Tuesday 28 July 2009
When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors
Coming Soon: First Feature Documentary About The Doors
The creative chemistry of four brilliant artists - drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Kreiger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and singer Jim Morrison - made The Doors one of America's most iconic and influential rock bands. When You're Strange is the first feature documentary to tell their story. Using footage shot between their formation in 1965 and Morrison's death in 1971, it follows the band from the corridors of UCLA's film school, where Manzarek and Morrison met, to the stages of sold-out arenas.
Taking its title from the cabaret-tinged Doors hit "People Are Strange," the film chronicles the creation of The Doors' six landmark studio albums in just five years, as well as their electrifying live performances. Rare cinèma vèritè footage offers an intimate glimpse into their musical collaboration - and their offstage lives.
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When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors: "Coming Soon: First Feature Documentary About The Doors"
Israel Matzav: Why Obama killed the F-22
Why Obama killed the F-22
At the Weekly Standard blog, John Noonan links this article from the Washington Post about the length to which the Obama administration went to try to kill funding for the F-22 raptor fighter jet (pictured). Noonan then asks why the administration fought so furiously against the jet. Israel Matzav: Why Obama killed the F-22Raising an objection to F-22 acquisition is one thing, launching a Napoleonic campaign -- over the objections of both Congress and the military -- is excessive. There were some serious, deeply intelligent strategic thinkers who had some equally serious, intelligent justifications for building a larger fleet of Raptors. Considering the fighter's admittedly steep price is but a drop in the health care/stimulus bucket, it's a little hard to believe the administration's only motivation was to eliminate waste in the defense budget.
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Israel Matzav: The Saudis work against Obama
The Saudis work against Obama
'Our friends the Saudis' have told President Obumbler that they won't make any 'gestures' toward Israel to get a 'peace process' going. But this time, they have gone even further. They have warned their allies not to make any gestures either. And they have insisted that their allies coordinate with them any statement they make about Israel. Read All at :
Israel Matzav: The Saudis work against Obama
Israel Matzav: Change: US lifts sanctions on Syrian airline and computer industries
Change: US lifts sanctions on Syrian airline and computer industries
Continuing to bring Bashar al-Assad closer, President Obumbler has lifted American sanctions on sending airplane parts and computer hardware and software to the chinless ophthalmologist of Damascus. Syria has apparently done nothing in return. Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Change: US lifts sanctions on Syrian airline and computer industries
Israel Matzav: Iran's interpretation of Obama's policy
Iran's interpretation of Obama's policy
In The Corner, Michael Rubin quotes from an editorial in the conservative Iranian paper Kayhan (Supreme Leader Khamenei appoints the editor of Kayhan, and so its editorials are seen as mirroring the views of the Supreme Leader): Israel Matzav: Iran's interpretation of Obama's policyWhat punishments they threaten are to persuade Iran to come to the negotiation table, not in order to punish Iran after eventual failure of negotiations which they themselves know is neither realistic nor effective. For now the situation is this: that the Americans in a very impolite way and like uncivilized cowboys beg Iran to negotiate. Their imperialist nature has not yet taught them that begging someone to negotiate with has its own ways and shouting and screaming in a state of emergency can't be interpreted as a sign of strength. The final and returning point is...that they have no strategy, but only beg to negotiate. After the elections they for a couple of days wanted to speculate that something had changed in Iran and that they should use a different method, but not much time had passed after which they found out that the governments in Iran only execute the decisions of the Leader...
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Israel Matzav: Jerusalem demonstration against Obama
Jerusalem demonstration against Obama
There's a demonstration in Jerusalem this evening against President Obama's policies toward Israel. “Not since the days of [U.S. Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger has there been such a protest against American policies,” said MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh), chairman of the National Union party. “The pressure that Barack Hussein Obama is exerting against us to simply stop growing and stop living will not work.”
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Israel Matzav: Jerusalem demonstration against Obama
Israel Matzav: Bolivians resisting Iran's push for uranium
Bolivians resisting Iran's push for uranium
The Washington Times reports that Bolivians are resisting Iran's push for their country to sell Iran uranium for use in its nuclear program. Israel Matzav: Bolivians resisting Iran's push for uraniumIndian inhabitants around Manomo, a mountain that means "sleeping man" in native Guarani, have said that its bald, rounded top glows at night. Underground mine shafts and open pits are visible at various points along the mountain's side and barren peak.
Mincruz, a Santa Cruz mining company, reported that an analysis of 280 rock samples extracted last year shows a 2.4 percent uranium content, which is considered of "high value."Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Does the US have a policy on Iran? If so, what is it?
