77 Comments

1. mrp:

What joy!

The biggest entertainment will be guessing the seniority of the French and Belgian representitives attending Arafat’s ’state’ funeral.

Oct 27, 2004 - 5:49 pm 2. richard mcenroe:

What happened to all the money stolen from the Jews and other exterminated groups in WWII? The banks of Europe will be happy to hold onto for decades…

Oct 27, 2004 - 5:49 pm 3. dr. sanity:

(I said this in an earlier post by Roger, but I’ll post it again here)

Roger,

You inspired me to “imagine” a world without Yasser Arafat. Thank you.

Oct 27, 2004 - 5:50 pm 4. Katherine:

The real question here is whether Arafat gets his raisins, or not?

Oct 27, 2004 - 5:57 pm 5. Rick Ballard:

I sure hope W does the right thing and sends Hillary and Bill as US representatives to the funeral. I’m sure Suha would appreciate Hillary’s company.

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:00 pm 6. JBR:

Kerry may go to the funeral– he did refer to Arafat as a statesman.

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:05 pm 7. scaramouoche:

No raisins unless they strap on the semtex and hurl him over the fence.

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:19 pm 8. dr. sanity:

JBR-

What’s even more interesting is that Arafat referred to Kerry as a “statesman”. I’m sure Kerry will say appropriately smarmy words about Arafat’s “greatness” when the time comes.

Since Bush wouldn’t recognize him in life, I don’t see why he should recognize him in death and send someone to his funeral. However, whoever takes over there should immediately be invited to the White House if there is any chance he could be different from Arafat.

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:22 pm 9. Robert Schwartz:

Arafat goes to a fortune teller and asks: “On what day will I die?”

The fortune teller said: “It will be on a Jewish Holiday.”

Arafat said: “Which one? Rosh Ha’Shonah? Yom Kippur?”

The fortune teller said: “I do not know, but what ever day you die, that day will be a Jewish Holiday.”

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:28 pm 10. Katherine:

ìNo raisins unless they strap on the semtex and hurl him over the fence.î

This can be arranged.

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:34 pm 11. Kevin P:

Roger:

Will there be peace when Arafat dies? Who knows.Would Peace have ever been achieved with Arafat as the head of the PLO? Never. He may have dropped the sunglasses but he never changed the goals or the methods that this evil man spouted when he was ordering the killing of Israeli athletes in Munich or the human bombs he disavows today. He has been a fraud that took in too many Israeli and American politicians. He will soon meet his maker and it will be a short trial and I know the verdict. Amen.

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:35 pm 12. Insufficiently Sensitive:

Picture the crocodile tears (worse, picture the real ones) that will be shed by the MSM and all those sensitive, nuanced European statesmen on the passing of this criminal.

The best we might hope for is for someone to produce a ‘Best of Arafat’ film which will list in serial order his brutalities, with the names of the victims in memoriam. It should play in opposition to the festival of the politically bereaved in the first paragraph.

Oct 27, 2004 - 6:55 pm 13. Coisty:

Given that Arafat made damn sure there were no obvious successors to his rule there will probably be a vacuum. A Palestinian civil war could be about to begin.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:05 pm 14. richard mcenroe:

Send Carter and Jesse Jackson, if they aren’t already carpooling with Kofi. Maybe we can get some more “Hymietown” quotes before Election Day.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:11 pm 15. gb_in_ga:

The only downside of this is that I won’t get to see him hang, as he so richly deserves to do. Justice isn’t going to be done here on this earth, we’ll have to accept divine retribution instead.

Other than that? Well, in the short term I expect a round of violence pertaining to filling the power vacuum he leaves, but after that I expect things to become marginally better. I just hope that there is a nice cleansing bloodletting within the Pali power structure, a little fratricide amongst the barbarians would be a good thing.

As far as the long term prospects of peace in the ME are concerned, this can only help. Whoever ends up on the top of the Pali heap can’t be any worse than that slimeball, I just don’t think it is possible. So, that means that there would have to be some sort of improvement in the prospects of peace.

