Hat Thief

Newt Gingrich for the win

2011-12-23T18:14:00.001-08:00

Way to reserve newtgingrich.com, Newt Gingrich

Foreign Leaders and Visiting Ground Zero

2011-09-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

So a friend of mine posted a video of Binyamin Netanyahu visiting the Ground Zero site in New York (he's in New York because of the Palestinian unilateral statehood resolution thing), and wondered what other world leaders have bothered to visit (a perfectly fair question).

Now, I remembered that Ahmadinejad was (understandably) prohibited from going to Ground Zero (understandable since Iran is a state sponsor of terror and Ahmadinejad has blamed the attacks on what he calls the "Zionist regime", sparking rebukes from everyone up to Al-Qaeda themselves).

However, I wasn't aware of which world leaders had visited. So I did some Googling.

Gordon Brown (United Kingdom), 2006
Queen Elizabeth II (United Kingdom), 2010
Vladimir Putin (Russia), 2001
Also soon after in 2001, Tony Blair (United Kingdom), Jacques Chirac (France) and then Mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert see here in Google Newspaper archives), Jean Chretien (Canada)
PM Junichiro Koizumi (Japan), 2004
Victor Yanukovich (Ukraine), 2006
Nelson Mandela, 2001
Hu Jintao, 2002

RIP Sen Mark Hatfield-A Republican WAY out of step with today's party

2011-08-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

Update: As my esteemed colleague Dr. J-Rob has pointed out, it is Keith Poole, not Ken Poole

Mark Hatfield, a former Senator from Oregon, died yesterday. He was one of those Republicans who don't exist anymore.

As the obituary notes, he increasingly became more and more out of step with his caucus. Let's look at Keith Poole's lifetime numbers. Poole's scoring is from -1 to 1, with -1 being the farthest left, 1 being the farthest right

Early in his career, in the 92nd Congress, he was the Republican with the 6th most liberal lifetime score from Keith Poole, behind Jacob Javits, Edward Brooke, Clifford Case, Charles Mathias and Lowell Weicker (who at the time was, albeit a bit more conservative). 3 other Republican Senators had lifetime scores less than; Robert Stafford, Richard Schweikert and Charles Percy. 6 more had lifetime scores between 0 and 0.1; Marlow Cook, John Sherman Cooper, George Aiken, Hiram Fong, Bob Packwood, Margaret Chase Smith and Marlow Cook.

In his last term, he was the Republican with the most liberal lifetime score. Only 3 others had lifetime scores of less than 0 (Jeffords and Specter, who later quit the party, and John Chafee, whose son Lincoln, who basically followed in his footsteps, also quit the party). Only 3 others had lifetime scores between 0 and 0.1 (Cohen, Packwood and Snowe [although Snowe may not anymore since those numbers are from 2004]).

In the 92nd Congress, Ted Stevens' lifetime score (up to 2004) of .183 placed him in the center of the Republican caucus (22nd most liberal of 45 Senators [including Prouty who died mid-Congress]). By the 104th Congress, Stevens was the 10th most liberal Republican out of 56.

The Silliest Letter to the Editor Ever in the Atlanta Journal Constitution

2011-07-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

So by this point, I have gotten used to the right-wing rants in the Letters to the Editor in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. However, I have not gotten used to the letters that are mind-boggingly stupid for reasons that have nothing to do with ideology.

Today's Letters to the Editor had one that really stands out in the mind-boggingly stupid category.

Savings bonds should be used to cut national debt

Much of the American expense of World War I and World War II was paid by war bonds. Today, federal savings bonds must be used to reduce the national debt. Professional athletes and entertainers should be used to promote the plan.

The mature dates for the bonds should be five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years and 30 years. President Barack Obama and Congress must use bipartisan reason. Reasonable budget cuts must be made in defense and social justice programs.

Roy Wetherington, Tifton

Seriously, Mr. Wetherington thinks "Federal Savings bonds should be used to reduce the national debt." There's just one little problem with that thought.

FEDERAL SAVINGS BONDS ARE (PART OF) THE NATIONAL DEBT!

I apologize for the all-caps, but I feel this situation warrants it. From the Treasury Department's FAQ about the national debt:

What is the Debt Held by the Public?

The Debt Held by the Public is all federal debt held by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments, and other entities outside the United States Government less Federal Financing Bank securities. Types of securities held by the public include, but are not limited to, Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, TIPS, United States Savings Bonds, and State and Local Government Series securities.

This is really concerning that neither the author (who seems to be on the more well-read side given that I'm finding letters to the editor from him in all sorts of publications including the Christian Science Monitor) nor the Atlanta Journal Constitution staff realize how silly of a suggestion this is. Moreover, it may give a picture of just how little the American people (especially the less well-read ones) understand the national debt.

At the highest level, the national debt can be broken down into "debt held by the public" and "intergovernmental holdings." Debt held by the public is described above, while "intergovernmental holdings" refer to debt that parts of the U.S. government owe to other parts of the U.S. government.

The most recent monthly report from June 2011 gives the "debt held by the public" to be 9.742223 trillion dollars and the "intragovernmental holdings" to be 4.600864 trillion dollars.

Most of the "intragovernmental holdings" (about 4.3 trillion) is for retirement and disability trust funds, including the Social Security Trust fund and the Medicare trust fund(s).

Of the "debt held by the public", most of it (9.32 trillion) is held in various forms that can be bought and sold on the open market.

Of those types the cannot, 169,754 million dollars (or .169754 trillion dollars) is held in the form of United States Savings Bonds, which are distinct from market-tradeable bonds in that they can only be redeemed by the person in whose name they are issued.

The Appalling Dishonesty in Robert Bryce's "Gas is Greener" Op-Ed

2011-06-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

I suppose we should expect this sort of thing from someone supported by the Koch Industries/Foundation (their money has come from oil & natural gas), but it's still disappointing that the New York Times would print the Op-Ed.

Now, my title is perhaps overly harsh, because (unlike some other Manhattan Institute Op-Eds) there is a perfectly legitimate point at the core of the Op-Ed. This point is that solar power and even more so, wind power, do, in fact, have some significant environmental costs. Second of all, (unlike some other conservative groups/institutes) the Op-Ed implicitly acknowledges that global warming exists and that greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for it, and at least he isn't praising "clean coal" in the article.
However, it's rather dishonest to claim that natural gas is "low-carbon"; the natural gas industry itself claims that for an equivalent amount of energy, burning natural gas releases 55% as much carbon dioxide as coal. That's not close to as bad as coal, of course, but it is hardly "low." Moreover, with natural gas, you have to worry about the fact that its principle component, methane, is a far worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide; drilling inevitably results in leaks of natural gas that would have otherwise overwhelmingly stayed underground.

However, by far the most dishonest part of the article is the part pertaining to California's new mandate for 33% of its electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2020.

Consider California’s new mandate. The state’s peak electricity demand is about 52,000 megawatts. Meeting the one-third target will require (if you oversimplify a bit) about 17,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. Let’s assume that California will get half of that capacity from solar and half from wind. Most of its large-scale solar electricity production will presumably come from projects like the $2 billion Ivanpah solar plant, which is now under construction in the Mojave Desert in southern California.

Now, the last sentence, while not the most egregious part of the paragraph, nevertheless is pretty bad. It sets up a straw man of assuming that increased solar capacity will have to be from building large-scale solar projects at all. It can be from solar panels on rooftops. In fact, The Luskin Center at UCLA recently released a major, detailed study estimating that Los Angeles County alone has a potential rooftop solar capacity of 19,000 megawatts, which, using Robert Bryce's numbers, would meet the 1/3 renewable requirements of the entire state of California on its own.

However, the worst and most dishonest part of the article is this:

Meeting the one-third target will require (if you oversimplify a bit) about 17,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. Let’s assume that California will get half of that capacity from solar and half from wind.

What's so dishonest about that? It ignores all of renewable energy capacity/production California already has; primarily hydroelectric, wind and geothermal, with some biomass and a bit of solar. If you look at data files from the Energy Information Administration and do some calculating in the spreadsheets that they provide, you will see that back in 2009, California was already generating 26.09% of its electricity from renewable sources.

In fact, for the first three months of 2011, California already MET its renewable energy standard (35.47% of its electricity was from a renewable source). Now, this is primarily from significantly higher-than-usual hydroelectric generation rather than from the smaller increase in capacity for wind, solar (and maybe geothermal?). Nevertheless, if they installed another 17,000 MW of capacity of renewable, California would easily be getting a majority of its electricity from renewable sources.

I have not talked up the additional geothermal capacity in California, but it does exist (Disclaimer: I am invested in two geothermal companies).

Atlanta 2010 Census Population Seems to Have Been Undercounted

2011-03-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

Above, is a scatterplot I made comparing the July 2009 Census Bureau estimated populations of cities with at least 100,000 people (according to the Jul 2009 estimates).

You can look at the spreadsheet I used/created for this here

Missing are the cities with over 1,000,000 people (because they make the rest of the scatterplot too small) as well as those cities with between 100,000 and 1,000,000 people from states the Census Bureau still has to release ( Maine, Massachusetts,Michigan,New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina and West Virginia).

Notice how the data fits very well(even though the populations in July 2009 were slightly different from those in April 2010), with one glaring exception-the city of Atlanta, where, as it so happens, I now reside.

The July 2009 Estimate put Atlanta's population at 540,922. Today's Census 2010 release of Georgia put the April 1, 2010 population of Atlanta at 420,003, just barely up from the April 1, 2000 Census population of 416,474.

Putting aside that it just seems like there MUST have more than a 3,500 person gain based on residential development in Atlanta in the last 10 years, the chances of a city (in this case Atlanta) being more than 6 standard deviations away from the mean (no other city was more than 2.67 standard deviations away from the mean) is 1 in 500 million (assuming the error here is normally distributed, which it looks to be).

That is to say, it seems MUCH more likely that there's either a typo or a serious undercount of Atlanta's population (I tend to think they undercounted in a lot of places and not just Atlanta personally ...)

This is a very serious issue; the difference in population here is enough to account for about 1/6th of a seat in Congress, 2/3 of a seat in the Georgia Senate, and 2.25 seats in the Georgia House of Representatives, not to mention millions in population-based federal block grants.

I would strongly urge Mayor Kasim Reed to sue the Census Bureau over an undercount of Atlanta.

Anyway, all of that being said, there is the possibility that they somehow majorly majorly overlooked the "black flight" phenomenon, as the official 2010 Census numbers show a 17% increase in the white population of Atlanta but a 12% decrease in the black population (a whopping 65% increase in the Asian population, which is probably due largely to expansion of Georgia Tech). More on black flight later.

What was Huckabee Taught about the British in Arkansas Schools?

2011-03-01T16:32:00.000-08:00

OK, so the obvious part of the stupidity in Mike Huckabee's recent statement is that President Obama grew up in Kenya. I don't even think that's a widely held view among the Birthers.

But consider the context of where Huckabee said it.

"I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough," Huckabee said of the president in an interview with New York radio station WOR. "And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American."

Huckabee, the former presidential candidate and current Fox News host who has said he is thinking about mounting another campaign, added, "his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

I guess he's got a point. I mean, look at the kind of terrible things Kenyan revolutionaries said about then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

or about the British in general

Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity; (thousands more will probably suffer the same fate.)

Wait, those weren't Kenyan revolutionaries; that's in the Declaration of Independence (referring to King George) and in Common Sense (Thomas Paine's famous pamphlet).

Most Americans ARE taught that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted our ancestors (if we had ancestors in the country at the time). Perhaps Arkansas schools were too busy teaching the "War of Northern Aggression" and the terrible persecution of the South to have any time to teach about the British.

Hey, maybe that racist environment he grew up in is what's causing Mr. Huckabee to try to paint a black president as foreign/less-than-American. Huckabee certainly needs to answer some questions on the subject.

Why is Michael Lynch still given the opportunity to write about oil?

2011-02-27T16:06:00.000-08:00

I am absolutely shocked and disgusted that the New York Times would let Michael C. Lynch write an opinion article on oil and energy.

Now, it's one thing to have conservatives writing op-eds espousing conservative policies. It is another thing to let complete fools and failures like Michael C. Lynch with massive, massive past failures pretending to be experts on energy and writing outright lies.

Now, it wouldn't be fair if I said that without backing it up. So let's take a look at Mr. Lynch's past.

Back in November 1997, Mr. Lynch is quoted in Business Week as saying:

''Oil-price forecasters make sheep seem like independent thinkers,'' gibes Massachusetts Institute of Technology energy researcher Michael C. Lynch. ''There's no evidence that mineral prices rise over time. Technology always overwhelms depletion.''

Notice that he didn't just limit this prognostication to his own field of energy. He made the claim that this holds for mineral prices in general. Now, take a look at the relative real prices (i.e. adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index data) for four important minerals (crude oil, gold, copper, aluminum) over the last 25 years, with the baseline in November 1997. Note: the prices for the commodities can be found here

Now, obviously the prices of these minerals have been influenced to a large extent by general market factors; in particular, copper and crude oil took an especially large price drop (because the Great Recession caused a major demand reduction). Nevertheless, for gold, copper and crude, we've not seen technology overwhelm depletion; all 3 are (even when inflation is accounted for as it is in the above graph) costing about 3 times what they were in 1997, with a general rise starting in 2000. Only aluminum (one of the most abundant elements on the planet, although much of it is not easily accessible) has more or less remained the same.

However, that's not the worst of Mr. Lynch's failures.

Why is Mr. Lynch a massive failure? Take a look at this article from Forbes in October of 2006.

Don't sell that SUV just yet. Oil, at a recent $66.50 a barrel, will fall to $45 by mid-2007 and could dip briefly into the 20s in 2008. Sometime next year you are going to see a $1.95 price on a gas pump.

So says Michael C. Lynch, 51, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Amherst, Mass. He swears he hasn't been inhaling fumes. His reasoning: New supply, coming online from all corners of the world, is more than ample to satisfy growth in demand and sufficient even to withstand an embargo against Iran, which produces 3.75 million barrels of oil a day. Lynch argues that the threat of disruptions--nuclear brinkmanship, war, terrorism, hurricanes, pipeline corrosion--has larded oil prices with a $20-a-barrel risk premium. As these perils recede, oil prices will fall.

Of course, as you may remember, we didn't see $1.95 in 2007. We saw in the $70 range in mid-2007, and a RISE into the 120s in 2008. The only reason we briefly got even close to his numbers in late 2008/early 2009 was because demand plummeted thanks to the financial crisis/recession. We never saw these "new supplies," and as demand began picking up again, so did prices. And these "new supplies" are in the form of oil shale/oil sands which are far worse pollution-wise than regular oil, and riskier and riskier deep-sea, which we just saw worked out just great this summer.

Yes, Libya/Algeria are a temporary thing (unless they aren't ...), but if relatively smaller producing countries like them result in these kind of price increases, what happens if there's a revolution in Saudi Arabia?

Much to the satisfaction of the peak-oil crowd, the Obama administration is throwing federal subsidies — some $8 billion in its 2012 budget — at all sorts of unproven, unrealistic and inefficient energy technologies like wind farms and electric cars.

Now, even putting his and everyone else's stupidity on climate aside, the man is still silly.

Yeah, so unrealistic/inefficient/unproven is wind; clearly it was the Bush administration's (nonexistent) massive federal wind program that has increased the percentage of U.S. electricity from wind from 0.17% in 2001 to 2.25% in the 12 months ending November 2010 (and growing); still not much, of course, but on the other hand, Libya produces only about 2.1% of world oil and yet it's still having a real effect.

As for electric cars, they're hard to prove without building/encouraging a charging infrastructure, but they are about to start being marketed even without the infrastructure.

List of Libyan Ambassador Resignations

2011-02-25T11:21:00.000-08:00

Below is a (non-exhaustive) list of Libyan ambassadors (and other officials) around the world who have resigned and/or broken with the Gadhafi regime as a result of the ongoing protests, with links to articles

Ambassadors/Etc Who Have Resigned

Arab League: Ambassador, Abdel-Moneim al-Houni resigned 2/20/2011; entire mission team resigned 2/25/2011
Bangladesh: AH Elimam, 2/22/2011
France: Mohamed Salaheddine Zarem, resigned 2/25/2011
India: Ali El-Assawi, resigned 2/21/2011
Indonesia: Salaheddin M El Bishari, resigned 2/23/2011
Jordan: Mohammad Hassan Barghathi, resigned 2/24/2011
Morocco: And 10 diplomatic staff members, 2/24/2011
Portugal: Ali Ibrahim Emdored, 2/25/2011
United Kingdom: some staff but not ambassador, 2/21/2011
UNESCO: Abdulsalam El Qallali, resigned 2/25/2011
UN Human Rights Council: Entire mission resigned 2/25/2011
United Nations: Several diplomatic staff including deputy Ambassador Omar Al-Dabashi (not the Ambassador, though), 2/21/2011
United States: Ali Suleiman Aujali, called for Gadhafi to quit, 2/22/2011

Ambassadors/Etc Supporting Gadhafi Regime

Brazil: Salem Ezubedi voiced support for regime 2/24/2011
Malta: Saadun Suayeh says Gadhafi must not go, 2/21/2011

Amusing and Interesting 2010 New York City Write-In Votes

2011-02-14T14:24:00.000-08:00

New York City is one of all-too-few places that makes write-in vote totals publicly available on the Internet. I say all-too-few because write-in votes let you vote for whoever or whatever you want.

They don't have to be alive. They don't have to be real. It doesn't have to be a physical entity. You can even try to vote for a SQL injection

Anyway, interesting write-ins in New York City in 2010 include:

For Governor:

Big Bird
Constantine
Christopher Christie (Governor of New Jersey)
Dan Malloy (Governor of Connecticut)
Declined Phantom
Duke Nukem
Eternal Father & Lord
Full Public Funding
Fund Autism
Gay Marriage
God Jesus Christ
I Am Government Rachel E Boschey
I Object to No Term Limits
Ish Pee Pee (Unless this is actually a real person ...)
Lisa Murbowski (some joker referencing the write-in campaign in Alaska, intentionally misspelling Senator Murkowski's name, no doubt)
Norman H. Finkelstein (Ewwwwww!!!!)
Nuchem Rosenberg (ultra-Orthodox agitator against child abuse)
Pimky & the Brain
T. Party
The Hippo at the Bronx
The Hoff (don't know what this is ...)
William Marly Tweed (a mistake for the last name of the man better known as Boss Tweed

For Senator (Schumer seat)

A (3 votes ...)
Boycott Parthed Israel! (shows the level of education and intelligence among that crowd ...)
D-Bag
Eternal Father & Lord
European America
Feisal Rauf (the imam-to-be at that controversial mosque)
Full Public Funding
Gay Marriage
Ham Sandwich
Harpo Marx
Ish Pee Pee (again)
Jeffrey Lebowski
Jimmy McMillan (5 votes, because the rent is too ... damn ... high)
King Kong
Lisa Murkowstz (same joker, varying)
Lizard People (hell yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God
Medicare for All
Miss Peggy
Mort Zucker-man (because of the spelling)
Noam Chousky
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC
Ron Paul (because you gotta vote for him)
Single Payer

For Senator (Gillibrand seat)

Barack H. Obama
Bernard Madroff
Captain Kirk
Caroline Kennedy (got like 18 votes under various name-spellings; guess she and her family were mad she wasn't appointed)
Free Palestine
Full Public Funding
HIS HOLINESS THE DALILAMA
Jack the Pumpkin King
Lady Ga Ga
None of the Foregoing (that's an amusing spelling)
RN

Other Races

(EXPLETIVE) Chanders (shame on New York for censoring!!!)
LEGAIIZE MARIIIANA
LEARNED HLND (if intended to be Learned Hand, amusing)
Lisa Munkowski (someone still having fun)
My Dog Karma
My Dog Riley
Non English Character (obviously it was actually some non-English character, shame on them for not letting Unicode handle it if possible)
Overturn Citizens United
Pee Wee Herman
Revolution
RX
Snake People
Tim Lincicum
Bull Shit! (if they didn't censor that ...)
Immanuel Kant Liberal
Anyme But
Tony Soprano
Axl Rose
Comeone Qualifid
Fiscus Tree
Fuhrer Williamsburg (heh)
Pupa Rabi (this was for Supreme Court, so maybe they want his Beit Din?)
Rabbi Judu Levin (please let this not have been an attempt to vote for Yehuda Levin ...)
Bernard Goetz
Biggie Smalls
Bono the Boston Terrier
Butt Head
Dick Hertz
Dick Hurtz
Frank Zappa
MR. X
OBI-WAN-KENOBI
RON JEREMY
SCUM
THE PEOPLE
YODA
SCREW GARY ACKERMAN (for Ackerman's seat in Congress)
Kodos (Don't blame him/her!)
George Habash (seriously??? And yet no votes for Meir Kahane?????)
George Orwell
Grimm
TRANNY NAMED KRISTEN
LORD VOLDEMORT
JUDGE REINHOLD (to be a judge, of course)

LIZARD PEOPLE (3 votes, hell yes I loves NYC)
NO SMOKING
NO LAWYERS
NOT HER
OFF THE PIG
ROBERT DROP THE STUDENTS (was this an attempted SQL injection; I hope so ...)
YASSER ARAFAT
XENA QUEEN OF AMAZON
YO MAMA!
FIDEL CASTRO
BOGIE LOWENSTEIN (From 10 things I hate about you, unless it's actually a real name)
ADOLF HITLER (Okay, not so amusing)
8 BALL
AMANDA HUGNKISS
HEYWOOD JABLOME
HORSETHIEF
JACK KINGHOFF
LORD SCROTUMNUS
MARIO BROS
MATZO BALL
MIKE HUNT
SPONGE BOB
SQUEAKY THE CAT
UNDER DOG
VOLTRON
YOSEMITE SAM
HIGG S. BOSON
JOEL TEITELBAUM (But why no votes for Schneerson???)
WILLIAM LLYOD GARRISON
ANTI-MCMAHON B/C HE VOTED AGAINST H.C. BILL
I SMOKE I VOTE
INANIMATE CARBON ROD

Miller Outperforms on Newly Counted Ballots, but not by enough to win

2010-11-13T10:51:00.000-08:00

29316 left, and Murkowski needs to have 25084 (85.6%) unchallenged for her to be ahead of Joe Miller (by 1 vote) without relying on the challenged but counted ballots. She currently has
90.16% of the write-in votes as being cast for her without being challenged.

Relying on the challenged but counted ballots, Murkowski only needs 67.5% of the outstanding write-in ballots in order to win, and she has currently gotten 97.8% of the tallied write-in ballots for her with or without challenges.

In other words, the newly counted ballots (absentee and questioned ballots), while slightly better for Joe Miller than the previously counted ballots, did not even have him outperforming "write-in", much less outperforming by enough to give him a good shot at victory.

New Strategy for Joe Miller: Which Lisa Murkowski Did Voters Mean?

2010-11-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

Joe Miller, the bearded Tea Party wonder from Alaska (I don't mind the beard since I have one too, although his is lame) may be in a lot of trouble.

And he's tried so very hard and really pulled out the stops. He has the National REpublican Senatorial Committee spending for him.

Friday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out an e-mail encouraging donors to assist Miller. The NRSC's main aim is to elect and re-elect Republicans, and until today it was unclear whether it would fully back Miller's post-election fight with Murkowksi, another Republican.

In his e-mail, the chairman of the NRSC, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, warned that both sides "are beginning to lawyer up and prepare for any possible legal fights. Joe needs your help to make sure he has enough money to make it a fair contest."
...
"We need to get Joe the resources he needs to win the vote count," he wrote. "Because we need Joe to join our fight against Barack Obama. Help ensure that this vote count is conducted fairly."

