OK, I got yet another standard email from our unhinged friends at ANSWER today ... basic stuff: "U.S. Out of Iraq Now! We Are the Majority! End Colonial Occupation from Iraq, to Palestine, Haiti, and Everywhere!" ... blah blah. This [left] was included in the body of the email. I swear I wish I could make up stuff this good. But then I'd probably be making money doing this. There's an irony in there ... I just know there is. I hardly know what to say. Er ... "Resist capitalist exploitation of the ignorant masses"? The hoodie is $40.00 and only comes in medium, large, x-large, xx-large, xxx-large. They're out of xxx-large. You can probably guess why ...

Google Earth is replacing a lot of its low resolution overviews with some higher resolution stuff. This is one of the newer images. It's of Kibbutz Beit Kama in southern Israel, between Beersheva and Kiryat Gat. Clicking the image will make it larger. I lived here from 1976 to 1977. Some stuff has changed, but surprisingly little, at least from this perspective. I lived in one of the buildings near the center at the bottom of the image. I worked primarily in the Pardess (orchard) growing and picking oranges, grapefruits and lemons. Lots of great, great memories. Really, one of the happiest times in my life. If any one else has memories of this kibbutz, or if you were there around the same time, please contact me. Between 1978 to 1979 I moved to another kibbutz farther north, S'dot Yam. Sadly, the Google Earth image of that is still very low-res.

Well ... our mind-bogglingly incompetent friends at ANSWER have requested that we contact Columbia U President Lee Bollinger and express our "support" for the ANSWER thugs who disrupted the Minuteman event at the University. Somehow or other they have managed, by sheer dint of Freudian projection, to make themselves be the "victims" of their own blatant assault on the First Amendment and simple decency. They even kindly offer a link so that we can send a message to Bollinger. We can even "personalize" it. Heh. Here's the link: Click HERE So, send Bollinger a note, courtesy of ANSWER! Have fun!