All in all, I’m just tickled to death! Too bad I don’t drink any more, ’cause this is cause for some real celebratin’. I just hope that it isn’t a false alarm!

WOO HOO!

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:18 pm 16. newscaper:

As far as the Eruos holding on to dirty money, in SF author David Brin’s near future novel “Earth”, he refers to a Helvetian War which is what it took to finally crack open the books, and vaults, of the gnomes of Zurich.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:26 pm 17. Bostonian:

All I can say is this:

FASTER PLEASE!

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:36 pm 18. Sandy P:

OT: Via Drudge:

GERTZ // THURSDAY // WASH TIMES: Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein’s weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, ìalmost certainlyî removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:38 pm 19. richard mcenroe:

Arafat’s on the roof, and we can’t get him down…

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:43 pm 20. RogerA:

Ordinarily I regard myself as a rather caring human being–but in Yassir Arafat’s case, I can only hope he dies a painful lingering death. This man has encouraged Palistinian families to send their sons and daughters to die while at the same time engaging in a pogrom against innocent Israelis. The man is genuinely evil–and he epitomizes the utter bankruptcy of those chattering elites who will attend his funeral and praise him as “a man of peace.” He also epitomizes the degenracy that a once great religion as become. There is a special place in hell for such a degenerate (and might I add really UGLY) son of a bitch. The people that mourn his passing are no better than he was. Good riddance.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:50 pm 21. RogerA:

Ordinarily I regard myself as a rather caring human being–but in Yassir Arafat’s case, I can only hope he dies a painful lingering death. This man has encouraged Palistinian families to send their sons and daughters to die while at the same time engaging in a pogrom against innocent Israelis. The man is genuinely evil–and he epitomizes the utter bankruptcy of those chattering elites who will attend his funeral and praise him as “a man of peace.” He also epitomizes the degeneracy that a once great religion as become. There is a special place in hell for such a degenerate (and might I add really UGLY) son of a bitch. The people that mourn his passing are no better than he was. Good riddance.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:51 pm 22. RogerA:

apologies for the double post–although it DOES reflect the disgust I hold for Arafat.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:52 pm 23. Johan Amedeus Metesky:

In other news, Francisco Franco has a cold.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:53 pm 24. rod:

How do you say “excellent” in Arabic?

I have become an un-nice person since 9/11. I shall not bother my fellows here-all of whom I respect and who are vastly more talented than I–with fake platittudes about my worry over his possible death. I shall go to bed happy, knowing that he is likely to have slaughtered his last.

Oct 27, 2004 - 7:58 pm 25. Lem:

Arafat reminds me of Hyman Roth in the Godfather part II. “I’m going to take a nap. When I wake up, if the money is on the table, I’ll know I have a partner. If it isn’t, I’ll know I don’t.”

There is blood in the water and the sharks are circling. If I could only be a seaworthy fly in a colum of water to witness it.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:08 pm 26. Rick Ballard:

Just to cap the day, Bill Gertz drives a nail in the Allcaca (formerly ‘Pinch’) Sulzberger’s forehead. Or maybe the masthead will change to ‘All the caca we choose to print’.

Looks like the ‘blood’ moon was bad luck for more than Arafat.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:14 pm 27. booch:

As a Christian, I would love to be a fly on the wall when Mr. Arafat comes face to face with the God of Abraham. I don’t know what exactly hell will be but Yassar will discover it shortly. For all of my Jewish friends who have put up with the carnage this man has created, please put your minds at ease — Mr. Arafat will soon begin a very grim eternity.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:17 pm 28. RogerA:

Rick Ballard: rest assured I am working on several Haikus. They will have to wait until Tuesday nite. I am hoping our our gracious host will be blogging the election returns. I hope to be checking out the DU crowd imbibing theier koolaid. I have already voted absentee. My prediction: Bush by five percent of the popular vote and at least 300 electoral votes.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:20 pm 29. Lem:

OT Sandy. I seem to recolect that during GWI Saddam sent some of his migs to Iran, or did the pilots used the planes to to flee Iraq?

