In the War on Terror, the Department of Homeland Security studies threats to the United States and determines which targets are most likely to be hit, which are the easiest or hardest for terrorists to hit, what the casualty counts might be, etc.  Think CTU on "24".

While Americans can work up a pretty good sweat regarding traitors to Jack Bauer, will anyone get upset at ABC News for releasing an "Official Use Only" threat assessment produced by DHS?  Here is the footnote on the cover page.

(U) Warning: This document is UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (U//FOUO). It contains information that may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552). It is to be controlled, stored, handled, transmitted, distributed, and disposed of in accordance with DHS policy relating to FOUO information and is not to be released to the public, the media, or other personnel who do not have a valid “need-to-know” without prior approval of an authorized DHS official.

In it's excitement to prove that the DHS is screwing New York and Washington by cutting their anti-terror grants, ABC News "obtained" and published a recent detailed report on the terrorist threat to the U.S. rails system. 

There really isn't a need to tap American's phones to find out who's giving info to al-Qaeda.  ABC News is publishing helpful hints for all the world to see.

The ABC report also mentions that, "New York's rail terminals and commuter rail lines are at the top of the terrorist hit list, according to a Department of Homeland Security strategic report".

First of all this is misleading because the report that was leaked to them was only concerned with the U.S. rail system, commerical and public.  It did not concern itself with other threats (to air traffic, nuclear power plants, ports, etc.) so there is no way to know if the targets mentioned are at "the top of the terorirst hit list".  What about schools or malls?  Secondly, it actually says that it would be more likely that an attack would occur on a train traveling between cities (which are generally not traditional commuter lines like the LIRR or Metro-North), and not in the rail terminals themselves.

Feh.

Jewish Heritage Day: As part of Jewish Heritage Day, the Marlins this afternoon will give away Mike Jacobs T shirts — even though they wrongly assumed that Jacobs is Jewish.

"They said it wasn't done intentionally but I don't know about that,'' Jacobs said. "It's a big joke around here.''
Click the little promotion star in the Marlin's schedule for May 28 to see that this was not a joke.

For  a few days now, I've been reading up on these violent protests in Iran, but I never really bothered to check if the MSM were really ignoring the story or not.  (You would think that any kind of upheaval in Iran where people die would be news).  Turns out the NY Times is indeed half-heartedly covering the story.  Apparently, some of the riots started when an Iranian newspaper published a cartoon or a cockroach speaking Azeri.  This pissed off parts of the Azeri community which apparently make up 25% of Iran's population.

Since the Times didn't publish an image of the offending cartoon, I figured I'd try to google the image.  I put in the words "Azeri" and "cockroach" in the search bar.  What was my result?

"Did you mean 'American cockroach'"?

Boy, somebody out there doesn't think much of us....

A CNN reporter remembers the marines serving around Haditha as being unusually restrained and cool under fire.

A New Yorker essay on Oriana Fallaci.  Muslim hater or prophet? (Have to read this later)

Subway opens a kosher store in the JCC of Cleveland.

Look out for the spawn of Satan, coming to a maternity ward near you on 6/6/06.  Some moms are inducing early.  My second daughter was born by a scheduled C-section on September 19, 2003.  I almost wanted to have my wife do it on September 11 as a sign of re-birth and hope, but figured that it would really make a terrible birthday.  Turns out that she was born about 8:50AM right about the time of the attacks, so that was a good enough connection for me.

This "fake town" is a short bicycle ride from my house.  We go there (without the kids) for a movie or the occasional nice lunch/dinner.  It is indeed a Disnified version of urban America - great place to spend a few hours - very pricey stores - not necessarily where I'd want to live.  Maybe if I were single.

I think I'll have a little dessert after lunch today. 

Making Texas Cows Proud

"Blue Bell ice cream, to be specific, which is made in out-of-the-way Brenham and which many people consider the best in the country. So many people think so that Blue Bell, though sold in only 16 states, mostly in the South, and sold for a premium price, ranks No. 3 in sales nationally....."



*drool* 

Damn, it's only 7:30 in the morning.

*drool*

Quit it!

*drool*

Hey, people can write whatever they want, but I'm having a little trouble understanding the motivations of this particular novelist....

When the author switched the protagonist's politics to Nazism, he explained, it was because he "thought he had something to say from the standpoint of a Gestapo officer."

He went on: "I think I felt I could understand the animosity and hatred which a German would have for the Jews. Nobody's trying to see it from that point of view. I guess I have stuck my neck out here in a number of ways, but that's what writers are for, maybe."

He laughed and added: "I sometimes think, 'Why did I do this?' I'm delving into what can be a very sore subject for some people. But when those shadows would cross my mind, I'd say, 'They can't ask for a more sympathetic and, in a way, more loving portrait of a Nazi.' "

Hans is lovable, or at least appealing; he's in many ways the most moral and thoughtful character in the entire book......

-------------------------------------------------------------

Now read the real story about John Updike's newest novel, "Terrorist" as reported in the NY Times.

When Mr. Updike switched the protagonist's religion to Islam, he explained, it was because he "thought he had something to say from the standpoint of a terrorist."

He went on: "I think I felt I could understand the animosity and hatred which an Islamic believer would have for our system. Nobody's trying to see it from that point of view. I guess I have stuck my neck out here in a number of ways, but that's what writers are for, maybe."

He laughed and added: "I sometimes think, 'Why did I do this?' I'm delving into what can be a very sore subject for some people. But when those shadows would cross my mind, I'd say, 'They can't ask for a more sympathetic and, in a way, more loving portrait of a terrorist.' "

Ahmad is lovable, or at least appealing; he's in many ways the most moral and thoughtful character in the entire book......

The Jewish holiday of Shavuos begins Thursday evening, June 1.   There are a number of places in the Torah where we are commanded to celebrate this holiday. Including:

Deuteronomy 16:9 You shall count seven weeks for yourself; from[the time] the sickle is first put to the standing crop, you shall begin to count seven weeks.
10 And you shall perform the Festival of Weeks to the Lord, your God, the donation you can afford to give, according to how the Lord, your God, shall bless you.
11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, -you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is within your cities, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are among you, in the place which the Lord, your God, will choose to establish His Name therein.

12 And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall keep and perform these statutes.


Shavuot is the culmination of the counting of the 49 days of the Omer. These are the number of days between Passover and Shavuos.  It marks the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. The Ten Commandments are read in synagogues on Shavuot just as they were in the desert on Mt. Sinai over 3,300 years ago.


More at the usual sites:

Chabad
Aish.com
Judaism 101
Jewish Virtual Library
OU.org


Note of interest - since Shavuot occurs 50 days after Passover, Christians gave it the name Pentecost. However, the actual Christian commemoration of Pentecost occurs on the seventh Sunday after Easter.

The Ontario wing of Canada's largest union has voted to join an international boycott campaign against Israel "until that state recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination."

