I took this pic (click to enlarge) in my local CVS with my phone back in March but the sign is still there, I believe. 
Two astronauts make the first manned flight to Mars. Upon landing, they find themselves face-to-face with a couple of green Martians.There's important Torah to this joke as well, but I'll leave that to another time. Thanks to here for the basic text (I changed it a bit to my taste).
"How do we make contact?" asks the first astronaut.
"They look pretty primitive. Let's impress them with some of our technology."
"OK." says the first.
He reaches into the pocket of his spacesuit and pulls out a laser-torch. The Martians look interested.
"I think it's working - light it!" says the second.
The first astronaut presses the button and a flame shoots out. Immediately the faces of the Martians turn from green to red.
"Wow!" says the first, "they must really be impressed."
Then one of the Martians reaches out his little green hand, points a finger at the men, frowns, and says very sternly, "Shabbos!"
As you can tell, I'm heavily into cleaning up my backposts and I felt this was timeless enough to post in real-time. It's a peek back to the bad Bush years and the temporary hero of the moderate-progressive majority of America.Hey, I managed to get the Krugman today! Here's the basic text. Yummy:When will Krugman be redeemed? Maybe, if as I predicted, he'll become the next Secretary of the Treasury."Limiting the Damage" By PAUL KRUGMAN.
President Bush isn’t on the ballot tomorrow. But this election is, nonetheless, all about him. The question is whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office."
The NYTimes is announcing that "Chelsea Clinton Is Engagedto her longtime boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky..." The story goes on to say: Mr. Mezvinsky, 31, works at Goldman Sachs and is the son of two former Democratic members of Congress, Edward Mezvinsky of Iowa, who served from 1973 to 1977 but was later convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to seven years in prison, and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania, who served from 1993 to 1995 and lost re-election after voting for President Clinton’s budget program.A quick wikkiing, shows that shver Ed is Jewish (and I assume Margolies is, duh).
As said a few days ago, I'm working through a bunch of my 300+ backposts. Today, I'll start with the ones from the Obama-Hillary Battle (a.k.a. the 2008 Democratic Primary)"If Woody Had Gone Right to the Police, This Would Never Had Happened."So true, for WW him/herself, and for others. It's a lesson I learned from this 'toon and have applied in many circumstances with or without a bowler wearing 6 foot vulture. Enjoy.
Andrew Sullivan has been going off the rails (or off his meds) for a few months now. I think it's an elastic snap-back from his years attacking Republicans that he feels a need to just lash out brainlessly. I've detailed my misgivings about his most recent foray into anti-Zionism (it's in a backpost, be patient). But just today he shows the true reason why a sane person (like me) needs to be wary of anybody in the press. Obsoive: "Maureen Dowd's column today hits on something she's been tuning into for a while. Dowd's instincts about human character are foolish to bet against. She has essentially read every recent president correctly from the get-go as types.OK, pause for a second... do you get that? Sullivan is praising Maureen Frickin' Dowd! As being always right! Dowd may be the only person in the press corps who is *more* of a screaming splitting borderline hysteric than Sullivan. They're birds of a feather. I guess I always knew that but to see him actually praise her, and for something totally stupid, is just too much:
And she has always seen Obama as a bit of a cold fish, aloof, too unwilling to punch back, too arrogant to explain himself too much.Get this: Modo's nonsense vendettas are validated because of her childish belief that Obama is just too aloof? This is the same complaint about Obama made by the insane Right Wing - which should tell you, immediately, how much into crazy town we've gotten. But the real proof is in his last line (emphasis mine):
MoDo worried about that in the campaign as the Clintons brought more raw human emotion to the trail and Obama often seemed to coast too cockily only to right himself, usually with some spell-binding speech or shrewd piece of campaign management. I generally trusted Obama's instincts. In the campaign, MoDo was nearly right (Obama did let the Clintons get back off the mat a few too many times) but in the end, wrong (look who got elected). But in government? The coolness has yet to be proven effective - as Kissinger has noted."You know just how bad Sullivan has gotten when he uses Henry Kissinger as support for Maureen Dowd. Barf.
I'm usually up-to-date, give or take a few months, of new technology except for those which require large expenditures of time or money (e.g. hence why I'm about 20-30 years behind video games). But communication tools are my wheelhouse and that's why I'm an avid email/web/cellphone/blog user. I haven't been able to upgrade to a blackberry because I don't have the money (same thing with an iPhone, although my bad experience with the iPod, specifically the incompatibility with PCs, have militated me against mapple).
But that brings us to Twitter. As some random dude I read on a blog comments page (I think Balloon Juice, who have great commenters) Twitter exploded because the iPhone made it easy to do - that 'platform' is a key gateway to technology acceptance (an example, from me, for this is why DVDs caught on swiftly even though they replicated the {much more expensive} laserdiscs). So no iPhone for me, no twitting.
