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Is it Really Labor Day Weekend Already?

The summer flew by.  Heading out of town for our annual trip to NYCity.  Two full days of US Open tennis and two nights out on the town - just me and my sweetie.  : )

Have great weekend.

The Disagreement Over the "Occupation"

Here are some links to a highly recommended civilized, intelligent, and lengthly discussion at Bookworm Room. Don't miss the comments at the end of each post - some excellent writing was provided by Oceanguy and others:

A (somewhat) sympathetic look at Christiane Amanpour

Occupied territory or disputed territory

So what does Israel want now?

Important things happen in the comments here

Also see:

Disputed Territories 

How to Fix New Orleans

Larry Kudlow prescribes tax-free private-sector enterprise in place of government spending, and it makes good sense:

How much money has Uncle Sam spent on New Orleans and the Gulf region since Hurricane Katrina ripped the place apart?

I'll give you the answer because you'll never guess it. The grand total is $127 billion (including tax relief).

That's right: a monstrous $127 billion. Of course, not a single media story has highlighted this gargantuan government-spending figure. But that number came straight from the White House in a fact sheet subtitled, "The Federal Government Is Fulfilling Its Commitment to Help the People of the Gulf Coast Rebuild." Huh?

This is an outrage. The entire GDP of the state of Louisiana is only $141 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. So the cash spent there nearly matches the entire state gross GDP. That's simply unbelievable. And to make matters worse, by all accounts New Orleans ain't even fixed!

...The idea of using federal money to rebuild cities is the quintessential liberal vision. And given the dreadful results in New Orleans, we can say that the government's $127 billion check represents the quintessential failure of that liberal vision. Hillary Clinton calls this sort of reckless spending "government investment." And that's just what's in store for America if she wins the White House next year.

Remember President Reagan's line during the 1980 campaign about how LBJ fought a big-government spending war against poverty, and poverty won? Well think of all this Katrina spending as the Great Society Redux. And it failed. I suppose the current Bush administration would like to label this "compassionate conservatism." But guess what? That failed, too.

Right from the start, New Orleans should have been turned into a tax-free enterprise zone. No income taxes, no corporate taxes, no capital-gains taxes. The only tax would have been a sales tax paid on direct transactions. A tax-free New Orleans would have attracted tens of billions of dollars in business and real-estate investment. This in turn would have helped rebuild the cities, schools and hospitals. Private-sector entrepreneurs would have succeeded where big-government bureaucrats and regulators have so abysmally failed.   

Milton Friedman Explains Capitalism to Phil Donahue

Mem'ries, Like the Caw....nuhs of My Mind

I recently happened across a list of the top 100 songs of the 1970's.  Some - many - are the most gawdawful excuses for pop tunes that you will ever hear (Seasons in the Sun, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, and more). However - - the 70s were the years of high school and college for me, and these songs bring back so many fond, misty water-colored mem'ries from the cawnuhs of my mind, that I can't help but enjoy listening to every sappy one of them.  Here's the list from 1974,the year I graduated high school, featuring a towering triumvirate of corn - Barbra, Terry Jacks and John Denver:

The Top 10 Singles of 1974

1."The Way We Were" - Barbra Streisand

2."Come And Get Your Love" - Redbone

3."Seasons In The Sun" - Terry Jacks

4."Show And Tell" - Al Wilson

5."Love's Theme" - The Love Unlimited Orchestra

6."The Loco-motion" - Grand Funk

7."Bennie And The Jets" - Elton John

8."You Make Me Feel Brand New" - The Stylistics

9."Sunshine On My Shoulders" - John Denver

10."T.S.O.P. (The Sound Of Philadelphia)"" - MFSB featuring The Three Degrees

The rest of the list can be found here, along with links containing some fairly detailed information about the tunes, the performers, and writers.

The 50 Best Cookie Recipes on the Internet

Rare that a claim like this actually proves to be as advertised, but this one manages it.  These recipes are marvelous and out of the ordinary.

In Case You Were Curious

There are many ways to go to hell.

Um, well, yeah

Just took an Internet Addiction Test. My results: 

36 points

You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.

Take the test.

At times I think I might score higher.  If I am in the middle of an intense internet discussion/argument, or if something big is happening in the news, if the war heats up or it's election time, my score might go through the roof. 

At the moment, however, I am finding the internet to be pretty boring. I couldn't care less about whatever politician was caught in the airport bathroom and everyone's predictable reactions. 

Walt and Mearsheimer want Israel to give away the farm and Olmert seems on the verge of doing so. This is not boring - just frustrating - so I stay away from blogging about it.  I'd end up saying the same thing over and over again anyway.