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And in Toronto today...A walk along the lakefront to raise funds and celebrate Israel’s accomplishments turned nasty and police carted away marchers and protesters after the two groups clashed. About 30 protesters wearing black stood defiantly against the annual Walk With Israel fundraiser. The group’s spokesman, Abbie Bakan of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), questioned what is being celebrated by the United Jewish Appeal Federation’s event.

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The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, Britain's biggest union of college teachers, is to vote Monday on a resolution enjoining its 67,000 members to boycott Israeli colleagues who do not distance themselves from what it calls Israel's "apartheid policies."

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French police opened an investigation Monday after suspected members of an extremist group marched through a Jewish quarter in central Paris shouting anti-Semitic slogans over the weekend. Shoppers in the historic Marais neighbourhood, one of the busiest districts in the Jewish area of Paris, were left in shock early Sunday evening after a group of extremists terrorized community members with anti-Semitic verbal abuse.

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In Jerusalem, a 14-year-old Jewish boy was lightly injured in the back in a stabbing attack, police said Saturday.

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President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said that Germans should no longer allow themselves to be held prisoner by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust and reiterated doubts that the Holocaust ever happened. In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Ahmadinejad said he doubted that Germans were allowed to write "the truth" about the Holocaust and that he was still considering traveling to Germany for the World Cup soccer tournament.....Iran's first World Cup match is against Mexico in Nuremberg (ed. - of all places!) on June 11, and German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said Iran's president would be welcome to come because Germany wants to be a good host.

Genesis - Chapter 9

15. And I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and between you and between every living creature among all flesh, and the water will no longer become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16. And the rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will see it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and between every living creature among all flesh, which is on the earth."

17. And God said to Noah: "This is the sign of the covenant that I have set up, between Myself and between all flesh that is on the earth."

First, a thank you to Pope Benedict XVI for visiting Auschwitz.  It means a lot more to me than when Oprah visits. (OK, I would like to find a torrent of the show somewhere.)



Here's the report of the German-born Pope's arrival at a mass given for 900,000 people.

Benedict made a triumphant entrance in his popemobile, riding through a sea of flags — red and white for Poland, yellow and white for the Vatican — with the choir singing the refrain, “Poland welcomes you, Poland thanks you.”

Well, one thing's for sure, it's better being the Pope than the Chief Rabbi.

Poland's chief rabbi, (American-born) Michael Schudrich, was attacked in a central Warsaw street on Saturday in what the Interior Ministry said was probably a provocation meant to portray Poland as an anti-Semitic country.

"While I was walking in Warsaw, someone yelled 'Poland is for Poles'...I went back and asked him why he said that and then he hit me and sprayed me with something like pepper gas."

Is there a word in Polish for "ironic"?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a related note, I recently finished "The Wall" by John Hersey, the author of Hiroshima who wrote most of his best work in the 1940s and 1950s.  It's a fictional story based on the true account of a solitary Jewish man who lived in the Warsaw ghetto and kept an archive of everything that happened to him and his acquaintences throughout the deportations, uprising and ultimate liquidation of the ghetto.  There are love stories, births, deaths (of course) and the day-to-day moral issues of what happens to people who know that their every action, even facial expressions, can result in life or death.  Even though this is "just" a work of fiction, I am amazed that I'm only discovering it now as I think it can add so much to everyone's understanding of what it must have been like to be Jewish in Poland during WWII.  I highly recommend it to anyone.

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke this morning to a Joint Session of Congress.

Strength, without courage, will only lead to brutality. Courage, without strength, will only lead to futility. Only genuine courage and commitment to our values, backed by the will and the power to defend them, will lead us forward in the service of humanity.

To the Congress of the United States and to the great people of America, I wish to say 'Chazak Ve'ematz' be strong and of good courage, and we, and all peoples who cherish freedom, will be with you.

The Bible tells us that as Joshua stood on the verge of the Promised Land, he was given one exhortation: 'Chazak Ve'ematz' 'Be strong and of good courage".

Strength, without courage, will only lead to brutality. That is represented by Abu Ghraib.

Courage, without strength, will only lead to futility. That is represented in the article "Only Cowards Think We're At War" which appeared recently at the Huffington Post.

I've been listening to NPR a liitle more, just to listen to something other than the Bush-bashing and whining you hear all the time on conservative talk shows.  Seriously.  (If you don't think Bush is ever criticized on talk radio, you really haven't been paying attention lately, especially since all of the immigration fuss started).

I've actually thought most of the news coverage I've heard was relatively fair, or at least not way off the mark.   Then I heard an opinion piece by Deborah Mathis, a syndicated columnist and professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University regarding her thoughts on black Republicans. 

"If (Republicans) Steele, Swann, and Blackwell only look black and don't remember black...well, you might as well Al Jolson."

I'm white and I don't remember the last time I was more offended by something I heard on the radio.  I'm trying to think of a paralell to what a fellow Jew might call me becuase of my conservative beliefs, but I can't think of a similar insult.  Audio here.

Now I know I'm mixing a little bit of apples and oranges here, but remember when there was a big uprorar not too long ago (by Bush critics mostly) when NASA scientist James Hansen was being harassed into not giving speeches that contravened Bush policy? After all , who would be for stifling dissenting opinions in the search for truth?

The ACLU might be an example.

ACLU May Block Criticism by Its Board.

"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.

"Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising," the proposals state.

Via Israellycool, the video of Israel's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, sung by Eddie Butler.

More here:  Black Hebrew Eddie Butler to represent Israel at Eurovision Song Contest.

In other Israel-related news - looks like the IDF caught a big fish.  The BBC is unclear on why the Israelis would still go after someone whose group hasn't sent any suicide bombers into Israel for the last 15 months.  Does that mean we should have stopped looking for bin Laden years ago?

U.S. President George W. Bush has alienated Muslims around the world by using absolutist Christian rhetoric to discuss foreign policy issues, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says.

I'm not sure what "absolutist" Christian rhetoric means, but I'm not sure that President Bush is using it. Would absolutist rhetoric include statements like these...

When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that's made brothers and sisters out of every race -- out of every race. - September 17, 2001

Islam is a peace-loving faith that is practiced by more than one billion people, including millions of American Muslims. These proud citizens contribute to the diversity that makes our country strong, and the United States is grateful for the friendship and support of many Muslim Nations that are vital partners in the global coalition to fight against terrorism. - November 5, 2002.

"Americans hold a deep respect for the Islamic faith, which is professed by a growing number of my own citizens," Bush said. "We know that Islam is fully compatible with liberty and tolerance and progress... - October 22, 2003

I could go on of course. And it's not hard to find those voices who think Bush and others have all bent over a little too far to be nice. I find it hard to see how the consistent, positive promotion of Islam translates into "absolutist Christian rhetoric". But maybe it's becuase he keeps saying that God is on our side? Let's put aside the fact that leaders of every religion say that in times of crisis, making it HUMAN rhetoric as opposed to Christian rhetoric. Now let's see some of that "God is with us and only us" talk.

