jeffrey smith

Problem is back again, and now affects the threads. Clearing cookies has no effect, other than to make me sign back in again.

It's normal now, without me doing anything. But the problem appeared when there were no cookies to clear and over a two day period whenever I visited the site (meaning, through multiple closing of Firefox=multiple clearing of cookies). But if it works, don't fix it Jeffrey S.

Michael-- for the last two days the active content page shows up incorrectly (in low-res mode, I think). Actual threads show normally when I open them in new tabs, so whatever the bug is, it's only having an effect on that one page. Jeffrey S.

First off, to say that Hamas has offered Israel peace and recognition as a state is absolute rubbish. Hamas' entire goal, stated time and time again, is the elimination of Israel, and the destruction of the Jews of Israel, either by killing them or expelling them or minimum subjugating them as second class citizens in a Palestine governed according to Hamas' version of shariah--the version of shariah you yourself have criticized fairly severely as not "real Islam" or words to that effect. The Hamas version of a truce is not a real truce: it's simply a pause to rearm itself. Nor have the Palestinians outside Hamas done very much in the way of offering peace. Take the Barak-Arafat negotions in which Barak offered, according to the Israeli version, almost everything that the Palestinians said they wanted. The Palestinian version is that the Israeli version was much less than that. Perhaps it was much less than ballyhooed. But the important point about those negotiations is not what Barak offered, nor even what Arafat rejected: what is important is that Arafat had no counteroffer to make. He simply rejected it, walked away and started the intifada. Had Arafat been truly interested in peace, he would have a plan of his own ready to propose. It's quite possible that Israel would have rejected it--but there was no Palestinian proposal at all, so a possible rejection by Israel is irrelevant. Arafat had no real interest in peace. You may have heard of Hanan Ashrawi. I don't know what's become of her lately, but around 2000 she was very much on the American airwaves in the role of a Palestinian moderate. She made the appropriate noises about living in peace with Israel as a desirable thing, but in the next breath she would defend suicide bombing aimed at civilians--the sort of thing Hamas and Islamic Jihad specialized in at that time--as morally justified. I know that you don't do that, but that's an illustration of what a "responsible moderate" among the Palestinians thought. Such a person is not actually interested in living in peace with Israel, despite all the pretty words they may say. Perhaps she was fooling herself, but she wouldn't have fooled anyone who actually paid attention to her words. Why do Israelis oppose the "right of return" to be exercised by the Palestinians? Because they know that the Palestinian idea of return involves the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of those Israeli Jews who are not killed and do not meekly agree to second class citizenship. You will notice if you go back and read my posts in this thread that while I have defended what Israel did and does in Gaza as a necessary means of self defense in dealing with an entity (Hamas ruled Gaza) with which it is at war, I haven't said anything in defense of what Israel is doing in the West Bank. There is a lot there that I think Israel is doing wrong--most importantly, the whole settlements policy--mixed in with some justifiable measures. The Wall and the roadblocks are necessary measures in dealing with a a community that has repeatedly resorted to suicide bombing and other terrorist attacks against the civilian population not only in the West Bank but in Israel proper. And the fact that they are necessary is proved by the fact that suicide bombing and most other forms of attacks originating in the West Bank against Israel proper have fallen off dramatically--just about to zero. Attacks when they do come seem to originate mostly inside Israel proper or against West Bank settlements. But I'm not going to defend most of what you complain about in reference to the West Bank. My aim at the moment is different. What I'm trying to do is to make clear to you that if you oppose a political entity that is racist and suppressed individual liberties, than you had better oppose not just Israel but also the Palestinians as they are presently organized, and as their leaders want them to be. The Palestinians want a racist state in which Jews, if allowed at all, are distinctly second class citizens. In fact, for the most part, since they subscribe to a large degree to the concept of the dhimmi as it developed in traditional Islamic society, they want to make all non Moslems second class citizens. They make no effort to guarantee political freedoms among themselves. In fact, an Arab under Israeli rule, even with the roadblocks and military arrests and the rest, has more personal freedom than he would have in PLO ruled areas. Palestinian society is not some peaceloving community yearning to live freely and at peace with neighbors who respect its freedom, with all members of society enjoying full personal liberty; it is racist and violence-oriented and unwilling to make peace with Israel. You may be right that Israel should enjoy no moral respect from the rest of the world, but you should understand that by the same yardstick,the Palestinians should also enjoy no moral respect.

