I think this new beauty pageant is just great. Really swell.

From JPost:

They may not wish for world peace; but in the Emirates, camel beauty queens are at least as prestigious as their human counterparts.


Over 20,000 camels and their owners from across the Gulf have converged on Abu-Dhabi's western region to participate in the Al-Mazayin camel beauty competition in the desert town of Dhafra.


The stakes are high as some 800 camel owners are vying for cash prizes of up to 35 million UAE Dirhams ($9.5 million). Sheikh Muhammad Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu-Dhabi, funds the competition which takes place at periodic intervals.


"This is the only animal we love," Salem Al-Mazroui, director of the Al-Dhafra festival which hosts the beauty pageant, told The Media Line. He explained that the competition was an opportunity to show gratitude to camels.


"A Bedouin could not survive in the past without camels, so now we want to give back to them," Al-Mazroui said.


Once the main means of transport in the simmering Arabian desert, the camel remains an important cultural icon and a source of pride for Gulf Arabs.


"Camels were our first means of transport, which is why people have grown attached to them," Ahmad Kheiri, an employee at the Al-Ain company for animal feed in Abu-Dhabi, told The Media Line. "Today people mostly use camels for racing, meat and milk."


The Al-Mazayin beauty competition includes two categories: one for light-skinned camels called Asayel, and the other for dark-skinned camels called Majahim. Camels are judged by a panel of experts from Gulf countries, who use a 100 point scale to evaluate the animals. Specific physical attributes such as nose shape, head size, whiskers and ear erection are taken into account, as well as general fitness, size and hair shine.


Al-Mazroui said that camel beauty pageants were initiated 20 years ago, as cultivators began mixing species in order to breed faster camels for racing. Sheikh Khalifah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and Emir of Abu Dhabi, endorsed the beauty pageant as a way of maintaining the pure-bread Arabian camel, Al-Mazroui added.


"In the past, people focused only on racing and speed, but no longer," he said.


On the sidelines of the beauty pageant, camel racing and camel-milking competitions are also taking place, as well as a market where camels will be traded.


A quality camel can bring its owner a hefty sum. A white rare breed named Nomas was recently sold in a camel festival in Saudi Arabia for 3 million Saudi Riyals ($800,000), the Saudi daily Sharq reported.


According to the Sudan-based Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (AOAD), some 378,000 camels inhabited the United Arab Emirates in 2008. But in the Middle East, it is the poorer countries which tend to have more camels.


Out of a total of nearly 16 million camels in the entire Middle East and North Africa, war-torn Somalia leads by far with over 7 million camels, followed by Sudan with 4.4 million.


Muhammad Khalaf Al-Mazrouei, director general of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, stressed the role of the camel beauty pageant in preserving the historical heritage of the Emirates, despite its quickly developing economy.


"In the face of the challenges of cultural erosion, which is being caused by increasing globalization, Abu Dhabi has chosen to take a balanced approach in its attitudes towards tradition and progress," he said in a press statement.


"The philosophy of the desert holds a great draw to us; exciting us and making us long to return to it whenever we can. The desert represents our cultural roots, and signifies the values that are important to us," he said.

1. I am amazed how much camels cost. 
2. I see that just like discrimination is a problem among humans, even by animals we cannot get away from it - they have segregation between "light" and "dark" camels.
3. While camels seem to be very expensive, somehow the poorest countries have the most of them..
4. This beauty pageant is to show gratitude to the camels. Opponents to human beauty pageants cite the exploitation of women. Is this how they show their gratitude to camels, by exploiting them like this?
5. The prize for the pageant is nearly $10 million! For a camel beauty pageant. Amazing. And how does giving a camel owner 10 million dollars show gratitude to the camel?
6. I wonder if they ever ask the camels contestants for their opinions on world matters, just to get juicy quotes from them..

When swine flu makes it to its first Muslim country, or at least topples its first Muslim person, will the Arabs round the world riot about the provocation of using swine against them (obviously it will also be a zionist plot), like they did with that cartoonist a couple years back?

hmmmmmm

The Iryah of Bet Shemesh recently dedicated a kikar (traffic circle) in the Kiryah Hareidit neighborhood of Bet Shemesh to the memory of Rebbe Nachman of Breslav.