We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. - State of the Union 2005

So becuase Bush mentions God often, he is accused of being a Crusader even when he specifically says that we cannot know what God ultimately wants and that our victory is not by any means inevitable!

The real issue here is that Jews and Christians in the U.S. (read - liberals) don't like Bush's mention of God because they either don't believe in God or more often believe that God would not want us to follow the path that the Bush administration has taken. For those that do believe in God, do they NOT believe that God moves and chooses as He wills? Of course they do.

Finally as for Albright's ridiculous claim that, "I worked for two presidents who were men of faith, and they did not make their religious views part of American policy," she said, referring to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both Democrats and Christians.", I would like to quote President Carter himself.

"You can't divorce religious belief and public service ...
I've never detected any conflict between God's will
and my political duty. If you violate one,
you violate the other."

Just wanted to pass on a comment I heard on talk radio this morning.  Laura Ingraham (who I do find kind of screechy and Ann Coulter-ish) was playing a clip of Judge Judy who was ripping into some guy for not wanting to pay child support to his ex-wife or something like that.  Anyway, Judge Judy said something like, "it is the children's right to have the financial support of both parents".

I never thought about it that way - I always thought of child support as being the right of the guardian parent (even if the law proscribes that the money is spent on the children's needs).

If the law doesn't read that way, it probably should.

Nice article in the Charleston Post & Courier (of all place) about Radio Jai in Argentina (pronounced Chai with the guttural "ch" which means "life" in Hebrew) .

Buenos Aires' Radio Jai lone voice for Jews

I actually listen to the Coffee Break program (yes it has an English name!) every once in a while over the internet at work. Not too long ago I sent them an e-mail during their show and they responded and talked about it (all in Spanish, of course). They then thanked their "new listener" from Texas!

It's amazing that there is no 24 hour radio station with a Jewish focus in the U.S. Are guess we're all just too divided amongst ourselves to come up with a format.

The Dixie Chicks: America Catches Up With Them

In a three page web-article on the Dixie Chicks, the NY Times tries to make the claim that most Americans are now embarrassed that George Bush is President of the U.S. Or that it's a good idea to criticize the choice of the fellow citizens to an overseas audience as we're about to go to war.

The album arrives at a time when approval for President Bush has dropped to as low as 29 percent, in a recent Harris Interactive poll.

There's no doubt that the President is extremely unpopular now as the article points out by using the lowest poll number it can find. But unpopular is different than embarrassed. And it's not like most other Presidents haven't had their moments in the doghouse.

On Amazon.com, preorders recently placed "Taking the Long Way" at No. 5 in a Top 10 that also includes albums with antiwar songs by Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Pearl Jam.

Since when does the Amazon.com better reflect overall record sales than Billboard? Only one of the albums mentioned by the Times is actually in the top 10 (Pearl Jam) and that probably has more to do with the fact that a great band has come out with a new album after a long absence than becuase of it's anti-war stand. Besides, why would anyone think that the top selling albums represent "Americans" in any way shape or form? 50 Cent anyone? Nick Lachey?

Natlaie Maines sings as "I'm Mad As Hell" in the single that plays as you open the Chicks' website. Because a liberal's righteous anger is the only anger that is valid. She still doesn't get the fact that when she said she was embarrassed that Bush was Presdient she wasn't just insulting the man, she was insulting the intelligence of everyone that voted for him. I guess we all see the light now. After all, who doesn't like Bruce Springsteen and Neil Simon?

I really enjoyed Larry Derfner's piece in the Jerusalem Post, which was a response to Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua who said...

[Being] Israeli is my skin, not my jacket. You are changing jackets... you are changing countries like changing jackets. I have my skin, the territory," the author told the audience, adding that Israeli Jews live a Jewish life in a totality that the American Jews do not know.

...or in other words, you can't be as good a Jew in America as you can in Israel.

Derfner: Who's living an incomplete Jewish life?

For serious, honest-to-God religious Jews in the Diaspora - people whose days revolve around Jewish law, prayer, mitzvot and usually religious study as well - Judaism isn't in the outer shell of their lives, it's in the core. It suffuses their personal life, and usually their communal life as well. Imagine the Jewish Diaspora without the State of Israel. Then imagine a 100% secular State of Israel in a whole world without any practicing, believing Jews. Obviously I wouldn't want to choose either one, but if I had to, as an atheist Israeli but also a Jew, I'd choose the former.

Yes, their lives would be more Jewish, completely Jewish, if they lived in Israel. But the lives of us secular Israeli Jews would be so much more Jewish, completely Jewish, if we were religious.....

I, being neither Orthodox nor Israeli have a long way to go. The majority of Jews in the U.S. obviously don't think you need to be either to be a good, or "complete Jew". I disagree, but that's a topic to write a book about or to fill future hours on a psychiatrist's couch when I have some time to kill.

This is just really, really bad.

Murtha: Iraqis were killed 'in cold blood'

WASHINGTON, May 17 (UPI) -- A Pentagon investigation will show that U.S. Marines killed 15 civilians in Iraq "in cold blood" a U.S. congressman said in Washington.

Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., confirmed Wednesday that Iraqis in Haditha said Marines killed the unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children, NBC News reported. Military officials told NBC the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to confirm Murtha's statement.

A Marine spokesman issued a statement in November saying a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine, but U.S. military officials later retracted that account.

Murtha said military sources have told him the Pentagon investigation will show the troops "overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Three officers in a California-based Marine battalion involved in the incident were relieved of command. A spokesman for the 1st Marine Division said the officers were removed "due to lack of confidence in their leadership abilities stemming from their performance during a recent deployment to Iraq," the Marine Corps Times reported last month.

I so want to believe that this is all a big misunderstanding.

If it's true, it's awful and the full measure of the law should be brought to bear against those directly responsible. That does not include Rumsfeld or Bush although the Left will protray it that way.

Also, I hope that those on the Right who try to put this event into perspective and our soldiers (99.99% of who have followed the letter of the law) are not all called baby-killers.

Of course if Murtha has leaked the story incorrectly, he should resign immediately. In fact even if the report turns out to be inconclusive, Murtha should resign.

Should this affect our decision whether to stay in Iraq if it is true? Of course not. To me logic says that one illegal action, no matter how heinous, should undo an entire operation involving hundreds of thousands of people which will effect tens of millions. If such was the case, major urban police departments would have been taken off the streets long ago.

I pray that this didn't happen as the news is reporting - for all of our sakes.

Man does Glenn Reynolds hit the nail on the head with this one.  He looks at the "industrial societies are having fewer children" story and takes it one step further.

The Parent Trap (excerpts below)

We've taken a lot of the fun out of parenting. Or to echo Longman, the "social costs" of parenting continue to rise, and, more significantly, perhaps, the "social returns" continue to decline...