Maybe I am tired of blogging.  I certainly am tired of political blogging at the present time.

Thinking that I will just blog the silly, ridiculous and odd for a while as a sort of palate cleanser.

   

Certain to Make a "Big Impression" When You Reach the Office as Well

Inventor James McAdam has unusual ideas - some practical, some funny, some bordering on the insane:

"As you rest your head on the pillow for those valuable last few moments before you wake the words Good Morning Sweetheart are gently pressed onto your cheek. Even though you may feel tired and drowsy your loved one can see how you feel."

More. 

Phillis Chesler on Amanpour

CNN's Christiane Amanpour receives yet another verbal pummeling on her 3-part mockumentary, "Jews and Christians Bad, Muslims Good."

IHABICNRWTSF

Crack the code.

Dear Future Me

Actually, it would be much more useful if I could send a message to myself in the past. What can I tell myself in the future that I don't already know?

One of Those Weird Things One Finds on the Internet...

...without any explanation which perhaps one is better off not knowing anyway.

Click.

Haveil Havalim

Edition #131 of Haveil Havalim has been posted at SoccerDad's.  Find out what bloggers have been writing about with regard to politics, Israel, Judaism, and more during the past week.  Highly recommended reading!

V'Shamru

About Debbie Friedman

A Daughter Joins the Army

Yehuda writes simply and eloquently about his daughter's induction into the Israeli army:

None of these people want war or fighting, but neither will they shirk from it. As we sang the national anthem, I reflected on how the Israeli anthem is one of the few that has no reference to war or conquest, only peace and longing to be free.

...When they were all ready, the commander turned to Ariella and told her that she was the one.

Not only did she carry the extra load all night, but she had to run back and forth between all the groups. She ran three times as much as everyone else did. By the time night was over, her pants were ripped and she was bruised and bleeding.

Her commander finally told them at dawn that basic induction was over and they were now ready for their three months of training. She then spoke to each soldier in turn.

When she came to Ariella, she asked her "I suppose you know why I asked you to carry the communication gear?"

Ariella said, "No, commander."

The commander said, "Because I knew you could. And I wanted you to know that you could. And when I'm not around, I want you to always carry the extra load, because you can."

Read the whole thing.

The Farthest Traveled Human-Made Object

NASA's two venerable Voyager spacecraft are celebrating three decades of flight as they head toward interstellar space. Their ongoing odysseys mark an unprecedented and historic accomplishment.

...Voyager 1 currently is the farthest human-made object, traveling at a distance from the Sun of about 15.5 billion kilometers (9.7 billion miles). Voyager 2 is about 12.5 billion kilometers (7.8 billion miles) from the Sun. Originally designed as a four-year mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Voyager tours were extended because of their successful achievements and a rare planetary alignment. The two-planet mission eventually became a four-planet grand tour. After completing that extended mission, the two spacecraft began the task of exploring the outer heliosphere.

More

(Star Trek fans may recall what happens to Voyager 6...)

CNN's "God's Jewish Warriors"

Very short of time, but I wanted to make sure to mention CNN's latest "documentary" being hosted by Christiane Amanpour.  I'd seen a bit of it a couple of nights ago and couldn't watch more than a few minutes - it was much too disturbing to hear Amanpour oh so casually disseminate arguments against Israel which were so off-base. Some details from CAMERA:

CNN's "God's Warriors," hosted by Christiane Amanpour, is a three-part series intended to examine the growing role of religious fundamentalism in today's world. Unfortunately, the first program in the series, "God's Jewish Warriors," is one of the most grossly distorted programs to appear on mainstream American television in many years. It is false in its basic premise, established in the opening scene in which  Jewish (and Christian) religious fervency is equated with that of Muslims heard endorsing "martyrdom," or suicide-killing. There is, of course, no counterpart among Jews and Christians to the violent jihadist Muslim campaigns underway across the globe, either in numbers of perpetrators engaged or in the magnitude of death and destruction wrought.

While in reality Jewish "terrorism" is virtually non-existent, the program magnifies at length the few instances of violence or attempted violence by religiously-motivated Jewish individuals - including having to go all the way back to 1980, for example, to explore a bombing campaign by a small group of Israeli Jews on West Bank Arab mayors. By dredging up such an old incident Amanpour unintentionally undermines her own thesis.

Settlements are likewise a key focus of the program, their residents and adherents being deemed "God's warriors" – along with those Americans, Jewish and Christian alike, who support them. American presidents and Members of Congress are said to be held hostage to the so-called "Israel Lobby," ostensibly dark forces consisting of AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups who supposedly enable the nefarious expansion of West Bank communities.