I concur with John Cole that this article by Matt Taibbi about the behavior of political reporters is just filled with win: Yes, Sarah, There is a Media Conspiracy. The whole thing is great (by which I mean, Taibbi agrees with me).
Free Primary Jewish Sources and Resources On The Internet from this guy. 
I remember reading this line a decade or so ago. Do you know who invented it... because it's so true: "Sometimes being an adult is exactly what you imagined it would be when you were five: staying up late and eating Lucky Charms for dinner."(One source)
For reasons I can't understand, Left Wing bloggers are trying to act like Palin shouldn't matter. E.g. Steve Benen stating: "I have deliberately steered clear of writing posts about Sarah Palin this week, in part because I don't think she's worth the obsessive media attention, and in part because I find myself struggling to care." And others who say that Newsweek had a sexist cover (which I won't reprint here) of Palin in jogging shorts, or that it's excessive for AP to have 11 fact checkers of her book (which they didn't, but whatever). Here's my take: 
Whatever made Bush bad, she has, without anything that made Bush good. I've said this before, I believe, but it bears repeating - as un-meritocratic and elitist it may sound, there's a benefit to electing a person who comes from a political machine. They are usually surrounded by professionals who have experience. Sadly, the Bush machine's experience was all in Evil. And they were bad at it. But his candidacy in 2000 rested on the barely unspoken premise that, yeah, he's a moron but he has good advisers. This over-confident bluff cannot be said for Palin. So Bush without expertise is a clear recipe for catastrophe. 
This was compiled by a friend of mine whose a professor of linguistics and Jewish Sociology: Jewish English: Distinctive Lexicon (Jewish Language Research Wiki, direct link).
I've been saying for years - much before 9/11 - that it's a big problem to organize minyans on planes. It's an inconvenience for all the other passengers, especially those who don't understand halakha. Then, after 9/11, it looks like a bunch of religious crazies, wearing black leather straps and shaking back and forth, are congregating to follow their Ancient God's will. I'd be scared, were I not frum. 
The theme of the recent issue of the New Yorker is 'food' - a topic I know little about, being a penny-pinching, congenitally hypertensive shomer-kashrut consumer. This eliminates many food options that most of the world lusts over (pigs, alcohol, fat, sugar, shelled-seafood). But I truly love food (see my anguished posts about fasting to see the transposition of this obsession)."... oeufs en meurette, a recipe where eggs are poached with onion, carrot, mushrooms, bacon and a half bottle of red wine. It is a classic ad-libber’s meal, in that, even when it goes right it looks like something that has gone terribly wrong."I know the truth of which he speaks not from this random disquieting French recipe but from my encounters with Shakshuka (pictured above).
Those acronyms: JMM = Joshua Michah Marshall, TPM = Talking Points Memo, KSM = Kentucky Sizzled Mohammad. ...This isn't just a matter of wanting to see punishment. It also vindicates our system of justice and values -- and for it all to happen here, the scene of the crime, among the people of this city, not out on some island or in some secret jail.There does seem to be two Americas, the cowards and the brave. And the brave are those who believe, truly, in the Constitution. The cowards seem to be the ones who love America because their mom happened to be on a particular piece of dirt when she gave birth.
Listening to the questions at Attorney General Holder's press conference, I'm hearing again fears about giving the defendants a platform "to air their hateful views." But really, who is so cowardly as to worry about what these five say? Is our standing and self-respect so brittle?
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) says it makes New York City more of a target for attacks. And there's at least some logic to the argument. But fundamentally, I don't think terrorists aren't attacking New York because they don't think there's enough reason to do so. And I trust the appropriate officials will keep the city's people safe.
There's a widespread belief that many seem to have that calling these people criminals and treating them as such somehow elevates their status and diminishes the fact that al Qaeda has effectively been making war on the United States. I've never understood this mindset. The key point in World War II is that at the end of the war the Allies would not deign to accord the leaders of Germany and Japan the respect accorded to defeated armies. They were tried as criminals. Because that is what they were.
Whether it's fear that our justice system can't mete justice out to these men, or worry that KSM or the others might mouth off about us at their trial, or concern about future attacks, I am continually surprised that the voices of cowardice and fear manage to convince themselves and others that they speak for courage and determination.
