Oh, it dominates your news, as well?

Yeah, we'd heard about the minor stroke but there was a lull here between it and the recent one. It sounds like you had no lull.

It's the best of all the holidays.

Ooh! Chaunukka question! What are Sephardic goodies for the holiday I am not going to attempt to spell again? I think the foods I consider traditional (latkes, those donut thingys) are Ashkenazic.

The Audobon Aquarium of the Americas is re-stocking.

I'm finally beginning to understand the power of the food journal. It shames you into not eating things you'd be embarrassed to admit eating. Things like funyons.

Around a couple of weeks ago he had a minor stroke - did that get into the news cycle there?

I think I remember hearing something (or at least, I wasn't surprised to hear it when I was reminded of it by yesterday's news), but it wasn't really news like this is. Sharon's split with Likud and the formation of the new party have been talked about a lot, but the impression I got was that any big changes were going to come from the political shift and not due to his health.

Timelies!

Remember the argan oil ita posted about? Here's a picture of goats climbing an argan tree. I've never seen goats in trees before. [link]

I stayed home sick yesterday. The good news is that I'm not appreciably sicker. The bad news is that I'm going to have to go to work. Man, I need a new job. Or, preferably, to win the lottery.

It sounds like you had no lull.

We're never in a news lull. It contradicts the definition or something.

It's especially crazy because he recently retired from his party, formed a new one, got plenty of politicians from both sides of the "political map" to join him. The new party ("Kadima", which translates to something like a combination between "onward" or "forward" and "let's go") still doesn't have any platform, other than being Sharon's party, for better (people who supported the disengagement in August) or worse. [Edit: x-post with amych]

Sharon's split with Likud and the formation of the new party have been talked about a lot, but the impression I got was that any big changes were going to come from the political shift and not due to his health.

Oh, that was huge. It totally re-wrote the political map, and nobody expected that.

Also, his oldest son is about to go to jail (for some elections-money fraud. The son claims his father hadn't known anything. Nobody velieves him, and lots of people were angry at Sharon for letting his son take the blame and pay for something he was a part of, for his own political strenght), and that's been a really big issue, as well.

What are Sephardic goodies for the holiday I am not going to attempt to spell again?

Nothing in particular, frankly. The jelly-daughnuts are universal, for everybody, and latkes are considered more Ashmenazi (even though now everybody makes them because, well, they're yummy), but there's nothing specifically Hanukkah-Sepharadi dish.

The holiday that has lots of special cookies is Purim (at least for some, if not all, Sepharadim).

Oh my goodness! Goats in Trees!

Also, his oldest son is about to go to jail (for some elections-money fraud. The son claims his father hadn't known anything. Nobody velieves him, and lots of people were angry at Sharon for letting his son take the blame and pay for something he was a part of, for his own political strenght), and that's been a really big issue, as well.

I hadn't heard about this at all. Oh dear.

There was a thing on public radio this morning, about Sharon's new party, and whether it will collapse without him. I expect it's a little different in a parliamentary system, but third parties never survive for long around here.

signed,
never voted for that big-eared Texan crazy, but was a resident of Conencticut when Lowell Weicker got a bug up his butt.

The holiday that has lots of special cookies is Purim (at least for some, if not all, Sepharadim).

Hamentaschen!

My internet is sloooow. I'm blaming it on humanity.

It is making googling hard, which is making it hard to work (no, really. I'm trying to diagnose a firewall issue and need to learn something, anything about macs and firewalls.)