YudelLine

YudelLine

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

Life in these Confederated States: Louisiana told to abstain from mix of church, state

"U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. recently ruled on a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that the Governor's Program on Abstinence broke the law in giving tax dollars intended for abstinence education to individuals or organizations that "convey religious messages or otherwise advance religion."
"Porteous found that some groups receiving GPA funds used the money to distribute Bibles, hold prayer rallies outside abortion clinics and perform religious skits. He ordered the state to stop subsidizing religious activities."

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Those Who Preserve the Past (1) Internet Library of Early Journals (Thanks to dangerousmeta!)

The ILEJ project is concerned exclusively with key early British journals. The six titles are:

Annual Register started in 1758, an annual survey of European and world events from a British perspective, but including biographical notices, parliamentary and legal reports, and some book reviews, divided into topical sections with chronological sub-divisions.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine started in 1817 (as a Tory rival to the Whig Edinburgh Review), a medium for imaginative literature, publishing English poetry, essays and especially prose fiction, and pioneering the presentation of European literature (particularly German) to a British audience.
The Builder started in 1843, a mine of information on domestic and foreign building developments from the perspective of the architect, engineer, constructor and art historian, including accounts of new buildings, materials, processes and books, and articles on ancient monuments and other historic buildings.
Gentleman's Magazine started in 1731, a Britain-focused miscellany of information about people, places and events, including news summaries, parliamentary reports, biographies and obituary notices, poems, essays, and a register of current publications.
Notes and Queries started in 1849, "a medium of intercommunication for literary men, artists, antiquaries, genealogists, etc.", carrying brief reports of completed research on humanities and related subjects and questions inviting answers in subsequent issues.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society started in 1660, initially as a forum for the publication of scientific papers of both a general and a specialized nature, although increasingly a learned journal carrying refereed papers from established scientists.

Those Who Preserve the Past (2): Action Comics #1

Yudel's Line: Note how the Man of Steel's premiere outing featured him fightng for justice on behalf of the battered and the framed. His physical prowess was just a tool for his moral struggle.
This principle echoes that of Rabbinic midrash, where moral heroes have superhuman powers (c.f. Pharoah's daughter, who is described as having an expanding arm millenia before Plastic Man) and physical heroes are understood as religious heroes (c.f. Bavli Brachot, where a Biblical character who wrestled with lions is said to have wrestled with Torah).

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

It's Even Worse Than it Appears: Tolerating Intolerance: The Challenge of Fundamentalist Islam in Western Europe (Partisan Review)

"The Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that 65 percent of rapes of Norwegian women were performed by "non-Western" immigrants–a category that, in Norway, consists mostly of Muslims. The article quoted a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo (who was described as having "lived for many years in Muslim countries") as saying that "Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. One reason for the high number of rapes by Muslims, explained the professor, was that in their native countries "rape is scarcely punished," since Muslims "believe that it is women who are responsible for rape." The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it."
"It is in such ways that freedoms begin to erode.
"If native Europeans and fundamentalist Muslims are to coexist in the West, the Muslims must temper their fundamentalism–period. The alternative is for Europeans to sacrifice the freedom, tolerance, and respect for individual mind and conscience on which Western civilization is founded. That cannot be allowed to happen–not just for Europe’s sake, but for America’s as well."
Yudel's Line: Worth reading in whole... for the descriptions of Islamic fundamentalism and multicuralism run amok in Europe, along with an indication that the things may be beginning to change....

Why I Don't Trust The Feds Totally Wasted (Letter to San Francisco Chronicle via InstaPundit)
"I was recently hired for an FBI counter-terrorism position based on my ability to speak several foreign languages, my thorough knowledge of Middle Eastern culture and my extensive travel abroad. Each FBI employee who interviewed me told me, "We're desperately in need of language skills."
"I'm a blue-blooded American, 44 years old, who has taught college several years for the Department of Defense, and I was excited my skills would be helpful in the war against terror. Then came the FBI's lie detector test.
"I admitted I'd smoked marijuana about 20 times when I was 18. I've never used drugs since. But within five minutes I was put out on the street."



Why I Don't Trust the Feds (2): Raving Lunacy (Glenn InstaPundit Reynolds on FoxNews)
"We’re at war. The people in charge of running the war say that we have to trust them: trust their integrity, and trust their judgment.
"But how can we trust our government to spot terrorists when it thinks that glow-sticks are items of "drug paraphernalia?"