You're responsible for your kids in ways previous generations weren't, but your ability to discipline them is much reduced, and as my wife (a forensic psychologist) notes, the bad kids know that they can cow most adults by threatening to call 911 and make a bogus abuse charge. And forget disciplining your child, even with a harsh word, in a public place: At the very least, if you do you'll be looked on not as a virtuous parent helping to preserve the social fabric, but as that worst of all sinners in contemporary American culture: a meanie....

My mother reports that when she was a newlywed (she was married in 1959) you weren't seen as fully a member of the adult world until you had kids. Nowadays to have kids means something closer to an expulsion from the adult world. People in the suburbs buy SUVs instead of minivans not because they need the four-wheel-drive capabilities, but because the SUVs lack the minivan's close association with low-prestige activities like parenting, and instead provide the aura of high-prestige activities like whitewater kayaking. Why should kayaking be more prestigious than parenting? Because parenting isn't prestigious in our society. If it were, childless people would drive minivans just to partake of the aura.

Of course I don't agree with everything - I don't think the elderly of past generations all had comfy retirements because of the number of children they had - but all in all an excellent piece.

Jimmy "I never have anything bad to say about the Palestinians" Carter has an op-ed piece on Israel in USA Today. Need I say more?

Israel's new plan: A land grab

The barrier is not located on the internationally recognized boundary between Israel and Palestine....

I didn't realize there was a country called Palestine - who exactly has recognized this imaginary country's borders?

Only about twice the size of Washington, D.C., Gaza is now a politically and economically non-viable region, almost completely isolated from the West Bank, Israel and the outside world.

Only half the size of Gaza, Washington D.C. is now a politically and economically non-viable region, almost completely isolated from Maryland, Virginia and the outside world. - OK, I just threw that in for laughs :-)

It would be a mistake to underestimate the difficulty of finding a mutually acceptable agreement, but many Israelis, Palestinians and international representatives are familiar with what must be its ultimate basic terms. They include reasonable border compromises based on the swapping of land, which could leave a substantial number of Israeli settlers undisturbed on Palestinian land.

I know that Israel was willing to swap land when Arafat rejected their proposals in the past. I wasn't aware that any Palestinians were open to that. Besides, as Carter mentions himself...

"..The recently elected Hamas legislators will neither recognize nor negotiate with Israel while Palestinian land is being occupied."

So if I follow the logic "many Palestinians" know what must be done for peace yet the majority elected Hamas. Sorry Jimmy, peace isn't made with "many people", it is made with governments. "Many Palestinians" are straw men if I ever saw some.

A mutual Israeli-Palestinian agreement would undoubtedly result in full recognition of Israel by all Arab nations, with normal diplomatic and economic relations, and permanent peace and justice for the Palestinians.

Right - and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed the United States from a legacy of hate and discrimination and ensured the eternal equality of African-Americans. Oh puh-leeze.

Now, if the Washington Post can get a Pulitzer Prize for reporting secret government programs that no one can confirm, why not give one to USA Today for their error-prone reporting about the NSA's secret tracking of all our phone calls.

BellSouth Says It Gave NSA No Call Records

ATLANTA (AP) - BellSouth Corp. said Monday its "thorough review" found no indication it gave telephone records to the National Security Agency as part of a federal anti-terrorism surveillance program.....

"Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA," the Atlanta-based regional Bell said in a statement.

BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said the company's investigation found "no contract with the NSA and we are confident that we have turned over no phone records."Last week, Battcher said the company had "not provided any information we would need a subpoena for." On Monday night, Battcher said "we cannot find anyone within BellSouth who has ever been approached by the NSA."

I am about to write an article about the secret government plan to collect information on everyone's earnings and then force them to pay a large percentage under threat of jailtime or seizure of assets! I'm going to call it - The Federal Tax Code: a Bill of No Rights. Where's my Pulitzer?

Comedian Judson Laipply spends seven minutes showing us famous dance moves of the last 50 years. It's helpful if you have a working knowledge of some of the more popular music videos since MTV's been on the air. An explanation of the act can't do it justice. Via GVOD. Enjoy.

Imagine you're only married two weeks. Four days ago you moved into a new apartment with your husband. Around lunchtime, your husband invites you to lunch but you say no thanks, you're busy and not really hungry. Not too long afterwards your husband goes into a small restaurant, maybe somewhere he wouldn't have gone if he wasn't eating alone...and is mortally woudned by a suicide bomber.

Please say a prayer for Maya Anidzar and her husband Lior.



P.S. Lior's sister is six months pregnant and is planning to name the child after his uncle, may he rest in peace. A rare thank you goes out to the New York Times.

I thought I had my TV habits under control, just watching 2 hours a week religiously - 24 and The Sopranos.

Just out of curiosity, I started recording a show on TLC called Shalom in the Home. It's hosted by modern orthodox Rabbi Shmuley Boteach who I formerly thought of as kind of a quack, rabbi to the stars (including Michael Jackson.)

Shalom in the Home is a reality show where families who are having significant problems (kids, remarriage, finances, etc.) call in Shmuley who works with the family in question for a week after having recorded their homelife to figure out what's going wrong. The Rabbi uses counseling sessions in his Airstream mobile home and group activities to try to bring the families back together. The thing that gets us is that the families are very real - these are not freaks or white trash. And the families are not all Jewish - in fact a recent episode had an adopted Jew who converted to Islam to marry his Turkish wife.

Shmuley has some beautiful words of wisdom that he doles out in the counseling sessions and in the breaks that really hit home. There's a list of "Shmuleyisms" on the show's website.

The greatest gift that a man can give his children is to love their mother. Conversely, the greatest gift that a mother can give her children is to love their father.

The man who has a woman who believes in him is impregnable and invincible. Nothing in life can hurt him because he has peace at this center.

A parent’s bedroom is not a family sitting room or family dormitory. Children should never sleep in their parents’ bedroom. If you need to hire a security guard to make your bedroom into Fort Knox, that is still better than allowing your role as parent to conflict with your role as lover to your spouse.

Boy, do we have to work on that last one. I now admire this man tremendously. He's a child of divorce who has eight children of his own who seems to have it all together.

Yeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Texas to consider 80 mph limit

Via Instapundit, I bring you the following charge that the at least some in the MSM are willing to portray people with similar problems differently depending on whether they are well-liked or not

Kennedy's "Stigma" Is Limbaugh's "Crime"

Now, I'm not one to normally jump on "if they were black" or "if they were conservative" debates. However, I figured I have some time to kill, so let's see which is the easiest liberal source of any kind that is willing to make fun of Limbaugh yet be sorry for Kennedy. Keeping in mind of course that Limbaugh was never accused of doing anything to harm anyone yet Kennedy could have been killed or killed someone else in the process.

General criticism of Limbaugh's political views and even jokes about his weight didn't count. I wanted to find someone who specifically makes fun of his drug addiction.

The Democratic Daily Blog had this to say about Patrick Kennedy on May 5, 2006:

Patrick Kennedy said he hoped that his “openness today and in the past, and my acknowledgment that I need help, will give others the courage to get help if they need it.”

