Monday, 12 June 2006 - 6:09 PM BST

Why would a capitalist care where a car is manufactured? And why is decision inimical with patriotism?

Monday, 12 June 2006 - 11:39 PM BST

2) The term 'Mexican Wave' has long annoyed me. Many people think that the practice started at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, but you can clearly see a high school basketball crowd doing it in the 1985 Michael J. Fox film 'Teen Wolf'. Wikipedia has earlier citations.

More bad research.

The Mexican Wave should be correctly termed the "Mexican Handshake" and is the term used in the US for their long standing Wave.

It refers to hand-cuffed Mexicans (wet backs) after having attempted to cross the Rio Bravo/Grande. If one stands then, in turn, all stand up, one after the other.

Incidentally, it is called the "Cuban Handshake" in Mexico. I was informed thus whilst standing in the Estadio Azteca.

You have been corrected. Yet again.

Tuesday, 13 June 2006 - 2:29 AM BST

So when English football commentators use the term, they're referencing some obscure urban myth from the US. How curious. I always thought they were talking about something they had seen with their own eyes during the 86 World Cup, which is where they all started using it.

Funny old world.

DY

Tuesday, 13 June 2006 - 2:31 AM BST

Wikipedia gives this:

The wave was launched into the soccer community and to the world at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, from which the name "Mexican wave" derives.

and no, I did not write that!

DY

Tuesday, 13 June 2006 - 9:06 PM BST

That’s the trouble when you use Wikipedia as your source for information. Anyone can put stuff on there, it is trash as far as referencing is concerned, just like what you speak politically.


ps do you like my link?

Tuesday, 13 June 2006 - 9:28 PM BST

Disappointed.

I lashed out #17 to buy an anti-Israel book called 'Beyond Chutzpah' which argues that criticism of Israel can't be dismissed as mere anti-semitism. It goes on to give some reasonable arguments.

And now I feel like I've wasted the money.

DY

Tuesday, 13 June 2006 - 9:35 PM BST

well maybe you should read 'By Way of Deception'. It is by an ex Mossad agent.

If you really want a propper insight (although we both know that you don't) then you should buy that.

Wednesday, 14 June 2006 - 12:39 AM BST

Have you ever actually met any jewish people? It doesn't sound like you have the faintest idea what you are talking about. When I was a teenager I did an exchange trip to the US (like those French exchanges that many kids do). I was placed with a jewish family in Connecticut. I didn't know that were jewish before I went. I didn't care either.

I had heard all the nasty slurs - that jews were mean, selfish etc. When we played football in PE lessons the other kids used to refer to anyone who tried to score a goal on a long run without passing the ball, as a Jew Run. The idea being that it was selfish behaviour that wasn't good for the team. Don't know where that came from.

When I stayed with this family in America however, I found that they were amazingly kind and generous people. They weren't fiercely religious at all. They made plenty of self deprecating jokes about jewish quirks themselves. I got on really well with them.

One weekend they took me to a country club resort in the Catskill mountains where every one bar me was jewish. I had a great time. I met a girl there I was besotted with and I've stayed in touch ever since. That's 20 years ago now. I went to stay with her and her husband in December last year. They are coming over to London in August. I can't wait to show them around.

The girl has been to Israel - in the late 80s. Her sisters haven't been. Her husband hasn't been. He told me he has no interest whatsoever. The topic of Israel wasn't mentioned while I was there.

They're just normal people. There are some headcases like in any community. But overall I have found jewish people to be very pleasant, fairly self-motivated and extremely funny.

Your loss if you haven't found that out for yourself.

DY

Wednesday, 14 June 2006 - 12:40 AM BST

And PS, my American friends voted for John Kerry.

Wednesday, 14 June 2006 - 1:27 AM BST

You really are one sad pathetic man. Or maybe you are just thick?

Contrary to what you believe, I am not anti-Semitic is the slightest way. The majority of my friends are Jewish but I do not need to get into that.

Now I want to ask you a question. Why are you mixing Judaism with Zionism? I have said plenty of times that I am not anti-Semitic, I am anti Zionist, as are plenty of Jews. What you have to realise is this is the same situation with the Islamic extremists. If I am not pro Islamic fanatics (which I am most certainly not), am I anti-Islam? I am not pro extremism, end of matter. More people in the West are pro Zionism because they fall for the bullshit propaganda which is largely controlled by Rupert Murdoch. People have their own political views which they express in the media. Are you going to tell me that CNN is the same as Al-Jazeera was under Saddam?

It always amazes me when people like to brand someone as anti-Semitic because they do not believe in Zionism which has nothing to do with being Jewish. My friends would laugh at you for calling me that.

ps I am not saying that there is anything in it but maybe you should do your research. John Kerry was born Jewish, changed his name and said that he is an Irish Catholic. He has family that is Polish Jewish.

Just thought I would mention that as you brought up John Kerry.

Wednesday, 14 June 2006 - 9:01 PM BST

It always amazes me when people like to brand someone as anti-Semitic because they do not believe in Zionism

I brand you as anti-semitic not because of your disbelief in Zionism, but because of your decision to link to jewwatch, which clearly is.

DY

Wednesday, 14 June 2006 - 11:30 PM BST

Well thought out detailed reply from you David (as always).

The site says that it is not anti-semitic. It is ant-zionist.

Thursday, 15 June 2006 - 12:24 AM BST

Which begs the question, why is it called "jewatch" and not "zionistwatch"?

