Best of the worst round-up

Having been on vacation for a while, I feel the need to clean out my list of browser tabs waiting to be fisked. So here is a short list:

- Shas MK gets his just deserts. It couldn't happen to a nicer or more self-righteous doofus. As I said, he has shown us the way to be a Torah-true jackass. Tell a friend. But don't worry, he's appealing!

- Chuck Norris has a bee in his bonnet about the 3 big Gs. Since I find the gun debate boring (shoot me), I'll stick to the last two:

I was also saddened this past week to read about the comic in the University of Virginia's pre-Holy Week, school-sanctioned student paper. The Cavalier Daily published a cartoon that pictured a naked man smoking a cigarette in bed with a woman in her underwear who asks, "Come on God, be honest – did you really get a vasectomy? I can't let Joseph find out about this." The man, who is now revealed as God, replies, "Well, Mary, you're f---ed."

How abhorring it is when the freedom of the press is abused to demean the biblical God and the most sacred couple in Christendom, especially right before Easter. If the cartoon depicted Allah or Muhammad, there undoubtedly would have been a national decry of bigotry. Yet it seems in vogue to disgrace Christianity, and so it was brushed under the rug of contempt and barely highlighted by any news agency.

Maybe the fact that it was "barely highlighted" by any national media is indicative of the fact that NO ONE CARES about wanky political cartoons in college newspapers. Also, I like the phrase, "biblical God." Because if it was the Qu'ranic God, you know you wouldn't care. Just admit it. Incidentally, the only reason Mary and Joe are the "most sacred couple" in Christianity is because you have NO OTHER COUPLES (well, at least not until you admit that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were more than "just friends").

One can only imagine how the university's eminent founder, Thomas Jefferson, might have regarded such a shameful posting.

Considering that Jefferson thought Jesus was "just a guy" and wrote his own edited Bible miracle-free, I can't imagine that he would have cared that much. He might even have found it funny.

Speak of God and prejudices in the news, I might as well throw in my two cents about Obama's relation to his pastor. My primary qualm is this: If Obama's patriotism doesn't prompt him to challenge his own pastor's extremist views for more than 20 years, how can we trust his judgment to confront extremists' views as president for the next four years? One's church and friends reflect one's values and beliefs. We simply can't trust that lack of judgment and inability to confront in the highest office of the land. Since the Revolutionary War and the Barbary Conflict, U.S. presidents have fought to counter anti-American sentiment. We need a president who can oppose unpatriotic radicals, not shrink back in the face of their adversity.

Good point, Chuck. Well, there goes McCain. I mean, it doesn't get more radical and anti-American than saying we brought 9/11 on ourselves, right?

Lastly, I was appalled when I read the American Family Association report that on Friday, April 25, several thousand schools across the nation will be observing a "Day of Silence," or DOS, which is a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools. (DOS is sponsored by an activist homosexual group – the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.)

Actually, AFAIK, it's to promote the idea that gays and others have to live in silence, not allowed to be honest about who they are, specifically with a focus on anti-gay harassment. That's a good argument, though. Sort of like saying that teaching about the Holocaust promotes converting to Judaism. Or being a gypsy.

Is encouraging or teaching about homosexuality what our forefathers expected for the public education they founded? Even the most liberal among them opposed it. For example, Thomas Jefferson drafted a bill concerning the criminal laws of Virginia, in which he proposed that the penalty for sexual deviance should be unique corporal punishment. Jefferson's views were indeed representative of early America.

"Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least" (Bill 64, 1779). Can you imagine a statesman proposing such a law today?

Is Roy Moore running for anything? Or maybe Santorum.

While I'm not of course espousing such treatment,

How big of you.

I do believe that we should equally and adamantly oppose such aberrant sexual behavior from being condoned or commemorated in our public schools through textbooks or a so-called "Day of Silence."

First of all, bozo, commemorating gay-BASHING is not the same thing as promoting the gay lifestyle. And I can't help wondering what your latest issue with "the gays" is- I'm going to guess it's the same old "knowledge of something makes you do it" bullcrap. Feel free to correct me.

You can check to see if your local schools are on the DOS observance list. Whether they are or not, write their administrators to inform them your family will be boycotting the event if it takes place in your vicinity.

Boycotting what? Other students taping their mouths shut? Chuck really should put a little more research into his columns.

Feel free to keep your kids home, Chuck. Chances are they won't be missed.

- The Crazy Sanhedrin has Ideas and Opinions. About things. Women especially. Surprise, surprise, they aren't pro.

The self-appointed Supreme Judicial Court of the Jewish People, also known as the Sanhedrin, passed down on Thursday a halachic ruling which calls to exempt women from army service and expel those who have already been recruited.

Hmm, I wonder if Ynet likes the Sanhedrin or not. It's just so hard to tell.

According to the Sanhedrin rabbis, by integrating women into mixed army units the IDF is surrendering to "political and ideological demands".

Well duh. You might as well say, "you're doing this because you think it's a good idea, you bastards!" How unconscionable.

The ruling stated that "rabbis and parents will not send their sons to an army that recruits women to mixed units. There is no place for any flexibility and compromise (in this matter)."

I guess they mean, "rabbis and parents that actually pay attention to us." So, actually, very few people at all.

Sanhedrin member Professor Hillel Weiss told Ynet that separating male and female soldiers would not do, and called to expel women from the army entirely.

"I remember when I would be called up for reserve duty and the IDF sent women instructors to show us how to operate a heavy machinegun; they couldn't even cock the large weapon," he said. "Today I meet women soldiers who say they are proud to be serving in the Armored or Artillery corps. It's a joke.

Maybe that just means there should be an "extra beefy" women's division. And incidentally, how strong do you have to be to operate a tank or artillery?

Besides, I don't think we can trust R. Weiss on this. Just look at him. No beard? What kind of rabbi is that?

- Lastly, kudos to Dennis Prager for fighting yet another strawman that no one brought up: after regaling his readers with a long laundry list of horrible things people have been doing to each other this past week, Dennis ties everything together as only a genius such as he can:

The world is filled with evil. Always has been. The biggest difference today is that, thanks to communications, we are far more aware of much of it.

I am convinced that human evil is so great that most people choose either to ignore it or to focus their concerns elsewhere – like those who believe that human-created carbon dioxide emission, not human evil, poses the greatest threat to mankind. No one will ever get killed for fighting global warming. Fighting evil, on the other hand, is quite dangerous.

Ow, ow, ow. Also, let's hear it for the modern human ability to concentrate on fighting more than one bad thing at a time. Maybe Dennis doesn't believe in this ability, though. After all, it might have something to do with evolution.