Notice that the Republican party's goals in the Senate are not to help get America back on track. It's not even to enact a conservative agenda. It's to "fight against Barack Obama."

He's also gotten Floyd Brown, the infamous person behind the infamous "Willie Horton" ad and the founder of Citizens United, to advise his campaign. By this he means ~~make up~~ "allege" voter fraud and intimidation without providing real examples, claiming conveniently that people are too afraid to come forward; perhaps they fear Willie Horton will come after them if they do.

He's got a truly desperate legal team, which has come up with a novel theory that misspellings of Lisa Murkowski's name are "protest votes" against Lisa Murkowski.

Prior to the election, people commented on radio stations and in the comment sections in blogs and newspaper stories that they would deliberately incorrectly write-in a variation of "Murkowski" as a protest. They did so knowing that Murkowski was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a "spelling bee" campaign, replete with wrist bands, pencils and tattoos, all to educate the voters on proper spelling. Why was this done? Because even Murkowski had read the law and knew that it required proper spelling -- "No exceptions." So protest voters were trying to send a message to the candidate.

Unfortunately for ol' Joe, all of this may not be enough. The latest numbers don't look good.

The Division reports 89.78 percent of the write-ins are unchallenged for Murkowski, a number that's held steady during the count.

The Division of Elections overturned challenges by the Miller campaign on another 8 percent of the ballots and counted them for Murkowski. Miller hopes the courts will reverse that.

Just 1.52 percent of the 45,132 write-in ballots reviewed so far have been successfully challenged by Miller ballot observers.

There were, in total, 92,979 write-in votes, and 82,180 votes for Joe Miller. So there are 47,847 remaining write-in ballots to review.

Of the 45,132 reviewed so far, 40519 are unchallenged for Murkowski, so she needs only 41662 of the 47,847 remaining (87.07%) in order to be victorious even if all of the challenged ballots are thrown out. If she maintains the current rate, she'll have 83,476 votes, for a margin over Miller that even recounting wouldn't be likely to change.

So I'd urge Joe Miller's attorneys to take the next logical step. How can we be sure all of the votes for Lisa Murkowski were for the incumbent Senator Lisa Ann Murkowski?

From an excerpt of what I'm sure will be a forthcoming lawsuit:

They could well have meant Lisa Murkowski of Delwood, Kansas, who is the "Representative Conference Vice Chair at American Academy of Family Physicians" according to a White Pages search. Of course, this Ms. Murkowski is not eligible to be a Senator from Alaska, but that's okay. They were protest votes for that Lisa! I urge all write in votes that did not make it clear that they supported the specific Lisa Murkowski who is currently Senator to be thrown out because voter intent cannot be determined.

Women in the 112th Congress

2010-11-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

First, a table of the number of women in the House and Senate at the beginning of each of the last few Congresses, broken down by political party.

Congress	House			Senate
Congress	Dem	Rep	Total	Dem	Rep	Total
96th	11	5	16	0	1	1
97th	10	9	19	0	2	2
98th	12	9	21	0	2	2
99th	11	11	22	0	2	2
100th	12	11	23	1	1	2
101st	14	11	25	1	1	2
102nd	20	9	29	1	1	2
103rd	35	12	47	5	1	6
104th	30	17	47	5	3	8
105th	35	16	51	6	3	9
106th	39	17	56	6	3	9
107th	41	18	59	10	3	13
108th	39	21	60	9	5	14
109th	42	23	65	9	5	14
110th	50	21	71	11	5	16
111th	58	17	75	13	4	17
112th*	48	24	72	12	5	17

(112th projected based on current totals in AK-Sen, AZ-8, IL-8, NY-25)

Yes, not since the 96th Congress (1979-1981) have we seen a Congress with less women in EITHER house of Congress than there were in the previous one.

What about this year? In the Senate, no women Senators retired; Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas lost her re-election race, while Republican Kelly Ayotte won the open Senate seat in New Hampshire being vacated by Judd Gregg. Two more Senate races with women remain undecided. Democrat Patty Murray leads Dino Rossi by about 28,000 votes in Washington (with over half a million remaining to be counted). In Alaska's Senate race, 40.95% of the votes were cast for write-in candidates compared to 34.34% being cast for Republican nominee and Tea Partier Joe Miller; if as expected, most of those write-in votes are valid write-in votes for Lisa Murkowski, she will be returning to the Senate, and there will once again be 17 female Senators, 12 Democrats and 5 Republicans.

In called House races, there will be 7 less Democratic females, 6 more Republican females.

Specifically, we are guaranteed to see the following women in the next Congress (unless something happens to prevent them from taking office):

Republican women are in red font, Democratic women are in blue font, non-white (Latino, Asian, black, Native American, etc) women are in bold, and newly elected female members are underlined.

States which are not guaranteed (based on current results) to have any female members of the House Representatives in the 112th Congress are omitted from the table.

State	#	Names
Alabama	2	Martha Roby (AL-2), Terri Sewell (AL-7)
California	19	Doris Matsui (CA-5), Lynn Woolsey (CA-6), Nancy Pelosi (CA-8), Barbara Lee (CA-9), Jackie Speier (CA-12), Anna Eshoo (CA-14), Zoe Lofgren (CA-16), Lois Capps (CA-23), Judy Chu (CA-32), Karen Bass (CA-33), Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34), Maxine Waters (CA-35), Jane Harman (CA-36), Laura Richardson (CA-37) Grace Napolitano (CA-38), Linda Sanchez (CA-39), Mary Bono Mack (CA-45), Loretta Sanchez (CA-47), Susan Davis (CA-53)
Colorado	1	Diana DeGette (CO-1)
Connecticut	1	Rosa DeLauro (CT-3)
Florida	6	Corinne Brown (FL-3), Kathy Castor (FL-11), Frederica Wilson (FL-17), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL-20), Sandra Adams (FL-24)
Hawaii	2	Colleen Hanabusa (HI-1), Mazie Hirono (HI-2)
Illinois	2	Jan Schakowsky (IL-9), Judy Biggert (IL-13)
Kansas	1	Lynn Jenkins (KS-2)
Maine	1	Chellie Pingree (ME-1)
Maryland	1	Donna Edwards (MD-4)
Massachusetts	1	Nikki Tsongas (MA-5)
Michigan	1	Candice Miller (MI-10)
Minnesota	2	Betty McCollum (MN-4), Michelle Bachmann (MN-6)
Missouri	2	Vicky Hartzler (MO-4), Jo Ann Emerson (MO-8)
Nevada	1	Shelley Berkley (NV-1)
New York	7	Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4), Yvette Clarke (NY-11), Nydia Velazquez (NY-12), Carolyn Maloney (NY-14), Nita Lowey (NY-18), Nan Hayworth (NY-19), Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
North Carolina	3	Renee Ellmers (NC-2), Virginia Foxx (NC-5), Sue Myrick (NC-9)
Ohio	4	Jean Schmidt (OH-2), Marcy Kaptur (OH-9), Marcia Fudge (OH-11), Betty Sutton (OH-13)
Pennsylvania	1	Allyson Schwartz (PA-13)
South Dakota	1	Kristi Noem (SD-AL)
Tennessee	2	Diane Black (TN-6), Marsha Blackburn (TN-7)
Texas	3	Kay Granger (TX-12), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Washington	2	Jaime Herrera (WA-3), Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (WA-5)
West Virginia	1	Shelley Moore Capito (WV-2)
Wisconsin	2	Tammy Baldwin (WI-2), Gwen Moore (WI-4)
Wyoming	1	Cynthia Lummis (WY-AL)

The following women who were in the 111th Congress at the beginning will not be in the 112th.

Virginia Brown Waite (R-FL) [retiring], Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) [lost re-election], Mary Fallin (R-OK) [ran for Governor], Debbie Halvorson (D-IL) [lost re-election], Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI) [lost primary], Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) [lost re-election], Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) [lost re-election], Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) (lost re-election], Betsy Markey (D-CO) [lost re-election], Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) [lost re-election], Hilda Solis (D-CA) [became Secretary of Labor], Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) [became U.S. Senator from New York], Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) [became something or other in the Obama administration], Dina Titus (D-NV) [lost re-election], Diane Watson (D-CA) [retired], Stephanie Herseth (D-SD) [lost re-election]

In 3 races which have not been called, looking at the present totals, there will be one further less Democratic female (Melissa Bean) and one further more Republican female (Ann Buehrkle of New York)

i.e. Republican wave seems to have made this the first time in 30 years that an incoming House of Representatives has less women than the outgoing one.

A Preliminary Look at Control and Strategy for Congressional Redistricting: Who Controls the Process?

2010-11-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

Public Mapping provides a nice table describing how the process works and who may or may not control it. I'm going to use their information and modify it here, noting how things went down in the 2000 redistricting and updating for the actual (not quite final) results from yesterday's election.

State	Who Controls?	2000 (mid-decade) Control		2010 Control
Alabama	State Gov't	Democratic		Republican
Alaska	1 seat
Arizona	Commission	Independent
Arkansas	State Gov't	Democratic		Democratic
California	Commission	Democratic		Independent
Colorado	State Gov't	Split		Split
Connecticut	Commission	Independent
Delaware	1 seat
Florida	State Gov't	Republican		Republican
Georgia	State Gov't	Democratic	Republican	Republican
Hawaii	Commission	Independent
Idaho	Commission	Independent
Illinois	State Gov't	Split		Dem
Indiana	State Gov't	Split		Republican
Iowa	Commission	Independent
Kansas	State Gov't	Republican		Republican
Kentucky	State Gov't	Split		Split
Louisiana	State Gov't	Split		Split
Maine	Commission	Independent
Maryland	State Gov't	Democratic		Democratic
Massachusetts	State Gov't	Democratic		Democratic
Michigan	State Gov't	Republican		Republican
Minnesota	State Gov't	Split		Split or Rep
Mississippi	State Gov't	Democratic		Split
Missouri	State Gov't	Democratic		Split
Montana	1 seat
Nebraska	State Gov't	Republican		Republican
Nevada	State Gov't	Republican		Split
New Hampshire	State Gov't	Split		Split
New Jersey	Commission	Independent
New Mexico	State Gov't	Split		Split
New York	State Gov't	Split		Dem or split
North Carolina	State Gov't	Democratic		Split
North Dakota	1 seat
Ohio	State Gov't	Republican		Republican
Oklahoma	State Gov't	Split		Republican
Oregon	State Gov't	Split		Tie/D leg, D gov?
Pennsylvania	State Gov't	Republican		Republican
Rhode Island	State Gov't	Democratic		Democratic
South Carolina	State Gov't	Split		Republican
South Dakota	1 seat
Tennessee	State Gov't	Split		Republican
Texas	State Gov't	Split	Republican	Republican
Utah	State Gov't	Republican		Republican
Vermont	1 seat
Virginia	State Gov't	Republican		Split
Washington	Commission	Independent
West Virginia	State Gov't	Democratic		Democratic
Wisconsin	State Gov't	Split		Republican
Wyoming	1 seat

Props to Google for its Pro-Voting Agenda

2010-11-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

Google Maps is saying when you go to it: "Find out where to vote and see candidates on your ballot," and it seems to work pretty well!

It found my polling place correctly, even though it had recently been moved to its current location. Good for Google and the Voting Information Project for geocoding precincts, even though those precincts will nearly all have to be redone after lines are redrawn when the 2010 Census data is processed.

Larry Sabato's Predictions

2010-11-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sabato predicts Republicans pick up a net of 55 House seats, which would end up actually giving them a larger majority in the 112th Congress than they have had since 1946 (234 seats versus a previous high of 232 in the 109th Congress).

Of the 58 seats (since the Dems are expected to pick up the overwhelmingly Democratic Louisiana 2nd now that a presumed felon is not on the ballot as well as the open Dem-leaning IL-10 and DE-AL) expected to go from Dem to Republican under Sabato's predictions, 38 are seats picked up in either 2006 or 2008, another 10 are old southern seats that Dems had managed to hang onto (in districts John Kerry and except for GA-2, Barack Obama did not win or even come very close in). Of the other 10:

2 were pickups in 2004 (CO-3 on election day, SD-AL in a special election); 5 are open (albeit not THAT heavily Republican; Obama won in 4 of them and Kerry even won in WI-7), as well as IL-17, ND-AL, PA-11

Open Letter to Fayette Commissioner-Elect Steve Brown

2010-10-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey's data for 2006-2008 (the most recent data for Fayette County) shows that 53.62% of Fayette workers do not work in Fayette county, not 40%.

I understand you want your citizens to be able to continue to free-ride on the back of my and other Atlantans lungs (unless you are planning to build a Simpsons Movie-like dome over Fayette to prevent anyone from leaving, leaving ARC won't keep emissions from Fayette vehicles in Atlanta from my lungs) and my and other Atlantans safety (I bicycle to work and traffic from drivers, including the not insignificant number from Fayette, makes it difficult to add more bicycle lanes; if a significant number of those drivers came in by commuter bus or rail) and lack of greenspace (the amount of land in Atlanta devoted to letting primarily out-of-city commuters park is unbelievable).

I suppose that's your job, assuming you ignore the fact that Fayette is absolutely metro Atlanta, not a place with "rural sensibilities." For that matter, much of Three Rivers is not "rural sensibilities" either

But at least be honest with your constituents when you make that case.

Shame on Transportation Board Chair David Doss

2010-10-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

The Atlanta streetcar aside, I was outraged by the gall of Surface Transportation Board Chair David Doss' claim that "he supports transit, too" in "Streetcar victorious" (Oct 20) while plugging the $1.4 billion managed lanes and its potential 34000 riders. Its predecessor agency, the Transportation Planning Board did a study on commuter rail, released in 2007, when building costs were, if anything, higher than today. It found that for $1.17 billion dollars, we could build ALL 7 proposed commuter rail lines (cutting off the Athens line at Tucker and the Macon line at Lovejoy, but keeping the full lines to Bremen, Canton, Gainesville, Madison and Senoia), run 12 trains on each line per day (6 in, 6 out) and get as many as 32400 riders per day. The Canton line via Marietta, in particular would have provided an option for a large number of drivers on the I-75/I-575 corridor. If this state had even a modicum of support for transit in its political leaders outside of the perimeter, we'd be in final design mode by now. As things stand, we haven't heard a peep out of GDOT about it since then.

I-75/I-575 Corridor Project: Elimination of Transit REDUCES Environmental Impact?

2010-10-15T14:10:00.000-07:00

This state is nuts. Really. Georgia is absolutely nuts.

Because of a lack of leadership and the continued consequences of the racially-tinged failure of Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton (all of which now have large minority populations anyway so they didn't even "win" on keeping their counties lily-white) to join MARTA, rather than moving forward on something that would be really, really useful (commuter rail/MARTA extension to Cobb, Gwinnett, Alpharetta/Roswell), we're going to be building a streetcar that is no more than a 30 minute end-to-end walk and is very close to existing heavy rail MARTA lines. (I guess this doesn't explain why we didn't go for the BeltLine; I guess stupidity/anti-tax idiocy/Central Atlanta Progress and businesses not putting up sufficient cash for it).

Instead, we're going to go with, yet again, more highway lanes. Now, I guess two lanes each direction is a little low given the rampant sprawl growth in I-75/I-575 area, so it's not entirely bad.

Except for two thing. The worst part is here, in the project's Winter Newsletter

The Bus Rapid Transit system with supporting facilities
and the Truck Only Lanes are no longer included as part of the project. These
changes result in a reduced project footprint with reduced costs and less severe environmental impacts, while still addressing the original Purpose and Need for the project.

Yeah, elimination of transit will reduce environmental impact. Also, gay people cause earthquakes and the moon landing was filmed in Hollywood.

They're also, of course, basically doing what amounts to $350 million subsidy to a corporation that will be running these additions for a profit (via tolls); of course, the state won't get any of the toll money even though it's paying for a hefty chunk of the road. We could build quite a bit of commuter rail for that much, thereby massively decreasing congestion.

So depressing, Atlanta policy is.

Who besides Yehuda Levin is in the Rabbinical Alliance of America?

2010-10-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

This Levin guy is very embarrassing, acting like a Christian evangelical, and this time he's not just doing it on his own.

I mean, it was bad enough when he blamed the Haiti earthquake on gays in February like he was Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell or something.

But at least that was not a major media thing. Now he's gone and made national news with the speech he wrote for Carl Paladino to give at his shul, with such nice media events as

“nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.”

“I don’t want [children] brainwashed into thinking homosexuality is an equal valid and successful option,”

Also, they didn't let women journalists into the shul because apparently Mea Shearim has come to America, and water was poured on women journalists waiting outside.

But what is this Rabbinical Alliance of America (Igud Harabbonim in transliterated Ashkenazi-pronounced Hebrew, or אגוד הרבנים in actual Hebrew)? Humorist Heshy Fried said it "sounds like the Kennedy Fried Chicken version of the RCA" (Rabbinical Council of America, affiliated with the Orthodox Union), and that he had not heard of it.

So I decided to do some Googling,

Their website claims 800+ rabbis but lists 3 (none of whom are Yehuda Levin).

They include Abraham B. Hecht, who had spoken approvingly about the possible assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres after the Oslo Accords; online archive articles refer to him as president of the organization as early as July 1980.

Hershel Kurzrock, rabbi at the Young Israel of Kensington, NY; nothing interesting about him on the Internet.

Gershon Tannenbaum, who apparently has been found guilty of Securities Fraud, and is/was rabbi at B'nai Israel of Linden Heights in Brooklyn.

Searching Google archives led to the following rabbis. Note that these rabbis may no longer be alive and may no longer be members. There is no point in linking because only scraps of the articles show up without paying for them.

From Kashrus Magazine

A long list, at the end of this newsletter, of member rabbis participating in their conference

Rabbi Noach Bernstein, Commission on a Moment of Silence
Rabbi Shaul Bick, Congregation Agudas Achim
Rabbi Mayer Birnhack
Rabbi Herbert W. Bomzer, listed as a member by the Forward (via Failed Messiah)
Rabbi Dov Brisman (then head of the beth din of Philadelphia), listed as a member in August 2003
Rabbi Michoel Chazan, Director of Chaplaincy Services at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center
Rabbi Samuel I Cohen, listed as a member in 1960
Rabbi Rafoel Yochanon Davis, IDT Beis Midrash
Rabbi Herman Eisner z"l
Rabbi Saul Eisner, Igud Executive Vice President
Rabbi Hanania Elbaz, Ahi Ezer Congregation
Rabbi Mosha Epstein, Rabbi of Agudas Achim in Bridgeport, CT
Rabbi Mallen Galinsky, listed as a member in 1966
Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg, listed as a member in 1950
Rabbi Leibish Goldstein, Tefila V'rina L'achynu Merusya
Rabbi Meyer Greenberg z"l, mentioned as having been president in the early 1960s in his 2008 obituary
Rabbi Avrohom M. Greenhut, Beth Israel Hospital
Rabbi Abraham Gross, mentioned as president in April 1970
Rabbi Meir Grunberg z"l, listed as a member in his 1993 obituary
Rabbi Joseph Grunblatt of Canada, listed as a member in 1956
Rabbi Philip Harris z"l, listed as a member in his 2006 obituary
Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht, Igud President
Rabbi Eli Hecht, listed as vice president in April 2001
Rabbi Sholom Hecht, Hecht’s Religious Articles
Rabbi Yehoshua S. Hecht
Rabbi David Hollander, mentioned as president in September 1973.
Rabbi Shlomo Isaacson
Rabbi Nachum Josephy, listed as vice president in August 1993
Rabbi Michael Kakon, Ahavas Achim of West Orange
Rabbi Sholom B. Kalmanson (a Chabad rabbi)
Rabbi Pinchos Karr
Rabbi Avrohom Dovid Katz, Congregation Mishkan Avrohom D’Porgibisht
Rabbi Yechiel Kaufman
Rabbi Brian Kent
Rabbi Eliyahu Kirsch
Rabbi Sholom Klass z"l, listed as a member in his 2000 obituary
Rabbi Yaakov Klass, Torah Editor of the Jewish Press
Rabbi Leibish Koenig
Rabbi Yehuda Korczak
Rabbi Herschel Kurzrock, Igud Rosh Beth Din;
Rabbi Rachmiel Liberman
Rabbi Yitzchok Liebes is listed as head of beit din,
Rabbi Yaakov Neiman
Rabbi Avrohom Niyazov, Congregation L’maan Achai Bukhorim
Rabbi Dovid Niyazov
Rabbi Shlomo Chai Niyazov, Congregation L’maan Achai Bukhorim
Rabbi Ralph Pelcovitz, listed as president in July 1952
Rabbi Hershel Pollak, Semihyer Beis Midrash
Rabbi Yisroel Popack is implied to be a member as it says he was cleared of wrongdoing by them in an abuse case
Rabbi Abraham Poupko z"l, listed as having been a member in his 1964 obituary
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, from his bio
Rabbi Harry Rabinowitz
Rabbi Joseph Rosenbluth, Young Israel of Vanderveer Park;
Rabbi Joseph Salamon, Yeshiva Ohr Torah
Rabbi Dr. Zecharia Senter
Rabbi Immanuel Schochet, listed as a rabbi in Toronto and as a member in February 1985
Rabbi Shmaryahu Shulman, author of Meiresh B’Birah
Rabbi Yidel Stein, Congregation Tiferes Israel Brisk
Rabbi Aryeh Steinberg; Kashrus Supervision
Rabbi Peretz Steinberg
Rabbi Avrohom Stone, Congregation Adas Yeshurun of Flatbush
Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum, B’nai Israel of Linden Heights
Rabbi Yitzchok Tenenbaum
Rabbi Samuel Turk, mentioned as president in July 1958
Rabbi Dovid Wachholder, Kollel Emek Halacha
Rabbi Bernard Weinberger, mentioned as president in January 1969
Rabbi Moshe Y. Weiner, Kosher Information Center
Rabbi Luzer Weiss, NYS Kosher Law Enforcement.
Rabbi Marvin Zelkowitz

This is all I could find, but the Internet may well not be all-knowing when it comes to the Rabbinical Alliance of America

A July 2000 article from the New York Daily News noted in an article about Dr. Laura being attacked for support from Abraham Hecht, said the following:

The Rabbinical Alliance is the same group that told Congress in 1997 that it would boycott the Holocaust Museum because it included information about Hitler's homosexual victims.

Later in the article, Rabbi Pesach Lerner of the National Council of Young Israel, who himself has been a tireless advocate for Jonathan Pollard, defended Dr. Laura by telling the Daily News that "I am sure Dr. Laura didn't know any of the other stories about the Rabbinical Alliance;" i.e. even Rabbi Lerner, not a "moderate" (whatever that may mean), thinks that the RAA is pretty extremist.

Is Don't Ask Don't Tell Finally Over?

2010-10-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Federal judge Virginia Phillips has issued an immediate injunction "'to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding, that may have been commenced' under the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy."

The judge, appointed by President Clinton, let out of committee by then Judiciary Chair Orrin Hatch, and confirmed by voice vote on November 10, 1999, issued her ruling in response to a lawsuit filed, ironically, by the Log Cabin Republicans.

The Log Cabin Republicans, of course, are the very same Log Cabin Republicans who could not get even one Senator from their party to even allow the Senate to vote on repealing don't ask don't tell last month.

I guess "judicial activism" is okay for them, though.

Anyway, hopefully the Obama administration does not appeal the ruling (even though I think it is supposed to do so), and this ban is finally over with.