Disproportionate reliance on partisan voices, some extreme figures, skews the message dramatically. Jimmy Carter and John Mearsheimer, chief proponents of the discredited canards about Jews subverting American national interests to those of Israel, are repeatedly and respectfully interviewed. Carter, for example, claims that no American politician could survive politically while calling for settlement-related aid cuts to Israel: "There's no way that a member of Congress would ever vote for that and hope to be re-elected."

That would be news to politicians like Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, who has long been a critic of aid to Israel and opposed loan guarantees to Israel in 1992. As well, contrary to Amanpour and Carter, Representatives James Trafficante, Dana Rohrabacher, Nick Smith, Fortney Pete Stark, Neil Abercrombie, David E. Bonior, John Conyers Jr, John D. Dingell, Earl F. Hilliard, Jesse L. Jackson Jr.,  Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, George Miller, Jim Moran, David R. Obey, Ron Paul and  Nick J. Rahall II, have voted against aid to Israel and/or opposed other resolutions favoring Israel.

Amanpour ignores all this, and turns instead to former Senator Charles Percy, who joins in denouncing Jewish political influence. Only Morris Amitay is presented as balance on this critical issue.

Whether wittingly or not, Amanpour's program, with its reliance on pejorative labeling, generalities, testimonials, and a stacked lineup of guests, is a perfect illustration of classical propaganda techniques. Unfortunately propaganda is the opposite of journalism, the profession Amanpour is supposed to practice.

The program was misleading and inaccurate in many other ways as well:

Land

Amanpour says: "But it is also Palestinian land. The West Bank - it's west of the Jordan River - was designated by the United Nations to be the largest part of an Arab state." 

This is highly deceptive. The United Nations 1947 Partition Plan proposed dividing all the land west of the Jordan into a Jewish and an Arab state; the Arabs rejected the plan, choosing instead to launch a war to eliminate Israel. The land did not become "Palestinian land" via this UN Plan. Likewise, UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the Six Day War, underscored that territorial adjustments related to the West Bank were to be expected.

Settlements

• Amanpour suggests settlements are the cause of Arab anger: "the Jewish settlements have inflamed much of the Arab world," yet the Arab world was just as anti-Israel (actually more so) before the settlements were built.

• She presents at length the views of Theodor Meron asserting the illegality of settlements as the definitive word, but makes no mention of more senior Israeli experts such as former Supreme Court Chief Meir Shamgar, who disagreed with Meron. Nor does Amanpour mention such foreign experts such as Professors Julius Stone and Eugene Rostow who also argued for the legality of settlements. (See for example CAMERA BACKGROUNDER: The Debate About Settlements and  From "Occupied Territories" to "Disputed Territories" by Dore Gold.)

• She grossly misleads about America's position on settlements in the following sequence:

WILLIAM SCRANTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N. UNDER JIMMY CARTER: My government believes that international law sets the appropriate standards.

AMANPOUR: From the earliest days of the settler movement, even the United States, Israel's closest ally, blasted Israel's settlement policy.

SCRANTON: Substantial resettlement of the Israeli civilian population in occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is illegal.

AMANPOUR: Ever since American presidents both Democrat and Republican have spoken from virtually the same script. They consistently oppose settlement growth.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT: The United States will not support the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements.

In fact, while the Carter administration did deem settlements illegal, President Reagan very much did not speak from the "same script." He explained: "As to the West Bank, I believe the settlements there — I disagreed when the previous Administration referred to them as illegal, they're not illegal" (NYTimes, Feb. 3, 1981). Other presidents, including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, also did not term settlements "illegal."

Read the whole thing. 

It's Time to Take Action: Discriminatory Saudi Arabian Airlines Policies

Uniting to Exclude Saudi Arabian Airlines - Daniel Pipes
Saudi Arabian Airlines declares on its English-language Web site that the kingdom bans "Bibles, crucifixes, statues, carvings, items with religious symbols such as the Star of David." Until the Saudi government changes this detestable policy, its airline should be disallowed from flying into Western airports. As Stephen Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism points out, signs in Saudi airports warn Muslim travelers that the airport's religious police confiscate Korans, other Islamic literature, and Muslim objects of non-Saudi origin. While discriminating specifically against Shiites and Ahmadis, this policy manifests a wider insistence on Wahhabi supremacism.
    More broadly, the Saudi leadership runs a country that the American government has condemned repeatedly as having "no religious freedom" and being among the most religiously repressive in the world. Saudia, the state-owned national carrier and its portal to the world, offers a pressure point for change. Western governments should demand that unless the Saudi government at least permits "that stuff" in, Saudia faces exclusion from the 18 airports it presently services in Europe, North America, and Japan. (New York Sun)

Christian, Zionist, and Japanese

An annual Japanese Pilgrimage to Israel. Here, they can be seen marching up Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem:

Some background from Wikipedia:

Abraham Ikurō Teshima (手島アブラハム郁郎, Teshima Abraham Ikurō^?) (1910- 24 December 1973) was the founder of a Christian, Zionist Japanese New Religion called 'Makuya'.

