Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Abi Melbit - At least I'm alive

People who've been following various Jewish blogs and/or the Jewish music scene have probably heard that Lipa Shmeltzer was forced to cancel his appearance at a concert after criticism from various "Gedolim".

The controversy apparently was about his Yiddish song based on "Lion Sleeps Tonight" - he made a quite entertaining promotional video for HASC which you can see below (or here).

I tried to find a copy of the lyrics, but so far haven't been able to, so if anyone knows where could find them, or could translate the Yiddish, feel free to leave a comment.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Gumboots

My sister just forwarded me a copy of the lyrics to Fredd Dagg's famous Gumboot song.
You see she just booked her wedding in the Woolshed which is on a farm, so I pointed out the protrocol requires White gumboots for the bride (as opposed to regular black gumboots for the groom and guests).

Well, I suppose if you grew up knowing the gumboot song, this would have been funny, and if you didn't grow up with that song - well can't blame me.

BTW - this song has nothing whatsoever to do with Billy Connolly's "If it wisnae fur yer wellies" which is clearly a simple rip off (the fact that it pre-dates Dagg's song raises a question about the space-time continuum, but that's a different question).

Anyway, without further ado, here is Fredd and his Gumbooty song:



(Intro, spoken, with gusto.) 'Righto, kick it in the guts, Trev... '
Gumboots, they are wonderful, gumboots, they are swell
'coz they keep out the water, and they keep in the smell.
And when you're sittin' round at home, you can always tell
When one of the Trevs has taken off his gumboots.

Chorus:
If it weren't for your gumboots, where would ya be?
You'd be in the hospital or infirmary
'coz you would have a dose of the 'flu, or even pleurisy
If ya didn't have yer feet in yer gumboots.

Now there's rugby boots and racing boots, and boots for drinkin' rum.
But the only boots I'm never without, are the ones that start with "gum".
I've got short ones and long ones, and some up to me belt.
I'm never dressed 'till I've got on me gumboots.

Whenever I sing at the opera, my gumboots are a must.
They help me hit the high notes, and protect me feet from dust.
They keep the water well away, so me voice won't get no rust.
You will not never see me without me gumboots.

Now Rob Muldoon, and Rowling, they haven't made a hit.
They're ruining the country, more than just a bit.
If they keep on how they're going, we'll all be in turd.
So you'd better get yer feet up yer gumboots.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The Demographic threat

For many years, Israelis who were in favour of handing parts of Eretz Yisrael over to the Arabs claimed that this was the only way to create Peace - they even had a phrase for it "Land for Peace" i.e., if we give the Arabs "Land", they'll give us "Peace". Over recent years that phrase has become less common, for the simple reason that it turns out that if you give the Arabs "Land" they give us 'War", and "Land for War" didn't have such a good ring to it.

You would have thought that the Left wing would have said "opps, my bad - you were right all along, let's all move to Hevron", instead they came up with a new slogan, a new reason to surrender territory - the 'Demographic Time Bomb".

The logic runs something like this: the Arabs reproduce faster than the Jews, there is nothing that we can do to change that, therefore soon we'll have an Arab majority if we don't withdraw from territory - yes it might lead to war, but the only other alternative is to give up on the idea of a "Democratic Jewish State".

There are so many holes in this argument I don't know why anyone takes it seriously (*why is war a better alternative?), but possibly the biggest problem is that the numbers are just plain wrong.

Firstly, no one has a clue how many Arabs there are in the Palestinian territories, the PA puts the figure at 3.8 million, but Demographer Yoram Ettinger puts the number at 2.6 (see Arutz Sheva's story).

But Wait - it turns out that the real demographic threat isn't the Arabs after all. Amnon Rubinstein has and article in today's Jerusalem Post where he admits that the demographic threat isn't the Arabs, rather it's those damn Charadim, it seems like the biggest threat to Israel is Charadim having babies, and we must do everything in our power to prevent this.

If the result is a decrease in the Jewish population, and a real demographic threat from the Arabs, that's OK - we'll just give them a State (what other choice do we have), and if they use that state to lob missiles at us, well, at least that would be better than having to share a country with those damn Religious Jews.








Monday, February 11, 2008

Who's occupying Gaza now?

This is one of the funniest things that I've read for a while - an actual question posted on the UN Web Site where the questioner asks the UN Spokesperson why the UN refers to Gaza as "Occupied Territory" - after all, the only foreign forces in Gaza now are UN troops - is the UN occupying Gaza?

Hat tip: http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com/

Source: http://domino.un.org/

**Questions and Answers

/...

Question: You read a statement about the situation in Gaza before and I know it's difficult to change terminology, but we have a new Secretary-General now, so let me try it again. A year and half after the last Israeli withdrew from Gaza, the UN system still refers to Gaza as an Occupied Palestinian Territory. The only people who are not Palestinian in Gaza currently are UN people. Do you mean that Gaza is occupied by the UN?

Spokesperson: Definitely not.

Question: So who is it occupied by?

Spokesperson: Well…

Correspondent: I think there are some Israeli soldiers on the border…

Question: Not borders, who is Gaza occupied by?

Spokesperson: Traditionally, this is the terminology we have used. Yes?

Question: But the situation on the ground changed since Israel withdrew from Gaza.

Spokesperson: I will look into this.

Correspondent: Thank you.