Alan Dershowitz and Ed Koch are now publicly bemoaning their naiveté in voting for Obama, claiming they were duped by Obama’s promises to retain the US traditional alliance with Israel, a promise that now seems a bit disingenuous, to say the least. Israil is now imperiled as never before, and Obama seems cheerfully unconcerned; indeed, there are those who say he is cheerfully looking forward to the extinction of the only democratic county in the entire Middle East. The problem for Koch and Dershowitz is that they are virtually alone, with most American Jews caring not at all if Israel is turned to molten glass by Iranian nukes.

Six million more

Koch knows the score

With Dershowitz he counts it

A Judas Goat

They cast their vote

And sob as they renounce it

While other Jews

Who chose to choose

The Left who want extinction

Of that foul State

At soonest date

Reject there’s a distinction

Between the free

With liberty

For their Israeli brothers

And those who will

One fine day kill

All Jewish kids and mothers

Al Qaeda fighters from Libya attacked Mali, a former French African colony, and were getting close to the capital and taking it over.  In response, the French decided to send in troops, and according to a French spokesman in the Elysee Palace, they were surprised at the military competence of the Al Qaeda fighters, surprised at the quality of their weapons, surprised at the quality of their training. Sounds a lot like Dien Bien Phu, where the French thought Giap had no heavy guns, thought that even if he did he couldn’t get them up into the hills, and even if he did French counter-battery fire would quickly take them out. Quelle surprise all around.

Mon Dieu! These Muslims want to fight

Attack all day and shoot all night

Their weapons shine as if brand new

Their training’s hard and first class too

There’s someone giving them their arms

They’re sure not growing them on farms

They grow in strength they grow in size

And Elysee says Quelle Surprise!

The Obama administration is hell-bent on removing all nuclear weapons from the world, despite the fact that everyone knows if we disarm nobody else will, and we will be helpless to defend ourselves. In order to disarm us, the Obama administration is exploring ways of enacting treaties without the consent of two thirds of the Senate, as required by the Constitution. And they will probably succeed on bypassing the Constitution, as they have on a number of other things. I spoke to my liberal friend Montmorency, who was outraged that an old scrap of paper called the Constitution stood in the way of all the good and wonderful things Barack Obama is trying to do. “It will all change,” he said, “when Barack gets to pick three new Supreme Court justices in the next year or two. The twenty-second Amendment will be declared unconstitutional, and once re-elected in 2016 Barack will assume the office of President for Life. And in the meantime, on that happy day we have completely disarmed, the world will shine as brightly as a thousand suns.” He walked away, whistling happily, but not before he handed me the following rhyme.

The Constitution gets no raves

‘Twas writ by white guys who owned slaves

And kept the black man sick and poor

It’s time we shoved it out the door

And gave the power to the guy

Who won it all on his first try

And won again against all odds

And joined the pantheon of gods

We don’t need nukes we don’t need planes

We’re for Barack, he cures our pains

He’ll lead us to those sunlit lands

Where cokes are free and laughing bands

Of folks like me now rule the place

And will with help of Barack’s grace

Unite the world in peace and love

We’ll trade the eagle for the dove

The history books will surely show

That in these times the golden glow

Of our Barack has lit the way

And so once more I simply say

The Constitution, Supreme Court

And Congress we shall all abort

You’ll see quite soon just what I mean

Election night twenty sixteen

Devin Coldewey, at Coldewey.cc, has a feature called Coldewey’s Curiosities, one of which is unfamiliar words. Included are the following:

Hippanthrope: one who believes himself a horse.

Pullulate: to breed or bud

Guimpe: a type of garment covering the neck and shoulders.

Incondite: crudely or poorly constructed or composed.

A horse I am but I would hope

That makes me not a hippanthrope

For as a horse I’d surely hate

To think I’d have to pullulate

With one who thinks that skimpiness

Includes a full length guimpe dress

And so alone night after night

I fashion verse that’s incondite

Obama has skillfully played the race card and the class warfare card, and has turned the United States into a country severely divided between the haves and the have-nots. But the war between the haves and have-nots was never an equal one.