On Cook Political Report's Predictions of Democratic Losses

2010-10-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

So Cook Political Report took a step they often don't take, and put a whole bunch of incumbent-held seats for leaning to the other party. Obviously, this being a heavily anti-party in power year (I won't call it a pro-Republican year because we have not seen polls showing that people are particularly thrilled with what the Republican party has to offer, even in comparison with the Democratic party has to offer; they're just pissed about the state of things in the country), and the Democrats being the party in power, the overwhelming majority of those seats (and any seats in play) are held by Democrats.

Specifically, the Cook Political Report currently ranks an unbelievable and depressing 90 seats currently held by Democrats as being Lean Democrat, Tossup, Lean Republican or Likely Republican. There are exactly 7 such Republican-held seats.

That being said, of the 90 seats now (or in the case of NY-29, vacant but having been held by a Dem) held by a Democrat and listed as lean Democrat, tossup, lean Republican, or likely Republican, just 8 do not fall into at least one of the following 2 categories (several fall into more than one, which is why the totals add up to more than 82)

40 are: a seat that was a pickup for Democrats in one of the last 3 election cycles (21 between Election Day 2008 and today, 16 between Election Day 2006 and Election Day 2008, as well as CO-3 (Election Day 2004), and KY-6 and SD-AL (special elections in 2004)
62 are: a seat that was carried by the Republican candidate for president in at least one of 2004 and 2008 (PA-12, John Murtha's old seat, was the only seat to go for both Kerry and McCain; likely, the latent racism in the district alluded to by the late Murtha played a part)

Of those 8, only MA-10 and RI-1 would not be considered marginally Democratic, and both of those are leaning Democratic and are open.

WI-7 is also an open seat, after having been held for 40 years by David Obey. Then there's WI-3 (leaning Dem), CA-20 (leaning Dem), IL-17, where Phil Hare is in his 2nd term, and PA-11, where Paul Kanjorski was showing major signs of weakness even in 2008 against popular anti-immigrant mayor Lou Barletta (he had to be weak because he significantly underperformed Barack Obama here, meaning a bunch of people voted Barletta & Obama).

That being said, things are no less depressing.

Georgia Should Toll ALL of I-75/575 except for high occupancy vehicles

2010-10-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

Make the tolls higher during rush hour (say, $1.00 during rush hour, 25 cents otherwise), and you can bet that would drastically reduce congestion at a teeny fraction of the price.

The feds rejected the idea of paying for Georgia to add a lane,
but adding another lane is silly, even though it's "relatively" small in terms of number of lanes.

Better it should add commuter rail on the median.

DeMint's Position on Unmarried Women and Gays Not New

2010-10-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

Does nobody have a memory span that last 6 years? Does nobody have the ability to do a simple Google News archive search?

This was Jim DeMint's signature issue back in 2004 (okay, that's an exaggeration, but he had this exact same position).

WISTV, Oct 6, 2004

In a debate Sunday with Democrat Inez Tenenbaum DeMint said openly gay people should not be allowed to teach in the state's public schools.

DeMint defended that remark during an interview with the Aiken Standard on Tuesday and said he would feel the same way about single, pregnant women who lives with a boyfriend teaching a third grade child. He said teachers should be held to a higher moral standard.

Now, of course, in the above link it says he apologized-for the remark about single, pregnant women. Not, heaven forbid, about openly gay teachers.

Apparently, though, he's walked this one back.

Note to David A. Graham: You Just Joined Rick Sanchez

2010-10-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

In your reporting on Sanchez's on-air rants about how Jews like Jon Stewart control the media, you did the same thing, though admittedly more subtly.

News personalities who make anti-semitic comments tend to fare poorly; just ask Helen Thomas, the Hearst columnist who was forced to retire days after saying that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine."

Nice. You make it seem like Helen Thomas got pushed out by the powerful Jews for daring to say Israel should leave the West Bank.

Now, Democracy Now, while unbiased, is hardly going to be accused of trying to make Helen Thomas look more anti-Semitic than she was, so I'll take the transcript of her remarks from there:

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Yeah, and any comments on Israel? We’re asking everybody today. Any comments on Israel?

HELEN THOMAS: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.

Now, far from a gotcha at this point, Rabbi Nesenoff gave her a chance to clarify (i.e. if she had in fact meant that Israel should leave the West Bank)

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Ooh, any better comments than that?

UNIDENTIFIED: Helen is blunt.

Instead, she makes it clear that she was not merely using intemperate language to push an immediate end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

Instead, she makes it clear that she favors some sort of ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel to countries that were (Germany) responsible for the Holocaust and (Poland) the residence of 3,000,000 Holocaust victims, but are not "home" in any meaningful sense of the word to more than a tiny fraction of Israelis.

HELEN THOMAS: Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, and it’s not Poland.

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: So where should they go? What should they do?

HELEN THOMAS: They could go home.

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Where is their home?

HELEN THOMAS: Poland, Germany—

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: So the Jews—you’re saying Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?

HELEN THOMAS: —and America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries? See?

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Now, are you familiar with the history of that region and what took place?

HELEN THOMAS: Very much. I’m of Arab background.

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: I see.

Now, of course, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics shows that only 79,600 (1.4%) of Israeli Jews have Poland or Germany (or Austria, included together with Germany) as home in the sense that they were born there. 2/3 of them are over 65 and are probably Holocaust survivors.

Even stretching to include as having a "home" there either being born there or having a father born there, 361,700 (6.4%) of Israelis are included.

On the other hand, there is the fact that 20.7% by this inflated standard had their home in the Arab world, but had to leave because they weren't wanted there either.

All that being said, 71.2% of Israelis have, as their home in the most direct sense, Israel, as this is where they were born.

Don't Fund the Atlanta Streetcar, Obama Administration

2010-09-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would ever be against an attempt to expand rail transit in the United States. As someone who is finally being forced to get a license so I can join Zipcar for the too-frequent occasions when Atlanta's transit doesn't cut it, I would normally be thrilled by it. But the Atlanta Streetcar seems like an unbelievably stupid idea.

Now, while heavy rail is better (for dense city areas), it's also much much more expensive, and I am generally quite supportive of light rail, and I am generally supportive even of modern streetcars.

However, even though I really, really hate to say anything to undermine A.J. Robinson and Central Atlanta Progress, I have to oppose the Atlanta streetcar.

This is not to say I am against adding passenger rail capacity that runs in the streets in denser areas of Atlanta. I differ with AJC's in-house 30-something right-winger Kyle Wingfield on that.

However, Mr. Wingfield made some good points, and unlike far too many right-wingers, spends probably more of his column bashing wasteful highway spending (on the other hand, Wingfield is terribly handicapped by his position against actual planning instead of letting developers run hog-wild with no regard for anything else like this country has for the last 60 years; he fails to realize that laying transit to encourage smart development is a good thing, and should visit Washington, DC and I'm told, Portland, if he doesn't believe me).

Tourists would be the biggest beneficiaries of the streetcar, which would run from the aquarium, alongside Centennial Olympic Park, through Fairlie-Poplar, and finally down Auburn Avenue to historic sites from the civil rights era.

Nothing against tourists, but Atlanta’s biggest congestion headaches come from commuting, not tourism, and generally are on highways, not downtown surface streets.

And never mind that MARTA already runs a subway line that comes within a couple of blocks of most of the major destinations, is canceling a little-used bus route that’s very similar to the proposed streetcar’s path, and discontinued a previous tourist trolley in the same area due to poor ridership.

The broader plan also calls for a trolley line along Peachtree Street, north to Brookhaven and south toward Fort McPherson. It’s central to an attempt to create Atlanta’s version of the Champs-Élysées in Paris or Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Actually, MARTA runs BOTH of its lines (well, technically there are four lines, but they split only at the ends, with the east-west line only having one green-line only station) in the area around the initial proposal for the streetcar.

Typical tourists would not use it either, as typical tourists will be willing to walk a mere 2-3 miles over the course of a day or two of seeing a city. Only fat/lazy/old and wheelchairless tourists would use it (this is why they canceled the non-rail tourist trolley, I assume).

Moreover, I cannot really see commuters using it. Businesses in downtown are basically all already close enough to MARTA that people are not going to waste time waiting for a streetcar because they can walk from the MARTA station and get there more quickly. Or rather, any businesses that are not close enough are also not close enough to be much shorter walking distances from the streetcar that would be necessary for people to transfer rather than just walking.

Of course, the really ugly thing about Downtown (and Midtown) as, for some reason, Mr. Robinson seems to miss is the unholy percentage of both of them devoted to parking lots.

I filled in all (or almost all; I may have missed a few so it may be worse) of the parking lots in downtown (north of I-20, west of I-75/I-85, east of the major rail line (leaving out the area between it and Northside, and south of Ivan Allen). Look (the embedding has so many lots it won't even show) here; it's absolutely unbelievable.

Note if I'd included the full downtown, with borders of I-20 on south, Piedmont on the east, Northside on the West, and North Avenue on the North, it would be just as bad, but Google Maps can't draw that many vector shapes.

Anyway, it's really really wasteful to have to have so much parking in the middle of town, where as many offices should ideally be located to minimize aggregate commutes while affording freedom of places to live.

That being said, the smartest thing to do to expand rail transit would be to browbeat/coerce (I can think of all sorts of unorthodox ways to do so) Gwinnett and Cobb into joining MARTA, and extending the Green Line north through rail corridors through Knight Park to Underwood Hills, then west across the Chattahoochee, following the rail corridor north through Vinings to Cumberland Mall, Symrna and then ending in downtown Marietta or cutting from there to the Interstate and heading to Kennesaw State.

Additionally, extending the Gold Line along the Buford Highway rail corridor northeast from Doraville through to Norcross and Duluth.

Too bad it wasn't done already. Atlanta has been majorly losing ground on mobility.

Shocker: States with Loose Gun Laws Sell More Guns Used Criminally

2010-09-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Of course, the actual news story that brought me to this study, said something even more trite; that 10 states account for nearly half the guns bought and taken across state lines to commit a crime.

The reason this is particularly trite is, of course, that 10 states (California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina) account for more than half the population of the United States.

That being said, the actual study, done by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition has some slightly less obvious information in it.

Specifically, three of those states (Arizona, Indiana, Virginia) are not in the top 10, and Georgia, which is only the 9th largest state, has been the #1 offender in this category for the last four years.

Moreover, using the data provided, I ran a correlation test on the number of interstate criminal guns sold per 100,000 state residents with the score that state receives for its gun laws by the pro-gun control Brady Campaign.

The result was a -0.57 correlation, quite high.

Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins Co-Sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act

2010-09-21T16:25:00.001-07:00

Yet they both voted today against cloture on money for our men and women overseas just to oppose the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell"

Jeff Merkley sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the Senate; Barney Frank (unsurprisingly sponsored it in the House).

From the Congressional Record Summary:

- Prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity by covered entities (employers, employment agencies, labor organizations, or joint labor-management committees). Prohibits preferential treatment or quotas. Allows only disparate treatment claims.

Prohibits related retaliation.

Now, admittedly, this bill does exempt the US military, in addition to religious organizations (so Fred Phelps can still keep his group gay-free), so it's not technically hypocrisy.

In the House, incidentally, one of the few Republican co-sponsors was Michael Castle.
On the plus side, discrimination against witches was and is legal, so feel free to discriminate against Christine O'Donnell in the Delaware Senate race.

Nathan Deal Cannot Be Trusted on Passenger Rail

2010-09-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

So according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Republican gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal has come out in favor of the regional transportation tax

That being said, the actual quotes from Deal given are a bit less than absolute commitment to build, with what seem to me like caveats in warning about expenses.

“The question always is, what is the priority, and where do you spend your money first,” he said. “Whether it’s light rail, heavy rail, passenger rail, whatever you call it, it’s expensive because of capital expenditures.”

Any new rail operation would also likely require subsidies to keep it afloat “and that’s difficult to do. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be working toward it.”

Never mind that Nathan Deal has to my knowledge not spent time arguing that we need to eliminate all of those expenditures for automobile transportation. Other than the vehicles themselves (which for automobiles are owned by people, which makes it different entirely from public transportation), 100% of operating expenses for roads come from taxes. And for that matter, we've been subsidizing vehicles via years and years of favorable legislation to (at least American-made) automobile manufacturing plants, even those made by non-American companies; we've given sweetheart deals to Asian companies to build plants in the South, all of this well before the auto industry bailout and cash for clunkers.

And of course, operating expenses for automobile transportation are also subsidized. Streetlights on highways, for instance. That electricity isn't free. Neither are traffic police. I would also say we have subsidized the cost of gasoline over the years with what have amounted to sweetheart deals on drilling on federal land/in U.S. waters. And last but certainly not least, we have massively subsidized parking those automobiles. Using land for parking lots is a major, major cost, and yet in so many places, one can park for free, and in many others, parking costs are under "market rate" for parking lots in that area, for various reasons. Of course, private companies also subsidize parking in addition to the government doing so. Still, those companies charge everyone higher prices to compensate for the loss from the free parking.

So let's not pretend the need for the government to provide operating subsidies and essentially 100% capital expense is qualitatively different from what we do for personal automobiles.

At any rate, given his past record, Nathan Deal cannot in any way be trusted on this.

MSNBC's Senate Moderates: Should Bob Casey, Dick Lugar, Bob Corker Be Included?

2010-09-20T12:40:00.000-07:00

So Chuck Todd is usually pretty brilliant, but I find his and the other NBC "First Read" people's views on "The Gang of Moderates" to be a little bit off.

Here’s one other point we want to make about the middle striking back: Note these senators who are all up in 2012: Snowe, Dick Lugar, Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill, Bob Corker, Bob Casey, and Jim Webb. What do they all have in common? They’re all moderates, and all of them could face -- potentially -- tough primaries or general elections two years from now. Don’t be surprised if these folks try to work with each other to stay elected. It will be an interesting caucus to follow. This gang (of something or other) is going to make a comeback, and if they actually stick together they COULD, become a governing force. The Balkanization of the Senate appears to be inevitable.

This is not just because of the major unlikelihood of people from opposing parties trying to work with each other to stay elected.

It's also because, for instance, Bob Casey is not so much a "moderate", per se, as he is just a moderate or so on social policy and foreign policy. On economic policy, he's been scored by National Journal either among the most liberal Senators, or in the middle of the Democratic caucus.

Then, of course, there's the bewildering question of where in the world they got the idea that Bob Corker is a moderate. True, the National Journal ranked him as the 7th most moderate Republican in 2009 (he was ranked 21st most moderate Republican in 2007 and 22nd most moderate in 2008), but that just means that at most, he's more moderate than a majority if not most of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate today.

But that does not make him a moderate. It just makes today's Republican party unbelievably right-wing and uncompromising.

I mean, take a look at the 8 longest-serving Republicans (in other words, all of the Republicans who have been in the Senate since January 1987). There are three special cases, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and Richard Shelby, who was a Southern Democrat in January 1993.

The other five guys (yes, they are all male) are Richard Lugar, Orrin Hatch, Thad Cochran, Chuck Grassley and Kit Bond.

Consider how the American Conservative Union and the Americans for Democratic Action rated their voting records during the 100th Congress (1987-1988). By averaging the ACU score and 100 minus the ADA score, we get a composite conservative score.

Of the 46 Republicans in the Senate at the time, Grassley, Cochran and Lugar ranked right in the middle, at 22nd most liberal, 23rd most liberal and 24th most liberal. Bond was slightly to the right, at 31st most liberal, and Hatch was solidly in the conservative wing, only 36th most liberal.

Incidentally, McCain was the 26th most liberal and McConnell was the 30th most liberal, while Ted Stevens ranked 13th most liberal, Pete Domenici 17th most liberal, and John Warner the 20th most liberal.

Now, looking at the 109th Congress, averaging the National Journal rankings, we have, out of the 49 Republicans, Lugar as 7th most liberal, Hatch as 13th most liberal, Cochran was 18th most liberal, Grassley 27th most liberal, Bond was 33rd most liberal,

Incidentally, Warner was 8th most liberal, Stevens was 11th most liberal, and Domenici was 14th most liberal.

Finally, in 2009 we have Richard Lugar as 2nd most liberal, Bond as 10th most, Hatch as 11th most, Cochran as 12th most, Grassley as 14th most liberal, out of the 40.

My point is that the reasonable conclusion is not that every one of these guys got more liberal, but that the rest of the party got more conservative. Hence, not really moderates.

Christine O'Donnell Doesn't Like Witchcraft, Either

2010-09-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

From an Op-Ed she wrote in the Washington Post, June 15, 1997 about her group hosting a booth at HFStival:

We pulled into parking lot No. 5 at RFK Stadium and began looking for our assigned spot. With colorful open-air tents and corporate banners draped on every fence, the area had been transformed into a carnival. Only instead of cotton candy and roller coasters, this carnival offered a celebration of death, in the guise of free condoms, "pro-choice" literature and glorification of the occult.

Not just evolution: More About Christine O'Donnell

2010-09-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

She's also, for instance, a young Earther. In the same interview/"debate" with Miles O'Brien and an evolutionary biologist (Dr. Michael McKinney) on CNN on March 30, 1996, she makes that clear with some sort of weird rant about Mount Helens and hundreds of millions of years.

I agree with what the gentleman said about we need to teach DNA, and I think that when you look at genetic engineering, it all points to creationism, because genetics can be traced back to the obvious existence of a higher being - of God.

Now, he said that it's based on fact. I just want to point out a couple things. First of all, they use carbon dating, as an example, to prove that something was millions of years old. Well, we have the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens and the carbon dating test that they used then would have to then prove that these were hundreds of millions of years younger, when what happened was they had the exact same results on the fossils and canyons that they did the tests on that were supposedly 100 millions of years old. And it's the kind of inconsistent tests like this that they're basing their 'facts' on.

Carbon-dating, as Dr. McKinney points out, is only useful up to about 50,000 years back; Carbon-14 has a half-life of about O'Donnell's belief of the age of the universe (assuming the literalist Christians do hold by the Jewish (according to most halachic authorities) symbolic count of 5771, so it makes sense, since only about 2^-8 is left after 50,000 years, and much more than that and our instruments aren't precise enough.

Then there's this gem:

Because you're getting out of a public arena. The public schools are a public arena and you can't present one view point as more accurate than another.

Interesting. If she's serious and applies this idea across the board, this means that Christine O'Donnell supports teaching, among other things, the homosexual agenda, communism, masturbation, abortion and of course, the David Icke view of history.

But wait. She doesn't support those at all:

"Every single person on [the board] leans more to a mixed message of 'use a condom' than the message of 'exercise self-control and abstain from sex until you're married,' " said Christine O'Donnell, spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America, a conservative family-advocacy group.

"We have the solution [to teen pregnancy]," Miss O'Donnell added. "We know if we all band together and tell these kids that it's OK to say 'no' - and not only is it OK, it is the best choice for them - we would see a great turnaround." (Washington Times, April 3, 1996)

Go Back to 1990, Don Haddix

2010-09-14T17:34:00.000-07:00

Seriously. The mayor of Peachtree City is for whatever reason too blind to see the absolutely crucial need for a unified, expanded rail transit system for Atlanta, ranting about his disapproval of the TSPLOST (Transportation Local Option Sales Tax) meeting today.

He claims he doesn't see anything in it for Fayette County (actually, the Georgia Department of Transportation has commissioned studies that would have a commuter rail line going from Peachtree City to Atlanta, although admittedly that wouldn't be the top priority of getting something to Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton). But anyway, that's not the worst part.

Additionally, I asked if any other solution than [mass] transit and new roads had been considered. The answer was no.

It is troubling that those who developed this plan almost all are either with transit groups or from the counties using transit already.

What are people going to do? Fly to work and jobs? Apparate? But somehow I tend to doubt this guy was going for the alternative of bicycling and walking to work, and frankly, he might just be one of those guys who burn ~~Harry Potter books~~ (or wait, the Koran is the in book to burn these days), so I doubt it's Apparating.

So what's left? Tell me, Mayor Haddix, what's left?

How Does Atlanta Compare on Public Transportation Use

2010-09-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

Thought of a good idea for something to look up and write about today: how does Atlanta compare to other urban areas in terms of usage of public transportation and various other methods of commuting to work.

I am using urban areas (from the 2000 Census) because urban areas were defined by the Census Bureau in a fairly technical way.

Their reason for defining these urban areas were to avoid the imprecisions of using legally defined places in determining how many people live in an urban area. Using city limits obviously does not work (this makes, for instance, El Paso, Omaha, Fresno and Tucson seem larger than Miami).

The idea of metropolitan areas, which were created at least 60 years to try to address this problem, are better, but the use of legally defined places (counties) means that some rural areas in counties that qualify for being part of the metro area get counted.

The exact criteria used by the Census Bureau can be found in the Federal Register from March 15, 2002 and is quite technical and detailed (they tweaked things when empirical tests did not "look right"), but is probably about as good as it could be.

I am using data from the American Community Survey 2006-2008 3 year estimates (these are the most recent data available, and the 3 year combined estimates greatly reduce the error caused by low sample sizes).

Anyway, here is how Atlanta ranks among the 25 largest urban areas in the United States in terms of the transportation they use to get to work (using that form of transportation that takes them the longest distance):

Note that other means is anything not listed elsewhere on the table, but includes bicycles, motorcycles, taxicabs and everything that isn't in another category

Of the 25 urban areas, Atlanta ranks 10th in terms of percentage of workers who get to work by driving their car by themselves (76.1%). This, of course, is the least efficient and overall most expensive way to get to work, but it is unfortunately often most convenient. Those urban areas even worse in this category (i.e. a larger percentage get to work by driving their car by themselves) are, in order, Detroit (84.4%), St. Louis (81.8%), Cleveland (81.7%), Tampa (80.4%), Dallas-Fort Worth (79.6%), Miami (78.6%), San Jose (78.0%), Houston (77.5%) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (77.5%).

Atlanta's urban area ranked 15th in percentage using public transit (4.28%), ahead of Miami, San Jose, San Diego, St. Louis, Houston, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Riverside-San Bernardino, Detroit and Tampa.

Atlanta's worst categories are percentage of people walking to work (1.52%), which places it 24th, ahead of only Dallas-Fort Worth (1.36%), and percentage of people who bicycle to work (this is my category, incidentally), where it places dead last (.14%), just behind Dallas-Fort Worth (.15%), meaning it also places 24th in percentage of people getting to work on their own personal power (1.66%), one of just 5 of the top 25 urban areas where less than 2% of people get to work on their own power, along with Dallas (1.52%), Detroit (1.79%), Houston (1.87%) and St. Louis (1.84%).

In only 8 of the top 25 urban areas do more than 4% get to work on their own power; Boston (5.85%), New York (6.75%), Philadelphia (4.43%), Pittsburgh (4.46%), Portland (5.18%), San Francisco-Oakland (6.88%), Seattle (4.49%) and Washington (4.04%).

With the exception of Pittsburgh, these are also the top 8 urban areas in terms of least percentage of people driving to work alone. Chicago (probably due to the freezing winters) has only 3.64% of people getting to work on their own power, but their high use of transit ranks them 6th in this category; Pittsburgh's relatively lower rankings in carpooling (15th), public transit (9th), and working at home (24th) push it to 12th in least driving alone, behind the aforementioned 8, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Phoenix (with Phoenix's rate due to a rather high rate of carpooling)

Information on 2010 Georgia Ballot Measures

2010-09-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

Update: On Monday, The Atlanta Journal Constitution finally bothered to provide clear explanations of the ballot measures, so I'll be analyzing them with those summaries in mind.

I just realized I had better look at the State of Georgia's 2010 ballot measures at some point before Election Day.