A native of Kumamoto, Japan, he was baptized as a Protestant at the age of fifteen, and soon afterwards joined the No-Church Movement started by Uchimura Kanzō. He served as a civilian employee in Korea and China during World War II, and returned to Kumamoto in 1945. Two years later, a warrant was issued for his arrest, after he opposed and obstructed the destruction of a local school building. He fled to Mt. Aso in central Kyūshū, and lived there in a cave for two weeks, where he claimed to have had a religious revelation. According to Teshima, God spoke to him and commanded him to return home and spread the correct teaching of the Christian Bible. Returning home, he discovered the warrant had been repealed; Teshima closed his business enterprise, and opened a Bible study center, which he originally called Genshin Fukuin Undo or 'Original Gospel Movement.' The name 'Makuya' came about shortly afterwards, deriving from the Hebrew word mishkan, meaning 'tabernacle'. It was perhaps around this time that he took on the name 'Abraham,' and required all members of Makuya to take on Hebrew names as well.

Unlike many in more mainstream branches of Christianity, Teshima believed in a return to more Judaic modes, and rejected many of the more common or major tenets of Catholicism and Protestant Christianity. For example, in addition to rejecting the adoration of the Virgin Mary and the cross, Makuya is a non-trinitarian sect, rejecting the concept of the Holy Trinity, and affirming a single god. Teshima studied the Hebrew language, Jewish religion, culture, and history extensively. He was enrolled for a time at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, and translated a number of texts from Hebrew into Japanese, as well as writing articles, periodicals, and books of his own.

Teshima fell ill and died on Christmas Eve 1973, but Makuya continues on under the leadership of his widow and son-in-law, and today claims 60,000 members in Korea, Taiwan, and the United Satates, as well as in Japan.

Teshima traveled to Israel for the first time in 1961. He returned two years later, making Kibbutz Heftsi-bah, near Mt. Gilboa, a base for his students. Starting in 1964, Teshima and his students began to make annual pilgrimages to Israel, parading through Jerusalem in happi (Japanese traditional festival coats) decorated in blue and white, carrying Zionist banners and singing Hebrew songs.

How Could They Use Their Own Children?

Palestinians Send Children to Retrieve Rocket Launchers After Attacks on Israel - Yuval Azoulay, Yoav Stern and Mijal Grinberg
Israeli forces combating Palestinian gunmen in Gaza killed Yehia Habib, a senior Hamas field commander in Gaza City, in an airstrike Wednesday on a group of armed men who had approached the border fence with Israel.
    On Tuesday two figures were seen moving in a field near Beit Hanun toward rocket launchers immediately after Kassam rockets had been fired on towns in Israel. The two were killed by a tank shell. Later it was learned that they were a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old sent to collect Kassam rocket launchers. "If these were children or youths, we regret the use that the terrorist groups are making of them," the IDF spokesman said Tuesday. An IDF source said: "Every Palestinian, including the militants, knows that anyone who hangs around these launchers is endangering themselves."
    "This is a cynical use of children but we are no longer surprised by anything we see. A 14-year-old child has already fired an RPG rocket against an IDF force, a grandmother aged close to 70 fired a light weapon against a Givati [Brigade] force recently in the Strip. What were these children doing there anyway? The militants fled immediately after the launch and then sent the children to collect the launchers," a source added. (Ha'aretz/Jerusalem Post)

Brings to mind a couple of quotes from the late Israeli PM Golda Meir:

We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.

We can forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but we will never forgive them for making us kill theirs.

Surfing Toward Peace

An 86-year-old Jewish surfing guru from Hawaii is bringing good vibrations to the impoverished Gaza Strip.

Dorian Paskowitz, a retired doctor, donated 12 surfboards to Gaza's small surfing community on Tuesday in a novel gesture to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

"God will surf with the devil if the waves are good," Paskowitz said. "When a surfer sees another surfer with a board, he can't help but say something that brings them together."