A near-daily read, for me, is the frum news-site Vos-Iz-Neias (pronounced "glayyyvin"). Even though, rumor has it, that it's assur to use the intertubes, VIN gathers news from as many sources as possible to bring news stories of interest and importance to the Jewish community. I was 'converted' to them, as it were, when a friend's synagogue had been vandalized and the story was not on the JTA website but was on VIN.Moshe in Baltimore Says:Again, I'm not sure how "Moshe in Baltimore"s Rebbe has allowed him to access the interwebs, unless Moshe himself is a Rosh Yeshiva. It could explain his superior gematria skillz.
The anonymous "gunman" was Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39 year old Muslim. Of course this was a terror attack. And to #9, Barack HUSSEIN Obama grew up Muslim, and will always be a Muslim. He is very on top of the game of Islam infiltrating the US and other Western Countries. Look at Yechezkel 38:2, the word Nasi, "Prince" Gog of Magog ends in an Alef. Count every seventh letter and it will spell Alef, Vav, Bais, Alef, Mem, Hay; "Obama". It's an obvious Torah code he is Gog or a major player. May Hashem hasten the Geula with no negative affect to Klal Yisroel.
Curmudgeon Alert: Look, I realize that it must be fun to have a powerful motorized kinetic-force-delivering machine strapped to one's back. But holding aside the fuel consumption angle, from the perspective of *noise* - leafblowers are hell. Would it really kill these guys to use a rake?!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
From the Times, Lou Dobbs to Quit CNN. Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who for the last 48 years had been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs.
Last year I came to Brandeis via carpool. This year, since my carpool driver left, I've depended on public transportation. Sadly, I've noticed that the quality of the buses has gone down serverly over the past few months. I blame the recession - more people riding and, I believe, budget cuts that have made busses more unreliable (and possibly the drivers as well). Whatever the cause, I have missed connecting buses many times because my main route (the 52) is never on time. 
For those who oppose gun-control, there's a frequently stated concept that these psycho handgun mass-murderers would be prevented were everyone else allowed to be armed. This came up with the Virginia Tech case and in the few hours after the Ft. Hood massacre some gun-control partisans exposed their ignorance by using this argument ironically/mockingly (the fact is that army bases are quite gun-free). The Styx would like to inject some rationality in this debate.
Now one can plausibly argue that having a highly armed populace would be the equivalent of the better law-enforcement in the hijacking case. More guns = fewer mass murders. True, if you buy the analogy, then instead of using guns the murderers will use explosives, lets say, but that may be desirable to the gun defender. The fewer number of possible mass-murderers means, probabilistically, that in such a large country, I'll be less likely to be randomly shot. It's sorta why we say that air-travel is better than car-travel - the car accidents are smaller in body counts but far more frequent, while the air crashes are quite rare, but when they happen, they take out hundreds.
Secondary Point
Say Happy Birthday to your friendly neighborhood Marine, he/she'll appreciate it.
Comparing Kevin Smith and George Lucas (April 2008)
As I asked below, here, Sullivan's swipes against Israel have been getting more frequent and irritating. It's like he's gone enough to the left because of Bush-Cheney that he now has to hate Israel like a J-Streeter.I know Andrew as a supporter of Israel, a Zionist, even,Fine, but just a few days later he notices the glimmering of a problem:
But "unregistered Israeli lobbyist"? This is vile, like Pat Buchanan-vile. Robert Wexler is pro-Israel, too. Is he an unregistered Israeli lobbyist? What about Rahm Emanuel, and Barbara Boxer, and Frank Lautenberg, and Henry Waxman, and Howard Berman? Are they dual-loyalists as well? Or is their tribal-based treason excused because they're Obama supporters? I wish Andrew would go back to bashing the Jew-baiters, rather than reveling in their smears.I'd say that it's one of the early signs that Sullivan is equating the GOP with Israel (a problem that I warned about back in 2001 with the stupid frummie love of the evil GWBush) and thus to repudiate the GOP (like Sullivan's been doing) means also attacking Israel.
I've gotten a fair number of hostile e-mails for stating that Andrew, in my understanding, is a Zionist. Here's Andrew on his own understanding of what "pro-Israel," or "Zionist," means:My own definition of pro-Israel would simply be, I think: support for the existence of a secure Jewish state in Palestine. That's my position, and it is as deeply held as it is open to all sorts of arguments about what is best for its security and the interests of the US. I think it should easily be enough to earn one's credentials as a Zionist, as I proudly and passionately remain.I would make only two points about this. One is small (but actually consequential); the word "Palestine" was invented by the Romans as a deliberate attempt to erase the word "Judea" from the map. So I wouldn't say that Israel is a Jewish home in Palestine; if anything, the future state of Palestine could be called the Arab state in Judea. I know this sounds like a nitpick, but names matter, and chronology matters.