My point is that when the MSM was on the ball (go sox) we found out that Saddams toys ended up at the neighbors yard.

Now? Haliburton, Bush lied hamana hamam

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:26 pm 30. David Thomson:

ìGERTZ // THURSDAY // WASH TIMES: Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein’s weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operationî

This story may have destroyed John Kerryís last chance. The MSM will not be able to ignore it. Wow, everything seems to be going well tonight. This total eclipse of the moon is doing wonders. Will we have another one on November 2nd?

ìI have already voted absentee. My prediction: Bush by five percent of the popular vote and at least 300 electoral votes.î

Sounds right to me. The liberal pollsters are probably placing too much importance on the Democratic newly registered voters. My hunch is that many of these people will not show up to vote. The Republicans are more likely to make the extra effort to support their candidate, President Bush.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:33 pm 31. Rick Ballard:

RogerA,

Let’s hope that Roger will run a haiku thread on election day. It might save some fingernails (and fingers).

Everyone,

I hope the deftness with which W is using a deputy undersecretary of defense to kick the stool out from under Kerry is appreciated by everyone here. Letting your opponent get his neck fully into the noose is an art. Watch for satellite imagery coming to a screen near you, soon.

I think an ad that cuts from Kerry defaming troops in ‘71 to one of his speeches in the last two days will be very effective. “33 years after John Kerry first denigrated American troops, he’s still at it.” Has a decent ring to it, although the pros will probably come up with something better.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:40 pm 32. Charlie (Colorado):

Hokku:

Yasser Arafat

Died in his bed, but he died.

Fuck him.

Well, it doesn’t scan as well in English.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:45 pm 33. Lem:

Even more improbable that a lunar eclipse, the death of arafat or a Kerry victory, the Red Sox broke the curse. Yes, we are not in Kansas anymore. (life long sox fan)

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:47 pm 34. Johan Amedeus Metesky:

Though Arafat was one of the most frequent foreign visitors to Bill Clinton’s White House, George W. Bush has not only never invited Arafat to the White House, Bush has gone out of his way to avoid meeting Arafat at all. For example, when they were both at the United Nations, Bush snubbed Arafat and the Secret Service made it impossible for Arafat to approach the president.

Simply put, GWB doesn’t trust Arafat. To begin with, every president since Nixon has known that Arafat ordered the 1973 murder of U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel Jr in Khartoum. Clinton ignored this, I doubt that GWB does. Furthermore, when the Israelis intercepted the ship Karine A carrying weapons to Gaza, Bush spoke to Arafat on the phone. With the radio intercepts showing Arafat’s complicity in the matter, the President asked Arafat about the ship, and Arafat lied through his teeth. GWB, reportedly was pretty pissed off about being lied to.

Recently, however, I found out that Bush had an early experience with the Palestinian leader that may have permanently shaped his impression. In 1998, as he started running for the 2000 presidential election, then Gov. Bush visited Israel. His advance people tried to set up a meeting between Bush and Arafat but were rebuffed. Then, when Bush arrived in Israel, Arafat put out a press release chastising the Texas governor for not making time for him.

