Mr. Potato Head Goes To Washington. Israel, whatever.

Withering take on Joe the Plumber Intrepid Journalist's increasingly overextended fifteen minutes Over There.

Pajamas TV is a right-wing blog whose mission statement includes “exposing both bias and deception by the typically liberal Main Stream Media”. And as Roger Simon, one of their contributors, argued that as the American press – yes, the American press – was obviously an extension of Hamas, only Joe the (previously passportless) Plumber could redress this grievous imbalance for the fact hungry nation....

(ETA: This was rather nice, also)

And then, when you've had a rueful snicker, there's a bunch of other articles there at Arab Comment; the most recent, found in the sidebar, are mostly about, well, Guess What Subject (unsurprisingly, right now, of course). Lots of writing from people who're actually intimately familiar with the Middle East, (including an Israeli or so) as in actually from and/or living in Israel or Palestine, or at least somewhere in the larger region, are versed in Israeli (for example) politics, links to other Middle Eastern news sources and blogs, that sort of thing.

So, jumping off from there, among various other places, right now I'm mostly just reading up on the current shitstorm in/on Gaza.

Slap my ass and call me internalized-anti-Semitic, but I will probably -not- be prioritizing some (other) random U.S. kibitzer's -seven- volumes' worth of thinky thoughts (purportedly) on the subject, no. Much less joining in on the ensuing discussion. I um, have an urgent appointment with a hairdresser and/or a spork.

There are a number of reasons that I haven't offered my own thinky thoughts. Arguably many of them not terribly noble.

That said, need it be said, this is rapidly becoming seriously FUBAR.