Now, I am not a violent person, nor do I support vandalism, but this specifically intrigues me. I wonder what would happen, what would the reaction of Breslavers, and other Haredim, be if somebody were to come along and spraypaint graffitti all over the new memorial for Rebbe Nachman.

No vicious graffitti of course, but the same graffitti they spray all over Bet Shemesh and the rest of Israel defacing every wall, structure and monument with their Nach Nach chant and their tzniyus declarations about guarding ones eyes.

I am not telling anyone to go spray a bunch of nach nach slogans across the memorial, but if we were to wake up one morning and find that someone did deface the memorial in a similar fashion to the way they deface the rest of the city and country, I wonder what their reaction would be...

This cannot be right.

The program is heard by only 36 people, and it took a lawsuit about anti-semitism to shut them down?
Even my blog gets more of an audience than that station!

(Hattip: RW)

We were having some meat for dinner last night. As I was preparing it, my 4 year old daughter asked if we were going to be eating "cow or sheep" for dinner...

How many 4-year olds ask that kind of question? hmmmmm

What a small world we live in!

the Merkaz Ha'Rav terrorist attack was stopped by a civilian shooter. The first Jerusalem tractor attack was stopped by his brother in law. The second Jerusalem tractor attack, that just happened a short while ago, was stopped by the teacher of the shooter in the first tractor attack!

I don't get how this works. It seems like a contradiction to me.

Today, Ynet is reporting that Israel has placed in the bottom four of 140 nations in a ranking of how peaceful the nation is. Israel placed right next to illustrious war torn countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq Sudan and Somalia.

Just the other day, Jameel mentioned a report from the Asia Times that did a study on happy countries, and they found that Israel was ranked as the happiest country, with a higher life expectancy than even Germany or the Netherlands!

How do those two categories fit together? The least peaceful, but the happiest. Doesn't make much sense.

Why is it that when Haredim impose a ban or cherem (or consumer boycott in more modern terms) on a product or company because it goes against their worldview, they get nothing but bad press, yet when secular Jews impose a cherem on a company because it acts against their beliefs, as a cherem has been announced against Fox clothes because they signed Bar Rafaeli (the top Israeli model who is also a draft dodger) as their presenter, they get nothing but good words and support?

Something to make you go hmmm...

Maariv newspaper has reported that a family from petach Tikva applied at Misrad Hapnim to name their newborn baby nothing less than "Na Nach Nachma Nachman M'Uman".

The request was denied. The report did not say on what basis. If this child was a boy, which I assume it is, it means they gave the baby the name first at the bris. Did they name it forst at the bris Na Nach Nachma Nachman M'Uman and the Misrad Hapnim disallow it? I wonder what its real name is...

15:45 PMO says looking into Syrian report IAF dropped ammo over Syria (AP)

along with...

15:08 IDF says looking into reports that IAF struck targets in Syria overnight (Haaretz)


I am not really sure what that means. The army might have dropped ammo into Syria without approval and without telling anyone who needs to make such decisions? They do know? They do not know?
The army is not even sure and needs to look into whether they themselves did something or not?

Leona Helmsley, who died last week, has left $12 million to her dog, Trouble.

She left $5 million to each of two grandchildren on condition they visit their fathers grave once a year. To her two other grandchildren she left nothing (for reasons known to them).

That dog, Trouble, must have been a pretty good friend to her. I wonder what a dog will do with so much money... hmmmmm

(this qualifies for this blog because Leona Helmsley was Jewish)

I have heard a lot of segulahs, but this one is new to me.

There is a famous segulah attributed to Rav Chaim Kanievsky that goes like this: if a baby is breech (at a late stage in pregnancy), one should look through the seforim in the house and see if any are placed upside down. If there are some, turn them upside right and the baby will flip over as well.

That one I have heard before. I only mention it here because it was told to me today at the same time as the one I am about to tell you.

This one is wild. It has been attributed to Rav Yisrael Yaakov Fisher zt"l. He was known for recommending segulahs of all types, along with many other great qualities he was known for. He (supposedly) said regarding a breech baby: the husband and wife have to stroll down to Lifta (a natural spring at the entrance to Jerusalem) or Moza (the site of another natural spring, just outside Jerusalem) -

Note: I assume this means any natural spring would work, but he mentioned those two. Or maybe he was specific to these two, so do not hold me responsible if you try it elsewhere and it does not work.

the husband then have to get some spring water into your mouth and put it directly into the wife's mouth.. 3 times! I think she has to drink the water, but the person telling me was not clear on that..

according to R' Fisher - if that doesn't work the baby wasn't meant to turn... and it is dangerous for it to turn.. (hmmm...that means it is not the segulah not working, but it was not meant to be. so you never know if the segulah really works or not.)

or is he?

