Kesher Talk: 07/07/2002

Friday, July 12, 2002

More on Jewish dating: Howard gave me an article to read on Jewish dating, I had a great response to post and I lost it. Damn technology!

Oh well, my whole point was to muse about dating and the article discussed Jdate. I think Jdate is an excellent complement to "real" dating. My Dad in his infinite wisdom, always gave me one basic baseball analogy in life to which all situations may be applied: "you can't get a hit if you don't take your bat off the shoulder." Think about that for a minute. A good month in baseball is when you get 3 hits out of 10 at bats. If that happened at my job, I'd be a dot-commer. But seriously, it helps put things in perspective in terms of dating. And in the case of Jdate, internet dating gives you more at bats and therefore more opportunities both to hit and strike out :)

But much more interesting to me, are some of the following:

* AGE: I just recently went out with a young lady (23) who was clearly in the middle of "finding herself." She's experimenting with being Shomer Shabbos, keeping kosher and being vegetarian. That to me is like living underwater, just "giving it a shot". Anyway, it's a great time in your life to do this, don't get me wrong. But how can you date someone seriously like that? She's only 4 years younger than I am, so where do you draw the line on age/maturity? I don't know. I gave up on the teenagers years ago (j.k)

* DATING JEWISH WOMEN: I will be honest, most jewish girls I met growing up were either ugly or jappy (or both), so I am relatively new at this experience. Speaking of experience...

* FIRST MOVE: I personally am not a kisser on first dates, not my style. I wonder if Jewish women's expectations are different from shiksa's.

* SHOE TEST: Get this ... my good female friend says when a guy meets a girl for the first time and the girl knows nothing else about him, if he fails the shoe test, he's done. The shoe test means he's at least 2" taller than she is. So that's why Jews only date Jews!

Anyway, if all else fails in the world of Internet dating, you can always wait for porn spam to fill your lonely nights. I got two complementary ones today -- increase your penis size .... horny married girls want you! Hey, they want me! Gotta go. Shabbat Shalom.

Taking on Cynthia McKinney: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today that "every Republican's favorite Middle East commentator, US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, apparently isn't through commenting on Sept. 11. The Atlanta Association of Black Journalists says the DeKalb County Democrat will speak at its general membership meeting Saturday on 'her experience in the US Congress and the recent media coverage concerning the Bush administration and the September 11 attacks.'"

(The meeting is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the new Paschal's Restaurant, 180 Northside Drive, Atlanta. The public is welcome.)

Bloggers, send me your McKinney dirt: In consultation with a big macher in the Democratic party, I've been asked to compile as much background, stories (and bloggings) on McKinney as I can muster. He is organizing the movement to unseat her, in favor of the (sane and pro-Israel) challenger, Denise Majette. Please do so ASAP -- I will be making a separate page dedicated to this cause momentarily, with links and info.

Thursday, July 11, 2002

Cain had it easy:

Question: Where did Cain reside after murdering his brother Abel?

Answer: The Bible tells us that after G-d cursed him, he settled in the land of Nod, which was east of Eden. (AskMoses.com)

I presume since he was east of Eden, there was no pristine garden of plenty for him to live in. But could it really have been all that bad? Most fabulous neighborhoods are not surrounded by complete dung-heaps...

Post-wedding dinners? It sounds from this AskMoses note that there is yet another Jewish wedding tradition my fiancee and I had not considered. How are we supposed to fulfill this one while we're honeymooning?!

How many customary celebratory dinners are held on the days following a wedding?

Answer: "Sheva brachos" are held for seven days. You can make as many dining events as you want in those days. There is a minimum of seven meals, or one on each day.

Team USA's Jewish player at the World Cup was a disaster: Before the Cup started, I talked about the idealistic Jeff Agoos. Agoos plays for the San Jose Earthquake in the Major League Soccer league. 34 years of age, he was the last player cut from the 1994 World Cup team, and though he was on the squad in 1998 when they went out in the opening round, he did not get to play.