The state provides a pamphlet on the Georgia Secretary of State's website that tries to explain the 5 Constitutional amendments and 1 state-wide referendum on the ballot this November. I think the summaries are available on Election Day on the ballot, but I am not sure about this.

I myself don't really understand the ballot measures. The League of Women Voters is often helpful in providing clearer explanations of ballot measures, but their voter guide for Georgia in 2010 does not have any information on the ballot measures.

So, since they are all "legislative referral", meaning the voters have to approve (or disapprove) some bill passed by the legislature. I decided to check how the legislature voted on that bill and what members of the legislature said about them, to try to get an idea of whether or not I ought to support it. Here is what I found:

Question 1: Allows competitive contracts to
be enforced in Georgia courts

bill was sponsored by Democrat Kevin Levitas and Republicans Mike Coan, Butch Parrish, Joe Wilkinson, Richard Smith, and John Lunsford. The Conference Report was approved almost unanimously. Only 3 in the House voted NAY, Democrats Doug McKillip and Brian Thomas, and Republican Bobby Franklin. There were 0 NAY votes in the Senate.

~~In other words, this bill does not seem to have created much controversy in the legislature, which means it probably makes sense to go ahead and vote for it.~~

Update: This is apparently a bad bill for working people, and it seems that I trusted Georgia's Democrats more than I should have.

Labor attorneys oppose it

Well known Atlanta labor attorney Ed Buckley has a strong opinion of Amendment One:

"It's a damned lie."
.
.
.
Attorney Buckley disagrees, saying the amendment will "shackle" employees to their jobs.

"Shackle is an ugly word," 11Alive reporter Jeff Hullinger replied.

"That's what it is," Buckley said. "You can be forced to sign an agreement to keep your job than (sic) fired the next day and not be able to work."

The story goes on to say that ads supporting the Amendment are being funded by the Chamber of Commerce, which, except on public transportation (which the Chamber usually favors) is almost always an automatic reason to vote the other way.

It would provide courts with the ability to uphold the legal parts of an non-compete agreement with illegal clauses (non-compete agreements are agreements which some employers make employees sign that "seek to stop employees from moving to a business competitor or starting a competing business for a specific time period and in a specific geographic area.") In liberal terms, moving towards legalized slavery of the form similar to the old reserve clause in Major League Baseball (baseball players made far far less money, even adjusting for inflation, under the reserve clause)

In conservative terms, this lets judges re-write contracts you've signed (rather than just declare them either A) valid or B) null and void)

I will be voting no.

Question 2: Adds $10 tag fee on private
passenger vehicles to fund statewide trauma care expansion.

The bill was sponsored by Republicans Greg Goggans, Cecil Staton, Renee Unterman, and Don Thomas and by Democrats David Adelman and Valencia Seay.

In the Senate, the final version was opposed by Republicans Bill Heath and Jeff Chapman. In the House, it was opposed by 12 Republicans, Timothy Bearden, David Casas, Clay Cox, Matt Dollar, Bobby Franklin, Rich Golick, Michael Harden, Billy Horne, Roger Lane, Bobby Reese, Martin Scott, Daniel Stout and by 2 Democrats, Alan Powell and Rob Teilhet.

Again, a pretty overwhelming majority of both parties. I certainly intend to vote for it, though I suppose that isn't fair since at present, I am one of the rare Georgians who does not own a car (and will be trying to limit myself to no more than a Zipcar in the next few years), and so I won't immediately be subject to the fee.

Question 3: Allows the State to execute multiyear contracts for
long-term transportation projects

"Amendment 3 seeks to remove the state Transportation Department’s road projects from under the constitution, which requires the agency to fully fund projects before it enters into a contract. "

The bill was sponsored by Republicans Jeff Mullis, Chip Rogers, David Shafer, Tommie Williams and Judson Hill, and by Democrat Steve Thompson. 9 Republicans in the Senate, Balfour, Chapman, Cowsert, Goggans, Grant, Heath, Staton, Tolleson and Unterman voted NAY, as did 2 Republicans, Hatfield and Reese, in the House.

So a fair bit of opposition in the Senate by Republicans, but almost none in the House. At any rate, I'm voting for it. Georgia Republicans tend to be unable to think ahead for multiple years on the need for transportation, which (along with fear of blacks moving in; not that it worked for Clayton or for parts of Cobb for that matter) is why MARTA was limited to the 2 counties of Fulton and Dekalb only; although in those days the Republicans were Lester Maddox Democrats. As such, opposition by them does not faze me, but maybe it fazes others, I do not know.

Of course, on the other hand, GDOT has tended to be extremely hostile to public transportation, so it may not be a good idea to let them do something like this unless the constitution is also modified to remove the provisions limiting public transportation funding sources.

Question 4: Allows the State to execute multiyear contracts for
projects to improve energy efficiency and conservation.

The bill was sponsored by Republicans Chance, Rogers, Williams, Douglas and Staton, and by Democrat Steve Henson. 2 Republicans, Hatfield and Setzler, voted NAY in the House. There were 0 NAY votes in the Senate.

So pretty unanimous. Again, I'm voting for it.

Update: Someone thinks it's important enough to campaign for, and as such, news organizations are finally explaining it. It is indeed a good, smart, thing to do, as it will help the environment and in the long run, save Georgia money as well due to lower energy consumption, which is a win-win.

Taxpayers for Energy Efficiency announced Tuesday the launch of its $150,000 "Yes To Amendment 4" campaign, with a website and a page on the Facebook social-media networking site.

The amendment would change the constitution to permit certain multiyear contracts for the retrofitting of the state's 15,000 buildings.

Supporters say it will provide an economic stimulus while reducing energy consumption. And the work would be paid for with the energy savings rather than a new expense to the state's tight budget.

Question 5: Allows owners of industrial-zoned property to choose to remove the industrial designation from their property

The amendment would allow the owner of a property to remove it from an industrial area and allow it to be irrevocably annexed into a city, which would provide services.

The bill was sponsored by Democrats Bob Bryant, Mickey Stephens and Craig Gordon and by Republican Ron Stephens. It was opposed by 18 Republicans in the House, and by 2 Democrats in the Senate.

I figure I'll still vote for it.

Finally, the state-wide referendum (that is not a constitutional amendment)

Question A: Provides for inventory of
businesses to be exempt from
state property tax.

This I will have to look up some more; I'm leery about this.

Dedicate Gwinnett I-85 HOT tolls to fund commuter rail

2010-09-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

The inability of the Georgia Department of Transportation to think beyond the highway is mind-boggling.

Now, let me be clear. I am in no way against High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes as a way of raising revenue; a HOT lane is a special lane that is either open free of charge to people in high occupancy vehicles (in this case I believe 3 or more people); I believe these lanes usually have their special status only during peak hours of use.

Why am I not against it? First of all, it is a progressive use fee (tax, if you wish) in two different ways. First of all, in general, lower-earning workers are already far more likely to be carpooling to work. In Gwinnett, according to American Community Survey Estimates over 2006-2008, 18% of workers in the lower third or so of income ( less than $25000 a year) carpooled, while 12% of workers in the middle third of income and 7% of workers in the top third or so of income (more than $50000 a year) did.

Now, admittedly, while there is a major gap between percentage of workers in the lower third (68.1%) and middle third (81.9%) driving to work alone, the gap between the middle third and the upper third (82.8%) is small. This is largely due to the fact that only 79.2% of those making over $75000 drove to work alone. This is due to several factors, the largest being that those people are far more likely to work at home. Additionally, they are slightly more likely to (because they can more easily afford it) live close enough to work to walk or bicycle and may have the time to do so as well. Finally, the way public transportation is structured in Gwinnett County (quite little of it in-county, but with express buses to the big office towers in Atlanta) means that a little bit more of this group actually commutes by public transit than the public at large.

Second of all, it is a tax on unnecessary energy use (single-person commuting), which is good for the environment and for a sound energy policy. So yes, I have no issue with the tax, as it will be a tax primarily on the rich, and of course the state does need money it can get.

What is mind-boggling to me is the way Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) spokespeople answered the final question posed to them by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Q: Is this just another tax?

A: No, it’s optional, Barron said. Besides, with limited road funds, the state is running out of options, Rabun said. "Twenty years into the future traffic is going to be 50 percent more. We cannot put enough lanes out there to handle that traffic. What do you want me to do?"

This is a rather silly defense of the HOT lane. Making a HOV lane into a HOT lane is unlikely to take cars off the road, since carpooling's benefits were already increased by the existence of the HOV lane. It will move some cars to the HOT lane, and perhaps with the capacity they have, the increased carpooling from having the high occupancy lane and getting some rich people off of the rest of the road is the best private-vehicle way to reduce congestion.

But there are other options, and the Georgia Department of Transportation knows it. Look at this picture of proposed commuter rail lines that dates from July 2002.

How much has been done on this? Less than has been done on the BeltLine, for which MARTA still has not submitted anything to the Federal Transit Administration (but that is another story).

Seriously, though. Commuter rail today does not make sense only in New York, any more than any form of rail transit makes sense only in New York. 12 of the 16 metropolitan areas with over three million people have commuter rail (assuming the lines from California's Inland Empire to (largely) allow people to commute to Los Angeles counts), of which 7, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco have at least three lines to augment their good (well, Los Angeles does not really qualify as 'good', per se, but it is surprisingly extensive these days, and gets more trips on heavy and light rail combined than MARTA does, even though 15 years ago it only got about 1/3 the riders combined and even though the Atlanta area has grown much much faster in the intervening period).

In the South and West, Atlanta is one of the few large metropolitan areas to have done absolutely nothing to upgrade its rail transit system in the last 10 years, since the extensions to North Springs and Sandy Springs were finished (seeing as nothing "serious" has been done with plans, and seeing as the stripped-down Peachtree Streetcar seems like a tourist attraction more than something to really help transportation and will, I suspect, not get full funding).

Systems have seen and/or are in progress to see significant expansions in Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, Portland, San Jose, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, Sacramento, Miami

and began and are expanding in Albuquerque, Seattle, Houston, Charlotte, Austin, Phoenix, Nashville, with Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Newport News and Orlando to see openings soon.

This is not to say, of course, that we haven't seen extensions in some of the other metropolitan areas in that time period (New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and especially Minneapolis, which just started its system in the last 10 years, now has one light rail line, one commuter rail line, is in progress on an east-west line between Minneapolis and St. Paul and about to submit to the FTA on a southwestern line, and Pittsburgh is still in progress on its Bore to the Shore, which is not insignificant because it makes further extensions a lot cheaper).

The point is that Atlanta is missing the boat.

The Demands and Sayings of Lee The Discovery Channel Gunman

2010-09-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

Mind you, I'm not at all sanguine about the planet being able to sustain much more if any human population growth (especially at Western standards of living), but this guy Lee nevertheless has a hilarious, hilarious manifesto and demands of Discovery which can be read here.

Note that he's not a straight-up crazy leftist; the "they terk er jobs" crowd would agree with parts.

Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that.

Some of the best parts:

Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order.

Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

Won't someone please think of the Froggies!

A picture of James Jay Lee the Gunman:

Mind-Boggling Letters to the Editor on the Mosque

2010-08-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

I decided I was up for some punishment, so I'm reading through some of the mind-bogglingly silly letters to the editor people are writing about that mosque in New York.

I see no reason not to leave everyone's name intact; perhaps they have friends who will Google them and set them straight after seeing this; I can hope, at least.

Furthermore, the politicians are afraid not to support the Muslim community in this endeavor for fear of losing their votes. Wake up America! We don't need to be putting Muslim interests above all else for fear of being politically incorrect.

...
I certainly will not want to visit New York again if this mosque is allowed to be built.

...

Gayle Barker

Powell, TN

Shameful display

Let's see if I understand this correctly: Americans are supposed to be more tolerant and understanding of Muslims and their religion of Islam.

This is coming from Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City who supports a mosque being built 250 yards from Ground Zero.

In my opinion, he should resign immediately. What an affront and shameful display of disloyalty to all the victims who died there in the name of Islam.

Shame on anyone who voted yes for this project.

How about some compassionate understanding from all Muslims who claim their religion does not promote violence?

RENATE OGLE

Orange Park

Thanks for Enabling Anti-Semites, Pam Geller

2010-08-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

I was Googling through the torrent of articles about that whole mosque controversy, and I found this article in a paper from Uganda, and I read this:

Nine years after the 9/11 bombing in the US, a proposed mosque and an Islamic centre near the spot where terrorists killed over 2,000 people has caused outrage among Jewish extremists. They claim such a project would lay waste to what amounts to a “graveyard”.

Among "Jewish extremists", I thought? Sure, there are a few Jews who are outraged, but I would guess 99% or more of the outraged are Christians. But this f***ing anti-Semite, blaming the Jews again.

Then I remembered. It's technically true. At least a Jewish extremist, Pam Geller, basically made this controversy happen.

Thanks, Pam.

Census Bureau Has Congressional Apportionment Widget!

2010-08-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's just a countdown clock until the date (Dec 31, 2010) by which the Census Bureau must return official state and national population counts, which is kind of lame.

It looks like your browser cannot or does not support IFRAMES.

I think it would have been much more interesting and informative if it also had functionality to explain to the American people exactly how the system of apportionment works. It does not require that much math to understand how it works (if you know what a square root is, you have everything you need), although it does admittedly require a significant amount of math to understand what makes the system of apportionment "good."

Initially, each state is assigned 1 representative, to ensure that no matter what, every state (but not the residents of Washington D.C.!) gets at least 1 representative in the House of Representatives; additionally, in order to work without getting into division by zero, the method sort of requires this.

After each state has a seat, the rest of the seats are distributed one by one according to which state currently has the highest "priority" to receive an additional seat.

The priority for an additional seat is calculated as follows: Let P be the population of the state, n be the number of seats currently allocated to it. Then the priority is P/(SQRT(n)*SQRT(n+1))

Shabbat Dinner in Tzfat

2010-06-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

After mincha/dancing Carlebachish Kabbalat Shabbat/Maariv at the Ascent Institute, we got sent to the houses of local Chabad families for dinner; they made sure to segregate us by gender for this, though I'm not entirely sure why; I've never heard of a mechitza being required at the dinner table and certainly the wife in the family was sitting with everyone else at the table.

Ariel and Chana, both BT Chabad from the United States, hosted us. Chana was even mekareved by the Chabad Rabbi in Princeton; I learned this after she asked me "Where in Princeton?" when I said I was from there; rarely do I get asked that, as Princeton (or the Princetons, as it were) just isn't that big. Ariel (my guess is no more than 12 years into BT given how old he looked) is now the Rosh Yeshiva of a yeshiva in Tzfat serving other BTs.

When we reached their apartment, the two oldest kids, 5 and 4, were still awake. After one of them started misbehaving, saying he would turn on the lights, I made a wisecrack; "Oy vey, he's already going off the derech." Unsurprisingly, it did not go over too well.

In addition to three of us doing the Ascent seminar, there were also 4 yeshiva students there for dinner as well. Three of them were not particularly eccentric or noteworthy, but one, Shimon, was. He had spent a lot of time doing all the eastern religion stuff that apparently is not so uncommon for Jews who end up in Tzfat. He'd also been into the raw foods movement, and was an organic farmer in Maui, New Mexico, and elsewhere. He also wasn't dressed like a Chabad BT. For one, he had payos, and for another, he had techelet on his tzitzit. He also spent some of the dinner blabbering about this new electric coil that would give us free energy, after he heard I was (technically, at least) an engineer. He also mentioned how he thought the CIA did 9/11. I then brought up the various Jewish/Israel-related 9/11 conspiracies, particularly the "Jew call" to explain why he was being stupid. That also didn't go over so well.

Nevertheless, despite Ariel's dvar torah going into "animalkeit" vs. "yiddishkeit," and despite his going on and on and on about the "Holy Tanya" (Rabbi Yudi maybe mentioned the Tanya and the Alter Rebbe once, if that, in like 20 pizza/parshas I went to), and despite the major delay in the BTs figuring out which Kiddush to recite (it apparently being a Chabad custom for each person to do an individual Kiddush), I enjoyed it.

Went to a Ball Game Today with Chabad

2010-04-18T18:03:00.000-07:00

Two things worthy of note.

1. The campus shaliach (at least to more inner circle types) is willing to I think admit the Haredi situation in Israel sometimes goes overboard. Case in point: last year on the Birthright trip run by Chabad, they had Kabbalat Shabbat at the Kotel; the women on the trip were singing (on their side of the Kotel), which led some people to throw water over the mechitza in protest.

The rabbi noted he'd had to mislead by saying it was a Shavuot tradition to throw water.

2. One guy brought Meir Kahane ימח שמו וזכרו 's book to the ballgame to read when he got bored. And he's seriously considering not coming back when he goes to Israel this summer (even though this is just his freshman year). Oy vavoy.

And yeah, certainly if people are going to say that about Rabbi Stephen Wise, I can say that about the guy responsible for both Jewish-oriented U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Avigdor Lieberman Continues to Sell Out to the Haredim

2010-03-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Residents of Israel's south have unfortunately been under siege from rockets from Gaza for years and years. A new hospital wing in Ashkelon was planned to be built to be rocket and missile proof, but human bones were found there.

Apparently, United Torah Judaism via (the handlers of) Yosef Shalom Elyashiv has decided that, despite what archaeologists say (that they are Christian or pagan bones) and despite pikuach nefesh, this 90 million NIS ($24 million) wing must be stopped.

Instead, according to MK Yaakov Litzman, they must spent an additional 100 million NIS, more than doubling the price and delaying construction of the facility by 18 months.

5 (or 16 including Shas) MKs apparently are enough to force this, thanks to the help of other coalition members.

An 11-10 cabinet vote approved this disgraceful change.

In opposition were most (perhaps all that voted) Labor ministers, as well as 6 Likud ministers (Yuli Edelstein, Yossi Peled, Michael Eitan, Dan Meridor, Gideon Sa'ar, and Limor Livnat).

Lieberman cast the deciding vote in favor (and two of his fellow Beitenu members abstained; had they voted no, it would also have killed it).

So he's sold out completely on secularism (or even sanity), and has been the PA's best diplomat as foreign minister. How I hope his party goes down next election.

When will the PA Declare Avigdor Lieberman Honorary PA Foreign Minister?

2010-03-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

Because he's really doing more for them than whoever their foreign minister is (apparently Riad Al-Malki; not someone we hear too much from, though his name does mildly ring a bell).

His latest advocacy on the Palestinian's behalf is with the very large and pretty important country of Brazil

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday boycotted Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's speech to Israel's Knesset to protest the visiting leader's refusal to lay a wreath at Mount Herzl.

Lieberman also boycotted a meeting between Lula and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming the Brazilian president slighted Israel by refusing the customary diplomatic visit to Mount Herzl and the gravesite of Zionist leader Theodore Herzl.
.
.
.
The Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Lieberman wanted to show the Brazilian leader that Israel takes seriously his dismissal of diplomatic protocols.

You should take it seriously. It is indeed scary that Israel's relations with Brazil are apparently so poor that Lula is skipping visiting Herzl's gravesite. Certainly it would be absolutely horrible if (under the worst case scenario) Brazil were to join the Castro/Chavez axis.

Israel exported 1.172 billion dollars worth of goods to Brazil in 2008, #8, under only (in order) the United States, the European Union, Hong Kong, India, Turkey (there's another country Lieberman and his party have been stupendous ambassadors regarding), the People's Republic of China, and the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland). So we are talking significant sums here.

But the way to take this problem seriously is not to do your frickin' best to worsen relations further and further!!!!!!!!!

Shelo Asani Isha and the New York Times

2010-03-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

So today all three major U.S. Orthodox mostly based on copyright-violating with some original reporting newsblogs (Vos iz Neias, Matzav, and Yeshiva World News), posted a letter to the editor from a (presumably Modern Orthodox given his place of residence and the fact that he reads the New York Times) Daniel Wolf of Teaneck, NJ, complaining/clarifying the purpose of the ברוך אתה ה', אלקינו מלך העולם, שלא עשני אשה (said by Orthodox Jewish men every morning.) from ברכות השחר, part of the morning prayer service.

Maureen Dowd's reference to a morning prayer recited by some Orthodox Jewish men thanking God for not making them women ("Loosey Goosey Saudi," column, March 3) is the second time in two months that a New York Times columnist (after Nicholas D. Kristof, Jan. 10) has cited this practice as evidence of Judaism's oppression of women.

Under Orthodox Jewish practice, women, in recognition of their childbearing and other familial responsibilities, are charged with fewer ritual commandments than men. The blessing in question, far from reflective of officially sanctioned subjugation of women, is simply a daily expression of thanks by men for being given the opportunity to express their belief in God by performing additional commandments.

Now, Maureen Dowd's article was devoted to mocking a Saudi Arabian prince for his temerity to criticize "the democracy of Israel" on the issue of religious and other freedom given that his country is "an absolute Muslim monarchy ruling over one of the most religiously and socially intolerant places on earth." In addition to her nine paragraphs criticizing Saudi Arabia's "glacial pace" of "chipping away at gender apartheid and cultural repression," she does note that while "Israel is a secular society," things are in fact trending to the right due to those want to "impose a harsh and exclusive interpretation of Judaism." She references the arrest of Nofrat Frankel of Women of the Wall at the Kotel for the 'crime' of wearing a tallit, and notes that "in Orthodox synagogues, some men still say a morning prayer thanking God for not making them women."

In other words, she's being charitable and going easy on Orthodoxy/the Israeli ultra-Orthodox, limiting critical remarks in this area entirely to purely religious/prayer-related practices, while going after Saudi Arabia for religious-based influence on society in general.

Frankly, even on the issue Daniel Wolf criticizes her for, she's letting Orthodoxy off easily. Unless I am much mistaken, in all Orthodox synagogues, from Ohev Shalom--the National Synagogue in Washington, DC, whose Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, wrote to the Israeli ambassador criticizing the arrest of Frankel on religious grounds, to synagogues in the Old City whose rabbis pushed for Frankel's arrest, all Orthodox men say שלא עשני אשה

This is one of the very few areas in which the Conservative nusach differs from the traditional Nusach Ashkenaz used in non-Chasidic Ashkenazi Orthodox synagogues. The Conservative movement decided to modify all three שלא עשני
blessings (where God is thanked by men for A) not making them a goy [non-Jew] B) not making them a slave C) not making them a woman).

The Conservative nusach thanks God for making one a Jew שעשני ישראל and making one a free person שעשני בן/בת חורין. For the "not making them a woman", it totally scratches the dichotomy of "not making me a woman" for men versus "for making me according to Your will" for women. Instead, both women and men say שעשני בצלמו
(that I was made in Your image).

However, more importantly, especially during a week where a bunch of anti-Semites are participating in "Israel Apartheid Week" worldwide, Mr. Wolf should be thankful for the tone of the article.

Frankly, she could've made analogies to the situation in Israel for a whole bunch of nasty Saudi Arabian practices. For instance, "the bearded religious police officers who patrol the streets" of Saudi Arabia have a non-governmental analogy in the Vaad hatznius (modesty police) in Jerusalem and other ultra-Orthodox areas.

The arrest of an American woman for sitting with a man at Starbucks? The new ultra-Orthodox ice cream parlors, with the popular lemon-vodka flavor, were opened specifically as a no-seating ice cream parlor to avoid that altogether. Where there are benches in Mea Shearim that cannot easily be removed but could be used by young men and women to sit together, the problem is solved with sticky raspberry syrup. Women not being allowed to drive? Well, the Haredi community generally cannot afford private cars, but they have brought back the 1950s Southern United States by forcing women to sit in the back of the bus.

So seriously, Mr. Wolf. Better to work to solve the problems.

Who Created the Parody of Israel PR (Masbirim) Website?