For anyone who has struggled with addiction, or has had a friend or loved one who has (or worse, lost a friend or loved one to addiction) , they understand the courage it takes to speak publicly, as Patrick Kennedy has. For the media and right-wing blogosphere who have twisted this a thousand different ways — you should all be ashamed.

On December 22, 2005 however, the following comments were made regarding Rush Limbaugh:

Conservative parnaoia hits childrens books. In efforts to brainwash children, they use their usual tactic of creating strawmen to attack rather than actually responding to liberal ideas....The Oregonean reports that, thanks to promotion from Rush Limbaugh (who perhaps will also teach kids how to take OxyContin)...

Ashamed indeed. That was easy.

OK, just finished watching the Frontline special on Hamas. While I can't claim anti-Israel bias because there was no intention to get the Israeli point of view, I do think the reporting was incredibly shoddy and failed to provide any historical perspective at all. If one didn't know anything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict you would have learned the following:

Hamas were the original Palestinian terrorists but a year or so ago they declared a cease fire and no longer attack Israel. They are the party of peace - all they ask is for the Israelis to pull back to the 1967 borders.

Hamas can't be held responsible for any of it's actions. Fighting would end tomorrow if it didn't have to fend off agressors like Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the Israelis. Palestinian economic problems would end tomorrow if it weren't for the Israelis and Americans.

Qassam rockets are inaccurate and therefore cause no real threat to anyone in Israel.

I think the most uncomfortable thing to watch was when a friendly looking Hamas supporter led the reporter (Kate Seelye) through the streets of Gaza where Fatah political slogans were written on all the walls. The Hamas supporter laughed at the "Elect Fatah" slogans commenting that there is no reason given to actually vote for them. All Seelye could do was laugh along with him like a little girl with some kind of commentary along the line of "Youre right, how silly of them!"

I don't want to give the impression that Hamas was portrayed as liberal democrats that just want everyone to get along, but I'm sure the piece is not what many expected, myself included.

UPDATE: I just delved into the more detailed Frontline website on their Hamas report. There seems to be some better reporting from others and it's worth taking a look at the site in it's entirety. However, someone's going to have to explain to me how this obviously contradictory reporting came to be placed in pieces that are adjacent to each other on the "Dispatches from Gaza" page.

Idiotarian Kate Seelye: "Realizing I wasn’t entirely prepared, I did a quick Google search on Qassam rockets. Named after the Hamas militia, the homemade projectiles are among the Palestinian militants’ favorite weapon. With a range of about 12 miles, Qassams frequently were launched at Israeli settlements and into Israel proper during the second intifada...Hundreds of Qassam rockets have rained down on Israel over the last few years, and although they succeeded in sowing terror, they have done relatively little damage. Qassams lack a missile guidance system and are famously inaccurate."

Reporter Marcela Gaviria: "Every so often, a Qassam makes its way across the security perimeter, killing or wounding Israeli civilians. According to B’Tselm, an Israeli human rights organization, since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005, 34 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rockets."

Just so that I understand....and please correct me if I'm wrong....

Jewish leftist groups support a boycott of Caterpillar because it's equipment is often used by the Israeli government to illegally destroy Palestinian homes and farmland. Yet...

Those same groups support providing Hamas with millions of dollars which they often use to provide arms to it's members that actually kill, injure,  kidnap, etc. other Palestinians. (Not to mention their use of weapons to kill Israeli Jews or the force the slow reversal of women's rights).

I urge everyone who can to watch or record Frontline tonight - Looking Inside Hamas: Search for Martyrdom, Hatred of Israel.  It should be noted that Frontline is no right wing mouthpiece as can be seen by their show on the danger of the radical Israeli settlers.

On a separate note, and I'd like to find a more independent source for this, one may not be safe speaking Hebrew on the streets of Berlin.  And it ain't neo-Nazis that are the problem.

Bush approval rating hits new low

31% ?!?

My gut reaction to this article was a combination of disgust at the babyish threat, and then pride that (perhaps) it could actually be carried out should they actually be attacked.

Iran can also be wiped off the map (says Israel)

Not only that, but the liberal leader Shimon Peres was the one making the threat!

"In every generation they rise up again to destroy us.,.".   Too bad we probably have to wait for the messiah before it stops happening.

How awesome is this! They are now coming out with standard looking radios that actually capture radio stations that broadcast over the internet.

Pick up online stations without the computer

The AE Wi-Fi Internet radio is a standalone receiver, preprogrammed with more than 2,500 online stations. Designed to operate more like a radio than a computer, it's made by Acoustic Energy in Britain and is scheduled to hit the U.S. marketplace later this month.



At $300-400, I won't be buying one anytime soon, but when they get down to the inevitable $100-150 range I might.

Ripped from the pages of Google Video of the Day (GVOD), here's the video of Bush alongside his impersonator at the recent White House Correspondent's Dinner. Hilarious. I really have to remember to TIVO this next year off of C-Span.

Did anyone notice that the deficit may actually shrink for a second year in a row?  I found this one buried on the U.S. page of the NY Times website.  Isn't this truly a "man bites dog" story that goes against conventional wisdom that should appear near the top? 

Decline In Deficit is Seen

Tax revenues in April, when most people file their annual tax returns, were 14 percent higher than the year before. Despite continued spending on the war in Iraq and hurricane recovery efforts, the budget deficit for the first seven months of the 2006 fiscal year was $53 billion lower than the same period last year.

Why use that, when you can put U.S Job Growth Slows on the home page.  And incase you think that news is more significant in some way, the sub-header reads,  "Analysts said the change in the employment picture does not appear to be the beginning of a broader retrenchment."

I may be biased, but I think think this stands up to scrutiny as a poor choice of placement.

I really need to read Andy Borowitz' website every day. I think he's one of the funniest satirists out there. Unfortunately, you can only link to the home page which changes daily, so catch it while you can.

SATAN’S TESTIMONY ROCKS ENRON TRIAL
Lord of Darkness Becomes Surprise Witness For Prosecution

The trial of former Enron CEO Ken Lay took a stunning turn today as the prosecution introduced Satan as a surprise witness, attempting to establish a long-running business relationship between Mr. Lay and the Lord of Darkness.

I think this article pretty much sounds about the same as if I would have written it myself.

A rabbi's struggle: To allow gay clergy or not?

As I have become acquainted with more pious and knowledgeable gay and lesbian Jews, I have asked myself why God would design some people with a trait — for which there is paltry evidence that it can be reversed — and then designate individuals with that characteristic as "sinners?" Even if triggered by a gene mutation, as some argue, what is sinful about that?...

The biblical demand of "an eye for an eye" was interpreted in the Talmud as the monetary value of a wounded eye, and not an actual gouging. The Bible also orders the stoning of an unruly son, but the Talmud already qualified that as theoretical, saying, "It was never done nor will it be done.".....