Thursday, 15 June 2006 - 1:10 AM BST

The joy of instant messenger:

FredTitmus1: its a good site, that jewwatch
ebznl: yeah?
FredTitmus1: ive learned a lot
ebznl: like?
FredTitmus1: stalin was jewish
ebznl: I didn't know that either. :-[
FredTitmus1: mainly because "jews change their names"
FredTitmus1: cant knock the evidence
ebznl: So who were you before?
FredTitmus1: Bob Monkhouse
ebznl: OK
ebznl: The Stalin/Dustin Hoffman conspiracy has me worried though
FredTitmus1: it was Stalin in Tootsie, by the way
FredTitmus1: but they are identical
FredTitmus1: John Paul II was jewish too
FredTitmus1: he was previously Chaim Goldstein
FredTitmus1: he's missed out Krusty the Clown and Kent Brockman

Thursday, 15 June 2006 - 1:24 AM BST

David, this is obviously what you do for the whole of your life. A little advice:

Relax, try to think of something else, there is more to life.

Get a life, you are getting on.

Get a girlfriend.

Try socialising more.

Mainly though, you need to think about other things. You are to one minded and full of trash. You ask for the abuse that you get off so many people.

Thursday, 15 June 2006 - 11:51 AM BST

Relax, try to think of something else, there is more to life.

Err, Richard this thread started with me talking about the World Cup. It was you who hijacked it and brought up jews.

Mainly though, you need to think about other things.

That's funny coming from someone who has only ever written about one subject! I think you should go back and read my site again. You'll notice things about civil airliner design, poker, a spoof trailer for The Shining, a TV documentary about sad rich people, James Bond doing his pieces in a casino and going on tilt, the Essex probation service, 'Deal or No Deal', alien energy supplies and many more.

I really think you need help.

DY

Friday, 16 June 2006 - 3:16 PM BST

Richard123 = Mr Jane = Nazi Boy

Regardless of easy to fake IP addresses.

Saturday, 17 June 2006 - 1:29 PM BST

Richard123 = Mr Jane = Nazi Boy

What a load of rubbish.

Back to reality. My totally honest opinion. I am not actually against Israel. They have a right to exist. What I am against (which is what makes me speak out so much) is the expansion on settlements. I do not believe this to be right.

Saturday, 17 June 2006 - 2:01 PM BST

Well we're closer in agreement than I realised. I think that the settlements should gradually end. I don't think that they are the 'root cause' of the middle east's problems, but it might make a slight improvement in matters.

Israel got invaded in 1967 when it didn't have the West Bank or Gaza. And the PLO was formed three years before that! So settlements have never been the root cause of anything. My personal feeling is that it was morally right, (regardless of whatever 'international law' might think) for Israel to seize these lands as a buffer against Jordan and Egypt. Otherwise the attacking neighbours would have been in a heads-you-win-tails-you-don't-lose situation. Losing these lands was an appropriate punishment.

And it worked partially at least. In 1973 when the arabs again attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur war, Jordan didn't get involved. It had lost land in 67 and wasn't about to make the same mistake again. However the other arab countries didn't like it, and the Arab League forced Jordan to renounce its claim on the west bank as a 'punishment' for not invading Israel in 1973. That created the unusual situation that Israel couldn't give back the west bank to the state it had taken it from!!!! Jordan's claim was renounced in favour of the PLO, which was declared to be the true representative of the Palestinian people; not bad for an organisation that had only existed for about a decade!!! Curiously the Israelis weren't in such a rush to give the west bank back to people who didn't recognise their right to exist (end sarcasm here) and so we get to the present mess.

My view now is that the time to stop punishing the arabs has come. Most of the people suffering in the squalor of the west bank are too young to remember 1967. Come to think of it, I wasn't around then either. I have no sympathy for the older generation who welcomed the 67 war but the young shouldn't be made to pay for their parents mistakes.

But Israel did withdraw from much of the West bank after the Oslo accords and that didn't prevent the second intifada. In fact the terrorists were able to use their proximity to Israel to launch attacks against it. The problem the Palestinians have gotten themselves into is that they give their support to either Hamas (dedicated to Israel's destruction) or Fatah (supposedly more moderate, but quite prepared to supply 'martyrdom' operations). Anyone more peaceful than that got roughed up or killed.

Palestinians really are their own worst enemies at times. For instance in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Palestinian workers collaborated with the invading Iraqis. That was pure stupidity. After the first Gulf War they weren't too popular there. They were also kicked out of Jordan after the PLO tried to kill the King of Jordan. And they're not exactly loved by everyone in Lebanon either. It's not just the Israelis who have a problem getting on with them.

I think in part that their problem is that they have been given too much aid. That might sound odd, but what it has meant is that they haven't had to knuckle down and create a peaceful economy with what they have got. Grown men can march around firing AK47s into the air on a Monday afternoon to impress CNN. Why aren't they working? Well it's in part because they don't need to. They know that more aid will come and it will be given to people who fire AK47s in the air in front of television cameras; not to people who invest in the factories what will create jobs.

Irwin Seltzer (I know, I know, he's a jew, get over it) wrote a great piece about this. His point is mostly about Palestinians but it's just as true of other places that have been given aid. It's not that aid is useless. It's actually HARMFULL.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/048vjpow.asp

Saturday, 17 June 2006 - 2:23 PM BST

I agree with what you have said. When Israel went to war in 1967 I do think it is stupid to give back their land. If you do that then you are just inviting your enemy to attack you again (I believe this happened more than once). But like you said, the time has come where Israel should give back land. I think that this could only improve matters, although my personal belief is that there will never be peace there. I think both sides are at fault.

What would you say to the people who are against the wall that Israel has built (on the Palestinian side) which imprisons them in their land?

And finally, I am in no way anti-Semitic. Never have been, never will be. They majority of my good friends are Jewish.