BTW, I saw GWB at the rally in the Pontiac Silverdome, in Oakland County, Michigan. Bush looked and sounded on top of his game. Laura Bush is probably worth at least 5 percentage points to her husband. A charming and classy lady. I’ve been volunteering with Jews For George so we had VIP tickets that let us get on the floor. We knew that if we got there early enough we’d have a good chance at a handshake with the President (hey, how many times do you get the chance to shake the President’s hand?). Actually, though we were 3 hours early, by the time we got there, the crowd in front of the stage was about 10 people deep and we decided to stand over to the right of the stage. That turned out to be fortuitous because we were standing right next to the walkway from backstage so we were among the first people that the President & First Lady saw when they came in and about the last when they left. After the rally somebody had wanted to get a picture of their baby with GWB or LB, so they handed her to the lady next to me who sat the baby down on the barricade. The President was sort of rushed out by the Secret Service, but Mrs. Bush took her time so she noticed the baby and stopped. Understandably, the baby was already a little bit distressed and Mrs. Bush was sweetly doing what you do to calm a baby. Nothing really special, the kind of thing you see every day, but I was touched by it. Maybe it was the fact that it was a real human moment, but it was neat to witness. I’m not saying that Theresa Heinz Kerry isn’t nice to babies, but Mrs. Bush just seems to charm people and is a very valuable political asset, something GWB must have discovered on those long drives in that Oldsmobile in his first unsuccessful campaign for Congress.

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:47 pm 35. RogerA:

Boston Red Sox Win

The Moon waxes blood red

The curse is no more

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:55 pm 36. RogerA:

DAMN–one syllable short in the second line. Change second line to read: The moon eclipsed turn blood read

I am so mortified

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:58 pm 37. Lem:

Oh no, a Kerry Red Sox foto op just flashed thru me head.

Have you no desency?

Oct 27, 2004 - 8:58 pm 38. Roberts:

Ballard above links to the Gertz story on Russian units moving the WMD related explosives.

I may be wrong, but I think that’s the first story that had an administration official on record supporting the story about Iraq WMD being moved to Syria. A story that first appeared on DEBKA.

I may have to up my evaluation of DEBKA. Ouch, that’ll hurt.

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:04 pm 39. Rick Ballard:

October’s red moon

John’s Al Qa Qaa exposure

Victory Tuesday

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:20 pm 40. richard mcenroe:

RogerA — “The moon, eclipsed, turns blood red”

Just because we’re indulging in esoteric verse is no reason to stint on writing grammar good…

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:21 pm 41. JBR:

I just send our friend Andrew an email. It read, in full, “Check out Drudge, dude. Your guy is toast.”

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:24 pm 42. richard mcenroe:

The polls all waver

Faint hearts falter, fearing loss

True souls defiant

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:26 pm 43. richard mcenroe:

John Amadeus Metesky ó THK has a person come in two days a week to be nice to babies.

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:28 pm 44. richard mcenroe:

Red Sox win series

That’s all the triumphant luck

Massachusetts has

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:31 pm 45. lindenen:

If Putin admits

publically that Russia

took Saddam’s weapons,

I may want to kiss

that scumbag on his ugly

slimy little lips.

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:39 pm 46. lindenen:

The Charles link goes

to the Jerusalem Post

website, dear Roger.

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:42 pm 47. Sonetka:

Wow – LOTS of curses being disposed of today!

Home-fires and feasting

Like challah set by the hearth

Arafat is toast.

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:43 pm 48. Lem:

Arafat lies dying. A crowd gathers outside and prays for him.

Arafat: ‘What are those people doing there?’

Doctor: ‘They have come to bid you farewell.’

Arafat: Why? Where are they going?

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:48 pm 49. lindenen:

Does the clip of Bush

giving the finger make you

like him more? I do.

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:49 pm 50. Rick Ballard:

October tsuris

Franco/Russian style goniffs

schmuck Kerry will plotz

Oct 27, 2004 - 9:54 pm 51. Lem:

Arafat reflecting on his longevity.

‘The terrible thing about having pets is that they don’t last long. I once had a baby tortoise and was very fond of it, but it grew old and died.’

Oct 27, 2004 - 10:00 pm 52. doug b:

Can’t help but be reminded of a history of Spain under Franco that I saw many years ago. On his death, there were various scenes of people mourning and then the aside “in Barcelona they ran out of champagne.”

