doesn’t really have a place. It’s really an irrelevant figment of pop culture, not history–no matter how much director Ron “Opie”/”Richie” Howard wants to make it so. It’s been long forgotten, and President Nixon’s reputation was rehabbed, anyway, despite the effort to embarrass him further on national television via this interview. Nixon went on to become a trusted foreign policy consultant to every President until his death. He was sought out for interviews on his views in that area. David Frost, on the other hand, went on to a lackluster perch at the Terrorist News Network a/k/a Al-Jazeera. But they don’t tell you that in the movie. Gee, I wonder why.
Yes, this interview wasn’t history. This movie is just a desperate attempt to make it so. And despite that, Nixon will be remembered as a good and decent man. And David Frost? Remind me again who he is.
TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES


* “Nothing Like the Holidays“: If I were Hispanic, I’d sue the makers of this film for defamation. It’s a dumb American-Hispanic-Family-Gets-Together-for-Christmas movie, full of stupid, dopey jokes you’d see on a bad sitcom and stereotypes, not just of Hispanics but Jews. And it was just a slow, boring waste of time I’d expect to see as a TV movie. Not sure it’s even worthy of Telemundo or Univision. It’s the usual plot: everyone is fighting, then there’s a happy ending. Like an episode of “The Love Boat” or “Hotel” revisited. No thanks.
The Puerto Ricano family consists of the usual suspects you see in Hispanic movies: cheating, unfaithful father . . . check, boisterous interfering mother who likes to cook and complain . . . check (well, this one is in every ethnic movie, to be fair), Iraq veteran “war hero” who is really not a hero and is in the Army because he has no other place to go . . . check; pretentious, vixenish actress wannabe . . . check; successful professional son who out of the ethnicity to a stuck up Jewish woman . . . check, check, check.
The movie was annoying and had way too much screaming and melodrama piled on top of the dumb jokes and stereotypes. Extremely substandard. The only thing that stuck out in this movie was actress Debra Messing’s nose. Time to get the bad nose-job redone . . . check, check, check.
TWO MARXES

By Debbie Schlussel
SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE
I don’t get it. It’s “Son of Dubai Ports,” only waaaay worse.
Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates helped the 9/11 hijackers, and their money laundering-friendly laws make it the bank location of choice for all Islamic terrorists. They also refused to stop recognizing the Taliban until December of 2001. After 9/11, they funded authors and speakers who claimed that 9/11 was the work of the CIA, the Israelis, and the Jews, and that the Holocaust never happened. They continue to ship nuclear supplies to Iran.
And we were finally smart enough to stop them from running 22 of our ports.
So now, we’re trusting them with nuclear technology? File this under things that make you go, “HUH?! HUH?! HUH?!”:

Dubai: First They Want Our Ports, Now They’ll Get Our Nukes

The Bush administration plans to sign its first nuclear-cooperation agreement with a Middle Eastern nation within the next few weeks, according to a senior U.S. official, raising concerns among congressional critics who say the deal could fuel nuclear proliferation in the region.
The proposed deal with the United Arab Emirates has attracted attention because the U.A.E.’s largest trading partner is Iran. The U.A.E. has served in the past as a transshipment point for technology with military applications headed to Iran.
The move could place President-elect Barack Obama in a political tight spot with a Middle East ally by forcing him to decide whether to push Congress to ratify the agreement. He hasn’t taken an official position on the deal. An Obama spokesman declined to comment. The Bush administration has championed the nuclear agreement with the U.A.E. as a model for promoting peaceful nuclear energy while guarding against weapons proliferation.

Translation: Lame duck President Bush is preparing the grease for the skids as he seeks speaking engagement funded by rich UAE sheikhs. America’s national security be damned.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation this week that would set conditions before Congress could approve the agreement. It would require that the next president certify the U.A.E. has taken extensive measures to cut off the flow of financing and sensitive technologies into Iran.

Nice try. But you can’t certify anything, except that our government is certifiable–certifiably insane for even considering, much less pushing this wholesale sell-out of American national security and any hope for stability in the Middle East.

The U.A.E. says its nuclear-power program will have extensive safeguards to protect against nuclear materials being diverted.

Uh-huh. Just like Pakistan and A.Q. Khan’s, um, “safeguards”?