2010-03-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

OK. MK Yuli Edelstein, as Information Minister, put together masbirim.gov.il as part of a new Israeli PR campaign.

Today, it appears some leftist types have taken a page out of the book of the people who created the whitehouse.com porn site 10 years ago.

They've created a very similar-looking site at masbirim.co.il.

Of course, the site is instead called מיניסטיריון האמת
(Ministry of Truth) and has links to B'tselem and a few other sites, as well as a video of the rock-slinging (in the sense that they use slings to hurl them much harder than could be done by hand) 'non-violent' Bilin demonstrators.

Now, I believe it is meant for internal Israeli consumption seeing as it is all Hebrew, and it's possible they're not even anti-Zionists.

A whois shows that the site is registered with one Ofri Mann of Rishon LeZion, though he may just be an Internet guy and not one of the people behind the site.

In any case, as the hardly left-wing editor of Jerusalem Post, David Horowitz, notes, the whole campaign is kind of ill-conceived.

“Are you going overseas? Hosting people from abroad?,” asks the Ministry of Public Diplomacy’s new masbirim – “explainers” – Web page. Well then, it gushes, you too can become “ambassadors for Israel” and “together, we’ll change the picture.”
...
[Israel will do better] When it internalizes that, no, we’re not a “normal” country with which Europe and the West can be expected to easily identify, but rather a lonely, gutsy democracy under relentless attack in a tyrannical region.

Israel will fare better when, before going to war, it prepares the diplomatic and the legal and the media ground as effectively as its prepares its fighting forces.

For all our righteous sense that we are so far more sinned against than sinning, Israel is also hobbling itself through incoherence.

While Fatah ostensibly wants peace along the pre-’67 lines and Hamas unequivocally wants us gone, nobody, but nobody, knows quite what it is that we want.

Our prime minister says he has a vision of a Palestinian state, but he is also planting saplings at bombastic ceremonies at West Bank settlements and extending national heritage status to the Cave of the Patriarchs. Even if that makes a certain kind of sense to some of us here, it is plain incomprehensible to most who are not. The Goldstone Report is a strategic threat to Israel but Israel is begging Mahmoud Abbas – who initiated Goldstone by accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza – to please, pretty please, come and talk peace with us. Where’s the clarity?

Spanish Anti-Semites Remind Us Why We Need a Nation-State

2010-02-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

In basically every single nation-state, Jews have been expelled/exterminated from all or part of it, reminding us that only in our own nation-state (or in a non-nation-state like the United States) can we really be free and safe.

Spain of course being one of the worst, having expelled and exterminated its Jews via the Inquisition in 1492, forcing those they didn't expel or kill to convert to Catholicism. The overwhelming majority of the Jewish descendents of those expelled from Spain today live in the state of Israel, their ancestors having been expelled/exterminated from at least one place in the intervening period.

Spain apparently hasn't changed much in the intervening 500 years. Apparently now some anti-Semitic external elements have been given permission to work with youngsters in the Spanish education system, resulting in these letters from 5 and 6 year olds:

The Israeli embassy in Madrid has received dozens of postcards addressed to the Israeli envoy - from students ages 5 and 6 - including hand-written messages such as "Jews kill for money," "Evacuate the country for Palestinians," and "Go to someplace where someone will be willing to accept you."

Perhaps Spain should take in Palestinian refugees as full citizens, then. They still owe the Jewish people a major debt, having not paid any restitution for the 1492 expulsion/Inquisition/etc.

Lox not kosher? Rabbi (Moshe) Karp urges Ban on Salmon

2010-02-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

I keep thinking eventually I will not be shocked by the insanity of the ultra-Orthodox, but I keep getting proven wrong.

There is probably no food more associated with (Ashkenazi) Judaism than lox. The very word lox came into American English from לאקס
in Yiddish, the word for salmon, which our ancestors have eaten since living in Eastern Europe.

Now Rabbi Moshe Karp (yeah, you'd think it's a joke, but this guy exists), the Rabbi of the ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement Modi'in Illit, has ruled that halibut, salmon, flounder and various other fish can no longer be considered kosher, because the roundworm anisakis parasite lives in these fish.

The thing is, the Gemara mentions this (Chullin 67b),

תולעים דרני דבשרא אסירי דכוורי שריין

which means (after looking up all but the third and fourth words in Rav Marcus Jastrow's Talmudic dictionary) Parasitic worms are prohibited in meat (i.e. mammal meat and perhaps poultry) but permitted in fish. According to Dovid Bistricer of the Orthodox Union, the Shulchan Aruch and rishonim say the following:

Mature insects swallowed by fish are considered sheratzei hayam and are prohibited, while insects grown inside the flesh are not considered sheratzei hayam and are permitted until they exit the fish into the ocean. Although the Rambam (Hilchos Ma’achalos Assuros 2:17) makes a distinction between insects grown inside flesh while the fish is alive and while it is not, the position of all other rishonim is that insects grown inside the flesh of fish are permitted even when the fish is alive. The Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah (84:16) rules clearly that all insects found in the bellies of fish are prohibited, while those found in the flesh are permitted.

According to the Center for Disease Control, the anisakis does not reach mature form until after its fish host is eaten by a marine mammal (or a human if improperly cooked)

Yet Karp makes the outlandish claim that new scientific evidence says otherwise:

According to the OU’s Rabbi Goldberg, at the end of the meeting in Brooklyn, a chassidishe rebbe in attendance asked Karp if he was implying that gedolim of yore ate treif. Rabbi Goldberg said that Karp explained, “they did not know what we know and that the fish is assur (forbidden) because we know how the bug works.”

“I asked him to please tell me the name of the Jew or gentile that clarified it for us and where is this research, and when was it put out,” recalled Rabbi Goldberg. He believes the idea of a ban will soon be sleeping with the fishes. “If you say something is based on science then you have to provide the science.

Now, never mind that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein wouldn't even write a teshuva on this because he felt the Shulchan Aruch had already fully answered it. Never mind that whenever science says something about the age of the Earth, causes of earthquakes, etc., Haredim always condemn the science in favor of what Chazal (the sages who wrote the Mishna and Gemara) said. Looks like the Haredim in Israel are going for it , and the ones in Monsey and Lakewood will follow. One hopes the Orthodox Union at least continues to have more sense than this.

Who Funds Aaron Feinhandler's Computer-Smashing Machane Yisrael Yeshiva?

2010-02-23T13:18:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many people have seen the footage of this "ceremony" that took place at the Machane Yisrael Yeshiva (ישיבת מחנה ישראל) in the Beit Yisrael section of Jerusalem.

Yeah, that's right, the Rabbi, Aaron Feinhandler (אהרן פינהנדלר), is (with protective eyewear) smashing a perfectly functional PC, after which the yeshiva students all jump on it to further destroy it beyond repair in a ritual seeming like a cross between drunken frat boy antics and a good, old-fashioned book-burning. The yeshiva is oriented towards ba'al teshuvas (those born Jewish but not born/raised Orthodox/ultra-Orthodox who have embraced that lifestyle). He is talking about how computers are in general not kosher, and how the destruction is intended to be some kind of a healing process for the treyf of the computer that had belonged to one of the ba'al teshuvas.

And lest people think that this was just a stunt pulled in the spirit of Purim and the month of Adar, Vos iz Neias contacted Rabbi Feinhandler and, in an exceedingly disturbing interview, he makes it clear that it was done entirely in earnest and that computers are pure evil.

Some choice excerpts:

On the Internet you see women without their hair covered ... The reason we send our children to chareidi chinuch (education) is because we want to keep out everything that is out there. ... This is the 3rd time we've shattered a computer. The first computer we broke was a $1,000 computer ... Our boys visit homes voluntarily to try to get people to remove their computers

Perhaps the most twisted part was about the guy who had owned the computer being smashed in the video.

The computer we broke this time belonged to a photographer. He used his computer to develop his pictures, but then he realized it was causing him to fall spiritually. He decided he's better off taking pictures with a camera and then he'll develop the film in a photo shop.

Note to the rabbi. You cannot remove the 'untzius' elements that may have gotten into your photo if you "develop the film in a photo shop". But you can do that easily with Photoshop.

Needless to say, 'unkosher' cellphones and home computers are prohibited for anyone attending the yeshiva, and they will not marry off anyone who doesn't promise not to use computers.

He gave an interesting answer to "computers for work" question:

They need to work on the Internet for their parnossa? It's better to clean streets and dirty your body than to work on the Internet and dirty your soul.

Of course, few to no Haredim do those jobs either. Feinhandler certainly doesn't. Which leads to the question: Where does he get his funding from?

From the American government (via tax-exempt status), for one:

An article from Aish HaTorah's website, somewhat ironically, gives more details about who may be enabling this terrible yeshiva with funding, by providing addresses for "charitable donations" both in the U.S. and Canada.

Machane Yisrael.
9 Leib Str.
P.O Box 5666,
Beit Yisrael,
Jerusalem, Israel.
Tel: 972-2-537-0290
Fax: 972-2-537-4224

For charitable Donations:

CANADA:

Press Foundation
ATTENTION OF MACHANE YISRAEL
P.O. Box 19
Station T,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

USA:

To: American Friends of Machane Israel,
c/o: Gotlieb,
4901 - 18th Ave, Brooklyn NY, 11204.
Tel: 718 - 436 7826

I'm going to do some searching and post another post (which I'll link to) once I've found out more.

Joseph Andrew Stack: A Composite of McVeigh, Ayers, Kaczynski and Atta

2010-02-18T15:11:00.000-08:00

A sad day today in Austin and America at large, as the country faced another terrorist attack. Like the last one by Nidal Malik Hasan, this one took place in the state of Texas.

Joseph Andrew Stack, a man from nearby San Marcos who worked for avionics technology company DAC International (via Google cache; they took him off already) as a software engineer, flew a small plane into the IRS building in Austin. As of 3:14 p.m. Central Time 1 man is missing and 2 people are injured (the pilot aside).

He posted a suicide note/manifesto online a few days ago that has since been picked up by news stations.

I fully expect people (though I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised to the contrary) like Rush Limbaugh to call this a leftist attack on America (based on the quoting of the communist motto juxtaposed with a similar motto that makes capitalism look bad), and I also fully expect people on the left to call this a tea party/rightist induced attack on America, based on the fact that the IRS building was targeted.

A more reasonable assessment would note that the terrorist, Joseph Andrew Stack, can probably best be described as a composite of all four major categories of American terrorism in the last 50 or so years.

As I see it, American terrorist attacks can be seen as emanating from one of four ideologies: far-left, far-right, 'mad scientist'/lone nutjob and Islamist.

Some may disagree with these categories. For instance, they may want to split far-left into eco-terrorist and anarchist/communist (possibly splitting those two as well), far-right into white supremacist and anti-government/anti-tax/militia and merge abortion and such terrorism with the Islamist category to a new religious category, arguing perhaps that it's bigoted/prejudiced to have Islamist in its own category. People also might wonder about the 'mad scientist'/lone nutjob category. However, I think these are an apt categorization of American terrorism. Here's an explanation of each category, some notable attacks in each category, and how Joseph Stack shows elements of the category.

Far-Left

One might have the best case to make in regards to splitting far-left terrorism
between eco-terrorism and communist/anarchist terrorism, but I would still put them under the same umbrella.

They hold leftist/liberationist/anti-war/communal/communist/ecology-oriented views, they are largely educated and activity often starts among students; encouraged, perhaps by overly radical professors, such as, perhaps, Herbert Marcuse and more recently Peter Singer. Perhaps most importantly, unlike other categories, their attacks are/were often directed at property and tried to avoid killing people, with the Weather Underground often warning of the impending detonation several minutes ahead of time and the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front usually striking when nobody is in the area. In keeping with the communal spirit, they seem to rarely act alone. They do often have blood on their hands, though.

In addition to the Weather Underground, the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, one might include the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Black Liberation Army in these categories. William Ayers of the Weather Underground is probably the best-known and pretty emblematic. Today a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he started as a student, set bombs without killing anybody, and rose to prominence after his relatively small association with Barack Obama became an issue in the presidential campaign of 2008.

Some statements in Stack's manifesto are indicative of such an ideology:

Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
...
The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government
...
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Far-Right

I think there's less of a case for splitting this category into white supremacist and militia/anti-tax/anti-government, and I think it also makes sense to leave what may be seen as Christianity-inspired terrorism in this category.

The reason is that the white supremacists and militia guys are really hard to tell apart, and are in many ways one and the same. Additionally, while some may argue against putting anti-abortion terrorists in that same category, the fact is that in most cases, they are also one and the same. The first anti-abortion terrorist, Michael F. Griffin, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The most notorious anti-abortion terrorist, Eric Rudolph, who remained a fugitive in the woods of North Carolina for quite a few years, was a member of the white supremacist Christian Identity movement. So in general (even those who haven't been members of white supremacist groups), anti-abortion terrorists fit in pretty well with this category.

Other than the Klan and the Christian Identity movement, various militia groups and some elements of the tea party movement fit in here. Timothy McVeigh, the only man to be put to death by the federal government for terrorism, was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. A semi-active Ku Klux Klan member who also surfaced in the militia/anti-government movement of the 1990s, for instance demonstrating during the David Koresh standoff in Waco, he also wrote many anti-tax letters to the editor. His target was the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building, and he killed 168 people, more than any other attack until September 11.

Joseph Stack's manifesto has elements of the tea party ideology, but the most important factor from this category is that he hit an IRS building, the government agency perhaps most despised by the far-right (either that or the ATF, but I don't think the ATF still exists).

'Mad Scientist'/Lone Nutjob

This category involves the generally quite intelligent, 'misunderstood', lone male with a background in the sciences of some sort, who just go berzerk. There is perhaps a fine line between this category and serial killer, but there is usually something political.

Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, is probably the best specimen of this category. Generally acknowledged to have been an absolutely brilliant mathematician, after getting a Ph.D., life led him to live in the middle of nowhere in Montana, mailing letter bombs to scientists and technological people.
The Virginia Tech shooter and the Anthrax letter guy also fall into this category, as do cyberterrorists.

As a software engineer who seems to have acted alone and sounds 'misunderstood' in his manifesto, Joseph Andrew Stack fits this category to some extent as well.

Islamist

Some would have you believe that this last category is the only terrorism. It's not, but it does warrant a category of its own. Steeped in fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic texts, often with an (Islamic) nationalist component, these terrorists may also be educated, but their religious-oriented/driven cause is what distinguishes them, whether it is restoring the caliphate, defeating the or wiping Israel off the map.

Mohammed Atta, though his actions as the lead September 11 hijacker are far better known than any of the other categories, is quite possibly less well known than all of the other attackers.

Other than his blanket condemnation of the American system, Stack (who seems to be an entirely non-religious man) mainly drew from Atta in the use of a plane to crash into a building as a weapon.

So, to make a very long story short, I would not categorize this man's attack as fitting neatly into any category.

Ken Blackwell: That Damn Jew Chai Feldblum is pogroming us Christians

2010-02-17T21:59:00.000-08:00

Blackwell:

What is a “pogrom” it’s the word that describes anti-Jewish raids by Cossacks and others in czarist Russia, but a programmatic pogrom best describes what is happening right now.
...
In Washington, President Obama’s nominee to the federal EEOC, Prof. Chai Feldblum of Georgetown University, is blunt: If there’s a clash between the gay agenda and religious liberty, your liberties lose. If confirmed, she would be in position to pursue the pogrom nationwide.

Fuck you, Mr. Blackwell. Just go fuck yourself. My great-great-grandparents fled from Eastern Europe to Israel (or rather the British Mandate of Palestine), France and the United States because they were going to be killed

And you fucking have the chutzpah to say Chai Feldblum, descendant of a long line of Orthodox rabbis, who's father survived the Shoah in Lithuania and came here later, is fomenting a pogrom against Christians because they might be subjected to civil rights laws. But seriously, Professor Feldblum has also fucking testified before Congress for religious liberty

Hence the legal and prudential challenge before Congress today. There is still, I believe, widespread substantive agreement across broad spectrums of society that -- as a matter of public policy, and as a matter of respect for the tradition of religious liberty in this country -- greater protection should be available to individuals who may be subject to a law that requires them to engage in some action their religion prohibits, or that prohibits them from engaging in some action their religion requires or encourages. Moreover, as a matter of policy, I believe there is also widespread agreement that, while there should not be absolute protection of religious liberty in such circumstances, the government should generally be required to demonstrate that the law at issue is narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest.

Oh, no! At worst, you might have to let the ~~nigra race into your churches~~; oh, wait, that was different, huh?

Matzav.com Tries to Smear Crist as Anti-Semitic

2010-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

Matzav.com running a nice story written by Noam Amdurski called "On Dec. 15, Gov. Crist Commuted Sentence of Non-Jewish Killer Named Martin, referencing Martin Grossman, who was executed yesterday for murder.

The 'killer' in question is described as follows: "Martin, 30, was sentenced in 2000 to 16 years in prison for her role in the Interstate 4 crash that killed Josh Nicola, 23, and severely injured Scott Schutt, 23"

The clear implication here is that Crist is anti-Semitic since he commuted the non-Jewish Jennifer Martin's sentence but not the Jewish Martin Grossman's.

Now, while I may not like to say something nice about a Republican, Crist is hardly anti-Semitic. He's the guy who freakin' has a note put in the Kotel every year to protect Florida from hurricanes, after he put a note there in 2007 saying "Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie," and Florida has not had a terrible hurricane since then, and he has generally been affable to the Florida Jewish community.

But that's not the only reason why this is silly. Grossman, of course, beat an officer of the law with a flashlight and then shot her in the back of the head.

However, even more revealing is what Matzav left out about Ms. Martin.

St. Petersburg Times describes Jennifer Martin's case:

Martin was convicted of manslaughter by culpable negligence after a crash in April 1998. She was speeding on Interstate 4 near Ybor City and lost control of the car. Passenger Josh Nicola, 23, was killed. Another, Scott Schutt, 23, was severely injured. Martin, 18 at the time, had no alcohol in her system.
...
At the hearing Thursday in Tallahassee, prosecutor Johnson said that Martin had not been drinking but that her two passengers were "inebriated" and "chose not to wear their seat belt."

To win release, three of the four clemency board members — Crist, Sink, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson and State Attorney General Bill McCollum — had to vote to release Martin. The vote was unanimous.

Basically, she did break the law by speeding, and presumably drove poorly given that she lost control, and reasonably deserved a penalty of some sort (lifetime loss of driving privileges, for instance). However, she was sober, unlike her passengers, and nobody would have died or probably even been severely injured had they just Buckled Up, so I'd say her sentence was way too harsh.

The point being, that is completely wrong of Matzav.com to stir things up like this with their intentionally misleading article.

West Bank Settlers Attack the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)

2010-02-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

Today was only the latest of many attacks:

A soldier and two Border Police officers were hurt in the West Bank on Wednesday when settlers mistook a military exercise for an attempt to evict them.

Commanders of the Israel Defense Forces' West Bank division had coordinated the drill with leaders in the Yitzhar hilltop settlement near Nablus.

But it appears no one had told the settlement's teenagers, some 30 of whom attack soldiers and border guards with stones.
...
The army condemned the attack and promised to respond firmly to any future breaches of the peace.

Of course, they've been saying that for a while, and we have not seen a serious crackdown. As bad as attacking anyone (i.e. Palestinians/leftists) is, this is qualitatively worse.

Forget "state unity" or "preventing riots" or whatever. These are acts of civil war, and they need to be dealt with by the IDF as such, both in terms of real, serious responses including everything up to, if absolutely necessary, live fire and in setting a narrative that labels these acts as what they are.

The Martin Grossman Execution: Frum Jewish Community's Reaction

2010-02-16T18:19:00.000-08:00

Martin Grossman was executed tonight by the state of Florida, the 69th such person since the state of Florida resumed the death penalty in the 1970s. He was executed for murdering a Florida wildlife officer. Given that to have a even semi-fair (i.e. a modicum of effort into avoiding the murder of innocents mistakenly convicted; because that's really what it is if the state executes an innocent person) death penalty system runs up more in court costs than in feeding and housing a murderer for life, on a purely economic basis it makes sense to end the death penalty; that's why New Jersey repealed it. On a moral and Jewish basis, it is also a bad idea to support the death penalty, especially given the way the system usually works.

I wonder if the gedolim in Lakewood came out in favor of the New Jersey repeal, by the way. A group called New Jersey Rabbis for Alternatives to the Death Penalty sent a letter signed by 50 New Jersey rabbis supporting the repeal, probably 60% Reform, 25% Conservative, with a smattering of Reconstructionist and Traditional, and a single RCA member. No Agudath, though (of course, they would be more against the fact that women were being called rabbis on it than the message, I assume).

Incidentally, they don't have that up yet on the Florida death row website; as an aside, Florida's death row website does its best to eliminate the touches of humanity from those the state has executed. At least Texas, despite its 449 executions since 1982, lists offender's last statements

Anyway, from what I understand, Chabad shluchot visited him while in prison and as a result, he became a ba'al teshuva (returnee to traditional Judaism).

His becoming a ba'al teshuva spiked an outpouring of support from the frum (observant) Jewish community. As Dov Bear notes, hypocrisy seems to abound:

Grossman is a Jew, the son of a Jewish mother. As a result, objections to his execution have been raised from some unexpected RW Jewish quarters. YWN, for example, has been running editorial after editorial calling for clemency; Rabbis who use the word shvartze with impunity are calling for tehillim and staging protest rallies; and emails and online poetitions (sic) are being passed around by Jews who, at other times, are firmly pro-death penalty.

Now, mind you, it seems reasonable that opposition to his execution is the Torah-true position. Dov Bear's point is that the right wingers who've generally been firmly pro-death penalty are being hypocritical.

Though they did not, for some reason, even note it during the broadcast, Vos iz Neias reports that, as is customary, he said the Shema as his last words.

For some hilariously crazy comments on the issue, check out the Vos iz Neias thread; in fairness, they run the spectrum (from anti from a more liberal standpoint to pro to pointing out hypocrisy), though, and I wouldn't ascribe the craziest ones to the community at large.

Still, though:

It is also the responsibility of all Yidden and even of Lehavdil Goyim, who see the injustice in this Murder today, to donate money to help the Opponent of the current Governor Charlie Crist.

The Christians, (In Yiddish they are called by the Governors name " the CHRIST'n") have Murdered Yidden throughout all generations and todays murder by Charlie Crist must be avenged.

Site devoted to Troppergate posts censored Leib Tropper sex tape

2010-02-14T18:23:00.000-08:00

Eternal Jewish Fraud is the name of the site.

Of course, Youtube leaves a lot out, and I can in no way vouch for the man in it even being Leib Tropper, much less one of the two women not being his wife (though obviously if it is him, at least one of the two women is not his wife, since Rabbeinu Gershom banned polygamy many hundreds of years ago) or anything really hardcore actually happening.

But I can definitely embed the video.

רק שתי מילות Just two words?

2010-02-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

The Jerusalem Post ran an article from one of the totally assimilated American Jews whose Jewish identity (and identification with the Land of Israel) Taglit-Birthright is trying to strengthen.

I figure she has to have been utterly, utterly assimilated. I mean, she claims "I knew two Hebrew words coming to Israel: shalom and humous."

Now, this is (I hope) an exaggeration. For one, if those are really the only two words in Hebrew you know, you actually only know one word in Hebrew, because there's pretty much no way you're pronouncing the ח
correctly, and as such, you're saying it far closer to the Arabic pronunciation/word than the Hebrew one.

But seriously? תורה, שבת, מצוה, אמן, you didn't know? Not that those would've helped you at all in getting around, but seriously?