Oct 27, 2004 - 10:01 pm 53. Kevin P:

Roger:

Boston wins the Series!!!! Any thing is possible. Peace in the middle east. Tort reform in the US. A French Army that doesn’t surrender.Terry McAuliffe stops lying. The New York Times stops being a mouthpiece and propaganda organ for the Democratic party. The first three maybe, but the last two would break the laws of physics.

Oct 27, 2004 - 10:15 pm 54. Mister Ghost:

As I always say, Yasser Arafat died so the

Red Sox could win the World Series. He is the Jesus Arafat. . .

Oct 27, 2004 - 10:29 pm 55. Lem:

I just scoped Sullivan for a sign of the syrian angle.

Sully is stiking to his gun. Bush let the then non-existing insurgents have the DMX DMC Vannilla Ice, but now he also added yellow cake.

Oct 27, 2004 - 10:32 pm 56. Jamie Irons:

Rick Ballard

Ubergekomenes tsuris ist gut zu derzählen.

Epigraph to Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, as best I can recall it.

Jamie Irons

Oct 27, 2004 - 10:38 pm 57. Katherine:

RogerA,

I forswore absentee voting unless I am actually out of the country after the 2000 election, when some ballot box lids were found floating in the Bay (it was just the wind that blew the lids off, nothing to see!) and some hundreds of uncounted absentee ballots were found in SF City Hall well after the election.

Right now I present myself in person at my voting place. It is especially fun during primaries, when I ask for Republican ballot. Good news is, my Russian immigrant neighbors usually show up at the same time (and these guys are hard core Repubs, let me tell you), so what with them and with my husband there I feel confident not to be spat upon.

Pity that our vote will make no difference here in CA.

Oct 27, 2004 - 11:27 pm 58. lindenen:

But your vote will make a difference, Katherine! Bush has to win the popular as well as the electoral so that the Dems can’t spend the next four years whining!

Were there really ballot box lids floating in the Bay?!? Do you have a link? This is like the rumored 60,000 missing absentee ballots in Florida. I’m starting to think they should do away with the absentee ballot and just have overseas voting at embassies, etc.

Oct 27, 2004 - 11:31 pm 59. Katherine:

Wow!

So much poetic talent here! Typically, an event such as death of a tyrant could inspire some powerful writing. However, I did not know that elections and baseball might also be so motivating.

It must be all in the romantic autumn air. My Russian friend always claimed that fall is best season for poetry.

Oct 27, 2004 - 11:42 pm 60. Katherine:

ìWere there really ballot box lids floating in the Bay?î

Lindenen,

They were indeed. I saw it at the time in the local rag i.e. SF Chronicle, but no, I do not have a link. I was archiving a lot in that year, but I did not bother to save this piece of news. There were so many cases of vote tampering at the time that I run out of juice. But the official explanation for those lids was indeed the naughty, naughty wind. However, the public was assured that no ballots were missed.

How would anybody know that no ballots were lost even if the wind indeed did away with the lids is as good a guess as how NYT comes up with its al caca stories.

Oct 27, 2004 - 11:52 pm 61. BarCodeKing:

As Cab Calloway sang it:

I’ll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you.

I’ll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you.

When they bury you six feet deep

No more fried chicken can you eat,

I’ll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you.

I’ll be oh, so glad when you dead, you rascal, you.

I’ll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you.

I’ll be standing on a corner full of gin

When they bring your dead body in,

I’ll be glad when you dead, you rascal, you.

Exactly!

And you know that the loathesome dregs of our political process (Jimmeh Carter comes to mind) will be wailing and gnashing their teeth at the death of the filthy old terrorist.

Oct 27, 2004 - 11:55 pm 62. xmark:

In his compound he

Reminds me of that artwork

Serrano’s Piss Christ

They should just seal the whole “palace” up after he dies like the Russians did at Chernobyl, by dumping concrete on it from helicopters. Can you imagine what that joint smells like? Cleaning up after he goes would be like Hercules tackling the Aegean Stables. You’d need a 55 gallon drum of Napalm and a Bic lighter just to get the scum out of the shower stall.