Adonis-- What you don't seem to understand is that it is your side that is being barbaric and denying the rights of others. If all the Palestinians seem to offer is suicide bombs and rocket attacks, why should Israel do anything? Why should it not try to extirpate an organization whose prime goal is kill all the Jews it can and drive out the rest (meaning both Fatah and Hamas)? The Palestinians don't want a just peace. To them, if a single Jew remains in Tel Aviv, that's "occupied Palestine". If they did, Hamas and the terrorists wouldn't have such a power base among the Palestinians. As long as the Palestinians don't want peace, there is no motivation for Israel to do anything other than what it is doing. war will be the only answer and then I'd support war against the occupation and the expulsion of all Zionists from Palestine if they refuse to live in a state that guarantees the rights of all people in that land as a one state solution.. Unfortunately for your argument, it's not the Israelis who don't want a state that guarantees the rights of all people in the Holy Land--it's the Palestinians. The sooner you face that fact, the better off you will be. The sooner the world acknowledges that fact, the better off the world will be. Jeffrey S.

MSK-- Maybe it would be better to better define what Christianity means by the term 'Original sin', which is a rather unfortunate term. It means that we are born with a tendency to sin--that we are fallible, imperfect beings who can make wrong choices. In Buddhism, the same concept is denoted by the term "ignorance". It's not so much any specific act as an overall tendency. The Christian twist on this idea--I am tempted to say the Christian perversion of this idea--is that we are guaranteed to make wrong choices--that the tendency is so strong that in the natural state of affairs everything we choose will have some element of wrong choice included in it--and that to defeat that tendency, we have to depend on divine intervention ("grace") because we can not overcome the tendency on our own--and there is no guarantee that this divine intervention will ever come; and therefore every human endeavor must be viewed as a probable failure. But that is a specifically Christian idea--every other religion teaches that either divine intervention is not necessary or that if you ask for it, divine help will always be given. To borrow the Randian terms, Christianity adheres to the malevolent universe premise and everyone else adheres to the benevolent universe premise. We Jews speak of it in terms of the two influences, the evil and the good influences, or the two souls, which can be referred to as the "animal" soul (because we share it with animals) and is the basis of the evil influence, and the "human" soul, which is the basis of the good influence: both are equal, but with effort the human soul can dominate the animal soul. (That's a very barebones explanation--the full details would require explaining the five souls that humans are supposed to have.)(And there are of course individual Christians and some Christian schools of thought that either outright believe that help will always be given, or that push things as far in that direction as they can go without directly challenging orthodox teaching. But the essential idea remains in all forms of Christianity, no matter how hard some Christians attempt to dilute it.) Christianity also tends to get sex mixed inextricably with the concept, making it even worse. The ultimate of that tendency is the idea of the Virgin Mary as the "Immaculate Conception"--meaning she was the only person other than Jesus who was born without original sin. And of course her chief qualification for being Jesus's mother is her virginity, which implies that any sort of sex is a form of sinfulness. Jeffrey S.

Langdell was an important influence on the modern law school--in a sense he made it--but he's not responsible for the importance of case law in legal education. Identifying what the law is by using previously decided cases goes back to late medieval times; and most of the basic law of contracts and torts derives not from legislation but from case law--and if the legislation exists very often it's a restatement of currently accepted case law. More often than not, legislation was a means to correct or modify law as decided by the courts up through the early twentieth century. But if you want to blame someone for "case law", blame Bracton, who goes back to the 14th century, IIRC (my references are on another floor of the house). In fact, one might argue that the idea of statutes being more important than case law and precedents is a nontraditional, "progressive" idea. Nor is the use of cases to modify the Constitution strictly speaking a progressive idea; it started with John Marshall--who was a backer of centralized government and the power of the state, so one might consider him a forerunner of the Progressives. Moreover, to implement the Progressive agenda, it was often necessary to overrule prior precedents. See the history of the "Due Process" clause for the most important examples of this. The contribution of the Progressives was simply this: the idea that the Constitution is a flexible thing, and its application can change over time as circumstances change, and that the court is not obliged to accept the legislation passed by the legislature as a final statement of the legal situation (until of course the legislature passed newer laws overruling or changing the previous laws), but can impose its own view on the statutes as written by the legislature. IOW, the Progressives viewed the courts as an especially powerful form of legislature. Jeffrey S.