The chiseled Paskowitz emerged shirtless at the Israel-Gaza crossing after handing over the dozen boards to Gaza surfers waiting on the other side. He said he was inspired after reading a story about two Gaza surfers who could not enjoy the wild waves off the coastal strip because they had only one board to share between them.

Arthur Rashkovan, a 28-year-old surfer from Tel Aviv, said Paskowitz's project was part of a larger effort called "Surfing for Peace," aimed at bringing Middle East surfers closer together.

Read more. 

Hat tip: Draftervoi

I've grown very cynical.  This was a lovely story, and I truly hope it serves as a movement toward peace, but at the same time I can't help but think to myself: I hope the Palestinians treat these surfboards better than they treated the Israeli greenhouses.

Great Job, Guys!

The American public apparently likes President Bush better than they do Congress.

Effective Photographic Technique

Check out these pictures, taken with flash and without.

Just When You Think You've Heard it All...

Apparently, the nazis had a mascot .  He was a 5 year old boy, whose job it was to help raise the morale of the troops.  Unbeknownst to any of them, the boy had a secret:

Alex Kurzem came to Australia in 1949 carrying just a small brown briefcase, but weighed down by some harrowing psychological and emotional baggage.

Tucked away in his briefcase were the secrets of his past - fragments of his life that he kept hidden for decades.

In 1997, after raising a family in Melbourne with his Australian bride, he finally revealed himself. He told how, at the age of five, he had been adopted by the SS and became a Nazi mascot.

His personal history, one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from World War II, was published recently in a book entitled The Mascot.

"They gave me a uniform, a little gun and little pistol," Alex told the BBC.

"They gave me little jobs to do - to polish shoes, carry water or light a fire. But my main job was to entertain the soldiers. To make them feel a bit happier."

In newsreels, he was paraded as 'the Reich's youngest Nazi' and he witnessed some unspeakable atrocities.

But his SS masters never discovered the most essential detail about his life: their little Nazi mascot was Jewish.

Quite a story.

The Voice of Muslim Sanity

It is a relief to hear it:

Muslim Congressman Doesn't Understand Muslim "Crazies" - Herb Keinon
The first Muslim member of the U.S. Congress, Minnesota's Keith Ellison, left Israel on Saturday after a six-day visit as part of a Democratic congressional delegation. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Ellison said he doesn't understand those "crazies" who read the same Koran he did and came away with a license to murder. "I don't know how they read what they read and come out with what they do. They wouldn't consider me a Muslim because I'm American, because I believe in the unity of people and that we are all on the planet to work together."
    "The people who did 9/11 are hostile to everyone, and in fact if you are not the type of Muslim they want you to be, they would be happy to kill you too," Ellison said. "I am not a Muslim in their eyes because I am for tolerance and inclusion, and they don't want an Islam that is inclusive." (Jerusalem Post)

FYI: Breast Cancer Facts 2007

From the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC), a grassroots organization dedicated to ending breast cancer through action and advocacy:

• The National Cancer Institute estimates that a woman in the United States has a 1 in 8 chance of developing invasive breast cancer during her lifetime. This risk was about 1 in 11 in 1975.
• More women in the United States are living with breast cancer than any other cancer (excluding skin cancer). Approximately 3 million women in the U.S. are living with breast cancer: about 2.3 million have been diagnosed with the disease and an estimated 1 million do not yet know they have the disease.
• Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women in the United States and worldwide (excluding skin cancer). In 2007, it is estimated that 240,510 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States: 178,480 invasive breast cancers and 62,030 cases of in situ breast cancer (of which, 85% will be ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS)).¹ 
• Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for women in the U.S, after lung cancer. Approximately 40,460 women in the U.S. will die from the disease in 2007. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for U.S. women between the ages of 20 and 59, and the leading cause of cancer death for women worldwide.
• Approximately 11% of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer die from the disease within five years; at ten years, 20% will have died. The most recent available statistics show that 40% of all women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer died from the disease within 20 years.² 
• Older women are much more likely to get breast cancer than younger women. Most breast cancers (about 80%) occur in women ages 50 and older. About 5% of all breast cancer cases occur in women under the age of 40. However, younger women who get breast cancer have a lower survival rate than older women who get breast cancer.
• Combining all age groups, white (non-Hispanic) women are more likely to develop breast cancer than black women. However, black women are more likely to die of breast cancer than white women.
• Black women have a higher breast cancer mortality rate at every age, and a lower survival rate than white women.³ The five-year survival rate for white women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer is 90% while the five-year survival rate for black women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer is only 77%.
• Between 1994 and 2003, the mortality rate for women of all races combined declined by 2.4% annually. In white women, breast cancer mortality declined by 2.5% annually. In black women, mortality declined by 1.4% annually during the same period.⁴ 
• Mortality has declined faster for women under the age of 50 (by 3.3% annually), regardless of race/ethnicity.
• The current methods of treatment in use in the United States are surgery (mastectomy and lumpectomy), radiation, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and biologic therapy (e.g. monoclonal antibody therapy).
• Mammography screening does not prevent or cure breast cancer. However, it may detect the disease before symptoms occur. Breast cancer tumors can exist for six to ten years before they grow large enough to be detected by mammography.
• Mammography is less effective in younger women. In the overall population, digital mammography does not perform better than traditional film mammography. However, among younger women, digital mammography has been reported to detect more breast cancers than film mammography. There are no studies to establish whether screening with digital mammography decreases breast cancer mortality.
• All women are at risk for breast cancer. About 90-95% of women who develop breast cancer do not have a family history of the disease.
• Factors that increase a woman's risk of breast cancer include older age, genetic factors, family history of breast or ovarian cancer, long menstrual history, nulliparity (having no children), older than 30 years of age at first full-term pregnancy, daily alcohol consumption, use of combined postmenopausal hormone therapy (PHT), postmenopausal obesity, and ionizing radiation. Factors that decrease a woman's risk of breast cancer include breast-feeding and physical activity (exercise).
• Recently, higher breast density has been show to be strongly associated with the risk of breast cancer. It was found that breast cancer rate was almost four times greater in those with extremely dense breast tissue as opposed to those with fatty breast tissue. It is important to remember that since mammography is less sensitive in detecting breast cancer for dense breasts, the effect of breast density may be somewhat underestimated.
• Although scientists have discovered some risk factors for breast cancer, the known risk factors account for only a small percentage (~30%) of breast cancer cases. There are few interventions with limited value that reduce risk, and none of them prevent breast cancer.

Link

My Thoughts on Raising Teenagers

AAAAaaaaaaRRRRRrrrrrrrGGGGGGGGGhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

A wartime public illiterate about the conflicts of the past can easily find itself paralyzed in the acrimony of the present. Without standards of historical comparison, it will prove ill equipped to make informed judgments. Neither our politicians nor most of our citizens seem to recall the incompetence and terrible decisions that, in December 1777, December 1941, and November 1950, led to massive American casualties and, for a time, public despair. So it’s no surprise that today so many seem to think that the violence in Iraq is unprecedented in our history. Roughly 3,000 combat dead in Iraq in some four years of fighting is, of course, a terrible thing. And it has provoked national outrage to the point of considering withdrawal and defeat, as we still bicker over up-armored Humvees and proper troop levels. But a previous generation considered Okinawa a stunning American victory, and prepared to follow it with an invasion of the Japanese mainland itself—despite losing, in a little over two months, four times as many Americans as we have lost in Iraq, casualties of faulty intelligence, poor generalship, and suicidal head-on assaults against fortified positions. - Victor Davis Hanson

Is Europe Giving in (yet again) to Fascism?

...civilizations collapse not because the barbarians are so strong, but because they themselves are so morally enfeebled. - Theodore Dalrymple

History Repeating?

The Palestinian version of Hitler Youth.

Haveil Havalim

Edition #130 is now posted at SoccerDad.  Be sure to visit and catch up with all the news from the jblogosphere covering subjects such as Israel, war, politics, history, and Judaism.

The Doo-Dah News Network

The Doo-Dah News Network brings you the finest headlines that you can sing to the tune of "Camptown Races" if you add "Doo-Dah" to the end.

End of Day Financial News

What a roller coaster ride:

Bulls to bears: not so fast

Major gauges erase most of the day's losses, as investors recover from mortgage, credit fears; Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500 all bounce back after falling 10% from 2007 highs.

By Alexandra Twin, CNNMoney.com senior writer

August 16 2007: 4:01 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks erased most of the session's losses by late afternoon Thursday, as investors worked through the panic about the credit and mortgage markets that had been sparked by Countrywide Financial's last financial problems.

The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) added a few points, erasing virtually all of the day's declines, with about 5 minutes left in the session. The blue-chip barometer had plunged more than 300 points earlier in the afternoon, before recovering and seesawing up through the close.

The broader S&P 500 (Charts) index gained 0.4 percent and the tech-fueled Nasdaq Composite (Charts) index slid 0.5 percent. Both had posted losses throughout the session, but recovered near the close.

Link

Elul: The Alarm Clock Rang yesterday

Yesterday began the month of Elul, and my alarm was a little late, I forgot to remember it until today. I also neglected to acknowledge Tisha B'Av, which took place in July this year.  

