Showing posts with label "Push the Button". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Push the Button". Show all posts

Friday, February 08, 2008

Target Practice Gets Graphic



Jerusalem City council has hoisted banners up along all our main streets to celebrate 40 years of "unity". To see a mock-up map of a divided Jerusalem, and view the fourfold security threat if, in the words of cabdriver Rodney King, "we can't all get along" , just click here. Each weapon's range is shown, so you can judge your neighborhood's safety from potential mortars, Qassam rockets, Kalashnikov fire and the like. How comforting.

Friends recounted the other night how , after their daughter's high school graduation, they'd invited all her buddies to a big party at their upscale home in West Jerusalem. The students who normally live on the East Side were nervous about attending. (This was at the height of the Second Intifada.) "We're worried about suicide bombers," they admitted. "They don't operate on our side of town." Point taken. Being asked by guards outside cafes whether or not you are packing a pistol still doesn't give us much comfort these days.

The city space sacred to three different religions has been a sanctuary from all-out war inside Jerusalem for decades...any side who destroys it will trigger the apocalypse. Few people would want that, other than the ultras grazing flocks outside the Old City walls and readying them for sacrifice in a third temple.

Contemplating the ruin of life as we know it is one way to make a living, it seems.
The same gamers, from artishok.co.il, also produce a scenario of an Israeli/US attack against Iran, and vice versa, featuring Dolphin submarines, aircraft carriers, nuclear sites, and missile launchers. Press here.
The graphics company does a series of realistic demo maps for Debkafile, and these make conflict seem as simple as being the first to "push the button". It would be good to include nuclear fall-out in the aftermath, as well, on these interactive infographics, as they are dubbed. The name, pronounced like "artichoke", provides some hope. These clever guys seem rather prickly but presumably do have a heart.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Falafel Factor-it's a wrap

Israel's irascible ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, submitted to a grilling on Jon Stewarts's The Daily Show on Comedy Central last night. His failure to dodge reading aloud from a blaxploitation script is worth a look. He pulls it off with a certain elan. Press here

Dan the Man readily confirms that his country is "run by Jews"; other impertinent queries concerning the Big Falafel and its likelihood of its pushing the nuke button don't faze the seasoned diplomat.

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Wednesday, February 28, 2007

A-bomb-inable drill for all Israelis


Can’t say that we are really looking forward to Israel’s nationwide nuclear and chemical attack preparedness drill in March. The Magen David Adom rescue service announced that a dry run is needed after Hezbollah’s 4000 rockets sowed utter chaos across Northern Israel last summer. People renovated bomb shelters and tended to ignore the signs of post traumatic stress disorder in the family. There was not much they could do as civilians to stop the hail of rockets from Lebanon, since even IDF tank fire and air strikes didn't halt the militants. And Iran's recent nuclear strides are the clincher: army rescue forces, police, medical and firefighting services all will go through their paces as nuke sirens wail all over the country. Everyone undoubtedly will make the effort to "be strong", the unofficial Sabra mantra.


I wonder if the day will resemble those old civil defense drills in the states, and generate the dread atomic age angst.
Useful retro-advice from the cold war generation in case of nuclear attack:
1. Duck under nearest shelter
2. Cover your eyes from the flash
3. bend over and put your head between your legs
4. then kiss your ass goodbye.
Young Israelis increasingly are flirting with the possibility of nuclear annhilation and first strikes, if the nation's latest entry in the Eurovision song contest is any measure. Kobi Oz, lead singer with the group, Teapacks, uses Hebrew, English and French on their edgy single, "Push the Button."
some sample lyrics below from the same Sderot guys who brought the world the irreverant"Salaam Salami":

The world is full of terror, if someone makes an error, he's gonna blow us up to kingdom come.
There are some crazy rulers, they hide and try to fool us, with demonic, technologic willingness to harm. They're gonna push the button
...And I don't wanna die, I wanna see the flowers bloom, don't wanna go kaput-kaboom.