It has agreed to allow monitoring and snap inspections by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.

Remember when Iran and Iraq once agreed to allow monitoring and snap inspections?

In recent months, the U.A.E. signed agreements with two American engineering companies — Thorium Power Ltd. of Virginia and CH2M Hill of Colorado — to oversee the development of its nuclear-power program. The U.A.E. has also hired a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, William Travers, to help run the U.A.E.’s nuclear regulatory body.

Lenin continues to be right about American capitalists selling their enemies the rope on which America will hang.

The Bush administration also is working on nuclear-cooperation agreements with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain. The pacts require Washington to share nuclear fuels, technologies and know-how on the condition that the countries commit to abiding by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and IAEA safeguards.

Oh, joy. Let me guess: George W. has some future lucrative speaking engagement prospects in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Bahrain. And America has some future lucrative prospects of selling all of its own national security and nuclear secrets down the river, thanks to him.

The Bush administration initially hoped to sign the nuclear accord with the U.A.E. last month, when Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, met President George W. Bush at Camp David, according to people familiar with the visit.

Al-Nahyan is the guy whose father funded the anti-American, anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial speakers who got the ball rolling on 9/11 Trutherism.

The nuclear trafficking network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan used Dubai in the U.A.E. as one of its major bases, according to investigations of the Khan network. U.S. officials, however, say the U.A.E. has taken major steps to better manage its export controls and guard against money laundering.

Yeah, so we should suddenly trust them with our nuclear technology. Right?
UPDATE: My friend, Ruth King, sends this important article, which she aptly describes as “Must Reading for Useful Idiots Who Think that Dubai Is a ‘Fun’ Place.” An excerpt:

The Mumbai attack offers a case in point. The Gulf remains a major source of funding for al-Qaida and its affiliates, with millions of dollars being sent from the region to terrorist groups. Recipients of this largesse originating in the Gulf include the Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – a UN designated terrorist group now suspected of perpetrating the recent attack in India. . . .
[A]ccording to media reports, an LeT operative arrested in India earlier this year with sketches of some of the targets in the recent attacks, was recruited in the United Arab Emirates. . . .
Beyond the terrorism portfolio, the need to secure the full-fledged assistance of our Gulf allies is most pronounced when it comes to Iran. Efforts to put financial pressure on Iran in an effort to persuade the regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions will not succeed without cooperation from the other Gulf countries.
Despite taking some steps recently to crack down on Iran, the UAE remains the main re-export capital for Iran. Thousands of Iranian businesses are located there and engage in this type of trade. As the business environment in Iran deteriorates, many Iranian businesses have relocated to Dubai, in an effort to circumvent the existing sanctions.
By doing so, Iranian companies have been able to improve their ties to European companies, for example, which are now reluctant to do business in Iran itself. In total, Iran imported approximately $10bn worth of goods from Dubai in 2006. In fact, Sheikha Lubna al Qasimi, the UAE’s minister of economy and planning, explained that there was a limit to what action her government would take on this front: “At the end of the day, Iran is still a neighbour.”
The UAE, like other Gulf countries, is trying to perform a high-wire balancing act when it comes to Iran. On the one hand, the Gulf countries don’t like Iran, fear the prospect of it developing nuclear weapons and would prefer not to anger the US. On the other hand, they would like to avoid antagonising Tehran – the emerging regional power – and they enjoy the benefits of strong commercial ties to Iran. Qatar’s ongoing discussions with Iran and Russia on establishing a gas cartel are indicative of the uphill struggle the US will face in persuading the Gulf countries to financially isolate Iran.

Yup, sounds like just the place with whom we should be sharing our nuclear technology. Yeah, that’s the ticket . . . to hell.

By Debbie Schlussel
Just one word for this: Oy. Tells me that Anna Kournikova is attracted to him for something other than serenades, ie., a thick wallet. Proof that a father’s singing gene isn’t necessarily passed on to his son. Thanks to reader Ari for the tip.

By Debbie Schlussel
Today, I mourn the death of a righteous man, my cousin, Rabbi Charles Rosenzveig. Our family called him by his Hebrew name, Yechiel.
Related to me through my father’s side of the family, Rabbi Rosenzweig founded the first Holocaust museum in the U.S. and was a renowned throughout the world as a Holocaust scholar. He thought it was so important that the world would never forget, and was the founder and Executive Director of the Holocaust Memorial Center of Farmington Hills, Michigan, which he founded in 1980.