I need to get comfortable, for example, witnessing a rabbi and his male partner dancing at my synagogue's spring social, or seeing two lesbians hand-in-hand at the Torah while celebrating their daughter's bat mitzvah. I am confident that, eventually, religious commitment will trump sexual orientation.

Has Bob Herbert managed to write a regular column for three years without ever saying anything new? Just go to Automatic Bob Herbert and see for yourself.  The site uses a database of quotes from Herbert's columns since 2003 and mixes them around and creates a randomly ordered anti-Bush column whenever you hit the refresh button.   As the site suggests, why pay the author when you can just mix around his old work and present it as new?

According to the Jefferson Library: "There are a number of quotes that we do not find in Thomas Jefferson's correspondence or other writings; in such cases, Jefferson should not be cited as the source. Among the most common of these spurious Jefferson quotes are: 'Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.' "

In case you don't believe the source of the above quote, here's a link to the Jefferson Library directly.

Sorry liberals. As Mark Steyn says in the link above, "F--- OFF!" and "WE WON'T FIGHT YOUR WARS!" (not to mention "Bush is a chimp") are not constructive forms of dissent.

Thomas Jefferson himself said: "Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism." - John F. Kerry April 22, 2006

Dissent is the foundation on which all our other rights rest. If you listen to conservative radio blabs Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, challenging Bush is un-American. It is, in fact, the greatest form of patriotism. - "Liberal strategist" Bob Becker in USA Today July 4 (when else) 2005.

DemocratRepublican Thomas Jefferson said: "Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism." - Walter Brasch, syndicated columnist, professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University October 26 2004

And finally, from the Crawford Peace House, home of The Left near Bush's vacation home:

There have been a lot of angry right wingers trolling this message board. I hope you'll pause for a moment, calm your angry minds, and read the words of the great Patriots from U.S. history:

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson

Boy, they couldn't even get the right mis-quote.

Editor's note - it sure is hard to keep the font right when you copy this stuff in from LJ.

Either the situation in Iraq is much worse than what has been reported so far, or Dexter Filkins of the New York Times has managed to define down a euphemism for genocide.

In northern Baghdad, Shiite families arrive regularly at the Muamal Sadr refugee camp, fleeing the ethnic cleansing that is transforming the mixed cities around Baghdad.

There's no doubt that there is a new problem of people leaving their homes to live in refugee camps in other neighborhoods or towns, but ethnic cleansing?

Much farther down in the article he says, "Full-fledged civil war, with widespread ethnic bloodletting and mass migrations, has not yet come to Iraq."

Is it possible to have ethnic cleansing without both widespread bloodletting or mass migrations?  Paint me confused.

Post number 2000! And to think of all the truly worthwhile things I could have been doing with all that time!

--------------------------------

I know the brother-in-law will love this one - The NY Times decides to make fun of the Presdient's English-speaking skills.

When President George W. Bush referred to himself as "the decider" last week, there was the ensuing list of dinner party queries: Is "decider" an actual word? (It is.) Is it applicable in the world of presidential politics? (Sure, whatever.)

I wonder if this is listed under news, opinion or culture in the print edition tomorrow.

This talk of dinner parties reminds me of the famous quote of the Upper West Side liberal who said of President Nixon's election - "He couldn't have won, I don't know anyone who voted for him".

Also of note, Tony Snow of Fox News Radio has been picked to be the President's Press Secretary as was widely rumored.  It ain't going to be easy, but what a great opportunity for a man who had to be treated for colon cancer just last year.

Being an avid listener of conservative talk shows, for years people have complained that the White House needed someone who could articulate their policies better than the President could hmself.  Hiring Snow is a big step in the right direction.  Now let's see if Fox News always gets the most questions answered at the press conferences.  "I'm glad you asked that Brit...." :-)

The Jerusalem Post now has a Christian Edition - after all there may very well be more English speaking Christians that care about daily events in Israel than there are English speaking Jews in the entire world.  Also, they have come to recognize that Christians may have different perspectives and interests than their current readers.

Maybe the New York Times could follow their lead. :-)

Tonight and tomorrow we remember not only the victims of the Holocaust, but the heroes that fought against all odds in their desperate attempts to survive.  Many people don't know that Yom Hashoah is officially known as Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day.

As a Jew, to be a martyr means that you die at the hands of another who would force you to renounce your beliefs (or at least be forced to commit suicide in the face of certain death, see Masada).  None of this killing yourself while you kill whoever happens to be in the way crap.

Anyway - I can't explain why, but The New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston right near Fanueil Hall always gets to me.  Its six glass columns are etched with quotes from those who experienced the evil first hand.  I hesitate to call this quote my "favorite" becuase that makes it seem as if reading it brings me some kind of joy instead of a tremendous sadness that brings tears to my eyes.  It was written by Gerda Weissman Klein.

Ilse, a childhood friend of mine
Once found a raspberry in the camp
And carried it in her pocket all day
To present to me that evening on a leaf

Imagine a world in which
Your entire possession is
One raspberry

And you give it to your friend.

If Ben & Jerry's aren't worldly enough to be politically correct all the time, what chance do the rest of us have of avoiding offending someone, somewhere every time we open our mouths? Black & Tan ice cream, anyone? And no, it's not offensive for the reasons you probably think.

Ben & Jerry's apologizes over flavor flap

Are thirty year long baseball careers far behind?

Franco, at 47, becomes oldest player to hit home run as Mets win

OK, let's get this straight. The Republicans could "use" 9/11 for political purposes because a) they could blame he attacks on Democratic weakness in dealing with terrorism in the past and b) they effected a forceful response (regardless of it's appropriateness). The Democrats cannot use Katrina to the same effect because a) local Democrat politicians were at least equally to blame as Republican administration officials for the lack of preparedness and b) as wth other issues no one can prove that their response would have been significantly different.

I think the whole argument of not "using" tragic events in politics is asinine. The federal government exists solely to protect us from and prevent these kind of issues that go beyond the local ability to handle. If there were no large scale tragedies or threats, there would be no need for a federal governement. Maybe that's somwhat facetious, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

Democrats Try to Use Katrina as G.O.P. Used 9/11

We don't go to many concerts, but now that I've stumbled across the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Soul2Soul tour, I will probably pay a ridiculous amount of money to a ticket agent to go see them. When I was living with my fiancee in Argentina in 1998, they're duet "It's Your Love" was popular - it was their first recording together after they were married. At the time my wife didn't speak English nearly as well as she does now, but she didn't need to for both of us to love this song.

Better than I was
More than I am
And all of this happened
By takin' your hand...

It's your love
It just does something to me
It sends a shock right through me
I can't get enough...

The President has declared the month of May 2006, "Jewish American Heritage Month". Who knew? Declared on "this twentieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand six...". Honestly, this stuff doesn't bother me, but I do consider it ironic.

Via zarq - Things You'd Like To See on a Postage Stamp.