Well, he got to play this year. And as soccer-expert Keith Bundy explains, he was plain embarassing:

He played and, unfortunately, did horribly. He was our centerback, and, while I don't think he played as badly as others do, he was at least partially at fault for five of the six goals the US gave up in the first three games. He suffered an injury midway through the first half of the third game and sat out the rest of the Cup. He is known as a wise player... good at reading the game... but a tad slow on his feet and overly reliant on his left foot. In the Cup his poor qualities showed while his better qualities didn't. The players and coach defend him, but the media and fans have eaten him up.

Terrorist paraphernalia: Intelligence officials say that as many as 5,000 people in the US may have Al Qaida ties ...

However, a much smaller number is believed to have the matching Al Qaida sport jacket ...

(from Mike Sultan)

Busy days: Aside from regular STATS work, finding the right jewelry for my fiancee, planning our honeymoon, and taking care of our house, (isn't that enough of an excuse for not blogging heavily?) ...

I was tied up yesterday when Iain and I met with the anglospheric Jim Bennett and blogger Rand Simberg for lunch in Rosslyn.

Then I met with a big Jewish macher for a drink later in the day to discuss pro-Israeli activist efforts. Look for me to get more involved in that respect shortly...

Why is The New York Times all-Iraqi-invasion, all-the-time? Why is the paper running all these stories about secret planning and debates? Presumably, they are leaking out of either Congressional offices, or low-level DoD bureaucrats. But why so much attention. The NYT, after all, is quite against invasion of any place, particularly Iraq. Are they assuming an attack is in the cards, so they want to be first on the story? Are they trying to expose all the plans so that, with secrets made public, the administration cannot follow through without the enemy knowing everything?

Anybody?

73% Support Military Action To Remove Saddam: A CBS News poll of 685 adults, conducted over July 8-9 (+/- 4%), shows 73% of Americans "approve of the US taking military action against Iraq to try and remove Saddam Hussein from power"; 21% disapprove; 6% don't know.

And Micheal Kinsley can't understand "who wants this war?" Is he falling into a classic trap of public opinion measurement? He asks, "Ask around at work, or among your family: Is anyone truly gung-ho?"

Only a moron measures public opinion this way. Kinsley has fallen into the common trap of presuming that, if the people he knows are anti-war, then everyone in the country must be anti-war as well.

How to know when your terrorist efforts have failed: When even Amnesty International has to denounce you. Sheesh!

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Blacks and Jews: The Hill reports on the fraying relations between the two groups. "Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are quietly trying to repair the damage. But it’s too soon to know what it will take to mend the fractured ties."

How about the CBC not supporting anti-Jewish terrorists? God forbid....

Black congressman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) villifies Republican's "political ploy" to woo Jewish voters: “I find it difficult to believe that the Jews would be so concerned about Israel that they would fall into the arms of Christian fundamentalists that now find it politically expedient to support Israel... Some people can love Israel and hate Jews, and the Jewish people ought to be cautious about who they make new friends with, and they should never ever forget their old friends because of minor differences of opinion.”

First of all, the differences are not that minor, they are just not across-the-board. Second, the Christian fundamentalists (save a few) do NOT hate Jews. They may have all sorts of kooky ideas, but that ain't one of them.

Jewish congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told the Hill that the current black-Jewish friction, particularly surrounding the Alabama primary race between Artur Davis and Earl Hilliard, will be short-lived: “It’s a pretty close relationship, so from time to time there are some flare-ups... Probably married couples have over the course of a relationship had more arguments than they have with strangers.”

He then tried to blame it all on the Republicans: "Republicans would like nothing more than to cause problems between blacks and Jews."

Yup, it is always those evil outside forces... definitely insidious Republicans...

Conan O'Brien last night, on our intelligence services: "Today is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's 70th birthday. Yeah, apparently, Rumsfeld's birthday party came as a complete surprise to both the FBI and the CIA."