They're Throwing Iron Rods at Police Now?

2010-02-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

Haredi riots reach a new level (unless they've been throwing iron rods for a while and I just missed it).

Police forces were called to the scene and began dispersing the protesters who set garbage bins on fire and threw iron rods at police officers.

Why didn't the police respond in kind? (or at least with rubber bullets)

"Unauthorized" (Meshichist) Chabad Houses

2010-02-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, I just found out about this phenomenon in conjunction with the recent terrorist attack in Pune, India. The attack is suspected to have been directed towards a nearby Chabad house. That Chabad house, however, is not authorized by the main New York Chabad, due to its being a major center for Meshichism (Yechi adoneinu moreinu v'rabbeinu melech hamoshiach l'olam vaed). To find out more on the subject of Chabad messianism read Wikipedia and once you've familiarized yourself with the quite thorough information there, go to Frum Satire for even more details.

Anyway, I figured I might as well list as many "unauthorized" Chabad Houses as I can. Doing this will make me a lot happier than working on Senior Design, that's for sure.

Chabad Tokyo Japan

This is somewhat upsetting. Apparently the U.S. Ambassador to Japan went to the Meshichist Chabad house for Chanuka, and the picture has him wearing a Yechi yarmulke.

Now, on the one hand I would like to praise the Rabbi there, as I tend to doubt that Ambassador John Roos was born Jewish (his last name is Dutch, and of course he spells his first name with an 'h' like the Gospel dude rather than like the son of King David) or converted with an Orthodox rabbi (that is assuming he did convert at all). Now, I certainly still would consider him Jewish as long as he did convert, but very few Orthodox rabbis would, and yet this Rabbi (Binyomin Edery) does.

I'm really tempted to write to the Honorable Ambassador Roos about this, though, because he may not be aware of the Meshichist issue.

Meshichist Chabad House Targeted in Terror Attack in Pune, India

2010-02-13T19:30:00.000-08:00

So sadly there was a terrorist attack in India today:

A bomb tore through a crowded cafe popular with foreigners on Saturday in the city of Pune in western India, killing nine people and wounding 53 near a famed meditation center.

The blast threatened to damage new efforts to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan, with Hindu nationalist leaders already placing the blame for the explosion at India's Muslim neighbor.

Indian intelligence services say it is highly likely that the bomb was meant for the local Chabad House, several dozen meters from the cafe. It remains unclear whether the coffee shop, a popular tourist spot, was the target for the bombing, because the bomb apparently detonated after a waiter opened a bag left on the premises.

Now, I had never heard of Pune before, but that does not mean much. After all, I'd only heard of the ginormous 3 (Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi) and Bangalore (because of it being such a major high-tech center), or at least that would have been all I could name if challenged.

But apparently Pune is pretty huge, with over 5 million in the metropolitan area. So I checked the Chabad website (chabad.org) to look for the Chabad house there; nothing was listed.

I soon found out why. Here is a picture of the Pune Chabad house, run by Rabbi Betzalel Kupchik.

No, it's not the elephant. While (I'm pretty sure) elephants are treyf, so are horses, and it is clearly permitted to ride horses.

It's the big yellow flag, which says יחי אדוננו מורנו ורבינו מלך המשיח לעולם ועד
signifying that this Chabad house is on the hardcore Meshichist (i.e. they believe the 7th Rebbe of Chabad, Menachem Mendel Schneerson ז"ל is the Mashiach (or Moshiach, as they pronounce it)) end of the spectrum.

The photo came from here

Chabad.org, while (like the overwhelming majority of Lubavitchers) will presumably not rule out that Schneerson is the mashiach, they do unequivocally acknowledge the fact that he is deceased, and their shaliachs are, as far as I know, taught not to even mention the subject of the Rebbe and the mashiach to those not already deeply committed to Chabad (whether they mention it at that point, I do not know).

The Chabad.org branch of the Chabad I believe controls the vast majority of Chabad houses in the United States. However, I believe it is another story in Israel and elsewhere. I'm going to have to look into this.

משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה (Mishenichnas Adar marbin b'simcha!)

2010-02-13T18:37:00.000-08:00

Rav Yehuda uses this phrase at the very end of the first column of page 29 of Tannait in the Babylonian Talmud:

אמר רב יהודה בריה דרב שמואל בר שילת משמיה דרב: כשם שמשנכנס אב ממעטין בשמחה - כך משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה

Now, my Aramaic is far weaker than my non-too-strong hodgepodge of Biblical and Modern Hebrew, but I think Rav Yehuda is essentially saying that the minimization of happiness upon entering the month of Av (when both the First and Second Temples were destroyed) is proportional to the maximization of happiness upon entering the month of Adar (the miracle of Purim and then soon after the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt into Eretz Yisrael).

Of course, משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה has inspired a song. I have not been able to figure out who wrote the upbeat, happy, and frankly awesome tune. However, here's a nice video of the Jerusalem Soul Center singing it last Rosh Chodesh Adar.

The Jerusalem Soul Center is, from what I've read, a center of hipster new age religious Zionism.

This May Be Why Police Don't Respond So Vigorously Against Settler Violence

2010-02-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Apparently the West Bank (i.e. Judea and Samaria) police are under a major torrent of abusive phone calls from Palestinians.

From The Jerusalem Post:

“Without the screening, we would be getting 90,000 to 100,000 bad calls a month,” Carmeli said. The calls range from personally abusive to threats of terrorist attacks, he added.

“We often hear people cursing our sisters and mothers. Sometimes we get callers threatening to blow us up or carry out a suicide bomb attack,”
...
“Efforts to trace the call continue until we can determine whether it is a real threat or not,” he added.

With 50-60 percent of all calls coming into headquarters being abusive, and operators fielding an average of 1,500 bogus calls a month, Carmeli said the problem has “really harmed our ability to respond to calls.

Operators get 50 such calls a day, and assuming an 8 hour shift, that's like one every 7 or 8 minutes.

I understand that many Palestinians have legitimate reasons to be angry at the police, but this is just a terrible, terrible idea; one can be pretty certain that this sort of thing affects the ability and willingness/promptness of the police to respond to the very real and very disgusting problem of settler violence.

The Ignorance of Richard Silverstein

2010-02-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

Really silly that he has the audacity to claim that nobody on the Israeli left criticized the Goldstone Report. Even though he's also nuts enough to claim Meretz isn't leftist, I suppose because they're Zionist.
Of course, by that standard, there are about 5 Israeli leftists; even Hadash is still far too Palestinian nationalist to possibly qualify as 'leftist' by that standard, even if their biggest faction is "Communist" (though then again, so is China's government, in name).

But one of those 5 leftists would undoubtedly work for B'tselem, whose leader

Jessica Montell said:

There's no question that the HRC, which mandated the Goldstone [fact-finding mission into the Gaza fighting], has an inappropriate, disproportionate fixation with Israel," she said
...

Furthermore, the Goldstone Report itself, which was presented in its final version to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, is "disagreeable" and mistaken in some of
its gravest accusations against Israel

Hopefully he reads this, as I left a fairly angry response on Shmarya Rosenberg's blog to his comment on the subject. If so, perhaps, just perhaps, he'll have learned something.

Rafiq al-Husseini Sex Tape Surfaces!

2010-02-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is pretty awesome. High-ranking Palestinian official Rafiq al-Husseini apparently had a sex tape made of him.

Not Paris Hilton style, of course, where a "private" tape was "accidentally" leaked. No, this was Fahmi Shabaneh, a former Palestinian intelligence official who's been in some hot water lately. The reason was his "terrible crime" of pointing out that Hamas may end up in power (and pull its usual crap, making retaliation necessary and inevitable) if Fatah's corruption doesn't stop. So apparently he decided to release this video to take the heat off (from a semi-censored Israeli TV playing of it)

Now, if it was just sex, I would say good for Mr. al-Husseini and his free love agenda. But apparently, he was boning the lady in return for getting her a job. Reminds me of the sexcapades of Leib Tropper.

23% "Considering" voting for Yair Lapid-headed list

2010-02-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

I've been hoping Yair Lapid would get into politics since I started reading his columns in Yedioth Ahronot. He's recently been moving more surely in that direction, and the latest Haaretz-Dialog poll has potentially good news in that 23% of Israelis are "considering" him.

How the news is, of course, depends on exactly how תשקול להצביע לה was interpreted by voters, i.e. whether they interpreted תשקול more as "not ruling out" or as "my number choice right now" or (more likely) somewhere in the middle of the two; my Hebrew is not good enough to make a guess, unfortunately, especially since I'd have difficulty figuring out how American voters would have interpreted a similar question asked in English.

Certainly, if it can be interpreted as having a real shot at 28-29 mandates, that's not bad at all. The article notes that nearly half of those mandates (approximately 14) would be from people who said Kadima in the poll that asked only about parties running in the last election.

I would be interested to know whether the other half came from. I have to assume a decent number came from either Likud or Yisrael Beitenu, since (sadly) the descendants of the two largest parties (Labour and Meretz) in the 1st Knesset election only get 14 seats combined in the latest poll.

A Strategy to Fight Muslim Speech Disruptors

2010-02-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

Hopefully the Muslim Student Association disruptors of Ambassador Oren's speech will indeed face the suspension/expulsion threats. UC Irvine has been a hellhole of this kind of behavior for a while now, one of the reasons I didn't apply for grad school there. Note that by contrast, there were no disruptions of Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia.

One option would be to hold up one of the Mohammed cartoons; I think it would've been classic if someone had held up a big blow-up of that cartoon after the moron who shouted "Propagating murder is not free speech" and said "No, but THIS is!"

Better yet, why has nobody done the whole "Free Palestine, Texas from the Rio to the Gulf".

That would also be hilarious. Better yet,

"Palestine: 400 Shekels Or Best Offer"

The 400 shekels would, of course, be a reference to Abraham's purchase of the machpelah in Hebron, but the whole thing would generally be a pun on "Free Palestine"

We deal with Dick Wadhams, Dick Swett, Dick Armey; they should deal with Akbar Zeb

2010-02-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

So apparently Pakistan appointed an Ambassador to Saudi Arabia whose surname, Zeb, while common in Urdu, refers to the penis in Arabic. His first name, Akbar, means ~~Admiral~~ great in Arabic, i.e. "Allah Akbar," so essentially, they would have been introducing "His Excellency Biggest Dick" at state functions. Under pressure from the Saudis, Pakistan withdrew him in favor of someone with a different, less controversial name.

Me, I think Pakistan should never have caved in. After all, many people feel the most important criteria in choosing a UN Secretary General is the hilarity generated by his name among Americans.

Dag Hammarskjöld, U Thant, Boutros Boutros-Ghali and of course the current Ban Ki-moon are all widely felt to have become Secretary General due to this fact.

But it's not just foreigners. We've got Dick Wadhams, the erstwhile GOP consultant once hailed as Rove's "heir apparent," until his dreams got Macacaed by his client George Allen.

Dick Swett, the former Congressman from New Hampshire.

And let's not forget Dick Armey, former House Majority Leader. He embraced the hilarity of his name in office, telling famed humorist Dave Barry that, "Yes, I am Dick Armey. And if there were a dick army, Barney Frank would want to join up."

But I guess the dick in question is just too big for Saudi Arabia to handle.

Apparently Chabad Offers Birthright Trip (and Their Site Shows Little Difference From Traditional)

2010-02-04T19:40:00.000-08:00

I just got this in my inbox.

You’ve heard so much about Birthright from your classmates, your cousin, your best friend. You heard of the fun, the thrill, the spirit, the life changing experience; seems like everyone’s been but you, now it’s your turn!

[Specific Chabad org excised] be taking a Birthright trip this summer leaving May 26th. We work with “Mayanot” one of the top Birthright providers, known for providing the best experience, and memories for a lifetime. Check out their website for more details on this 10 day whirlwind tour of the Holy Land with 40 other college kids just like you

I attend the Chabad on campus weekly Parsha and Pizza group, primarily for the delicious, delicious kosher pizza, though I do pay attention and try to engage-though I spend most of the time when the shaliach gives "Der Rebbe's" opinion on a matter from the parsha trying to figure out whether the shaliach believes Menachem Mendel Schneerson is z"tl or shlito (I'd probably lean z"tl if I had to choose one or the other, but I'm not sure).

Anyway, I suppose it's hardly that surprising that Chabad has a Taglit Birthright trip of its own. After all, why they may have technically refrained from open "Zionism" (i.e. secular Zionism), they are vociferously engaged in being pro-Israel and have gotten into fights in the streets of Brooklyn with the Satmars over this issue. Especially given their being the #1 (in terms of resources and activity) kiruv organization in the world, it's hardly a surprise.

What is a surprise is the nature of the trip, at least based on the sample itinerary they present, and how similar it is to what I expect of a "generic" Birthright Israel trip, like the Shorashim one I hope to take this summer (of course, if I take a Birthright trip, I'm staying in Israel for at least a month, as I might not get a chance to go again for a long time. Hopefully I can spend some of the time staying with relatives if some of them will have me, and maybe if I'm lucky/skilled I could get some friends in Israel to let me crash at their place, especially since hostels will eat up a ton of money I'd rather spend in other ways (including on friends!). Sadly, like friends I made elsewhere in life, I have not done a great job of keeping in touch with people I met at Ramah Day Camp when I was 9, and I actually don't even know their last names-perhaps my mother has a list).

Anyway, yes, they go into the Golan (not that I have an issue with anything regarding the Golan) and do the tunnels thing in Ir David (I remember that being fun and hearing the Mu'azzen from the Arab neighborhood on the side we got out on), but I see nothing at all in the West Bank, despite Chabad's fervent opposal to surrending an inch of Judea and Samaria.

Nor do they seem to hit up Kfar Chabad. Though on the other hand, doing that might be counterproductive. Not everybody who goes on a Chabad Birthright trip will be deeply enough into things to go along with the Yechi types.

Arthur Finkelstein is advising Avigdor Lieberman. That Explains a Lot

2010-02-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

So apparently Arthur Finkelstein is advising Avigdor Lieberman, and is the one who told him to make the foolish, unnecessary (policy-wise) remarks towards Syria because they would benefit him politically. The 12% or so of the Israeli electorate who voted for Minister Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party in the 2009 election is probably not particularly happy with him right now, as he has basically succumbed to the ultra-Orthodox demands on the party's civil agenda (which was a significant factor in getting votes among those who want the civil agenda but aren't left-wing enough on the Israeli-Arab conflit for Meretz), and for that matter, on foreign policy as well, where he has basically been shunned by much of the international community, having Defense Minister Barak and Prime Minister Peres (and, though he had his own issue lately, even to some extent Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon) take up the slack. "Getting tough on Syria" is presumably expected to help him here, even though the Northern front has, Baruch Hashem been very quiet.

Finkelstein, an American Jewish pollster and campaign strategist, has spent his career working to elect very conservative candidates. He helped elect James Buckley to the Senate from New York in 1970, he helped take down liberal Jewish Republican Jacob Javits and install Al D'Amato in 1980.

Despite being Jewish, he also was probably the guy behind one of the first push polls in the 1978 South Carolina 4th District Congressional race between Republican Carroll Campbell and Democrat Max Heller, who had managed to escape Austria to South Carolina in the 1930s, despite that being very difficult. The campaign made phone calls emphasizing that Heller was "Jewish immigrant" who didn't believe in Jesus. Campbell won.

However, he was probably best known for working for Jesse Helms. This is especially surprising given that Arthur Finkelstein is openly homosexual, having gotten married in Massachusetts in December 2004.

Finkelstein worked for Likud in their 1996 return to power, and it seems now he's moved on to Lieberman, and despite his claims of favoring "freedom," it seems he's doing nothing to get Lieberman to advance the civil agenda in Israel that his party claims to support. Shame on him.

Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin and Twitter

2010-02-03T19:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is more than a little funny. As part of the utterly doomed campaign to free Sholom Rubashkin, a FriendsofSholom Twitter account has been set up.

On January 29th, the following was Tweeted:

# RT @shdeen: Rabbi urges non-Jews to have 7-14 kids; rabbis demand Sholom Rubashkin be released on bail; Ed Koch doesn't like... http://b ... 9:29 AM Jan 29th from web

Now, the incompletely linked bit.ly post by shdeen does indeed say Rubashkin should be freed before sentencing. But it says it like this:

A number of rabbis traveled to D.C. to demand that Sholom Rubashkin be released on bail as he awaits sentencing on the 86 counts of financial fraud that a federal jury found him guilty of last fall. He might end up with a particularly harsh sentence, 21-27 years in prison, and as a father of ten, that would be seriously hard on his family. And while we’re no fans of felons, Chasidic or otherwise, whatever happened to ankle bracelets? Let the gentleman get some quality time with his family before being gang-raped in the slammer.

Invasion of the (Haredi) Body Snatchers

2010-02-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

Man, things are just getting crazier and crazier among Jerusalem's Haredim. Things have literally reached body snatching. No joke.

A lady in her 20s was found dead in an abandoned building in (where else?) Mea Shearim. That's when things went nutty

A police car was dispatched to the area as well, and an initial investigation revealed that the death was likely not the result of a criminal incident.

But the affair did not end there. Dozens of haredim arrived in the area and, according to the police, began assaulting the policemen, caused damage to their car, grabbed the body and escaped. Additional police forces were dispatched to the area to help locate the corpse.

Eventually, the body was recovered with the help of the ZAKA rescue unit under condition that no autopsy be performed (autopsies are, with limited exceptions, prhobited in traditional Judaism as desecrating the dead; for more on this see here or here (Chabad should be in line with everyone else on this, the Rebbe aside). ZAKA, of course, are the true tzaddiks who a few weeks ago were saving lives in Haiti.

Of course, ZAKA didn't come out of it unscathed; ZAKA Jerusalem leader Bentzi Oring was beaten on his way in to try to negotiate things out, a major chillul Hashem.

The paramedic who was present when the body was taken really does have a dystopian sci-fiesque story:

"[The policeman] said he was hit in the face, pushed down and that the corpse was snatched on a stretcher. I looked outside and saw a stretcher march of 30 haredim running with a covered body. They shouted, 'The daughters of Israel will not be deserted.'"

According to the paramedic, "It was a well planned operation."

The Haredi news site Behadrei Haredim has their version of the story and an update. What's worth noting is the clear attempt there to distance the broader Haredi community from the קנאים (zealots) who pulled this.

They also have pictures of the police and some of the protestors. One interesting thing is the presence of at least two dark-skinned police officers, presumably Ethiopian Jews since I think they are a bit too dark to be Yemenite (I could be wrong, though). Either way, I liked seeing that.

The lady of blessed memory whose corpse caused this whole thing apparently had head surgery several weeks ago, and on the advice of her father, took too many painkillers, resulting in her death.

Props to John Hagee's Organization regarding anti-Semitic Im Tirzu Ad

2010-02-03T05:52:00.000-08:00

The Im Tirzu ad was indeed anti-Semitic, resurrecting the "Jews have horns" bullshit of hundreds of years ago.

So, props to Christians United for Israel for standing up against

Christians United for Israel objected to an advertisement run by a group it funds that depicted the president of the New Israel Fund wearing a horn.

"Although we are often demonized by our critics, CUFI never demonizes those with whom we disagree, and we object when anyone does," CUFI spokesman Ari Morgenstern told JTA.

However, I do have to wonder: why is a guy named Ari Morgenstern working as the spokesman for Christians United for Israel? I guess I hope it's just a paycheck ...

Learning to Read Megillat Esther Online Free of Charge

2010-02-02T21:01:00.000-08:00

(OK, if this is still up so high in Google, better add something ...)

There are a whole lot of sites on the Internet that will help you learn how to read it, but for a fee.

But I did manage to find places for it for free.

Youtube

A woman affiliated with the Israeli Masorti movement reading the trope (she also has reading of the actual megillah)

Beverly Hills Chabad has scans of a tikkun with the Megillah (i.e. both with trope and vowels and in the form it appears on the actuall scroll). They also have audio files, but I would NOT recommend learning to read from them.

For one, they're reading with the Ashkenazi-on-steroids pronunciation that the Lubavitchers (and perhaps all Hasidim; I'm pretty sure misnagdim are more straight-up Ashkenazi pronunciation that a lot of our fathers/grandfathers/great-grandfathers even used in their shuls [assuming they weren't Hasidim]). Not just the Ashkenazi pronunication of ת without dagesh (i.e. sov) and of kamatz as aw, but multiple crazy-ass pronunciations of holam as well.

But more importantly, they're reading for real, and thus (as is the tradition) extremely fast. Instead, I'd use Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning:

the guy reading is a baal kore at a Conservative shul in Toronto, so it's perfect for me; however, the trope is as far as I can tell the same as what the Lubavitchers are reading.

If you cannot deal with either the Lubavitcher or the Conservative version, you could try the Cantor Pinchas Rabinovicz version. He is affiliated with Aish, and his pronunciation is pretty hard-core Ashkenazic (though not quite the steroids version of the Lubavitchers), but he does read it nice and slowly, making it ideal for learning to read.

Everybody Must Fill out and Do the Census

2010-02-02T14:08:00.000-08:00

Based on some searches people have been doing, many people aren't sure whether they are required to fill out the Census.

The answer is yes, every person residing in the United States, even if they are not a citizen and even if they are not here legally, must fill out the Census. The law specifies a fine of $100 for anyone who does not fill out the Census.

The Census Bureau's official website will answer any other questions you have. Among other things, nobody, not even the FBI, CIA, or immigration authorities, may have access to the information from the 2010 Census until 2082. After the 72 year period, the Census makes its information public. This information is, among other things, a valuable resource for people researching their ancestors.

If you want to know what the official Census form looks like, go to this link (also from the Census Bureau). If you get a form asking questions not on the form at the above link, it is most likely a counterfeit Census form, and I would advise you to contact law enforcement to help prevent other people from being scammed.

The Mahmoud al-Mahbouh Death Circus

2010-02-02T11:57:00.000-08:00

That's probably the best word to describe the hubbub surrounding the death of Hamas bigshot Mahmoud al-Mahbouh in Dubai last month.

The initial story coming from Hamas, as published by the Palestinian news agency Ma'an News hours after his death, ascribed it to terminal cancer.

About a week later (on or about January 29), we hear a new story from al-Mahbouh's brother, saying he died from a shock from an electric appliance that was held to his head. His brother, Fayed al-Mabhuh, said that test results from a Paris laboratory had confirmed this.

He of course, immediately blamed the Mossad, though without providing any evidence.

Two days later we hear in Britain's Sunday Times that he was injected with something.

The Sunday Times said the hit squad injected Mabhuh with a drug that induced a heart attack, photographed all the documents in his briefcase, and left a "do not disturb" sign on the door.

Again, Israel is generally blamed.

Today, we're hearing that it was probably asphyxiation with a pillow:

Post mortem examinations revealed signs of electrocution beneath both ears -presumably from a device used to stun Mabhouh, whose nose was bleeding and whose teeth showed signs of abrasion.

Pathologists determined the cause of death as asphyxiation, probably with a pillow found near the body and stained with blood.

This time, an Arab government is being blamed by Hamas.

What's next? I'm hoping they blame the Lizard People, myself.

Ron Paul Votes in Favor of Government Spending-On Poverty?

2010-02-01T18:35:00.000-08:00

Now, yes, technically it was just one of those meaningless and frankly time-wasting "sense of the Congress/such and such Month" resolutions not involving any actual money being spent, and Mr. (or Dr., I should say), Paul may be pre-occupied with his son's Senate race in Kentucky, but still, this is somewhat of a shock that Paul would vote for this.