From the daily Opinion Journal e-mail:

"A fake Easter bunny and three of his friends terrorized a group of teenagers Sunday night," the Daily Item of Sunbury, Pa., reports from nearby Danville.....

Well, thank goodness it wasn't the real one.

-----------------------------------------------------

And if you haven't seen the "Easter Bunny Hates You" video yet - you haven't laughed your hardest today.

There's not too many days where it's easy to list out that news stories to which we can answer in the affirmative, "But is it good for the Jews"?

Germany Will Open Records on Holocaust Victims
WASHINGTON, April 18 — Germany agreed today to allow access to a vast trove of information on what happened to more than 17 million people who were executed, forced to labor for the Nazi war machine or otherwise brutalized during the Holocaust.

The German government announced at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here that it is dropping its decades-long resistance to opening the archives in the town of Bad Arolsen. The files stretch for more than 15 miles, hold up to 50 million documents and make up one of the largest Holocaust archives in the world.

Al-Arian Admits His Role In Jihad (and will be deported...)
TAMPA - When Sami Al-Arian denied raising funds for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, he now says he was lying.The former University of South Florida professor has portrayed himself as a martyr to free speech, a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment and the nation's war on terrorism. He maintained he supported only peaceful solutions to the problems in the Middle East.

But in court papers unsealed Monday, Al-Arian admitted he raised money for the Islamic Jihad and conspired to hide the identities of other members of the terrorist organization, including his brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar. He also admitted knowing "that the PIJ achieved its objectives by, among other means, acts of violence."

U.S. District Judge James Moody on Monday approved a deal in which Al-Arian pleaded guilty to conspiring to help a terrorist organization. The plea was entered in a secret hearing Friday as part of an agreement that calls for Al-Arian to be deported after serving a prison sentence that amounts to a little more than time served.

I'm particularly happy about this - it's hard to believe that it was 10 years ago that I was living in Tampa only about a mile from where this jerk-off abused his position and the goodwill of politically correct Americans to raise money for, and incote people to kill the Jewish people. No need to wait 60 years for proof.

Just wanted to point out an interesting turn of phrase that I noticed in today's NY Times article regarding the Defense Department's rebuttal of criticism against Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. In several places in the article, critics of the Pentagon are spoken of as having been "granted anonymity".

"I think it's part of the charm offensive," said the general, who was granted anonymity because he said he was afraid he would not be invited to future Pentagon sessions....

On Saturday morning, two Republicans with close ties to the White House said that they were deeply concerned about the situation and that Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation could help improve the party's prospects for the November elections.

Both men were granted anonymity because they feared that speaking publicly would damage their relations with the White House.

Doesn't this sound as if the Times is acting like God in deciding who gets anonymity and who doesn't?  What ever happened to, "so-and-so requested to remain anonymous" or "so-and-so didn't want to say on the record".  The current article almost makes it sound as if the Times could decide to uncover these people's identities at any times should it decide to remove it's "grant".

Another brief topic of conversation at dinner last night was Darfur and the rhetorical question was asked as to whether we shouldn't be there instead of Iraq? I of course suggested that even of the Democrats were in charge we wouldn't be stopping the killing, although I didn't make the suggestion that the Bush administration or Congress was doing all they could.

So, I asked myself, what are the Republicans doing, and are the Democrats in line, opposed or helpless to respond? Do they not bother bringing it up because of our situtation in Iraq and know that nothing more can be done as long as we're "stretched thin" or have lost our "moral authority"?

First, about the situtation - Wikipedia has a long background entry. As with many political items, perhaps some of the information needs to be taken with a grain of salt. That being said, it's seems too frickin' complicated.  Sunnis and Shia and Kurds speaking Arabic in a population of 27 million I can understand.  Many more tribes speaking

• Arabic, particularly south of Nyala and in the east, but also touching the Chad border in a narrow strip north of Jebel Si, between Fur and Zaghawa;


• Beigo, or Baygo, in a small area south of Nyala (this language, closely related to Daju, is also extinct).


• Daju, in a small pocket near Nyala (of the Western branch of the Eastern Sudanic group of Nilo-Saharan);


• Erenga, north of Geneina and across the border in Chad (considered a dialect of Tama);


• Fongoro, south of Sinyar (also a Bongo-Bagirmi language, nearly extinct; its speakers have shifted to Fur);


• Fulbe, or Fulfulde, in a small area south of Nyala;


• Fur, in the center, from Wadi Azum in the west to Al Fasher in the east (belonging to the Fur language group of Nilo-Saharan);


• Kujarge, south of Sinyar (unclassified);


• Masalit, west of Wadi Azum and around Geneina; also spoken across the border, and in a small isolated area south of Nyala (belonging to the Maban language group of Nilo-Saharan);


• Sinyar, along the border south of Masalit (a Bongo-Bagirmi language of the Central Sudanic group of Nilo-Saharan);


• Tama, in a small pocket between Jebel Si and Jebel Marra (also of the Western branch of the Eastern Sudanic group of Nilo-Saharan);


• Zaghawa, in the north (an Eastern Saharan language);

in a population of 8 million, is too much for my brain.
I know that there has been some additional focus in the Jewish community recently with petitions to sign etc., but I'm not so sure that anyone really understands the issue completely.  Just because one group of peoples is killing another group of peoples doesn't necessarily mean that it's easy to take sides. 

As tragic as the situation is, and I don't want to seem callous, I think comparisons to the Holocuast or even Rwanda are overblown.  We all know the Holocaust stats and in Rwanda, 800,000 died in a matter of months.  So far, it seems that about 200,000(?) people have died after three years of fighting in Darfur.  Maybe it's the "slow genocide" that makes it seem so relatively non-urgent. 

After that little bit of research, I don't feel like getting into the politics.  It seems that working through the UN probably is the only reasonable course of action, as poor of an option as that is.  I fully support the legislation going through Congress now to provide additional sanctions against the Sudanese government and support for the African Union troops. 

Yesterday, President Bush and Vice Presdient Cheney released their tax information.  Cheney wound up getting a $2mm refund, mostly due to the fact that 80% of his family's income went to charity.  My dad and I argued a bit, first because he said that people like Cheney were just taking advantage of the charitable contributions loophole passed by Congress and I argued back that it couldn't be because the loophole was meant to benefit lower income people that couldn't normally take charitable deductions.  He then told me that the new law removed limits on contribution deductions which I didn't believe.

Turns out I was wrong.  The Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 did in fact allow people (basically the wealthy) to deduct contributions against 100% of their adjusted gross income as opposed to 50%.  It does seem that this saved the vice president hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2005.  That being said, excess charitable deductions could always be carried forward for 5 years, so even if Cheney didn't get the tzx break thgis year, he would have gotten it this year, or the next.

That being said, Cheney's contribution deductions were mostly due to the sale of three of his wife's books which were published and dedicated to charity well before Katrina happened.

I was also getting my thoughts confused by the push to allow non-itemizers to be able to deduct their chariable contributions which has been pushed for by many over the years, but hasn't bee passed into law (although there was a period of time during the Reagan administration when it was allowed.  Two-thirds of Americans can't deduct their charitable contributions becuase they don't itemize.