Tuesday, July 09, 2002

End Vegetable Oppression Now: Instapundit linked to a story on how vegans won't eat honey because it takes advantage of oppressed worker bees. This brought about discussion of cruelty to flowers, and ultimately, vegetables. I figured it was time for me to cart out an excerpt from a little satire piece I wrote a while back that deals with the topic. Enjoy!

It is a sad fact of modern life that murder happens ever so frequently. Yes, the human toll is sometimes too much for a gentle heart to bear, but it is important to remember there are more than just humans on this Earth. Our delicate ecosphere is home to millions of different life forms, only one of them human. Is murder any less of a shame, or dare we say, a crime, if it’s carried out on a non-human? To mercilessly kill any living thing that does not want to die is tragic beyond words. The grossest violators are the fast-food restaurants that practice this brutal form of murder on a wholesale basis. These multi-national, capitalo-fascist corporations take the profit motive to the sickest and most inhumane levels in their exploitation of living creatures to satisfy people’s unnatural hungers. While some look at a Big Mac and see a sandwich, we see it to be one of humanity’s greatest crimes with a gruesome body count boasting “Over 99 billion served.” This has got to stop. We will no longer allow callous humans to practice mass herbicide with a clear conscience. Please, the lettuce, tomato, and onion have suffered enough. After hearing the tales of horrible cruelty inflicted on poor, unsuspecting vegetables, we hope the masses will be shaken from their blissfully ignorant reverie and lose their taste for murder most foul.

Our goals are simple: Increase visibility of the vegetable rights movement, contribute persuasive arguments to the debate against eating vegetables, and eventually, wean humanity off of vegetables altogether. You no doubt have many questions about what we do and why, so for your convenience, we have prepared this list of frequently asked questions and answers that we think you will find helpful.

Q: What’s wrong with eating vegetables?
A: Vegetables are living creatures. They eat, breathe, and when severed from the ground, die. It is immoral and wrong to intentionally inflict harm on another living thing. To eat them is just sick.

Q: Vegetables can’t think and don’t feel pain. Why should I worry about them?
A: First of all, it has not been unequivocally concluded that vegetables can’t think or feel pain. Their situation is akin to a blind, paraplegic, deaf-mute child with a severe mental handicap. Just because we cannot communicate with him does not mean he isn't hurt by our actions. In addition, even if it would be proven that vegetables can’t think or feel pain, a person who is brain-dead or has had a full frontal lobotomy can’t feel pain or think either, but the thought of killing and eating them would make most people nauseous. If it’s wrong to kill and eat people who are in a vegetative state, it’s just as wrong to do the same to vegetables themselves.

Q: Why is it okay to kill and eat animals but not vegetables?
A: For the same reason you can legally kill a violent intruder in your house, but not a blind, paraplegic, deaf-mute child with a severe mental handicap. Animals are instinctively programmed to survive at all costs. They have no cognitive discernment between right or wrong. Therefore, if it ever came down to it, an animal would kill and eat you without having any second thoughts. Slaughtering animals for food is essentially the same as shooting a lion that is trying to kill you, and eating the meat so it shouldn’t go to waste. If an animal doesn’t fight or run away at the moment of slaughter, one can say that there was tacit consent to the act, like assisted suicide, which, while questionably moral is at least understandable. If it does fight back, the animal was obviously killed in self-defense. Conversely, vegetables are immobile, and therefore completely harmless to humans. It is their lack of mobility and absence of natural defense mechanisms, such as horns or teeth that make the vegetables case so much more pitiable. When a vegetable “sees” the farmer coming, it can do nothing, and therefore the onus is on humans as sentient guardians of this Earth to protect those that cannot protect themselves.

Q: Eating vegetables is natural. Animals do it all the time.
A: Animals also wallow in their own feces but that doesn’t mean we should follow suit. More importantly, as mentioned previously, animals will do anything to survive. A cow has little chance of stalking animal prey and killing it. The cow therefore has no choice but to prey on the most gentle and innocent of life forms, vegetables. Humans, on the other hand, have another choice and it is our sacred duty to choose it.