Does the US have a policy on Iran? If so, what is it?
On Sunday, I asked how the Obama administration plans to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, something Secretary of State Clinton insists it is going to do. In Monday's New York Daily News, Michael Goodwin asks whether the Obama administration has a policy on Iran at all. Israel Matzav: Does the US have a policy on Iran? If so, what is it?More to the unfortunate point, her choice of words in Thailand caused doubts about whether the United States even has a policy toward Iran. If we don't, we better get one.
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Israel Matzav: Uh oh: Gates promises 'defense umbrella'
Uh oh: Gates promises 'defense umbrella'
In a joint news conference with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (pictured) referred to a 'defense umbrella' against Iran for US allies, the same phrase that got Secretary of State Clinton into trouble in Thailand last week because it implies American acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran. Acknowledging Israel's concerns, Gates said the US administration's attempt to engage Iran diplomatically was "not an open-ended offer" and that the US was aware Iran might try to "run out the clock."
Israel Matzav: Uh oh: Gates promises 'defense umbrella'
Israel Matzav: Awesome: Hezbullah training Lebanese Armed Forces
Awesome: Hezbullah training Lebanese Armed Forces
A Kuwaiti newspaper reports that Hezbullah is training officers of the Lebanese Armed Forces to fight alongside it in the event of a war with Israel. Additionally, an entire battalion of the Lebanese Armed Forces is to operate within Hezbullah. Israel Matzav: Awesome: Hezbullah training Lebanese Armed ForcesLebanese defense officials believe there is a secret pact between Hizbullah and top officers in the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the Kuwaiti paper Asiyassa reported on Monday.
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Israel Matzav: IDF training for war with Hezbullah
IDF training for war with Hezbullah
The IDF has set up a new training ground for war with Hezbullah. It includes a rubber city in which to practice urban warfare, with tunnels leading to a forest simulating the 'nature preserves' Hezbullah has set up in southern Lebanon. Israel Matzav: IDF training for war with HezbullahShortly after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the IDF built a replica of a Hizbullah "nature reserve" - a forested area where the group had dug bunkers and deployed rocket launchers - to train IDF troops. Now, the IDF is building an urban warfare center - consisting of a mock Lebanese village - which it plans to connect to the replica of the nature reserve.
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Israel Matzav: Fatah's power structure makes peace impossible
Fatah's power structure makes peace impossible
Barry Rubin reports that next week's Fatah convention in Bethlehem, the first in 20 years, will highlight the leadership problems in Fatah. All of the 17 members of Fatah's Central Committee are over the age of 65, and the younger generation is even more radical (no great surprise given what they have been spoon-fed by the 'Palestinian' media) than the current one. But even the current Fatah Central Committee is not one that is going to make peace.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Fatah's power structure makes peace impossible
Israel Matzav: Women of Hamastan forced to wear head scarves
Women of Hamastan forced to wear head scarves
On Sunday, it was reported that a judge in Gaza forced a lawyer to don a head scarf in order to appear in court. Now it is reported that the decree goes beyond the courts. Gaza is becoming more and more like Iran and Saudi Arabia. All women are now required to wear head scarves. The London-based newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that the Gaza government approved a series of laws meant to guard Muslim morals.