Ah, the glorious finish of the Nobel Peace Laureate. He is neither a noble man nor a man of peace. He still had little specks of bloodstain on his karafiyeh from the butchery at the Munich Olympics as he walked up to accept his honors from the Swedes.

Yippee Kai Yay, Motherfu**er.

Oct 28, 2004 - 1:38 am 63. Yours Digitally:

Estimated word count for ‘terrorist’ in myriads of media stories of the late Yassir Arafat to be printed in the next days: 0. Word count for ‘Nobel Prize laureat’: 19.328.739.

Oct 28, 2004 - 2:34 am 64. Swede:

If Arafat is, in fact, dead or dying I can only say that its about time. My one regret is that he gets to “push off” in his bed as an old man, unlike the thousands of innocents, the murders of which he is responsible for. May he rot in hell.

Oct 28, 2004 - 4:28 am 65. vegetius:

Don’t get too happy folks. His understudies are all cut from the same cloth or should I say kaffieh.

Oct 28, 2004 - 4:59 am 66. Knucklehead:

RogerA,

There never was a curse. That’s just superstititious claptrap. Reality is that the Red Sox just plain sucked for 86 years.

Oct 28, 2004 - 7:21 am 67. Charlie (Colorado):

But Knuck, how do you explain why the Sox sux?

Oct 28, 2004 - 7:33 am 68. richard mcenroe:

RogerA, Knucklehead et al ó John Kerry announced today that had he known then what we know now about the curse of the Bambino, he would never have sent the “Red Socks” into the playoffs…

Oct 28, 2004 - 7:37 am 69. richard mcenroe:

John Amadeus Metesky ó A mad apostle, a mad composer and a mad bomber?

Oct 28, 2004 - 7:39 am 70. Buddy Larsen:

NOW I can get my novel started, the one where the Left is what’s ‘left’ after all honor is removed. I’ve been stymied all this time, 150 years, by lack of a title. But when “Box Lids Floating in the Bay” gets the big advance $$$, Lindenen, you have a royalty coming.

Oct 28, 2004 - 8:11 am 71. Matt Evans:

I would say the Red Sox problem for 86 years is they have never had a player like (as Mr. Kerry points out) Manny Ortiz. Manyy Ortiz is the amazing combination of power and pure hitting talent, obviously derived from combining the DNA of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz and then placed under a growth accelerator. This amazing DNA combination resulted in the Sox victory (and as we know, Mr. Kerry is not only a sportsman but a HUGE Red Socks fan). Thank God in a Kerry administration, that not only will the blind see and the crippled walk, apparently we’ll be treated to more DNA spliced ballplayers- I can only imagine how Steinbrenner’s millions can be put to use splicing Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez and presumably, healing Jason Giambi’s intestinal issues.

Back on point (kinda), my real concern about Arafat’s impending damnation is who is going to inherent the red binder. Personally, I think the UN should be tasked to make that important decision.

Oct 28, 2004 - 8:32 am 72. Katherine:

Hey Buddy! Lindeen only rephrased my ìballot box lids were found floating in the Bayî. I he gets royalties, I want to be on the deal.

Oct 28, 2004 - 9:36 am 73. Charlie (Colorado):

Isn’t “Box Lids Floating in the Bay” an old Otis Redding song?

Oct 28, 2004 - 9:42 am 74. Will Collier:

May his first day in Hell last a thousand years… and may it be the shortest.

Oct 28, 2004 - 9:48 am 75. Buddy Larsen:

Katherine, his lawyer’s waiting in the kitchen with his fountain pen out, I don’t what to do!

Charlie, no, B.J. Thomas.

Oct 28, 2004 - 10:31 am 76. PeterUK:

Yasser Arafat

Is quite seriously ill

I wish him long life.

Oct 28, 2004 - 1:04 pm 77. Buddy Larsen:

he’s from Dewey, Cheatum, & Howe….

Oct 28, 2004 - 1:34 pm

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