As a result of the recent bankruptcy of a major construction company, Heftziba, many people who bought apartments in projects being built by Heftziba have moved into their partially built apartments as a form of squatting in an attempt to lay claim to their apartments and possibly have preference in the courts over other debtors.

Without discussing the whole Heftziba issue right now, I just want to get into one aspect of it.

The problem with these residents squatting is in many Heftziba projects, including Beitar Illit, Bet Shemesh, and Modiin Ilit. The Heftziba project of of Modiin Ilit has a unique problem though.

The project of Modiin Ilit is being built upon "disputed land". Peace Now petitioned the High Court to force Heftziba to stop building there becase, they claimed, the land being built upon is owned by Palestinians and the whole neighborhood is illegal.

After the bankruptcy broke and the squatters entered the apartments, the courts were asked to allow evacuation of the squatters. The courts decided there was no need to force an immediate evacuation and they preferred to wait it out and see how the bankruptcy proceeds. A decision will be made at a later time about the squatters, and about the squatters in all the various projects.

The State does not really want to get involved in evicting these squatters. On Monday the court ruled, due to a petition, that the State is allowed remove the squatters (of the Modiin Ilit project only). The State petitioned the court asking whether it is obligated to or whether they are allowed to.

It seems that State is against having another disengagement. They must have decided after Amona, Gush Katif, Homesh, Hebron's house, and others, that this is not the way to go.

Or is it only because the residents in question are haredim living in a haredi neighborhood that the State does not want to remove them from these houses built on Palestinian land? Because they don't want to start up with the Haredi parties that are much more organized and committed than the settler parties?

hmmmmmmm

According to this article on Ynet, Conservative Rabbi Simcha Roth recommends against kissing mezuzas in public places (especially in hospitals). He deems it a danger (of contracting iruses and germs left by other people. I guess the rule of "sakanta chamira m'issura" - danger is worse than prohibition - would apply in such a case, according to Rabbi Roth.

Kissing a mezuza is only a tradition, not a mitzva, and therefore he recommends against it.

Another one bites the dust..

Here is something I don't get... Israel is providing an Arab "country" with gas? Of all the countries in the Middle East to do provide such a commodity, is Israel really the best suited for this, even in the best of times?

Would not countries like Iraq (big friends of the Palestinians supposedly), Saudi Arabia and Iran (among others) be better suited for providing their Arab friends and poor, needy Palestinians with gas that is a natural supply in their countries?

We have a set of infra-red transmitters between two different sites. There was a problem with the units not being in synch, so I called the technician for the units. They sent two guys out to realign and resynch the units.

When synching the units, they had to set it at the optimum strength for transmission. They were setting the units at a strength of 770. I chuckled and asked why 770? Is that a specific number from the manufacturer or just something you set as a measure? I said that I did not remember them originally setting it specifically to 770...

The technician did not know the answer. He said that is what they always set it to.

I wonder if the person who chose 770 as the optimum number to set it to chose that because of its significance in Chabad....

This blurb is on the Breaking News of Haaretz:
20:09
Peretz: Incident of soldiers beating left-wing activists will be investigated (Haaretz)

It seems some left-wing protestors were trying to block roads near Hebron and disturb checkpoints. The soldiers tried to break things up and clear the area and things got violent, as they often do in these situations. Some left-wingers must have gotten their heads busted.

So Amir Peretz announces he has to investigate the incident.

Funny, but I do not remember him, or any other minister, saying any such thing such as a need for an investigation any of the multiple times right wing activists or settlers get beaten by soldiers or police. I do not remember hearing any such statement from either Peretz or Dichter (Minister of Internal Security) when the students got (and are still getting) their heads beaten in during their protests this past week.

Only left-wing protests cause an uproar when they get violent? What is different about left-wing protests than right-wing protests?

Things that make you go "hmmmmm...."