And not merely in Russia. There were also the Jewish quotas used by American universities and the "no Hebrews" policies of a number of hotels and other places in the last quarter of the 19th century through the 1930s. There's at least one well known film on the topic (Gentleman's Agreement). One major hospital here in Miami was started by a group of Jewish doctors because no existing hospital would allow Jews staff privileges--and that was, I believe in the 1940s or even '50s. Rand's family was, being middle class, exactly of the type which was most impacted by the Czarist quotas; even to live in St. Petersburg required circumventing or complying with residency restrictions, since it was outside the "Pale of Settlement". I remember when Bakke was being considered, the president of our synagogue got up and made a speech--which itself was fairly unusual--against affirmative action, and his main point was that Jews should oppose it because of their own history of being restricted by quotas.

Perhaps they were sufficiently delusional, or perhaps they have imbibed the Nazi teachings enough, to think that the villians were the heros? Jeffrey S.

On nicknames--the political correctness lies in the idea that nicknames must be politically incorrect. But that people choose nicknames for themselves to protect an image of themselves, or just because they don't like their own formal name, doesn' seem to have entered the PC-fanatic brain. My problem with the professor's request seems to be in line with yours: I'm not completely at ease with the preference for informality I wouldn't want to call him William or Billy or Bill; he's not my friend. I'd want to call him Dr. Whatever his last name is. Or sir. I never called a professor of mine by their first name that I can recall, even the ones I was very friendly with. Of course, at the time I was just barely an adult and they all were at least in their 30s, several of them much older. How I would do it now, I don't know. With colleagues, I am usually on a first name basis, because they call me by my first name. On how children learn--psychologists say that children learn to think as they grow older; analyzing and use of logic in an adult fashion just doesn't happen until mid or late-adolescence for most kids, which accounts for much of the melodrama of the teenage years--your typical 16 year old is not only learning to deal with adult problems like romance and getting a job; he or she is literally learning how to think at a full mature level. Up to that point he or she has not been learning the way an adult learns. (I have forgotten many of the details over the years since I studied this, but if you are curious, check out books on childhood psychology and childhood education). Jeffrey S.

Jerry-- Did they bring in the Elders of Zion? After all, Rand was Jewish by birth. And that's it! Frank of course was her contact with the Masons, and his visits to the neighborhood bar were simply a pretense; he was actually reporting to the Lodge Masters and receiving the next set of instructions on what needed to go into the novel. (I won't be viewing that Youtube, at least tonight. If I want to watch someone talking an immense pile of rubbish, I'd watch the State of the Union. Jeffrey S.

I think that the anarchist/anarcho-capitalist claims fail on one essential point. They seem to think that if you don't have a formal institutionalized system that calls itself government, you don't have a government. I think that even with a system of multiple individual defense agencies, arbitrators, etc. you would have government--it would operate informally, and would consist of all those agencies, arbitrators, etc. The purpose of government is protect individuals from aggression and coercion. Whatever does that in the society you set up would be the government, regardless of the formalities. And that leaves aside the assumption that free market competition would be in and of itself the only thing needed to keep those private agencies honest, which ignores the problem of 'who guards the guards?' If you want to defend against aggression, you have to make sure that your defenders decide to do some aggression against you. Jeffrey S. PS--Biblical Israel before the Monarchical period was not a capitalist anarchy; it was ruled by a system of tribal elders, prophets and priests and the Judges of the Bible, who once they were recognized as "Judges" tended to hold a position of authority for the rest of their lives.

I think overall it's a counterproductive idea, simply another way for the mourner to obsess over the dead. The entire goal of a successful mourning period (if you can apply that adjective to mourning) is allow the mourner to accept the fact that the dead person is dead, but that the mourner is not--that the mourner has a life still to live, and while carrying on a project the dead person was involved with, or working to forward their goals is acceptable, focusing on the "dear departed" is not. If you are thinking of a one time farewall from the deceased to his/her family and friends, that would merely be continuing with the tradition of ethical wills--see here if you aren't familiar with them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_will And I don't see anything especially troubling about closed casket funerals; no doubt that's because being Jewish, I'm from a tradition in which closed caskets are the norm (if caskets are used in the first place; in Israel, they are not, the deceased being simply buried in a shroud).