This joins an increasing number of reports by Gaza residents, who say modesty patrols have been forcing women to wear head coverings, especially at Gaza's beaches, and that they are inspecting isolated cars in order to prevent unmarried couples from being alone together.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Women of Hamastan forced to wear head scarves
Israel Matzav: Facts on the ground: Jewish growth rate in Judea and Samaria continues to outstrip the rest of the country
Facts on the ground: Jewish growth rate in Judea and Samaria continues to outstrip the rest of the country
The Jewish growth rate in Judea and Samaria was 2.3% during the first six months of this year, and may reach 5% by the end of the year as families tend to move during the summer. The number of Jews in Judea and Samaria has now crossed the 300,000 mark, and together with parts of Jerusalem that were liberated during the 1967 Six Day War, there are now more than 600,000 Jews in those territories that the United States and other governments classify as 'settlers.' Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Facts on the ground: Jewish growth rate in Judea and Samaria continues to outstrip the rest of the country
Israel Matzav: Obama and America's allies
Obama and America's allies
In his weekly column in the Washington Examiner, Power Line's Paul Mirengoff discusses the Godfather's sage advice: 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.' Paul focuses on three allies that the United States has abandoned in the age of Obama - Britain, Israel and India. At Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, Abe Greenwald focuses on another abandoned American ally, Georgia (Hat Tip: Power Line). And in the Boston Globe, Kapil Komireddi focuses on Obama's treatment of India. Mirengoff and Greenwald both take a stab at the most puzzling question: Why? Here's Mirengoff: Why has Obama violated the intuitively obvious portion of the Godfather's adage? Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Hamas digging tunnels near UN schools, assuming Israel won't target them
Hamas digging tunnels near UN schools, assuming Israel won't target them
Israeli defense officials warned on Sunday that Hamas is digging tunnels near UN facilities, including schools, assuming that Israel won't target them in a future war. In one instance, in a school in Beit Hanoun, the school sustained damage because of the tunnel digging underneath it. As it happens, this is the same school from which an IAF drone taped Hamas launching Kassam rockets in 2007.Israel Matzav: Hamas digging tunnels near UN schools, assuming Israel won't target them
Israel Matzav: What a show! Hamas campers stage Shalit abduction as their 'camp play'
What a show! Hamas campers stage Shalit abduction as their 'camp play'
Recently, I posted about the Jerusalem Municipality's efforts to get 'Palestinian' kids living in the city into normal day camps where they would have normal kids' activities and not the types of activities run by Islamist camps. Here's why the Municipality felt such a need to do that.When I was a kid, the camp play was Cinderella or Anna and the King of Siam - The King and I (in Hebrew no less). But for the kids of Hamastan, there is a different kind of camp play. In front of all the elites of Hamas, some of the more than 120,000 kids in Hamas camps this summer re-enacted the kidnapping of IDF corporal Gilad Shalit.
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Israel Matzav: What a show! Hamas campers stage Shalit abduction as their 'camp play'
Natalia Estemirova: Hero of our Time
Natalia Estemirova: Hero of our Time
Every now and then - rather too often, regretably - I stop to write abut the deaths of faraway heroes. This week it's the Economist's fine telling of the harsh life, incredible humanity, inspiring bravery and, as a result, forseeable early death by murder of Natalia Estemirova, and many of her friends and husband before her.
It's an uneven world we live in, with extreme disparites between the lives we're given to lead. Ms Estemirova did more with the conditions she was born into than is reasonable to expect; this made her an outstanding person.
It's an uneven world we live in, with extreme disparites between the lives we're given to lead. Ms Estemirova did more with the conditions she was born into than is reasonable to expect; this made her an outstanding person.
taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
There are Settlements and there are Settlements
There are Settlements and there are Settlements
The NYTimes has a longish and mildly confusing article about the two largest Haredi settlements on the West Bank, Beitar Illit and Modi'in Illit, which together make up for some half of the growth of the settlements. The Haredi are far too complex a story for regular journalists, it appears, even the rather good ones at the NYT, who can't really figure them out and fall back on sterotyping and sound bites. Still, even in their clischee-ish rendition, it's pretty obvious the Obama team isn't doing anyone a service by predicating their peace-mongering on pretending these places are the same as Tapuach.
Which is precisely what I've been saying for weeks. So if you wish to exchange your subscription to the NYT to support of this channel, all you need to do is... hmmn. I'll have to figure out what I might wish you to do.
PS. Did you note the part about the 40-year-old mayor with three grandchildren?
Which is precisely what I've been saying for weeks. So if you wish to exchange your subscription to the NYT to support of this channel, all you need to do is... hmmn. I'll have to figure out what I might wish you to do.
PS. Did you note the part about the 40-year-old mayor with three grandchildren?
taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
Antisemitism in the UK
Antisemitism in the UK
I was talkling the other day to a friend who employs certain types of British professionals here in Israel. To my question How bad is business these days with the recession-stricken UK, he responded that his particular line is booming, and he's hiring lots of additional staff; because of the situation, he's able to choose the best of the best.
How so, I asked? Easy, he responded. It's ever less pleasant to be a Jew in the UK. Israel is The Evil State, and people treat their local Jews as contaminated by it (my formulation). Haaretz reports similarly. So if it's ever less pleasant and also business is down why stay? Better to go to Israel.
Which means the British antisemites are strengthening Israel by pushing their most talented Jews onto our shores. Heh.
How so, I asked? Easy, he responded. It's ever less pleasant to be a Jew in the UK. Israel is The Evil State, and people treat their local Jews as contaminated by it (my formulation). Haaretz reports similarly. So if it's ever less pleasant and also business is down why stay? Better to go to Israel.
Which means the British antisemites are strengthening Israel by pushing their most talented Jews onto our shores. Heh.
taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations