By Debbie Schlussel
This one was on the top of the front-page of yesterday’s Detroit Free Press:

MIAMI VISITORS SAY …: We liked Detroit better!

Uh-huh. Sure they did. Because everyone likes snow, freezing weather, and a decrepit, declining, crime-ridden downtown (two murdered right in the main drag of Superbowl partying, still unsolved) with nothing to do better than sun, warmth, the beach, ocean breezes, South Beach, great Cuban cuisine, etc., etc., etc., etc. . . . .

Language Aside, Which One Would You Rather Be At?
Get real. Oh, and by the way, those bars, restaurants, and stores Superbowl XL visitors got to visit on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, last year. They’ve disappeared. Everyone got 7 day leases, and come Monday after the Superbowl, the glass slipper turned back into a pumpkin. Because no business owner in his/her right mind would risk a year-long lease in a crime-ridden virtual ghost-town that used to be a metropolis.
I almost forgot. Miami’s mayor is not a tricked-out pimp daddy thug with out-of-wedlock kids, bodyguards rounding up his next bed-partners, and strippers found shot to death in drive-bys after allegedly “performing” for him.
And to all those hate-mailers who are about to ask me why I live in Detroit, I don’t. And I go inside the city as little as at all possible. D-Mecca ain’t the place to be . . . or be seen.

By Debbie Schlussel
Do the Democrats support HAMAS, Hezbollah, and Jaish Al-Mahdi (the Mahdi Army)? Do they think anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about killings in Iraq? Did they mourn for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Yasser Arafat?
Well, if they don’t, then why did the Democratic National Committee pick Imam Husham Al-Husainy to deliver their invocation, in which he called for an end to “occupation”?
Readers of this site know Imam Al-Husainy, Imam of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearbornistan, well. I’ve written about him and his extremist views extensively. I also wrote about how his participation in Morgan Spurlock’s “30 Days” pan-Islamist propaganda in the Wall Street Journal. The guy is best buddies with the Neturei Karta rabbis who spoke at the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Holocaust Denial Conference in Iran.

Terror Supporter Imam Husham Al-Husainy
Delivers Invocation @ DNC Meeting
Read the full text of Al-Husainy’s “prayer” at Jihad Watch. Video at Hot Air.
The DNC, Party of Jihad. Dhimmicrats USA.

By Debbie Schlussel
This weekend’s new releases include “Because I Said So,” the movie aimed at teens and starring Mandy Moore. (“The Messengers” was not screened for critics, a sign that it’s bad.)
This movie is so horrid, I wanted to walk out several times, and finally had the guts to do so about 45 minutes into it. My only regret is that I did not walk out sooner. Trust me–there is NO way the movie could have redeemed itself. It’s the most annoying celluloid garbage I’ve seen to date.

This movie is worse than a chick flick and calling it one would be an insult to chick flicks. It also stars Diane Keaton, who comes off as a dirty old-lady. She plays Moore’s mother who is trying to marry her off and secretly sets her up with a rich perfectionist. Meanwhile, a poor but nice and handsome single father who plays jazz wants to date the daughter and he secretly arranges to meet and date her. The mother doesn’t like this and meddles, but as with all predictable movies, you know what happens.
Apparently, Diane Keaton never heard the phrase “growing old gracefully,” because this movie was absolutely shrill and unfunny. Filled with snorts and other stupid jokes, it’s a complete waste of time. As my friend, Detroit Free Press movie critic Terry Lawson (who was still watching this unbearable movie when I walked out), wrote:

Basically a female minstrel show . . . . It’s hard to imagine Annie Hall would have ever aged this badly.

Right on. Guys, if your wife or girlfriend (or daughter) insists on you going to this movie, hang yourself first.
Why? Because I said so. After seeing,er . . . surviving this movie, you’ll certainly want to.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Superbowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for pizza delivery.
Unfortunately, as today’s Wall Street Journal reports, it’s also the biggest day for strippers (or as they like to euphemize it, “exotic dancers”–nothing exotic about trash, though).
The Journal has a lengthy story about how difficult it is for all of the strippers to get to all of the Superbowl parties to perform at exactly halftime, calculating when it will be. My heart really bleeds for these people who have this dilemma of getting to the right place at the right time to take their clothes off for a room full of total strangers . . . and do who knows what else.