You will see him make unkeepable promises and make desperate proposals You can say that about almost every State of the Union address, at least since I've been watching them, which started somewhere in the Bush, Sr. era. But I won't be watching it. Do something I enjoy instead, like listening to music. Or something I need to do, like housework. But I don't think Obama will jump the shark tomorrow night, for the simple reason that he jumped it on 20 January 2009. Jeffrey S.

And it's all coming to my backyard (or almost--about five miles away) for the next fortnight. This morning's paper had an article saying we should root for the Jets and the Vikings today because more of their fans would come and more of them would spend more money than folks from Indianapolis and New Orleans.... Yeah, look how that turned out. The stadium name was changed just in time for the hoopla in honor of an insurance company (I think). I wish they had kept the name they used this season--Landshark Stadium. The name was a marketing ploy by Jimmy Buffet's brand of lager. Jeffrey S.

No it's not, I never said that Shariah nor Islam needs reformation I said that Muslims do. Their understanding of Islam has been perverted. There's a huge difference. They have strayed from the original teachings and gone to extremes. Islam doesn't accept child marriages. Again I'm not talking about the Arabs and Muslims I'm talking about Islam. Adonis, that's the same as saying that Islam needs reformation. Your call that the common understanding of Islam has been perverted and Muslims need to return to the pure form practiced by the original generation of Muslims follows the common pattern of reformers: return to an idealized primitive state (primitive meaning not unsophisticated but meaning native or original state). Perhaps the difference is that apparently you mean an ideal form of Islam by the term "Islam" whereas I mean the stuff that those billions of people who call themselves Muslims do. Jeffrey S.

2 AM EST equals 11 PM PST. I wouldn't doubt that a good many Left Coasters find him more interesting than Leno, Conan, or Letterman. And there's always Tivo/DVR. But Moroni forbid he should ever fall to the level of being a Michael Moore! Jeffrey S.

Yes, I've heard of them. Their ideas are outrageously silly. Their view of Islam is tainted by the bad examples of Muslims mixed in with some silly right wing evangelist Christian propaganda and that's quite clear by their points. I wonder how many of them are actually calling themselves Muslim in their day to day life? Islam doesn't need reformation, it's Muslims who do so that they can stop acting so barbaric and get in line with the actual meaning of the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. There's also nothing in Islam that says it's okay to have sex with children or animals. What a silly statement. On the contrary, Islam (or at least Shariah) is in need of reformation. You believe it needs reforming--but, like many reformers (Luther comes to mind) you are arguing that Islam has fallen from a pristine state and needs to return to that pristine state--what you call the "actual meaning of the Qur'an and Sunnah". I suggest that your views are not very different from these people--except that your views are shaped by actually being a Muslim, and their views may not be. You want to change it from within; they want to change it from without. As for the sex with children--that's child marriage, which is still acceptable in many if not most Muslim societies, and was acceptable in Christian society until 1700 CE or so. Although I never heard anyone claim before that Islam condoned bestiality.

1) Is that David Horowitz the anti-jihadi writer? 2) I find it odd that out of 22 signers, all but six seem to have non-Islamic names. ("Shem Tov Z." is a Jewish name, and Grisha is probably Russian.) They may be all converts to Islam (Adonis, after all, has seen no need to stop using his name, even though it is that of a Greek demigod), but if so, the very fact that so many are converts and so few born Muslims suggests this organization are nowhere in the mainstream of Islamic culture. Jeffrey S.

I'm beginning to think that Xray's kindergarten students bicker less among themselves than Objectivists do. Jeffrey S. (and that goes for the lot of you!)

Shipping Atlas Shrugged! Must get off the floor when I stop laughing. Jeffrey S.