The month of Elul is a time of repentance in preparation for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Tradition teaches that the month of Elul is a particularly propitious time for repentance. This mood of repentance builds through the month of Elul to the period of Selichot, to Rosh Hashanah, and finally to Yom Kippur.

The name of the month (spelled Alef-Lamed-Vav-Lamed) is said to be an acronym of "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li," "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine," a quote from Song of Songs 6:3, where the Beloved is G-d and the "I" is the Jewish people. In Aramaic (the vernacular of the Jewish people at the time that the month names were adopted), the word "Elul" means "search," which is appropriate, because this is a time of year when we search our hearts.

According to tradition, the month of Elul is the time that Moses spent on Mount Sinai preparing the second set of tablets after the incident of the golden calf (Ex. 32; 34:27-28). He ascended on Rosh Chodesh Elul and descended on the 10th of Tishri, at the end of Yom Kippur, when repentance was complete. Other sources say that Elul is the beginning of a period of 40 days that Moses prayed for G-d to forgive the people after the Golden Calf incident, after which the commandment to prepare the second set of tablets was given.

Customs of Elul

During the month of Elul, from the second day of Elul to the 28th day, the shofar (a hollowed out ram's horn) is blown after morning services every weekday. See Rosh Hashanah for more information about the shofar and its characteristic blasts. The shofar is not blown on Shabbat. It is also not blown on the day before Rosh Hashanah to make a clear distinction between the rabbinical rule of blowing the shofar in Elul and the biblical mitzvah to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Four blasts are blown: tekiah, shevarim-teruah, tekiah. The MIDI file on the Rosh Hashanah page emulates this combination of blasts. Rambam explained the custom of blowing shofar as a wake-up call to sleepers, designed to rouse us from our complacency. It is a call to repentance. The blast of the shofar is a very piercing sound when done properly.

Elul is also a time to begin the process of asking forgiveness for wrongs done to other people. According to Jewish tradition, G-d cannot forgive us for sins committed against another person until we have first obtained forgiveness from the person we have wronged. This is not as easy a task as you might think, if you have never done it. This process of seeking forgiveness continues through the Days of Awe.

More on the High Holidays, an interview with a rabbi who wrote an excellent book about them:

BELIEF & PRACTICE:
Jewish High Holidays
From: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week704/belief.html

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: We talked with Rabbi Alan Lew of Congregation Beth Shalom in San Francisco, who has written about the High Holidays in his new book, THIS IS REAL AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED.

Before he became a rabbi, Lew practiced Zen Buddhism for 10 years. Now, he blends Jewish and Buddhist traditions in his practice. Rabbi Lew says the High Holiday spiritual transformation process for Jews actually began on Tisha b'Av, last month, mourning the destruction of the Jewish temples in Jerusalem.

Rabbi ALAN LEW (Congregation Beth Shalom, San Francisco): The point of the High Holidays is atonement, reconciliation, a restitution to wholeness. So it makes sense that a journey that ends that way should begin with an acknowledgment of alienation and estrangement, and that is the theme of Tisha b'Av.

Tisha b'Av is the time when the temple was destroyed, and the temple was the place where one felt the palpable presence of God.

After acknowledging that we are in fact estranged from ourselves, from others, from God -- for the next 30 days there's a very rigorous period of introspection. The essential gesture of this entire period is to become more mindful, to become more aware both of our own situations psychologically and spiritually, or those things that we've been doing that aren't so productive.

So the closer we are to being in the present moment, the more mindful we are, the closer we are to God. God is here; if we are elsewhere, we are estranged from God.

So the blowing of the shofar is connected to this mindfulness, this process of becoming mindful, it calls us to it. It wakes us up literally -- it's an alarm clock.

When we are really immersed in the act of prayer, we are not so much asking for things, and we are not so much trying to bend God's will to our own, which I think [is] what we ordinarily think of prayer, but we are really engaging in an act of self-judgment.

Part of the reason that we are able to effect a reconciliation with God during this season [is] because we realize how desperately we need God, we realize we can't do all these really difficult things without a sense of a transcendent consciousness beyond our own.

Rosh Hashanah is the day when the gates to heaven open, and it's a very rich symbol, suggesting both access to the presence of God during this time, extraordinary access, suggesting a time of transformation ... that if we read the book of our life, we can see ourselves and we can stop jumping into fires that we are wont to do and stop doing unconscious hurt to others.

Yom Kippur, the very end of this process, is a time when we literally rehearse our own death, and we intone this endless liturgy of who will live and who will die, and we abstain from all activities that living people engage in, like eating and sexual activity.