The non-explanation part of the resolution, introduced by McDermott:

Whereas it would be appropriate to designate the month of January 2010 as Poverty in America Awareness Month: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That--

(1) the House of Representatives--

(A) supports the designation of Poverty in America Awareness Month; and

(B) recognizes the important contributions of those individuals and organizations that have made a commitment to providing critical support and services to needy individuals and families; and

(2) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that--

(A) eradicating poverty in the United States should be the goal for all people in the United States, including all levels of government;

(B) the severe economic downturn has highlighted the need to ensure that the Nation's most vulnerable individuals and families are able to meet their most fundamental needs during a time of financial crisis; and

(C) Congress should recommit itself to helping individuals and families facing economic hardship receive the assistance they need and deserve in moving towards greater economic security through programs under Title IV of the Social Security Act and other related programs.

18 Republicans voted against it, but not Ron Paul. He was one of the 387 YEAs. If I were one of his minions, I'd be pissed right about now.

Mahmoud Abbas Endorses Egyptian Border Wall with Gaza

2010-02-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

Of course, that's the only at all reasonable position. As a sovereign state, Egypt can build whatever on its territory. But will we hear an outcry about this?

From an interview in yesterday's Guardian

The Palestinian president also defended Egypt's decision to build an underground wall on the blockaded Gaza strip's southern border to prevent smuggling through tunnels. "I support the wall," Abbas said. "It is the Egyptians' sovereign right in their own country. Legitimate supplies should be brought through the legal crossings."

Human Rights Watch Seems to Have Heeded Robert Bernstein

2010-02-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

Last October, Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times condemning its overwhelming focus on (and bias regarding) Israel out of all the countries in the Middle East, despite the fact that every other country has a terrible record on human rights, and lack the home-grown human rights organizations that Israel has to fight against the rights denial.

Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations ... probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

Additionally, he pointed out their failure in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to address human rights abuses not committed by Israel. He especially pointed out that unlike those committed by Israel (and those not committed by Israel but reported anyway, like Jenin, organ harvesting, Mahmoud al-Mahbuh's death from terminal cancer etc.), these abuses have nobody else to cover them.

There may be one or two human rights organizations, but they are small in number and poorly funded to boot.

However, Israel's human rights organizations are generally quite well-funded (with this funding, especially for some of the orgs which are not as clearly dedicated to human rights, coming under criticism from the right and far-right).

The New Israel Fund (a generally fine organization which my parents donate to, though I personally have huge issues with a few of the groups they fund and with today's easy targeting funding enabled by the Internet, when I start having money to donate, it'll go directly to organizations), for instance, has given more than $200 million to over 800 organizations in the last 30 years. European governments and other big individual donors have also provided a ton of money.

And not just rights on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; in every area where human rights are an issue, there's an org in Israel (and with a decent amount of funding).

So Bernstein had a major point, and the fact that this was coming after Human Rights Watch controversially accepted a whole bunch of funding from the Saudi government, which is generally awful on human rights even in comparison to the rest of the Middle East just helped make his point.

And it seems like his point has gotten through.

On January 27, 2010, Hamas made the 110% bullshit claim that they were only targeting the military with their Qassam and Grad rockets. Still, despite the bullshit nature of the claim, newspapers were still going to report it (and some not so critically). However, HRW was ready, and the very next day HRW had a press release calling out their bullshit

"Hamas can spin the story and deny the evidence, but hundreds of rockets rained down on civilian areas in Israel where no military installations were located," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Hamas leaders at the time indicated they were intending to harm civilians."

That pretty much sums it up, although I'm not sure if Hamas has ever hit a military installation with rockets.

Then today, they released a 60 page report on Kingdom of Jordan has been stripping citizenship from Jordanians of Palestinian origin

Here's the summary:

More than half of the 6.3 million population of Jordan is of Palestinian origin—that is, from areas west of the River Jordan, including the West Bank, today’s Israel, and Gaza. With the exception of persons from Gaza, the vast majority of those persons of Palestinian origin have Jordanian citizenship. However, since 1988, and especially over the past few years, the Jordanian government has been arbitrarily and without notice withdrawing Jordanian nationality from its citizens of Palestinian origin, making them stateless. For many of them this means they are again stateless Palestinians as they were before 1950.
Some Jordanian officials have said they are doing so in order to forestall supposed Israeli designs to colonize the West Bank, by maintaining the birthright of Palestinians to live in the West Bank. Yet the real reason may be Jordan’s desire to be able to rid itself of hundreds of thousands of Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin whom Jordan could then forcibly return to the West Bank or Israel as part of a settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem caused by the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. At least that appeared to be the interpretation of a high-ranking Ministry of Interior official who in July 2009 said that certain Jordanians of Palestinian origin would remain Jordanian nationals only until such time that a refugee settlement had been reached.
So far, Jordan has withdrawn its nationality from thousands of its citizens of Palestinian origin—over 2,700 between 2004 and 2008 alone. It has done so, in the individual cases Human Rights Watch identified, in an arbitrary manner and in violation of Jordan’s nationality law of 1954. Under that law Palestinian residents of the West Bank in 1949 or thereafter received full Jordanian nationality following Jordan’s incorporation of the West Bank in April 1950.

I do have one quibble with the report-it's not clear to me that every Jordanian who considers themselves to be of Palestinian origin does so from roots outside of today's Jordan; areas east of the Jordan River were after all considered to be part of Palestine for periods before 1948.

However, I do particularly like their acknowledgement that pretty much entirely before 1950, Palestinians were stateless; in 1940, 1930, 1920, etc. They made have had Palestinian citizenship (like my great-great-grandfather Beryl Rubin) but they were still stateless. This counters the bullshit claim made by anti-Israel types that "Palestinians have been suffering/oppressed for 62 years" At least that's how I read it.

So, anyway, if this continues, bravo, HRW.

How Far Massachusetts Has Come on Abortion Rights

2010-01-31T14:27:00.000-08:00

So apparently "Massachusetts Right to Life" endorsed Scott Brown in the MA special election.

This is despite the fact that his answer to "Are you pro-choice" is arguably just about the most liberal version of the staunchly pro-choice answer.

Asked if he is pro-choice, Brown said: "Yes, because I feel this issue is best handled between a woman and her doctor and her family."

Notice the absence of any religious figure or institution (or God), which is what NARAL Pro-Choice America says: "This decision is a personal one between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her God"

Still, though, I suppose they felt that, for one, any Republican holding a seat is better (this, along with Casey's support for birth control, led Planned Parenthood to urge votes "against Rick Santorum" in 2006; he did vote to confirm Sotomayor as well last year) than a Democrat, and that maybe Brown would vote for (or oppose overturning) the various restrictions in place, while Coakley would not. Additionally, I suppose Brown may be likely to oppose taxpayer funding of abortions anyway. But it is still a big compromise on what "Right to Life" groups consistently (and very offensively) refer to as a "Holocaust of the unborn"

However, the most interesting thing is how much Massachusetts has changed on the abortion issue in the last 35 years.

Back in 1976, Henry Hyde introduced his amendment banning taxpayer funding of abortions for the first time. It passed narrowly, 207-167.

Of course, the House had 291 Democrats and 144 Republicans at the time, but on the other hand, the proportion of Democrats outside the greater South (former Confederacy, Kentucky and Oklahoma) is higher today (68.2% vs 64.7%)

In Massachusetts, though, 2 of the 3 Democrats opposing it didn't even have to worry about an abortion affecting them because they didn't have sex with women; priest Bob Drinan and then of course Gerry Studds.

Of course, 113 Democrats voted against it and 33 Republicans voted for it, so things weren't nearly as party line (even more so on the Democratic side, where if I counted properly, the majority against it was rather narrow, 134 to 113).

Still, things have changed if the Right to Lifers will endorse someone with as blanket a pro-choice statement as Brown under any condition.

Anti-Semitic Banker Gold-Digger Gretta Duisenberg

2010-01-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

Nice lady; makes you want to donate to Geert Wilders legal defense fund in her honor; he may be a far-right ass, but at least he's not a Jew-hater (unlike most of his compatriots on the far-right like the BNP and the Austria Freedom party, not to mention the Eastern Europe far-right which is even worse)

Can't say the same for far-left nutjob Duisenberg, who married a wealthy banker who has since died.

This is because of two things; first, the Jewish lobby in Holland, like in the United States, is very strong and powerful, and it is still playing on our guilt feelings, although it is 63 years since the Holocaust.

In addition, whenever you have something against the Jewish people in Holland, they call you an anti-Semite

The "high" (on whatever, she is from Amsterdam) society member recently got off on incitement charges since nobody could prove it actually was her advocating for gassing Jews

Ma'an News Agency (Jan 20): Mahmoud al-Mahbuh Dies of Terminal Cancer

2010-01-30T17:39:00.000-08:00

I was a bit harsh a week or two ago about Jared Malsin, the American journalist for Ma'an News who recently was refused entry to Israel after he refused to answer questions asked of him by Israeli security officers after landing at Ben-Gurion. My comments, however, were directed at Mr. Malsin, not at his employer.

Ma'an News certainly has a slant in its reporting, but it does seem to be independent. Certainly, at the very least, it doesn't coordinate that well with Hamas.

From Ma'an News, last updated on January 21, 2010:

Hamas' armed wings the Al-Qassam Brigades announced the death of its co-founder in exile Mahmoud Al-Mabhuh died of terminal cancer in a hospital in the UAE on Wednesday. (emphasis mine)

Of course, a few days ago they changed their story, likely realizing that ascribing Al-Mahbuh's death to the terminal cancer that killed him was missing a golden opportunity to blame something on Israel. From AFP:

The Islamist Hamas movement blamed Israel on Friday for the death in Dubai earlier this month of one of the founders of its military wing and threatened retaliation at a time of its choosing.

"Mahmud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhuh died a martyr in Dubai on January 20, 2010 in suspect circumstances that require an inquiry in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates authorities," Hamas said in a statement released in its Gaza stronghold.

"We hold Israel responsible for the assassination of our brother and leader," the statement said, adding Hamas would "retaliate for this Zionist crime at the appropriate moment."

Obviously, not a surprise that Hamas would do something like this. The whole thing reminds one of the antics surrounding Arafat's death. But it is slightly more of a surprise (slightly) that the traditional media would not even bother to find out that they'd said something completely different to Arab media (which was picked up and posted by Ma'an on their English language section, which Mr. Malsin worked for) the week before.

On the other hand, it is not that much of a surprise. The European media is hardly known for fact-checking or an interest in truth when it comes to Israel. Apparently not even as much as is the Palestinian media.

Why Amtrak Hasn't Gotten Riders, and How That Will Change

2010-01-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Amtrak, founded after the collapse of the rail industry (especially the passenger rail industry) in the 1950s and 1960s to continue to provide passenger rail service, has been a major whipping boy for Congressional Republicans pretty much since it was founded.

Freight rail has become profitable again, and if energy prices go up, it should do even better. But passenger rail is still barely ridden in this country, with the exception of the Northeast corridor.

The reason is simple: it's not easy to get people to take the train when it cannot even be competitive in terms of time with the personal automobile, much less with air travel (for limited distances; due to air travel's major overhead and, in many places, major delays), and if you cannot fill the trains, you have also got the problem of costs.

And often, the train is often not even competitive (much less beating) the peronal automobile in terms of travel time.

Below, the mean speed of a train on various tracks throughout the country according to their Amtrak timetables; when lines intersect with the Northeast corridor, I leave the part on the corridor out. When certain parts of a line are far slower, I note that as well. Specifically, I put the mean speed when we discount the time spent waiting at stations (when that time is specified in the schedule), just to point out how bad things are; these are speeds over time when the train is moving (minus I suppose some number of minutes at the brief stops)

I'm ignoring the few lines that go across national lines, because customs slows things down there.

St. Albans, Vermont, to Albany, NY: 40.2
Albany to New York Penn, 56.4.
Rutland, Vermont to Albany, NY 32.4d (15 minute wait in Albany)
Rouses Point, New York to Albany, NY 34.2
Bellingham, WA to Seattle, WA: 38
Seattle, WA to Portland, OR: 53.4
Portland, OR to Eugene, OR: 50.9
Washington, DC to Raleigh, NC: about 53
(having trouble with the rest of the route until Jacksonville, FL along the east coast, but mean speed seem to remain in low-to-mid 50s)
Jacksonville, FL to Tampa, FL: 48.4
Winter Haven, FL to Miami, FL: 47.9
Chicago, IL to Omaha, NE: 58.9
Omaha, NE to Denver, CO: 56.6
Denver, CO to Salt Lake City, UT: 38
Salt Lake City, UT to Emeryville, CA: 49.8
San Jose, CA to Sacramento, CA: 43.1
Washington, DC to Cumberland, MD: 46.3
Cumberland, MD to Pittsburgh, PA: 34.8
Pittsburgh, PA to Cleveland, OH: 48.3
Cleveland, OH to Toledo, OH: 49.8
Toledo, OH to Chicago, IL: 53.4
Washington, DC to Clifton Forge, VA (43.1)

And it goes on like that, basically maxing at the low 50s as a mean speed when moving, except on the incredibly flat, straight Chicago to Omaha stretches and such; also, I believe the Albany to NYC tracks may have had some improvements done.

Except, of course, on the Northeast corridor, where NYC to Washington is 65.9 mph on average, better than a car can do straight without speeding.

I cannot find the distance for the track from NYC to Boston, so I can't provide an estimate there.

The point is, though that even 110 mph max track would be good enough to significantly increase ridership; it worked on the line between Philly and Harrisburg, where the 59.4 mph mean speed on the Keystone route has greatly increased ridership.

It'll work on the other areas as well. And of course, California and to a lesser extent Florida will be revolutionized.

This is why the work being done to get even semi-high train speeds (and genuine high train speeds in Florida and especially California)

You Owe Me Two Hours, Census Bureau

2010-01-29T17:28:00.000-08:00

Why in the world would you choose to compress using "Compression 98?"

The algorithm, also known as PPMd, was written by Dmitry Shkarin, a guy in Russia. Do they not know that in Soviet Russia, algorithm compress YOU!

But seriously, Winzip is basically the only zip utility that can handle it

And why for that one rdp_2008_06077_tabblock10.zip (and its state-level equivalent, rdp_2008_06_tabblock10.zip);

Took me nearly two hours to get around the limited account privileges on the only
Windows machine I have access to so I could install Winzip and unzip.

All Aboard! Department of Transportation Issued "High Speed" Rail Funding Decisions

2010-01-28T22:35:00.000-08:00

The biggest winner is, justifiably, California, which is getting $2.25 billion for its truly high-speed rail plan that passed as a voter initiative (or was it a referendum?) in 2008 along with the hated Prop 8.

Truly in that it actually will be really high-speed like the trains of Europe, Japan and now China.

For great coverage of California's High Speed Rail, I would urge you to read my friend Robert Cruickshank's excellent blog devoted to it

Initially, it'll connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. That trip will be approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes each way, compared to the 6 hours by car it takes along Interstate 5. It's also going to make for a quicker trip point-to-point than flying would for many people, given the major amount of time you have to spend going to the airport, waiting in so many lines, waiting for a whole bunch of other things, etc. etc.

A similar speed train would get you from Boston to Washington DC in less than four hours (maybe even only about 3 hours 30 minutes), making it frankly competitive with air travel as well.

Such a train would be hands-down fastest by quite a bit to get from New York to anywhere on the Northeast Corridor, given the terrible airspace congestion leading to major delays in the New York area and the fact that it's in the middle (though closer to Boston)

Of course, what would be really amazing would be a Maglev train (up to 350 mph) from Boston to Atlanta

Laila Abdelaziz: Obama's Questioner about Israel in Tampa

2010-01-28T20:55:00.000-08:00

You know someone's going to be stirring things up when they get a reaction like this to stating their name and status

Q Hello, Mr. President. My name is Layla (phonetic), I'm a student at the University of South Florida. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Booo!

Of course, it becomes immediately clear that it was because they knew what she would be asking about:

My question is, last night in your State of the Union address you spoke of America's support for human rights. Then why have we not condemned Israel and Egypt's human rights violations against the occupied Palestinian people and yet we continue to support financially with billions of dollars coming from our tax dollars?

The video can be viewed below.

I find it somewhat funny that whatever Palestinian activist group planned to act the question had the "normal white American" girl ask the question rather than the far more "Arab-looking" guy next to her who eventually chimes in to repeat her final "our taxes" line.

Of course, as it turns out, the girl, Laila Abdelaziz, is one of my fellow Palestinians, though her most recent Palestinian ancestors were Muslim, while mine were Jewish; of course, I would not be surprised if it turned out Ms. Abdelaziz is in fact descended from Jews 2000 years back.

To be fair to Ms. Abdelaziz, from what I can tell, she seems relatively moderate, quite possibly among the group of Palestinians to whom I could come to an agreement with on parameters for ending the occupation of the West Bank and the creation of a Palestinian state, depending on her views on the Old City and the "right of return"

Though I can't see what groups she belongs to, the only Palestinian politician among her pages is Mustafa Barghouti (not to be confused with his relatively distant cousin Marwan), head of the Palestinian National Initiative. The PNI, unlike the three top-vote-getting parties in the last Palestinian election that took place several months after Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas (which is itself a terrorist group), PFLP (ditto) and Fatah (which still maintains significant affiliations with the terrorist group Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade), have no ties to any armed militant groups. I could wish she supported Ray Hanania's candidacy-awareness campaign, of course.

On the other hand, I certainly have several criticisms/questions that I'd like to hear her and other similar-minded people answer.

For instance, in her interview afterward with Florida radio station WMNF, she said:

Of course we love a two state solution, but there has to be trust and dialogue between two sides. The Palestinian people are ready for a two state solution, but the Palestinian people are the ones being occupied by Israelis. How are the Palestinian people supposed to do anything if they're the ones being occupied? The occupiers have to allow for something to happen which they have not yet allowed to happen. I asked President Obama why he says America as a nation supports human rights, but at the same time, one of our greatest allies is Israel, a country that does not support human rights, and has many human rights violations.

Regarding dialogue: Abbas and the PA have refused to even come to the table for dialogue. It's worth noting that Israeli opinion columnists from Akiva Eldar on the pretty far to the left to Barry Rubin on the right have pointed out (or predicted months ago) that this refusal on Abbas' part would majorly curtail any pressure Obama would put in Israel.

As for her question arguing hypocrisy about human rights-because one of our greatest allies in Israel? Seriously? Not "at the same time, one of our greatest selves is the United States of America." After, all the US is not occupying a country; we're occupying three countries-Afghanistan, Iraq, and (according to several countries, including France) Haiti.

Denying civil rights to people born in our territories? I'm sitting right now in the capital of this great nation, which still suffers from "taxation without representation;" of course, this Obama cannot be blamed for; we really need a constitutional amendment to remedy this, and a president has no part in it.

Finally, I found it rather interesting that she brought in Egypt in addition to Israel in terms of violating the human rights of Palestinians. While Egypt is hardly innocent of human rights violations, when it comes to Palestinians, not so much. Human Rights Watch didn't mention them in their latest report on Middle East human rights, though they did call out majority-Palestinian Jordan as well Lebanon on their violations of human rights of Palestinians.

As for Obama's response, I liked it just fine.

A Little over 1% of DC Residents are Homeless

2010-01-28T09:32:00.000-08:00

So said the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government in the yearly estimate from about half a year ago.

They estimated 6,228 people were "literally homeless" in 2009 in the District of Columbia, a little over half of the total homeless population of the DC metro area (which is about 9 times the size of the relatively small [in square miles and in population; DC being one of the few cities [though I guess it wasn't part of the city at the time] to have shrunk in square miles rather than grown from its original size]) city itself.

I remember once walking home from the Hawk and Dove freshman year, and passing a bunch of homeless men sleeping in front of the IRS building, which really hit me.

Counting the homeless presents a unique challenge for the U.S. Census Bureau.

Silence from European Press and "Human Rights Organizations" On Gaza Fuel Situation

2010-01-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

From Ha'aretz

A new dispute between Hamas and Fatah has drastically reduced production at the Gaza Strip's only power plant, exacerbating its chronic electricity shortage, officials said yesterday.

The current crisis emerged when the European Union, one of the biggest donors to the Palestinian Authority, decided to scale back aid ...
The plant provides electricity to about 25% of Gaza. The rest gets power from Egypt and Israel.

If Hamas had the people of Gaza's interests in mind, it would agree to Quartet's reasonable demands and Gaza would get the fuel and everything else it needed; of course we know they do not, particularly Meshaal who gets to sit pretty in Damascus. But maybe this EU action will convince them to give in.

Still, Hamas spokesman Fozzie Bear has a point; this action by the European Union is indeed just as much a crime against humanity/collective punishment as anything Israel has done.

Yet a fairly significant search of Google News yields nothing from European newspapers, nothing from European "human rights organizations" who never miss an opportunity or non-opportunity to attack Israel. Palestinian and other Arab news sources, Ha'aretz, and the Chinese Communist newspaper are all I see.

Which is of course not a surprise; actions taken by the EU don't have the kind of "blame the Jews" appeal that attracts most anti-Israel activists.

Shapira and Nafa both belong in Jail

2010-01-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

The insane Yitzhak Shapira of Yitzhar was arrested for refusing to answer questions about his involvement in the mosque arson; hopefully he'll stay in custody for a good, long while.

Also, Said Naffaa of the ultra-nationalist Balad party was stripped of parliamentary immunity in connection with his meeting with Khaled Meshaal of Hamas and the leader of the Marxist terrorist org Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Good. They both belong in jail after a fair trail. I hope they do the same for Ben-Ari next bullshit he pulls.

Shmuley Boteach Comes out in Favor of Gay Marriage?

2010-01-25T19:43:00.000-08:00

Well, perhaps not quite. But it wasn't that far off, and I'd be surprised if he doesn't get roundly condemned for not being sufficiently anti-"toeiva marriage," as unfortunately most frum Jews call it.

In a glowing article about the Chabad movement urging it to strive for what some might call playing into classic anti-Semitic themes, i.e. "affecting the world media, governments, the broader culture and the non-Jewish world," Rabbi Boteach dropped this bombshell:

While Christian evangelicals have taken over the airwaves, attempting to convince us that the solution to the disintegration of marriage is opposition to gays, Chabad continues to operate shofar factories and erect Hanukka menoras. These things are profoundly important, but not to the exclusion of promoting Chabad as a profound collection of ideas that can rehabilitate one's family and rejuvenate one's spiritual life.

Now, I suppose technically you could read this as Rabbi Boteach not saying anything about the evil of lack thereof in gay marriage, and just pointing out that gays and/or gay marriage have about zero to do with the very real disintegration of the institution of marriage. Hell, maybe you could (although this would really be stretching things) claim that Rabbi Shmuley was just stating a fact about what Christian evangelicals do on the airwaves.

But it really seems to me like he's saying, at least, that gay marriage is not all that big of a deal.

Now, halacha may be interpreted otherwise, at least applied to civil marriages of non-Jews in the United States. Halacha (as it currently stands; that verse CAN be interpreted in other ways, though I do not see that happening given the "strict constructionist/precedence-always" view that poskim take) is against the sex acts between two men, not the marriage.

However, the word coming out of the frum areas in New York and more recently out of Lakewood and such places in New Jersey was that "to'eiva" marriage must be stopped.

I wonder if he'll get flak for it.