Q: Eating vegetables has been going on for millions of years. It is part of our evolution.
A: In fact, it’s the opposite. If we were evolutionarily destined to eat vegetables, our teeth would be straight and flat like a cow’s. Instead we have canine teeth suitable for ripping flesh. Also, the evolutionary record does not support this claim. Many of the primates from whom we descend are vegetarians, but as hominids and eventually, humans, evolved, we became hunter-gatherers. Thus, eating meat comes along further on the evolutionary ladder as far as humans are concerned. One could say that we are awaiting the final evolutionary epoch where humans will entirely divest themselves of vegetables .

Q: If we stop eating vegetables, will there be enough food?
A: More than enough. The answer lies in the proud tradition of the Native-Americans who let none of the animal go to waste. There will surely need to be an increase in the amount of animals bred, but with the elimination of cruel, oppressive, vegetable farms, there will be plenty of space for the additional herds.

Q: If I eat all that meat, won’t I get fat?
A: Not at all. As any proponent of the Atkin’s Diet will tell you, exclusively eating meat and dairy products will make you lose weight, not gain it. This is just one of the added bonuses to ending vegetable murder.

Q: Aren’t there important vitamins in vegetables that we need to survive?
A: Yes, but there are other, less cruel methods to get the nutrients we need. One example is by using safe, animal-tested, nutritional supplements. The technology is also being developed to genetically engineer animals to carry the nutrients currently only found naturally in vegetables. Thanks to scientific advances, it is conceivable that we could see the complete obsolescence of vegetable ingestion in our lifetimes.

More Democratic primary highjinks: Rep. Sander Levin's opponent in a Democratic primary says the incumbent shouldn't represent the redrawn Detroit-area congressional district because he is liberal and Jewish. Michigan state Rep. William Callahan said redistricting has made the 12th District more conservative and mostly Roman Catholic.

"I mean, that man has never owned a Christmas tree. He's not a Christian. And I'm thinking, `Jeez, how can he represent me then?"' Callahan said in an interview. "And how can he if he believes in abortion and I don't or I'm an avid hunter and gun owner and he doesn't believe in it, how can he represent me?"

Levin, who is seeking an 11th term, issued a statement saying he wouldn't be distracted "by negative, personal attacks from any quarter and I don't think the voters will be distracted by them either."

Callahan said Levin's religious faith was appropriate when he represented the old district, which included many more Jewish voters. But under reapportionment, the district now has fewer Jews and more Catholics. Callahan is Catholic and was elected to the Michigan House in 1996. (with files from the AP)

UPDATE: The Jewish Week and the Destroit Jewish News are on the case as well.

UPDATE (July 16): The World Socialist Web Site reports that "The Michigan Democratic Party has indicated it will impose no sanctions against State Representative William Callahan, who recently said Sander Levin, his opponent in an August 6 primary election, could not represent voters in the 12th Congressional District because Levin was a “liberal” and a “Jew.” The United Auto Workers union and the Michigan AFL-CIO, which have close ties with Callahan, have similarly refused to demand the resignation or removal of the three-term state legislator."

Abandon Planet Earth! A World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study, to be released today, warns that over-consumption will force human colonization of other planets within fifty years unless it is curtailed immediately. The WWF report warns that the seas will become emptied of fish, all forests will be destroyed and supplies of drinking water will become polluted or disappear.

However, as I show in a TechCentralStation column today, the Day of Judgment is not just around the corner. In fact, economic and scientific advances have made it possible for the developed world to be more efficient in its natural resource usage, to find or make new resources, and maintain or revive endangered species.

Monday, July 08, 2002

Brazillian Jewish blogger makes Aliyah: Renata Malkes has finally made aliyah - she sent word this weekend that she was up up and away to Israel. We wish her all the best.

Kosher and Halal regulations - civic law, religious law, and trademark law: CAIR sent me a press release today, highlighting that California's Governor Grey Davis just signed a "Halal Food Bill."