Rabbi Charles “Yechiel” Rosenzveig, Z”L
A Polish immigrant and Holocaust survivor, he also served as rabbi to the small Jewish community of Port Huron, Michigan from 1951 to 1993. He held a rabbinical degree from Yeshiva University in New York and was a very learned man and tremendous Torah scholar. We regularly consulted him on Jewish religious issues. Both my dad and my brother enjoyed learning and engaging in Torah study with him, regularly, and my dad always sat next to him at Sabbath prayers at synagogue.
Although leftists love the Holocaust, my cousin, Rabbi Rosenzweig was a right-winger, who was proud of both remembering the Holocaust and noting what is going on in Israel today, with daily attacks on Jews by Islamic terrorists. He also recounted to me and my family about how, on regular trips to Germany, he felt the German adults and kids wanted to forget the Holocaust. Now they are suffering the results, with their country invaded by Muslims.
Unfortunately, there are many liberal donors who gave to the Holocaust Memorial Center. And once it moved from its original location to a giant museum, it became more of a universalized display, meaning some groups not under the control of my cousin or his Holocaust Memorial Center tried to use it to compare the Holocaust to every allegedly repressed group’s tragedy. But, as my cousin Rabbi Rosenzveig knew and stressed, the Holocaust was specific and unique to the Jews and their planned elimination by the Nazis. Unfortunately, in that vein, the Holocaust Memorial Museum became the setting for an event co-sponsored by the pro-Hezbollah/HAMAS ADC (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) and other similar groups, though I only know specifically of a single such occasion.
Rabbi Rosenzweig was a fine man, a good soul, and an important vessel of history, knowledge, and goodness we have now lost. He was a mensch, and he will certainly be missed. Fortunately, his legacy–the museum–lives on. It includes important recordings of survivors, like my late grandfather, Isaac, retelling their experiences as concentration camp inmates and witnesses to the Holocaust that now live on beyond their deaths.
Rabbi Rosenzweig is on his way to Israel for burial, but he was memorialized in stories in both major Detroit newspapers, today. Here are some excerpts from the Detroit Free Press:

Rabbi Charles Rosenzveig, a victim of the Nazis who channeled his personal tragedy into creating the first freestanding Holocaust memorial center in the United States, died Thursday . . . .
Because his personal documents were destroyed during the Holocaust, Rosenzveig didn’t know how old he was; estimates range from 80 to 88. . . .
The native of Ostrovitz, Poland, immigrated to the United States in 1947, after his parents, his brother, one of his two sisters and all of his aunts, uncles and cousins were killed by the Nazis.
He was ordained by Yeshiva University in New York four years later and was the rabbi of Congregation Mt. Sinai in Port Huron from 1951 to 1993.
But Rosenzveig’s true passion was creating a permanent Holocaust tribute to honor its victims and teach its lesson of tolerance to future generations.
That crystallized in 1984, when the Holocaust Memorial Center opened on the grounds of the West Bloomfield Jewish Community Center. Exactly two decades later, the center moved to its own campus in Farmington Hills.
“He was well-known — not just throughout the state of Michigan — as a scholar and as a leader in Holocaust memorial movement throughout the world,” his son Rabbi Ely Rosenzveig said Thursday.
He also taught at United Hebrew Schools and Midrasha College in Detroit and was project director of the 1996 tome, “The World Reacts to the Holocaust.” He was in the middle of writing a book on Jewish legal decision-making when he died.

Rabbi Charles Rosenzweig, Zichrono LiVrachah–“Blessed Be His Memory.” His absence brings tears to my eyes.

By Debbie Schlussel
If you’re like me, you’re sick and tired of hearing about this rotted corpse of a high school drop-out once known as Princess Diana. The only achievement of this woman was marrying up well. If you’re like me, you were tired of hearing about her death, about five minutes into the non-stop coverage of it in 1997.
But some people–primarily women who love this stuff–just won’t give it up. Get over it, already.
Given my views on this, you can imagine my laughter when I read this in my morning Detroit Free Press:

Jack and Robin Firestone, the only Americans who witnessed the fatal car crash of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed in the Paris tunnel, will be at Borders in Dearborn at 6 tonight for a promo appearance for their book “Chasing Diana.” The Firestones’ book is about their 11-year journey since the vacation that changed their lives.