All significant U.S. Orthodox Rabbinates Together for Releasing Rubashkin

2010-01-23T18:31:00.000-08:00

A Press release from DJC Communications says the following

A group of the nation's most prominent Rabbis will hold a news conference Tuesday to oppose the premature imprisonment of Sholom Rubashkin, former vice president of Agriprocessors, Inc., once the country's largest kosher meat processing plant. The Rabbis will urge the U.S. Department of Justice to closely scrutinize the demands by federal prosecutors in Iowa that Rubashkin be imprisoned before he is sentenced. The group also will request a meeting with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

They've got the National Council of Young Israel, Agudath Israel of America, the Rabbinical Council of America, the Rabbinical Assembly of America, and then two more local NYC rabbinates who decided to come down as well.

And yes, I am aware that their protest is that he should be allowed out until he gets sentenced. The reason they have not let him out is that he is most definitely a flight risk, and the rabbis are not going to change anyone's mind.

But seriously, do they not realize how bad it is for kashrut and for them to be defending Rubashkin?

On another note, it's kind of ironic that they are using a communications firm run by a female who probably doesn't meet standards of tznius in her picture on her website to do their press work.

"Tefillin Bomber" Diverts Louisville-Bound Flight to Philly

2010-01-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

A lot of people have heard by now about the White Plains kid who tried to lay tefillin on board US Airways Flight 3079 from La Guardia to Louisville, scaring the flight attendant and eventually causing the plane to land unscheduled in Philadelphia.

He explained that the scare began when the young man was “in the process of praying.” The flight attendant noticed the tefillin and asked what he was doing.

The young man’s response was straightforward, Lieutenant Vanore said: “He gave the explanation he was in prayer.”

But the flight attendant was concerned about the tefillin. She called the cockpit and “described it as best as she’d seen it,” Lieutenant Vanore said, “and there was an item wrapped around his head, straps or wires.” “The straps did appear to be cables or wires to her,” he said. “To the naked eye looking at it, it looked like that. She said it had wires running from it and going up to his fingers. When they notified the pilot of that, he had to follow his protocol. It’s hard to Monday-morning-quarterback it.”

Now, I feel really bad for Caleb Leibowitz (the young man in question). But I do have to question his judgment.

First, kid, that's like what, an hour flight? Hour and a half at most. Next time just say Tfilat Haderech quietly when you're taking off and then, I dunno, read the Daf Yomi or read a magazine or a book or something.

But more importantly, dude, you do realize how little Americans (or anyone else) know about the religious practices of others, particularly non-Christian religions. Heck, there are for that matter plenty of Jews (though obviously not Orthodox ones) in the U.S. who have little to no knowledge about tefillin. I admit even I can't even put them on correctly myself--mind you, I can't really put a necktie on correctly either.

But seriously, look at some of the articles about your ordeal and the errors they contain about Judaism.

The Louisville Courier-Journal has a picture of you with the following caption:

Caleb Leibowitz (center) prays during the afternoon/evening service at Congregation Anshei Sfard

Well, which was it? Afternoon (mincha) or Evening (maariv)?

Newspapers in the Google News Archive

2010-01-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

One great resource for free older newspapers For some reason, Google does not plainly list anywhere the newspapers it has full-image archives for in its "Google News Archive."

Why, I do not know; it makes things very annoying for people who know what kind of paper (based on geographic location, etc.) might have what they are searching for.

Here's a non-exhaustive list via searching manually. Note that Google may be missing some individual issues in the "Google Holding Dates" range; these are merely the earliest and latest I found for them.

Part 1:

Name	Publishing Period	Google Holding Dates
Montreal Gazette	1785-	8/28/1928-
Miami News	1896-1988	6/12/1940
The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, FL)	?-1986	Complete
The Age (Melbourne, Australia)	1854-	3/15/1943-3/4/1955

Real Question: How does Rav Shteinman have that kind of money lying around?

2010-01-16T22:46:00.000-08:00

Via kikar.net

While Maran HaGaon HaRav Aaron Leib Shteinman Shlita was attending a kinos in Betar Illit on Thursday night, thieves were helping themselves to $50,000 in cash and checks worth “hundreds of thousands” according to a Kikar.net report. The theft occurred in the Rav’s home, 5 Chazon Ish Street, in Bnei Brak.

When the Rosh Yeshiva and his escorts returned to his home after 10:00pm on Thursday, they noticed everything was in disarray, realizing the money, cash and checks, were all gone. The funds were given to the Rav, as is customary, to distribute on rosh chodesh, to yeshivos, kollelim, roshei yeshivos and various institutions.

As a result of the physical findings and the fact there was no evidence of a forced break-in, police believe the thief had a key and is someone with knowledge of the Rav’s schedule, to the extent that he was aware on Thursday night, the Rosh Yeshiva was in Yerushalayim and Betar Illit.

That town is worse than dirt poor. And anyway, I can't think of any profession except drug dealer or the mafia that would have $50,000 in cash in the house.

I guess he may spread that money around, though, so it would be best to do more research before condemning him

On Jared Malsin-A Look at His Past Work

2010-01-14T17:27:00.000-08:00

I decided I'd take a look at the past work of the Jewish-American who lives in the West Bank and writes for the Palestinian newspaper Ma'an, and has apparently been detained and may be expelled.

Now, since he attempted to come in through Ben-Gurion Airport and was detained there, Israel has the right as a sovereign state to not let him in. Great Britain (Michael Savage and a bunch of others), Canada (George Galloway) and others also prevent people from entering their countries; were he seeking to enter the West Bank via Jordan, that would be another thing entirely.

But I'm more looking here at some of his past work (pre-working for Ma'an), to get an idea about this guy.

Here's some links and quotes:

May 12, 2008

Obama (or his ghostwriters) even published a drooling, sycophantic opinion piece in one of Israel's more right-wing newspapers on Friday:

As the festivities surrounding Israel’s 60th anniversary get underway, Israelis can be forgiven if they don’t feel in an entirely celebratory mood. With terrorism and rockets from Gaza, a serious threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, hostages held by Hamas, and too many of its neighbors playing tired old games rather than working toward peace and security, Israel can at times feel like a nation facing enormous challenges. It is, but is also much more than that. It is precisely at this moment that, despite the challenges, Israelis should take stock of what they have built, and their hearts should swell with pride. And it is also at this moment that Israel’s friends around the world should raise their voices in a chorus of support. Because Israel has more than just friends -- it also has legions of admirers. I am proud to be one, and I know that millions of Americans join me in saluting the State of Israel and its vast array of achievements over these past 60 years.

Writing from where, I am, in occupied Palestine, this is truly vomit-inducing stuff. Even many Israelis will feel patronized that Obama "forgives" them for having critical thoughts about the situation their country is in.

That is "truly vomit-inducing stuff"? Furthermore, the man is either lying or misinformed (most likely the former) about the slant of Yedioth Ahronoth in the spectrum of Israeli newspapers.

First, note that according to the BBC (not generally considered an "Israeli apologist"), Yedioth Ahronoth is a centrist mass-circulation Tel Aviv newspaper, and notes in a second article about the press in Israel "The paper offers the reader a wide range of views, giving space to commentators from the political right and left. "

Of the 11 daily non-financial Israeli newspapers, including 6 general Hebrew dailies, 1 Hasidic daily, 1 Misnaged (i.e. Lithuanian) daily, 1 Arabic daily, 1 English daily and 1 Russian daily:

Descriptions by the BBC:

Ma'ariv: Center-right line
Ha'aretz: Left of Yedioth Ahronoth and Ma'ariv
Jerusalem Post: Originally left-wing, with a "marked shift to the right" in 1989 ... "he paper's tougher line on issues such as security and the Palestinian territories has remained constant"

other newspapers
Makor Rishon (from Wikipedia): "identified with conservative national and religious values."

Israel Hayom: owned by Sheldon Adelson, who has said something on the order "Everybody thinks I started it solely to help Bibi"; right wing

al-Ittihad: run by the Israeli Communist Party (Maki)

Vesti (Wikipedia) "Vesti has a right-wing editorial stance, like Israeli Russian-language media in general."

Hamodia (Wikipedia): "it is right of center in its Israeli coverage."

Israel Post: a free metro daily, not categorizable

Yated Neeman: misnaged, uncategorizable for several reasons

So it is at worst the fourth most left Israeli daily out of the 9 that are categorizable, definitely left of Hamodia, Vesti, Jerusalem Post, Makor Rishon, Israel Hayom, and probably third, to the left of Ma'ariv.

From his blog, July 27, 2006

"WE ARE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THIS.
WE ARE LOOKING INTO THE PROBLEM OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.
WE THINK ISRAEL HAS THE RIGHT TO TAKE ANY STEPS NECESSARY TO DEFEND ITSELF.
WE DON'T DO BODY COUNTS.
WE HAVE THE BEST MILITARY TECHNOLOGY IN THE WORLD.
PLEASE CONTUNUE TO BE AFRAID.
THE TERRORISTS HAVE BROUGHT THIS WAR UPON US.
"ISRAELI VALUES ARE AMERICAN VALUES."
"ULTIMATELY THIS WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE CONFLICT"
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
WE WILL CRUSH YOU.
THIS IS THE NEW WAR.
YOUR PARADIGM HAS EXPIRED.
REBIRTH THROUGH BLOOD.

Nice guy.

Balad Dismisses MK Said Naffaa-for contact with Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblat

2010-01-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

It appears that the ultra-nationalist Arab-Israeli party Balad has decided to dismiss MK Said Naffaa from the Knesset for having met with certain foreign leaders.

Now, Naffaa has been in the news recently. In December Attorney General Menachem Mazuz announced plans to indict him for meeting with foreign leaders:

Last December, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said he intended to indict Naffaa over an alleged 2007 Syria meeting with Talal Naji, deputy chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and visiting the offices of Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal, although he was not present at the time.

The prosecution accused Naffaa at the time of having "knowingly contacted a foreign agent without a reasonable explanation for doing so."

A roughly equivalent U.S. analogy would be Dennis Kucinich meeting with Osama bin Laden as a sitting Congressperson. Of course, even former Congresswoman nut-job Cynthia McKinney does not seem to have gone that far.

So, is Balad actually standing up against such despicable behavior by Naffaa? Of course not. They are angry because Naffaa also (at a different time) met with Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt without informing the party.

Jumblatt, of course, held talks with John McCain and a delegation of members of Congress last week. McCain can do so because, unlike Talal Naji and Khaled Meshal, Walid Jumblatt isn't a member of a U.S.-designated Foreign Terror Organization. Of course, although the U.S. designates them, the PFLP and Hamas concentrate mostly on Israeli targets.

And (not that it should matter from a state standpoint or a humanitarian standpoint, but to make Balad look even nastier) it's not like Palestinian terrorist groups take extra caution to avoid killing Arabs, either.

Arab victims of Palestinian terror include Marwan Abed Shweika, Hussam Fathi Mahajna, Jamil Qa'adan, Muhammed Mahmoud Jaroun, Hani al-Mahdi, Lutfi Nasraladin, Salah Ayash Imran, Munam Abu Sabia, Ibrahim Kahili, Salem (Sami) al-Kimlat, Tarek al-Ziadne, Adham Shehada, Hussein Abu Leil, Sa'id Jahaja, Araf Azbarga, Hafez al-Hafi, Khalil Zeitounya, Aiman Ghadir, George Elias Khoury, George Matar, Samer Fathi Afan, Hana Francis, Mutanus Karkabi, Ghalab Tawil, Hassan Ismail Tawatha, Maryam Atar, Kamar Abu Hamed, Samih Sweidan, Madin Grifat, Aiman Sharuf, Suad Jaber, Malik Grifat, Iman Kabha, Maysoun Amin Hassan, Nawa Hinawi, Suheil Adawi, Salim Barakat, Ahmed Mazarib, Mofid Sawaid, Ashraf Hawash, Ibrahim Hamadieh, Hana (Eli) Abu-Ghanem, Wael Ghanem, Rujayah Salameh, Madhat Yusuf, Samar Hussein, Salman 'Id el-Hawashla, Fadiya Shalabi, Samir Mugrabi, Jamal Suwitat, Wael Kawasmeh, Sarina Angel, Muhi A-din Othman

Which really says something about Naffaa and Balad.

Democrats Hold All 10 NOVA seats in VA Senate

2010-01-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

Well, technically, I suppose there are 2 other seats on the outskirts of Northern Virginia (containing parts of Loudoun and Prince William, respectively, as well as counties outside of what I'd call Northern Virginia), Northern Virginia defined as Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties, as well as Alexandria and the other independent cities in and around the area.

So, perhaps 10 out of 12 would be more accurate. This is, of course, as a result of Dave Marsden's upset victory.

Virginia's incoming governor Bob McDonnell (R) congratulated Virginia's newest senator Dave Marsden (D) tonight on his upset against Steve Hunt (R) in Fairfax County.

"I look forward to continuing to work with him in the years ahead in his new capacity,'' McDonnell said. "In these tough economic times, Virginians need leaders in Richmond who will work together to create new jobs and more opportunities. While we may not agree on every issue, I know that Dave and I share a commitment to making this a better Virginia for all our citizens."

Northern Virginia and the difference therein is also largely why the Republicans have such a commanding control of the House of Delegates, since the Republicans have 11 of the 26 seats in Northern Virginia, although the Democrats are in a worse situation outside of NoVA in the House of Delegates as well.

Google Considers Pulling Out of China

2010-01-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

And yes, that is definitely a double-entendre, given that China's other recent Internet-related activities include paying Internet porn surfers to report porn sites to the government for a crackdown.

But that's another story altogether. Google is mad, and they aren't going to take it anymore.

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

What precipitated this? The People's Republic of China's hacking Google to access human rights advocates' Gmail accounts.

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. ...
As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted.
... We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Elsewhere in the post David Drummond (Google's Chief Legal Officer) links to an interesting report by Northrop Grumman for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Now, any scenario of military conflict between the U.S. and China is utterly terrifying, which is much of what the report focuses on. Of course, it also focuses on cyber-espionage:

The return on present investment for targeting sensitive US information in this way (the intelligence gain) can be extraordinarily high while the barriers to entry (the skills and technologies required to implement an operation) are comparatively low. Many countries are in the process of developing capabilities to either respond defensively to this threat or build their own offensive network operations programs, however, China is most frequently cited as the primary actor behind much of the activity noted in media reporting, and US officials are increasingly willing to publicly acknowledge that China’s network exploitation and intelligence collection activities are one of this country’s most consuming counterintelligence challenges.

In other words, Ceiling Cat is watching you. At least, he's watching you until he gets eaten by Chinese restaurant-goers

NAACP hypocritical regarding 2010 Census 'Negro' Controversy

2010-01-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

Now, I would wholeheartedly agree that the term 'Negro' is definitely outdated. Obviously it was less offensive back in the bad old days; Rube Foster, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, etc. all played in the Negro Leagues before #42 Jackie Robinson integrated the American pastime for the Brooklyn Dodgers (another outdated term) at Ebbets Field in Flatbush back in 1947. However, today it does carry an element of offensiveness.

Nevertheless, hypocrisy abounds. From the San Jose/Valley Mercury News:

"My first reaction when I saw that was we take two steps forward to take one step back," said Rick Callender, former president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP. "African-Americans in this country have not referred to themselves as Negro since the 1950s."

Question 9 on the census, which asks for a person's race, lists as one of the options: "Black, African Am., or Negro." The controversy arose earlier this week as the Census Bureau started its road tour in New York.

"I wouldn't say it offends me, but it makes me feel uncomfortable," said Austin Jackson, a 16-year-old from Fremont who serves as president of the NAACP Youth Council in Alameda County. "It's unfortunate they would use such a clearly outdated term."

The NAACP is saying a term is 'clearly outdated.' The NAACP. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Jeez, that was outdated even when Negro was not.

Kerry Picket Errs Regarding Citizenship Question in 2010 Census

2010-01-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

In an article for the Washington Times, Kerry Picket writes that the 2010 census lacks citizenship question. Now, on a certain technical weasel level, she is correct. It is indeed the first decennial United States census (since 1880, but I suppose that's relatively minor compared to her other errors) in which zero citizens will be asked their citizenship status.

However, it is also the first decennial census since 1870 in which zero citizens will be asked their marital status. It is the first since 1960 which will not report poverty status. The first since 1840 which will not report on school attendance. The first since 1930 which will not report on educational attainment (i.e. high school grad, college grad, etc.). The first since 1860 which will ask zero citizens about where their parents and/or ancestors were born. The first since 1840 which will ask zero citizens what they do for a living. The first since 1840 which will not ask if they live on a farm.

Why all these cuts? Because the Census Bureau, pursuant to legislation, replaced the long form of the Census with the American Community Survey (ACS).

From the Census Bureau's Introduction to the ACS

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey is an ongoing survey that produces important statistics about our nation’s people and housing. It covers the same type of information that had been collected every 10 years from the decennial census long form questionnaire. The American Community Survey eliminated the need for a separate long form in the 2010 Census.
...
With the American Community Survey, it’s no longer necessary to rely on a single snapshot of an area that becomes increasingly dated throughout the decade. Instead, the survey provides a moving picture of community characteristics — a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

As it so happens, the most recent American Community Survey form, the 2009 American Community Survey, does, in fact, ask about citizenship.

Now, in 2000, the Census Bureau only asked about citizenship on the long form, which went to 1 out of 6 households. The American Community Survey asks about 3 million housing units these questions each year, so about 30 million housing units over a 10 year span. The United States has about 130 million housing units according to the latest available Census estimates, and 30/130 is greater than 1/6, so a larger percentage of people are being asked about citizenship this decade than last decade by the Census Bureau.

In fact, this is a larger percentage of citizens since they asked about citizenship on the short form in 1950 (the year, and all other years cited, come from a compilation of Census questions by Grace York at the University of Michigan Library). Apparently President Eisenhower was a major fan of illegal immigrants or something and dropped the question.

Of course, that's not fair to President Eisenhower, despite his suspiciously foreign-sounding name, nearly as bad as Obama. After all, the Census Bureau has never asked about the legal status of people. They have asked whether someone was free or a slave, back in the day when slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person, but never about their legal status in the country.

The 2010 Census: Short Forms for Everybody, and Gay Couples Will be Counted

2010-01-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

I had not realized this before, but apparently the Census Bureau's long form is no more. The 2000 Census was its' final hurrah.

One of the most significant changes in modern census history will occur in 2010 ― for the first time since 1930, all addresses in the U.S. will receive a census short form.
In recent censuses, most addresses received one of two forms: either the short form, which focused on the population count and demographics; or the long form, which included additional questions on socioeconomic and housing characteristics. Nationwide, about one-in-six addresses in 2000 received the long form. Together, the two parts of the decennial census showed not only the number of people living in America but also the way we live: education, housing, jobs and more. This information will still be part of the decennial census, but it will be collected on a continuing basis as part of the American Community Survey.

The American Community Survey is sent out to some number of households every few months; this allows the government to have a more up-to-date estimate of important demographic/social/economic/etc. issues, as a lot changes in 10 years.

Instead, the head of each household this year must answer only 10 questions, plus an additional 7 questions for each other household member. The form can be viewed here.

The questions include the following:

For the head only Number of residents in the place of residence
For the head only Whether any additional people were staying in the place of residence on April 1, 2010 that were not counted in question 1.
For the head only Ownership status of residence-owned with mortgage; owned and fully paid off; returned; occupied without paying (squatting)
For the head only Telephone Number-so they can contact you if an answer cannot be understood

I wonder how many people will get confused, since these days pretty much every other form these days specifies specific types of phone numbers (cell, work, home)

For everyone Last Name (15 characters; a poor decision on the Census Bureau's part. They really could've minimally redrawn the form to allow for last name to be on its own line and have a limit of as much as 21 characters. However, thankfully, the 15 character limit just fits my own last name), First Name (13 characters, which is also perhaps a poor decision, but perhaps not) and Middle Initial
For everyone EXCEPT for the head of household How this person is related to the head of household; categories include:
- Husband or wife
- Biological son or daughter
- Adopted son or daughter
- Stepson or stepdaughter
- Brother or sister
- Father or mother
- Grandchild
- Parent-in-law
- Son-in-law or daughter-in-law
- Other Relative I suppose this was in the interest of space as they felt other things would be uncommon enough
- Roomer or boarder (i.e. someone who pays rent to you)
- Housemate or roommate (i.e. equal to you)
- Unmarried partner (for all those Americans living in sin today)
- Other non-relative I guess a catch-all for those who don't like the other categories
For Everyone What is this person's sex? Male, female only, though I suppose that technically doesn't affect transgendered people since they still answer one or the other
For Everyone Age, as well as month, day and year of birth
For Everyone Hispanic, Latino, Spanish origin; this is still not considered to be a race. The three "popular" subsets of origins are still Mexican/Mexican Am./Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Cuban; all other Hispanic,Latino, Spanish origins must write in their specific origin by hand
For Everyone Race: White, black, American Indian Alaska Native (with tribe as a write-in), a bunch of different Asian country origins, and some other race
For everyone Whether or not they sometimes live or stay somewhere else

There are several interesting things about the Census form.

There is obviously the whole Negro controversy on the Census form; it says "Black, African Am., or Negro"

The interesting thing about the 'related' form is that it does allow the government to track same-sex couples (if the person checking husband or wife or unmarried partner is the same gender as the head of household) in a way that doesn't "offend" conservatives. After all, it would be far more convoluted and nasty to have to design the form in a way that would prevent such information from being collected. It could be done, I suppose, but it would be pretty terribly convoluted and probably mess up Census data.

Haredim Should Do the Jobs 'Israelis Won't Do' Instead of East Asians

2010-01-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

Ha'aretz, in a story about the rejection of a citizenship process request for a (past childbirth age, for what that is worth) Filipina woman so she could stay with her Israeli partner, dropped this bombshell:

A document obtained by Haaretz reveals that the decision reflects a trend of trying to prevent marriages between Israelis and Filipinas.

"Too many Filipinas are going this road. It must stop and they must be removed from the country," the document states.

Before the second intifada, a lot of menial jobs in Israel were done by Palestinians (not all of them, but a good number; obviously Jews did some and Arab Israelis did some as well). One of my memories from living in Israel (on Antigonus Street in Jerusalem) in 1997 was that the groundskeeper was Palestinian. I remember this primarily in the context that he could not come to work for a few weeks after the Mahane Yehuda suicide bombing.

After the second intifada began, Palestinians were (not unjustifiably) deemed to be a security threat, and so it became far harder for Palestinians to work in Israel, though many West Bank Palestinians still do. As a result, there was a menial labor shortage, and Israel began importing East Asian "guest workers" (Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino). Since Shas head Eli Yishai became Minister of the Interior (which controls immigration policy, among other things), he's been pushing for deportation of children of workers who were born in Israel, and of course this latest memo, among other things.

Levi Brackman, a Haredi (I believe Chabad) rabbi from Colorado, notes that Haredim are contemplating selling kidneys to pay for his daughter and her husband-to-be to have an apartment so her husband could study Torah.

This is in fact what the great sages of old wanted when they said that the study of Torah must be accompanied by working at a trade or business to make a living (Ethics of the Fathers 2:2).

Rabbinic leadership is needed on the highest level to change a system that is forcing many in their communities to take desperate steps just to cover their families’ basic needs.

...

this does not exempt the haredi community from learning a profession or vocation so that they can become productive members of society. Many more haredi professional and vocational schools need to be developed and the societal pressure to become a full time Torah scholar or a teacher needs to be removed.

Of course, there are plenty of jobs in Israel which the (secular/professionally useful) education-lacking Haredim can do.

Agriculture would allow them to fulfill a whole bunch of mitzvot, and can be done in a perfectly tzniut way in today's world. Ditto for caregiving; they'd just work only with the same sex. As for construction; if Rabbi Hillel could be a carpenter, they can do construction work.

Oh, how I wish someone would propose this to Yishai. I'd love to see his reaction.