An incendiary round-up for our Saturday SteynPosts:
The jihad boys have it all over the rest of us when it comes to social media, but once in a while it all goes awry. A fighter with Ajnad al-Sham - which, as I'm sure you all know, is one faction of the so-called "Army of Conquest" alliance in Syria - was making a promotional video to upload to AllahuTube when Assad dropped a bomb on him:
It would be a more heartening story if the French or a US drone were able to do this to ISIS, but we don't seem to get that lucky.
Incidentally, if you heard me on the radio yesterday, I was talking about Bernie Sanders' lazy theory that climate change causes terrorism: Global warming turns farms into desert, which drives people into cities, where they can't find work, except in the jihad.
But not so - in this case as in all the others. The now deceased cameraman, Ahmed Abu Hamza, had a nice middle-class job at the University of Damascus - and it wasn't enough.
~Speaking of not-so-happy endings, there was a did-the-earth-move-for-you? moment in Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia. Oksana Bobrovskaya is - was - a glamorous member of the duma. I'm not sure if the picture at top right is a standard pose for Russian parliamentarians, but, if so, she looks better in it than Mitch McConnell. At any rate, Ms Bobrovskaya was having sex with her husband in the back seat of their Toyota RAV4 when the car exploded, killing both of them:
Police sources alleged the couple has rowed before the fatal incident and he had accused her of 'cheating' on him with a wealthy lover.
Eyewitnesses who rushed to the scene said that when the bodies were removed from the car, both the MP and her husband were 'naked below the belt'.
'There is a version that he held in his hands a kind of grenade, or a piece of TNT,' said a police source, according to The Siberian Times.
The couple 'had a conflict' during which 'the explosives detonated.
I recall an old Sammy Cahn parody of a Perry Como hit from the early Seventies that evidently still applies:
It's Impossible
To make love in a Toyota
It's Impossible...
~A couple of months back, I quoted this exchange from Looney Tunes: Back In Action. Jenna Elfman (TV's Dharma) and Daffy Duck are roaring through Vegas pursued by Yosemite Sam:
As Sam and co pull up alongside and try to toss dynamite into the car, Miss Elfman is bewildered: "Dynamite? Who has dynamite?"
"Hey, welcome to my world," says Daffy.
Hey, welcome to our world. A Chicago-bound flight, November 2015:
BALTIMORE (AP) — Four passengers were removed from a Chicago-bound flight at Baltimore's international airport last week after a fellow passenger said she saw one of them receive a text with the word "dynamite" and the code for an airport in India, according to a police report...
A female passenger said she became alarmed when a male passenger made several phone calls in a language other than English and when she saw him receive a text message that read "BLR Dynamite," according to the report. BLR is the airport code for Bengaluru International Airport in Bangalore, India...
The flight crew decided to return to the gate... Green says the passenger who had been talking on the phone allowed officers to check the device, and no text message with the word "dynamite" was found.
The four passengers were released without charges.
If he'd had actual dynamite, he'd no doubt have made it on to the plane. But in the meantime everyone had a few more wasted hours sitting at the terminal, and that's what matters. Like Daffy says, welcome to our world.
~From Dynamite to Steynamite: My cat Marvin is delighted to see that our new album, Feline Groovy: Songs for Swingin' Cats, is doing well just two days ahead of its official release on Monday. It's available at Amazon via digital download or old-fashioned CD. And it's also at iTunes, with a special advance purchase available for "The Cat Came Back". As I understand it, if you pre-order the digital version at either outlet, it will be automatically delivered and waiting for you when you wake up on Monday morning. A grand start to the week. I think "She Only Talks That Way To The Cat" is going to be the breakout track.
But is it any good? Erik writes:
Mark,
Why don't they have some short clips of your new album on Amazon? At least 15 or so seconds worth so we can get an idea. I have a friend who has two cats. She might like something like this.
Erik
They do have short clips. On the Amazon page, at the very top of the track listing, there's a line called "Sample this album". Just click the Play button. You can also preview the album at iTunes.
For our French readers, there are lots of lovely comments over at Bonjour Le Chat. Lise Bellemare:
Marvin looks very happy to be sharing your life and your music!
Sylviane Rest:
High class, Marvin!
Katie Hei:
A nice and beautiful cat!
Hey, wait a minute, what about the songs? There's another fellow apart from Marvin on that album cover...