The war between haves and have-nots never was

A fair fight twixt hoe and the lance

The contest was never an equal event

The have-nots had never a chance

The problems arose ‘tween the haves and the haves

Who jostled for women and gold

And land and fast horses and trade routes and such

A pastime that never grew old

Today we the have-nots have put away hoes

The haves keep their lances in vaults

They still steal the women, fast horses and gold

While dancing that old lancer’s waltz

Hug Chavez was declared dead by the New York Times so that makes it true. Hugo is resting as comfortably as a dead man can in a hospital in Havana, and is reported, by the Cuban government, to be alive with the help of ventilators and assorted hardware. The thing is, Cuba and Venezuela have a sweetheart deal for very cheap Venezuelan oil, and so long as Chavez is alive that cheap oil and other goodies courtesy of a benevolent Hugo Chavez will continue to flow to the Castro brothers. And what makes this interesting is that no one is allowed to see Chavez except Fidel, and so Chavez will be alive as long as it is convenient for Fidel to say he is. Hugo Chavez may be the first President for Life who spends a good part of his presidency in a jar of formaldehyde.

The pumps and relays, men have willed

Work hard to keep the heart unstilled

The respirators’ ceaseless toil

Confine him to this mortal coil

The tubes with fluids flow unchecked

Into a body syringe bedecked

And yet when all is done and said

The hour come, the tyrant dead

It is being bruited about that in another ten to twenty years most of the existing colleges and universities in the United States will be out of business, their places taken by giant online universities. It is estimated that on free or almost free online Harvard University will have fifty million students. But there’s more to a college education than, well, education. There’s parties, and sex and football, all denied to the online student locked in his parents’ basement.

When education goes online

For every girl and boy

Results will show not much has changed

It’s just a new found toy

The kids who want to learn will learn

Much as they do today

While others simply waste their time

No matter what you say

But most will wonder what becomes

If true becomes this dream

Of parties, frats and keg stand girls

And where’s the football team

One of the largest comets ever to pass by Earth is headed our way, and will be several times brighter than the full moon during November and December 2013.  Named ISON by astronomers, the comet is calculated to pass by Earth sometime in December.  But what if it doesn’t pass us by?  Maybe the Mayans were off by a year.

A big time giant comet

Is enough to make me vomit

It can only be the death star on its way

It is surely Armageddon

Based upon the way it’s headin’

But I’m sure ‘twill look just great o’er Galway Bay

But the experts say don’t worry

It’s in such a big time hurry

That the sun will surely turn to gas its ice

Turning skies to flaming colors

Some to brilliants some to dullers

Leading some to scan the sky and say “That’s nice”

Then it disappears like magic

For a comet’s life is tragic

For a hundred million years it roams free space

Then it runs into resistance

Say that sun there in the distance

Then it’s gone but there’s another takes its place

Both societies and living creatures grow in complexity until they collapse. I found my friend Ogg sitting in front of his cave, staring vacantly into space. When I asked if there was something wrong he sighed and said…

It’s just all this complexity

Compounded by perplexity

And I confess that I don’t have a clue

The sun comes up too early

And my neighbor’s getting surly

And to top it all my woman’s overdue

As a family we were happy

And though most times things were crappy

We at least had food to eat and clothes to wear

But our families got together

And became a clan to weather

All the storms and strife we could no longer bear

After that we went to tribal

And although that made us liable

To the strains that growing large would put us through

For a time things were just great and

We became a city state and

Did I say my woman says she’s overdue

There was never a vacation

We became a big time nation

And we conquered those around us to survive

And of course you know the story

It was Empire and glory

It was conquer or we’d cease to be alive

When collapse came it came quickly

And my woman got quite prickly

I was Emperor of all that was in view

But now here I sit in sorrow

Broke, in debt, with no tomorrow

And my woman, friend, is three weeks overdue

The New York Times is reporting that Hugo Chavez, the left wing dictator of Venezuela, is dead. Chavez, with almost unlimited oil money, has managed, by his left wing policies, to drive the economy of a once prosperous Venezuela into the ground. In addition to being Castro’s sugar daddy, he subsidized the lives of the poor by making food and gasoline dirt cheap, all in return for their votes. Hugo Chavez is gone, but his spirit will long live on in Venezuela. Death brings with it sainthood, possibly godhood, to the man who looked after the poor, and the poorest of the poor will sing the song of Chavez the Provider, and look out to sea, determined to be there when he returns in triumph, shining like the sun on the mountaintops.

Gone away are the nights so gay

And the sun shines dully on the mountaintop

Our hero gone and the bitter dawn

Means the low gas prices they are gonna stop

Yes it’s sad to say that he’s gone away

And he won’t be back for many a day

Our hearts are torn but he will be reborn

And when we reach Caracas we’ll get our pay

We’ll be fine and the sun will shine

On the oil rigs rusting in the distant haze

Our cupboard’s bare but we never care

For Chavez is here and so are happy days

Yes it’s sad to say he’s gone away

And he won’t be back for many a day

Our hearts are torn but he will be reborn

And when we reach Caracas we’ll be okay