At my prodding, Eugene Volokh revisted his look at the government enforcement of religious law today, looking at both Islamic Halal and Jewish Kosher regs. He finds that the best way to prevent fraud is through the application of trademark law:

There are kosher certification authorities, such as the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, that license special certification marks (in the Union's case, a capital "U" inside a circle) to those businesses who comply with the Union's rules and subject themselves to the Union's investigations. Individual rabbis do the same for local restaurants. If someone uses the certification mark or a rabbi's name when they aren't licensed to do so, they're violating trademark law -- and the government can punish them for violating this secular law without any judgment about whether their actions also violated religious law. Muslim organizations should do the same for halal, and it may well be that some already have.

The religious judgments (did so-and-so comply with halal laws?) are purely in the hands of religious authorities. The secular authorities have to pass only secular judgments (did the person use the certification mark or the imam's name without permission?). The result is separation of church and state, a phrase that's often abused, but that is quite proper here. (Of course, there might still be concerns about the certification authority, whether an organization or an individual Muslim religious leader, erring in its certification decisions -- but the same concerns apply doubly to state-run enforcement halal agencies.)

And this, I think, illustrates a broader point: Separating religion and state is best accomplished when the government takes no cognizance of religion -- gives it no special benefits and imposes on it no special burdens or exclusions. Trademark law is equally available to everyone, religious or not. It provides a benefit to religious organizations, but only on equal footing with other organizations.

Such equal treatment is proper, whether as to trademarks, income tax exemptions for charitable contributions, or school choice programs. But special benefits for religion, especially ones that require the government to make quintessentially religious judgments, are generally not proper.

DC Moroccan restaurant in trouble: I've never been to Marakesh, a famed Moroccan restaurant here in Washington, but I have heard great things about it. Those things did not include anti-Israeli political commentary in their advertizing...

Wanted, Dead or Alive? The Zionist Organization of America says it will put up "wanted" posters of Palestinians who killed Americans in Israel. ZOA President Morton Klein said State Department officials have avoided offering rewards for the capture of people accused of killing Americans in Israel by naming the victims, not the suspects, in the reward information. In other countries, those suspected of killing Americans have biographical information posted on wanted posters, Klein said. ZOA hopes to place its posters in Palestinian cities in the West Bank. (from the Washington Jewish Week)

Hamas Chat: How To Murder Americans: Some Palestinian terrorists have graciously taken time out of their busy murderous schedule to offer tips and tricks of the trade in an online chat.

Battling McKinney: The Forward reports on the growing political showdown between the lunatic congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and challenger Denise Majette, a former state court judge from Atlanta who proudly touts a strong pro-Israel position. Both candidates are black, just like the recent Hilliard-Davis race (see any number of posts from the week of June 24-28).

Sex sells, sort of: Iain's has our Data Dump column on TechCentralStation today, reporting that "media buyers got a rude awakening last week when a new study claimed to find that programs with strong sexual or violent content blurred the minds of their viewers so much that they remembered fewer adverts than those who had watched less glamorous programs. If this seemed too hilariously ironic to be true, then it was because the researchers were overselling their findings while at the same time not being forthcoming enough about who sponsored the research."

Correction? No: Australian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Tim Palmer has demanded an apology for this post, taken from Tim Blair's blog. He is threatening to sue Kesher Talk.

Blair has apologized for any misrepresentation. But I made it clear in my original post that any possible problems with Shimon Peres' annoying "blood bath" quote derived from its source, Yediot Aharonot journalist Shimon Shiffer. I never accused Palmer of fabrication. I did question the source. The only mistake -- yet to be proven -- was assuming that Peres would not be so ridiculously stupid. Wishful thinking on my part? Most likely.

In any event, Palmer is in the clear, so there is no need for an apology.

To be frank, if this had come up in a regular newspaper, the "correction" would have run in small type out of sight. Here, he's getting what amounts to, at best, a clarification. On my front page. Not a bad deal at all.

Kesher Talk

Friday, July 12, 2002

Thursday, July 11, 2002

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Tuesday, July 09, 2002

Monday, July 08, 2002

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