Just wanted to wish people a Happy Passover, Happy Easter and just a Happy Long Weekend if you've got one coming.

Below is a list of links about Passover.

For those who are into a purely secular celebration of the holiday, ABC will be showing The Ten Commandments (ed. - the real one) on Saturday night.  Go Moses, you "stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!"

For some details on the history of the holiday and what it's all about, you always have Chabad, Judaism 101, OU.org, Wikipesach (I mean Wikipedia) and aish.com.  I have to remember to go back to Chabad and Aish to print out things for my kids to do.

If Kosher L'Pesach is important to you, check out Kashrut.com or kosher4passover.com.

Here's the official annual Passover greeting from POTUS.  How dare he quote from the bible!

A seder in Iraq.

I just stumbled upon the most fascinating lego project I've ever seen. It's an online, frame by frame account of the Old and New Testaments. I have included a few sample pics below, but really it's impossible to gauge the full scope of the work without going to the website, The Brick Testament, yourself.

It's not just the details that went into the work, but the way they used the camera to create a sense of depth and perspective to the scenes is incredible.

I totally missed the fact that the Mets formally anounced their plans to construct a new "Mets Ballpark" which will open in 2009. More here. I'm super excited about this even if I only go to one game a year being an expatriate New Yorker and all. NY fans deserved this ballpark 20 years ago. Of the few new ballparks I've been to, it's seems like a blend between those of the Colorado Rockies and Texas Rangers (my semi-adopted team).

I didn't like it then when Robin Givham of the Washington Post criticized the dress of John Roberts' family and I don't like it now that she criticizes the hair of Rep. Cynthia McKinney, as much as a loath McKinney.  I don't care that it's in section C of the printed paper instead of with the hard news.  It's just not right, especially for a newspaper of stature.

They're just one step behind the New York Post which should shut down Page Six TODAY regardless of the circulation consequences.  What Jared Paul Stern allegedly did is disgusting - does anyone doubt that the lying (if not the blackmail, verbal orotherwise) is standard operating procedure?

And another. Matzo Man.

Go to the jibjab home page for their entry in the silly Passover video craze. Matzah.

Of which leading American political figure was the following written in a recent biography?

"X" argued that  "although he had challenged the instigation of the war, he had never voted against supplies for the soldier".

John Kerry?  Nope....

U.S. Representative Abraham Lincoln.  According to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her current bestseller Team of Rivals, he was "clarifying" his position on the Mexican-American war led by Democrat president James Polk.  Lincoln also voted for a resolution "which stated that the war had been unnecessarily and unconstitutionally initiated by the President". In a speech shortly thereafter he claimed that the "entire matter was from beginning to end, the sheerest deception" by President Polk.

The more things change.....

More on the Mexican-American War here.  Lincoln only served one term as a representative from Illinois.  Maybe Kerry still has a chance if he learns his lessons well.  As Goodwin continues, "This maiden effort (by Lincoln) was not the tone of reasoned debate that later characterized Lincoln's public statements."

Last night I was listening to Alan Colmes' radio show. He's the "liberal" counterweight to Sean Hannity on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes show. I like him becuase he's actually a pretty sensible guy, even if I disagree with him.

Anyway, he kept going on about how yesterday's story about the "Libby Papers" clearly stated that President Bush ordered the outing of Valerie Plame. Several callers tried to convince him that it wasn't the case, that Bush allowed the release of previously calssified intelligence on Iraq, but not Plame's name specifically. He just kept telling the callers that they were blind to the truth.

This Reuter's atricle which came out today seems pretty clear on the matter.

The court documents did not say that Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Plame's identity.

When John Kerry announced his candidacy for Presdient in September 2003, he made the following declaration:

"So my economic plan sets this goal: To get back George Bush's (lost) 3 million jobs in my first 500 days as president and we can do it."

Let's not quibble over the fact that it was really 2.6 million lost jobs at the time - "three" does sound a lot bigger than "two and a half".  Today marks what would have been the 443rd day of the Kerry presidency.  Since the day Kerry made his speech, 5.1 million jobs have been created under President Bush, 2.1 million in the last 12 months alone.  At the current rate, you can add 300-400k new jobs by the time the 500 days are up.

To those who say that other expansions have created many more jobs - that is true.  But none of them were starting from such a low unemployment rate to begin with or had to deal with the loss of a major American city.

So under Kerry he would have given us half the jobs and taken away my tax break at the same time.  No wonder I'm Republican.  I like my money and my job.

As a side note, I signed a petition to have Kinky Friedman added to the Texas governor's ballot at the Kosher Chili Cook-Off last week.  You can actually sign the petition online at his site which I didn't  relaize.  I was bummed that they didn't have any stickers or buttons to give out, but that's OK.

For the brother-in-law. Darwin is no problem for Jews.

I understand what the writer is trying to say a lot better than I might have before I took my Kabbalah of Time class with Chabad. There's two ways to be religiously faithful with regards to science. One is to reject science as being anti-God and taking the Bible literally. The other is to believe that every scientific discovery is merely additional proof that only a God could create such a complex universe of wonders. I much prefer number two.

The Democrats' dream has finally come true. They want have Tom Delay to kick around anymore. Can't say I'm not a little tired of the whole thing m'self. So now who do they go after? Hastert and Frist have so little personality, they'll make poor substitutes as the source of all Republican evil.

The Cynthia McKinney sideshow continues - you' d think it's summer. Is there nothing else going on in the world?

The Mets won their home opener today 3-2. I can't even name their starting lineup, but somehow, this day, every year, is extremely important to me.

I didn't think "Matzoh Man" was as bad as my brother-in-law seems to think it was.

Oh, And about that anti-Israel lobby paper from Harvard - ouch. Via PowerLine.

One of the nuttiest passages in "The Israel Lobby," the co-production of professors Stephen Walt (Harvard) and John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago), occurs in the very first footnote. (It's in the full version, on the website of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.)

Indeed, the mere existence of the [pro-Israel] Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest group to bring it about. But because Israel is a strategic and moral liability, it takes relentless political pressure to keep U.S. support intact.

Other commentators have pointed to the absurdity of this statement, since every conceivable special interest has a lobby in Washington, and they can't all be working against the national interest. "By that standard," writes Max Boot, "Social Security, the 2nd Amendment and Roe vs. Wade must not be 'in the American national interest' either, because they are all defended by even more powerful lobbies." Caroline Glick hits even harder:

Every semi-sentient person with even an incidental knowledge of American politics knows that there is no area of human endeavor that is not represented by a lobby in the US. Walt and Mearsheimer's asinine assertion means is that every American interest group--from the elderly to the insurance industry, from the Muslims to gun owners to organic food lovers--stands opposed to the American national interest simply by existing. Any professor who made a similar assertion about any other interest group would be imperiling his career.