Sick of This, Sick ‘o Them . . .

Everybody has to earn a living somehow, but dude, their accomplishment is . . . being the only Americans who saw a car crash in France 11 years ago? Hello . . .?
What’s even more amazing is that this questionable status is somehow enough to carry this couple for eleven years, to the point where they are still being brought by national book chains to major cities for a book tour.
What the heck do you say in a book when you saw like two seconds of something? This would be my book in that case:
Page One. Hello, the car crashed. She died. The end. Then, like 200 blank pages to follow, to make it look good on Ron Burgundy’s book shelf.
Do you really think this couple added anything beyond that? In case you were wondering, here’s the “insight” these people give unto our world:

“The first thing I noticed were lights bouncing off the tunnel walls as we entered and afterwards, I noticed these dark formal looking cars very conspicuously parked,” said Robin Firestone, author.
In their book, “Chasing Diana,” the Firestones talk about seeing the soon to be deceased princess in the back of the car, with a man who turned out to be Dodi Al Fayed, heir to the Harrods store empire.
“I said to my husband and my son, ‘Oh my God there’s a woman in the car, a blond haired woman in the car, and looks like she must be dead. My God, what are they doing,” said Robin.
The Firestones want their book to become part of the record, to fill in the gaps and to raise some very important questions.

Um, “gaps”? I’m more interested in filling in the gap between “Breakin'” and “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” Talk about raising some very important questions.

Jack and Robin talked about their experience during a book signing at the Power Plant Barnes & Noble. It’s a story whose latest chapter unfolds with the couple testifying before the royal courts of justice.
“We actually give a birds-eye view. You are there to feel to what it was like in that tunnel. And we hope, that as people read the story they’ll realize there’s a lot more to this story,” said Jack Firestone, author.

Um, actually there really isn’t much to the story. High school drop-out who married well, got divorced and slept around. Car crashed. She died. End of story.
Cannot believe the extent of this Diana-worship garbage and how it still goes on. Incredible.
She wasn’t that great alive. She died. Eleven Years Ago. Move on. Get a life.

By Debbie Schlussel
A federal source of mine with ties to Chicago says that FBI agents had enough to prosecute corrupt, helmet-haired Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich back in June, when he was already engaged in some of the blackmail and extortion alleged by the FBI affidavit and other documents associated with his arrest and prosecution.
The source says that the FBI was suddenly ordered by the U.S. Attorney’s Office–and I believe that order came from the top, ie., U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and Justice Department officials in Washington–to hold off on doing anything until after the election, so as not to hurt Obama’s White House bid. Here’s what my inside source says.

I know for a fact FBI Chicago had enough to indict Blagojevich in June. They were 2 weeks from indictment in June based on cooperation and testimony at the Stu Levine trial. Levine was Tony Rezko’s bud, fund raiser for Blago, and our President-Elect.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald: He Protected Them

I wonder what took them so long? My guess is when it started to look like a lock for Obama’s nomination by the Dems, someone at the U.S. Attorney’s Office put it all on hold, so as not to spoil “The Annointed One’s” shot.

Don’t forget how Fitzgerald treated Lewis “Scooter” Libby in going after him (the guy who wasn’t even the source of the leak, and the liberal source of the leak, Richard Armitage wasn’t even scratched). Compare that with this kid gloves treatment of Obamessiah.
Frankly, it’s obvious that Obama knew of the “sale” of the Senate seat. He acknowledged he knew of the “sale,” and “we turned it down.” And I believe he knew far more than he’s letting on.
But as an attorney and officer of the court, he had a duty to report it to authorities or be vulnerable to an attack on his law license with the Illinois State Bar, of which he’s a member.
And it appears, he did not report this to authorities. So, who will be the first to file a grievance against attorney Barack Obama with the appropriate Illinois authorities? Remember, there’s precedent for something like this. There was that certain Democrat President who lost his law license over lying under oath. ‘Memba him?
Have at it.