The second, larger point: Zionists generally hold Israel to the same standard they hold every other country. People who don't like Israel very much hold it to a special standard, created for one scapegoated country alone. On this count -- and only this count, so far as I can tell -- Andrew sometimes fails the test. There are times lately when he seems to single out Israel for special excoriation, and times when he holds Israel to a double-standard. By the way, this doesn't make him an anti-Semite, as some marginal figures claim he is. It makes him, if anything, normal. Most of the world holds Israel to a higher standard than it does other countries. Many Jews do, as well. One of our specialties is self-criticism. But even when it comes from Jews, it isn't fair. Context is everything. I'll continue with these profound thoughts on Andrew later on.
I'm not as charitable as Jeff here. Just off-the-bat anybody who casually uses 'Palestine' like Sullivan does is the first strike (he also does a related strike by constantly referring to an 'Israel Lobby' as if it exists as the bogeyman the Looney Left desires it to be). Sullivan's well-known friendship with the scummy anti-Semite Christopher Hitchens is strike two.Quick answer: Evidently not, but its complicated. In the past few months, really ever since Cast Lead, he has been getting more an more crazy about Israel. He's bought straight into the canard that the settlements cause Palestinian violence, and he seems to knee-jerk respond *against* Israel. This is bothersome.The thing about Sullivan is that when he gets an idea, he clings to it with fierce tenacity. And the tenacity results in massive amounts of near real-time linkage that comes as close to reporting as an opinion blog will get.So I still read him, and send him letters (which he has never, nor will ever, respond to), because I still think he's an important resource. He's the purest form of blogger, and as such, the purest expression of the power of the internet. And so far his weirdness about Israel hasn't undermined that; I just put it in the same category as his worship of Ronald Reagan and his British drag equivalent (Thatcher).
Examples: he hates Hillary with a weird rancor, so he was great in links to support Obama; he hates Palin even more than Hillary so he was the go-to guy for that; he hates that the US tortured, so he gave great linkage for that.
So when I agree with his obsession, his website is gold, because he gives me enormous amounts of info. But for all those things that he's wrong about, no matter of facts will sway him, and I just skip those posts.
Caveat: Nothing will sway him - except his own tortured mind. That's why it's hard to predict where he'll wind up on an issue, because of the above-mentioned personality quirkiness (British Catholic Gay HIV-Positive Thatcherite). His load of cognitive dissonance is enormous and it's now cracking into pieces. Somehow, I think he hates being associated for so long with the Democrats...
This was originally in this post, but I separated them for OCD reasons.
All you regular readers (both of you?) are likely asking, is this the blogpocalypse? Will there be an unleashed torrent of old Styx posts? 
I said below that I do not look to journalists for ethical lessons. This is not a specific swipe against that profession - even though I do think that journalists, especially in the post-CNN era, have overreached in terms of their claims of knowledge and moral authority. "Ethics" is the applied field of knowing the correct thing to do. In olden days, this was considered the domain of the societal elite - clergy, nobility and the elderly. Emancipation, enlightenment, democracy etc have taken that authority away and transferred it to everybody. But instead of being a meritocracy of access - saying that anybody can be a 'sage' if they met certain universalized criteria - the democratic principle has been exaggerated, so now in 21st Century America, every individual considers him/herself to be the ultimate moral authority.
Ethics as a Profession
Moral Authority Comes from Wisdom
Sigh. "No warning signs"...The psychiatrist [who worked alongside Hasan] says that he was very proud and upfront about being Muslim. And the psychiatrist hastened to say, and nobody minded that. But he seemed almost belligerent about being Muslim, and he gave a lecture one day that really freaked a lot of doctors out.Note, this may not be true (why would the Feds investigate some things Hasan said online but not when he gave an unprecedented religious rant about the Joy of Murder?), but hey, when you need to reduce the 'warning signs' to zero, some evidence gets thrown out.
They have grand rounds, right? They, you know, dozens of medical staff come into an auditorium, and somebody stands at the podium at the front and gives a lecture about some academic issue, you know, what drugs to prescribe for what condition. But instead of that, he - Hasan apparently gave a long lecture on the Koran and talked about how if you don't believe, you are condemned to hell. Your head is cut off. You're set on fire. Burning oil is burned down your throat.
And I said to the psychiatrist, but this could be a very interesting informational session, right? Where he's educating everybody about the Koran. He said but what disturbed everybody was that Hasan seemed to believe these things. And actually, a Muslim in the audience, a psychiatrist, raised his hand and said, excuse me. But I'm a Muslim and I do not believe these things in the Koran, and then I don't believe what you say the Koran says. And then Hasan didn't say, well, I'm just giving you one point of view. He basically just stared the guy down.
New Rule of Debate
Quick Update
As you've heard, a nutjob shot up 50 people in 3 minutes in Ft. Hood, Texas. A few thoughts: 