Logic? In Middle Eastern affairs? You can't be serious! I don't think Adonis is quite that detached from reality to make that argument--but his argument does depend on ignoring both Jewish presence in the Holy Land before 1948 (and, more importantly, before 1900) and Arab violence before 1948. In his view, the Jews of Israel imposed themselves militarily with the support of Europe and America on the Palestinians during the mid-20th century CE, and expropriated Arab lands by force and without any provocation, and that this nullifies any possible base for Israel's existence as an independent state. The facts that the military force was initially used in self defense against Arab violence, that all Jewish owned and occupied land in 1947-48 was legally owned and occupied without the use of force, and that a Jewish presence, albeit small, has always been there in the Holy Land, even after the wars of Vespasian and Hadrian, in the aftermath of which wars the Romans tried to completely uproot the Jewish community in Israel--these apparently have no relevance in his view, as well as the probable fact that the Palestinians undoubtedly must have a large number of ancestors who were members of the Jewish community in Palestine but converted or assimilated to the culture and society of the pagan/Christian/Muslim overlords, and remained in the Holy Land when most other Jews were exiled or enslaved by those overlords (particularly the Roman ones). And you will notice that I'm limiting myself to the period before 1948 because starting with 1948 Israel did expropriate Arab lands. But not before 1948, which means that issue has no bearing on the right of the Jewish community to declare itself as an independent nation . Of course, since Nazareth and Bethlehem are now predominantly Arab towns, maybe Adonis actually thinks there was little or no Jewish presence back then. Jeffrey S.

Oh no, if someone wants to say that the UN acceptance of Israel through the partition plan justifies Israel's creation, then he can't be selective with what he accepts and doesn't accept from the UN. If the Israeli's considered the UN had any legitimacy, they'd withdraw to pre-1967 borders like they've been told to in several resolutions passed since then and provide a proper resolution for refugees. But instead the Israeli's just use it as an excuse for existence and then completely disregard anything it says.. Kind of like a teenager that disrespects their parents and is hostile.. Except this teenager expresses hostility through bombing UN buildings in Lebanon and Gaza with cluster bombs and white phosphorous weapons which is against international law.. Adonis-- Israel does not justify its existence on the UN. And may I remind you that the whole Arab Israeli war started because the Arab side in 1947-48 refused to accept the UN's proposed solution? Israel justifies its existence on the fact that Jews are there. Have been there, always. Living peacefully and without aggression against others except when others, like the Seleucids and the Romans and the Crusaders in former times, refuse to let them. In fact, the same basic justification the Palestinians give. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong: anyone who says that Jews came to the Holy Land in modern times is wrong. Either they are ignorant of history or they are willfully lying. The UN for many years has been decidely hostile to Israel, and any statements by it, UNICEF, and UNWRA have no more value as evidence in the Arab Israeli conflict than any statement issued by Hamas or Fatah, and there have been several instances in which UN facilities were used to attack Israeli military and civilians (not necessarily with UN permission, of course, but some incidents suggest the local UN staff didn't mind much). Jeffrey S.

For a nearby day trip, try Stresa with the Borromonean Isles. Puccini had a villa somewhere near Como, which may or may not be now open to the public. In Milan itself, go to the Coin* department store next to the cathedral. Hopefully the cafe there is in the same location as it was when I visited there in early 90s, because the highlight of the cafe is not the food (although I never had a meal in Italy I didn't like) but the close up view of the cathedral roof. Then cross the square in front of the cathedral and stroll through the Galleria, which is a monument of 19th century architecture. If you schedule allows, spend three or four days each on side trips to Florence and Venice, squeezing in Pisa, Chianti country, Verona and Ravenna on the way if possible. If you do go to Venice, make sure you stay in the city itself--on the Lido only if absolutely nothing is available in the "centro storico", and don't bother with Mestre. The prices for food and lodging in the city may seem rather high, but the experience is well worth it. Read as many guidebooks as you can before you go; much of the info will be repeated but each one will have its own emphasis; that way you will know what you actually want to see far enough in advance to plan accordingly. *Coin has nothing to do with money in this instance: it's the Italian transliteration of Cohen (or so we were told). Jeffrey S. Edit, 8:36 PM EST: I'll try to add these pictures I took in Milan. Picture quality is not great--this is a scan made on a cheap scanner, of a photo taken on a cheap 35mm point and shoot camera back in 1993. One picture is the interiorof the Galleria, and the other is the roof of the cathedral as seen from the Coin store cafe.

By the irony of the gods, I received a fundraising letter for the Democrat's senatorial campaign organization, sent out under Bill Clinton's name. As evidence of efficiency, it was not too inspiring--the "letter" was dated back in December. It went into the circular file immediately, along with the magnetic decal exhorting me to stop GOP lies. Hmm, I suppose Clinton would know a thing or two about lies... My perfect record of never contributing to political campaigns is not going to be threatened by either of the Duopoly in the foreseeable future. Jeffrey S.