AbbaGav

Last week I was selected to join the Watcher's Council which is run by the Watcher of Weasils, presumably with the express purpose of watching weasils. Since my blog's primary activity is watching weasils, whether Hamas weasils or Hizballah weasils or UN weasils or the various weasils from the deranged and unhinged fringes of the far Left, this sounds like it should be fun. By the way, I do acknowledge that there are indeed weasils from the far Right, and perhaps even centrist weasils too and certainly Israeli weasils as well, but there is a whole industry known as Main-Stream-Media already devoted to watching them, so there's little danger they will lack for publicity.

The Council's main activity is nominating and voting on the web's outstanding posts each week. The nominations are divided into two categories: posts written by Council members, and, separately, top posts gathered from anywhere on the web. This week's results are in:

The winning post among members of the council was ShrinkWrapped's post, A Perspective on Tribes and Anti-Semitism. Second place went to Gates of Vienna for As Old As the Garden of Eden

The winning non-Council post was Solomonia's report, Mayhem at the Defend Hizballah Rally. Second place went to Counterterrorism Blog's post, Worst Case Scenario: Hizbollah's Conventional Forces.

If you've written a particularly strong post you'd like to have considered for next week's vote, the process for submitting a post for noimination can be found here.

While I'm on the subject of the "best of the web" I should point out last week's Haveil Havalim, hosted at Life-of-Rubin, before this week's edition at Soccer Dad comes out.

And I'll close with something you rarely see here at AbbaGav: poetry. In fact, I've only posted one of my own poems, and I'm sure those of you who read it will thank me for having abandoned the field. But today I'm highlighting a guest poet: Yehuda, from Jerusalem Games. Yehuda doesn't generally post about politics -- his blog really is all about games. If you have any interest in games, whether chess or role-playing, Yehuda's blog is for you. But as an indication of how the attacks on Israel's northern border have united Israelis behind the need to fight Hizballah, bear in mind that they have now driven Yehuda to take time away from his blog's bread-and-butter -- gaming -- to put quill to parchment for some rhyming, anti-Hizballah punditry. Nasrallah, you do not want to make Israeli gamers mad, trust me on this one. They've simulated every battle since Troy -- having played both sides of each conflict -- and can kick your butt with one twelve sided die tied behind their backs. So, dear Sheik as well as Hizballah apologists, this one's for you:

Same Old, Same Old

How sad and how blind. How predictable.
It's always the same old same old.
The kicks and the curses that rain down upon
The young boy lying down in the cold.

"It's unjustified that you always kick back!"
"Brutality is how you thrive!"
"There's always a conflict when you're to be found,
It's unfair that you're still alive!"

From whose mouth come all of these tired refrains?
Who cries about "foul" and "unfair"?
Whose playing the victim only when he's hit back?
Oh, yes, it's the instigator.

Your prisoners sitting in our crowded jails
Were trying to blow up our kids.
Your houses and buildings that now lie in ruins
Are where all your weapons were hid.

Your entire life is devoted to killing
You've not, in the end, wanted peace.
The word "peace" to you means that after we're dead
Only then, then the killing will cease.

You Europeans, you belly soft cowards
Have never been able to learn;
You still think that everyone thinks just like you
Even after your cities have burned.

You can't understand that their goals aren't yours
That they're set on a mission from God.
They've ten martyrs lined up to kill each of you
And they're ready to go at a nod.

You poor Lebanese, now you're suffering hard
After sheltering and giving your aid
To murderers and kidnappers in your country
Only now you are getting well paid

For your aid and support. Don't cry out to me.
Cry out to the ones you've supported.
This defensive war would never have started
If arms and supplies had been thwarted.

Even now it could end, in twenty-four hours
If you'd simply go pick up the phone
And swear that from now on the Hizbullah army
Will never call Lebanon "home".

Thank you, any of you, who can see through the lies,
And are willing to stand up and tell.
All the rest of you well-meaning puppets of terror
Are no surprise to us, so go to Hell.

We expect nothing less, and frankly we say
After two-thousand years of this sort
Of treatment, we've never been stronger than this
And we'll do it without your support.

No blood would have flown if they didn't start up
No Jew ever started a war.
The Islamists think negotiations for peace
Is a weakness, and soon they will "score".

It's time for all lovers of freedom and progress
To join us and stand tall together
Against this great evil, shouting loudly and clearly,
That Israel will live strong forever.