So glad the Wall Street Journal devoted its valuable space to the “dilemma” of Tony Hassan, owner of the Detroit area’s Erotic Image (former home of “Tawny Peaks”):

Mr. Hassan of Erotic Image in Detroit has a different approach: upselling the customers who book early. Starting in January, Mr. Hassan spends a significant portion of his advertising budget marketing a $490 Super Bowl package that includes four performers — a pre-game hostess to greet the guests, a dancer to perform at halftime and a separate “intimate duo” to perform after the game.
This plan not only allows customers to watch the game without interruption, it creates supply-chain efficiencies. A pregame hostess will have plenty of time to travel to a second party to perform at halftime and later, to travel to a third party to participate in a postgame show. By limiting the number of dancers working, Mr. Hassan can guarantee top dancers good earnings and avoid sending out inexperienced recruits. (He often sends trainees with the veterans to observe.)

Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, eat your hearts out. There’s a new halftime show in town.
**** UPDATE, 02/04/07: I forgot the other disturbing part of this sleazy article. It appears Pamela Anderson is not alone in installing a stripper pole in her home. Apparently, for portable stripper pole companies, business booms right before the Superbowl for “housewives and moms” who want to strip for their husband’s friends at their Superbowl parties. Classy:

If there’s any development that could cut into this business, it’s the growing number of party hosts who want to do it themselves. Platinum Stages of Newport Beach, Calif., a company that sells portable stripper poles that can be installed in living rooms, says sales in the two weeks before the Super Bowl will account for 20% of its $2 million to $3 million in annual revenue. “The people using our products are your basic housewives and moms,” says Kim Homuth, the company’s director of operations.

Sorry, Bobby, I don’t want to see the Superbowl at your house. My mom is stripping for us. Come on over.
Yup, America is sliding downward fast . . . and not just on the stripper pole.

Sad: Portable Stripper Poles Popular w/Moms on Superbowl Weekend

By Debbie Schlussel
Forget La-Z-Boy. Meet Berkline. (Even Rosie O’Donnell can fit into one of these.)

Here’s the caption beneath:

Berkline’s tan and chocolate theater seating is upholstered in microsuede and leather. Chairs are $499 each, wedges are $269 each.

Berkline of Morristown, Tennessee was founded in 1928 by Jewish American Jacob Popkin.

By Debbie Schlussel
Read it here.

By Debbie Schlussel
“Mamisma.”
It’s the pan-feminist word coined by a woman named Harriet Rubin writing in USA Today. She uses it to describe Hillary and says it’s the opposite of machismo. She defines it as:

femininity defined by mature and maternal qualities. It lets a female candidate make men look like wimps while doing the taboo-dance, enticing people to fall in love with her. . . .Mamisma makes a strong woman appear ultimately non-threatening.

Um, Hillary Clinton is a lot of things, but femininity, maternal qualities, and falling in love with her ain’t among them.

Annoyingatrix
And I don’t know about you, but I’d take machismo over “mamisma” any day, any time in the White House.
I have a much better word for Hillary:
Annoyingatrix. No definition needed. (“Demasculinator” is a close second.)
And I’m sure my readers can come up with some more. . . .

By Debbie Schlussel
Echoes of the Sami Al-Arian and Zacarias Moussaoui trials.
The Justice Department is touting the fact that a jury in Chicago, yesterday, convicted former grocer Muhammad Salah and former Howard University professor Abdelhaleem Ashqar in a 3-month terror trial. But the fact is, the convictions are minor. The real news is that the jury acquitted both men, who funded HAMAS homicide bombers, of racketeering charges and that the men were only convicted of obstructing justice. (Ashqar was also found guilty of criminal contempt.)
Those charges are minor and for the men–who don’t have criminal records–we’ll see if they do any jailtime at all and how much.

HAMAS Operatives Abdelhaleem Ashqar & Muhammad Salah:
All Smiles After OJ-Style Trial
The Justice Department really blew it. The case should have been a slam-dunk. Salah was found with $100,000 cash in Israel and admitted to being a HAMAS commander. Both men admitted they were moving money over there “for the Palestinian cause.” You know what that means.
More from The Washington Post:

The case provides the latest example of the difficulties faced by the Justice Department in its attempts to prosecute supporters of radical Palestinian organizations. In the Chicago case, prosecutors faced the additional challenge of trying to punish activities that occurred before Hamas was declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 1995.
Salah, a U.S. citizen, was accused of helping funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to militant groups in the West Bank and Gaza. He was captured by the Israelis with $100,000 cash in 1993 and allegedly confessed to being a Hamas military commander. Ashqar was alleged to have helped launder money and facilitate communications for Hamas.
Neither man denied he helped move money for Palestinian causes.