We can evoke the power of our death to show us our lives. The most intense times are those last several hours of Neillah when the gates are closing. I can literally hear and feel those gates clanging shut. And then the shofar blows and there is a tremendous feeling of lightness.

We spend the rest of the year in a greater state of awareness.

Highly recommended:

Read an excerpt from the beginning of Rabbi Lew's book, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared.

For the corresponding Gregorian dates of the Jewish holidays taking place in Elul and Tishrei, click here.

Early Afternoon Financial News

Market bloodbath - the Dow is down 317 points at 1:06 pm ET:

Wilting in a Market Meltdown U.S. News & World Report, DC - 32 minutes ago By Paul J. Lim The subprime mortgage mess that roiled the nation's credit market is now threatening one of the longest uninterrupted bull markets in stocks. ... Wall Street slides as credit fears mount NEWS.com.au, Australia - 34 minutes ago By Kristina Cooke in New York US stocks fell sharply today on signs of further deterioration in credit conditions and the potential impact on the economy ... Stocks slide as credit fears mount Canada.com, Canada - 42 minutes ago NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell sharply on Thursday on signs of further deterioration in credit conditions and the potential impact on the economy and ... Credit Meltdown Mauls Stocks TheStreet.com - 45 minutes ago By Robert Holmes Stocks in the US were tanking Thursday, matching the declines in overseas markets, as financial fears continued to encircle the globe. ... Investors seek safety as credit fears mount Swissinfo, Switzerland - 48 minutes ago By Herbert Lash NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors around the world slashed their exposure to risk on Thursday, driving key stock indices to multiyear lows and ... Stocks slide as credit fears mount Reuters.uk, UK - 59 minutes ago By Kristina Cooke NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell sharply on Thursday on signs of further deterioration in credit conditions and the potential impact on ...

Early Morning Financial News

From the WSJ:

U.S. stocks appear set for heavy losses after steep declines in Asia and Europe, with economic data expected to show how subprime troubles started. Full article shortly.

ASIAN STOCKS CLOSED sharply lower and European stocks dropped in midday trading, battered by persistent jitters over U.S. subprime woes and their possible damage to global markets.  7:25 a.m.

• Morning Brief: Why the Fed Isn't Thinking Rate Cut

• U.S. Stocks Decline on Credit Uncertainty

Treasury Secretary Paulson said market turmoil "will extract a penalty" on U.S. growth but expressed confidence that the economy will avoid a recession.

• Video: Paulson's Diagnosis | Transcript: Interview Excerpts

• Discuss: What do you think of Paulson's comments?

Countrywide shares fell 13% after a Merrill analyst issued a 'sell' rating and fueled worries about the mortgage-lender's ability to cope with the credit crunch.  6:28 a.m.

Doom and gloom from Yahoo finance as well:

U.S. stocks appeared headed for another sharp retrenchment Thursday as fears persisted of widening problems with some mortgages and tighter access to credit.

A sell-off overseas offered Wall Street little reason to try to stanch the bleeding early Thursday a day after the Dow Jones industrial average closed below the 13,000 mark for the first time since April and the Standard & Poor's 500 index moved into negative territory for the year.

Overseas, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 2.60 percent, Germany's DAX index fell 2.40 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 2.54 percent. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 2 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 3.3 percent, while the often-volatile Shanghai Composite Exchange fell 2.1 percent.

Further weighing on investor sentiment, St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole told Bloomberg Television after the closing bell Wednesday it wasn't necessary for the central bank to consider lowering short-term interest rates before the regularly scheduled meeting of its rate-setting committee next month.

Investors' confidence took a beating Wednesday as concerns arose about potential trouble at Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, and KKR Financial Holdings LLC.

Housing concerns will remain in focus Thursday with a report due on July housing starts. Starts are expected to rise by a slightly smaller amount than in June, and data on building permits are expected to show an increase by about the same amount.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Hat Tip: Shirl

American Immigration Employees Aiding Terrorists for $$

A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

Link

Giuliani Knows the Middle East

And he's not afraid to come right out and say what he thinks:

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said he opposes creation of a Palestinian state at this time and would take a tough stand with Iran, including destroying its nuclear infrastructure "should all else fail."

Outlining his foreign policy views in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Giuliani said "too much emphasis" has been placed on brokering negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians — an apparent swipe at President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who have been pushing both sides for final status negotiations despite Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June.

"It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism," the former New York City mayor said.

"Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel," Giuliani said. "America's commitment to Israel's security is a permanent feature of our foreign policy."