The problem is that Ashqar and Salah should have been tried long ago, as in before 1995, when the activity at issue occured, NOT 11 and 12 years later. FBI Special Agent Robert Wright investigated them in the early to late-1990s. Like FBI agent Harry Samit who begged the FBI and Justice Department to allow him to search Moussaoui’s hard drive, Wright constantly begged and pleaded with top FBI and Justice brass to go after Salah and Ashqar in court.
But, instead, the agency ignored Wright and disciplined him. Samit was also ignored, and his warnings of a hijacking plot and that American lives would be lost were ignored. We know what happened . . . 9/11. You’d think the FBI and Justice would have learned, but you’d be wrong. Wright warned that lives would be lost because Salah and Ashqar continued to walk free. He was right. Bombs went off in Israeli cafes and buses and bars and pizza shops, some of it as a result of money Salah and Ashqar laundered overseas.
The Justice Department only finally went after the two after Agent Wright and retired Agent John Vincent went on ABC News and ABC’s Primetime to complain. And it was too little, too late.
As time passes, it’s harder to convict. Right after 9/11 was the time to pursue these men, but John Ashcroft–who then headed Justice–hemmed and hawed. And look what we got.
An OJ-style jury–bored for three long months by incompetent USDOJ prosecutors who should know by now that you can’t take a quarter of a year to try a case in front of a post-MTV generation–acquitted terrorists of the most serious charges against them.
Will we ever learn? Will we ever treat terrorists as national security problems instead of OJ-jury fun and games?
Not if the Al-Arian, Moussaoui, and now Salah/Al-Ashqar trials are any indication. And they are. These trials are the rule, NOT the exception.

By Debbie Schlussel
Ian Schwartz at Hot Air has very partial video from one of the segments I did on Wednesday Night’s Paula Zahn. (I HATE that side profile which always makes me look fat. Yuck.)

By Debbie Schlussel
Last summer, I wrote about a National Institutes of Health study showing that the use of topical grooming and hygiene products containing lavender and/or tea tree oil causes the growth of breasts in pre-pubescent boys. The condition is known as gynecomastia (and is also caused by marijuana and soy products–attention potheads and granola-heads).
The moral of the story is that if you use women’s style, scented body wash on your boys, they will develop women’s style body parts. Mother nature rebels against the feminization of America’s men from the point of boyhood.
In the last couple of days, the story has hit the news again. But it’s not new. It’s just that the same men who conducted the study I cited in July, 2006–Kenneth Korach, Dr. Clifford Bloch et al–have now published the results of their study in the respected New England Journal of Medicine.

Man-Boob Alert:
Calvin Klein Eternity for Men Product Line Contains Lavender
And the specifics of the study, as summarized by the Palm Beach Post, are even more striking than reported last July. The Post points out the link to cancers:

A West Palm Beach dermatologist warns that the study should raise a red flag for adults, too. Because some cancers can be influenced by estrogen, further study is needed, said Dr. Kenneth Beer.
“The first thing they ask when you get a breast tumor is, ‘Is it hormone-sensitive?'” Beer said. “All-natural doesn’t mean harmless.”
The paper’s authors detail three case studies of boys who had used balms, soaps and shampoos containing lavender and tea-tree oils.
All three began developing breast buds that could not be explained by their own hormones. When they stopped using the lavender and tea-tree products, the breast growth went away.
The first boy was four and a half. His pediatrician noted that he had breast tissue that was 2 cm by 2 cm on a first visit. Three months later, those breast buds had grown to 2.5 cm square, and were then tender.
“The patient’s mother reported applying a compounded ‘healing balm’ containing lavender oil to his skin starting shortly before the initial presentation,” the authors noted. Several months after discontinuing the balm, the breast tissue was gone.
The second boy, who was 10, had breasts that were 3.5 cm by 4 cm wide, and 3.5 cm in depth. He reported using a shampoo and styling gel with both lavender and tea tree oil. Once he discontinued use of the products, the breasts receeded.
The third boy, who was seven, developed small breasts after using lavender soap every day, and lavender-scented lotions from time to time.
“His fraternal twin used the same skin lotions, but not the lavender-scented soap, and did not have any gynecomastia,” the authors noted.
The scientists, based in North Carolina and Colorado, then studied the oils’ effects on human cancer cells in a laboratory. They found that the oils activated estrogen receptors and inhibited androgens on the cells.
“We conclude that repeated topical exposure to lavender and tea tree oils probably caused prepubertal gynecomastia in these boys,” the authors wrote.

A good reason to keep your boys away from girlie-man grooming products: that they will literally–physically–turn into girlie-men.