A New Kind of New Yorker, One With 82 Legs. Scientists have discovered the first new animal species found in Central Park in more than a century. [New York Times: NY Region]



The Newest Economy: Searching for a Leader? (Talking Points Memo)
"Remember the big tin robot in those early sixties sci-fi films? Remember how there'd come a point at the end where the hero would outwit the robot or set him on some problem he couldn't solve and the robot would slip into a feedback loop and smoke would start coming out of his ears?
"The White House is the robot.
"It's really that bad.
"The upshot of the article is that Wall Street and congressional Republicans are going nuts. They think the sky is falling. But the White House thinks things really aren't so bad. And they have a clever plan! The administration will use the August congressional recess to get a jump on Congress by pressing lawmakers to vote on fast track. That, and the President and Secretry O'Neill will travel to companies around the country that are doing well.
"Phew! And I thought they didn't have a plan...
"The [Wall Street Journal] article accurately, if with understatement, notes that the White House's response is "greatly constrained by administration philosophy ... [which] does not believe in dramatic intervention, either in the markets or the economy."



Capitalism Got You Down? SOCIALISM: What Happened? What Now? (Social Democrats, USA)
A May Day 2002 symposium featuring Josh Muravchik Rick Hertzberg Marshall Wittman Paul Berman Jeane Kirkpatrick Sandra Feldman



Friday hospital discharges "most dangerous". Patients sent home on a Friday - the most popular discharge day - are more likely to die soon afterwards [New Scientist]
"Maybe the people in our study that were sent home on Fridays were sicker than those sent home on Wednesday," says Chaim Bell, who led the research. "Or perhaps community support and health visitors may not be as available over the weekend, which may have led to more hospital readmissions.
"Patients should prepare for their discharge to counter the risk," he adds. "They should know what their follow-up plans are, what to look for and who to contact in an emergency.
Bell and van Walraven suggest that until further research clarifies why Friday discharges are the most dangerous, clinicians should be aware of the risks when they consider pushing to get patients home for the weekend.



Attention Hummus Shoppers: Your Grocery List Could Spark a Terror Probe (Village Voice)
They thought they were making routine purchases—the innocent, everyday pickups of charcoal and hummus, bleach and sandwich bags, that keep the modern household running.
Regulars at a national grocery chain, these thousands and thousands of shoppers used the store's preferred-customer cards, in the process putting years of their lives on file.
Perhaps they expected their records would be used by marketers trying to better target consumers.
Instead, says the company's privacy consultant, the data was used by government agents hunting for potential terrorists.



Fortune. The tale of Harken gets stranger and more cloudy by the minute: >>>"It was always suspected that something was fishy, but not because of the Bush connection," says Gheit of Fahnestock. "That for a small company like Harken to be involved in foreign drilling operations getting concessions from foreign governments, things just didn't add up. A lot of people had suspected that this was a CIA front." That particular point, of course, is just a rumor.<<< [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

This Generation Needs a Paranoid's Paranoid. Twenty years after his death, Philip K. Dick has gained literary respectability and is one of the hottest properties in Hollywood. By Brent Staples. [New York Times: Opinion]



NY Times: "President Bush is off to the worst start of any president in 75 years as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500 index." [Scripting News]



Monday, July 22, 2002

Educational Television: Why One Woman Watches Sex & the City with her 14-year-old daughter (Salon)
Sex & the City was the most popular show among a group of 10th grade girls I taught last year.... most of whom didn't believe women should be allowed to read from the Torah.



Weighing in on Worldcom: Asleep at the Switch (Forbes)
"WorldCom book-cooking was laid out chapter, line and verse in a shareholder suit over a year ago. Sadly, a judge with knotty political ties tossed it out as directors, auditors, regulators--and the press--snoozed."



Back to '67 or even '48 In Jenin, the IDF is being drawn into running the city as much as looking for suspects (Ha'aretz)
A month after the start of Operation Determined Path, the IDF, as one senior officer in the territories said this week, feels that for the time being, it's "delivering the goods." The two terror attacks last week, in Immanuel and Tel Aviv, were the exceptions to the rule, and as such, prove it.

A mid-term summary of the Jenin operation shows some 70 arrests in a month, including 10 people - two of them young women - who were due to try to blow themselves up inside Israel.
The terrorists are adapting quickly to the new situation, said an army source. "They understand they should do less but focus on more spectacular attacks," said the source. Indeed, it's the reduced level of activities that also makes it more difficult to catch them. The arrest rate has dropped.
If the months before Defensive Shield were an expression of the complete unity between the population and the terror groups, it seems the picture has been reversed. It's doubtful that the trauma of the shock suffered by the Palestinians in the territories as a result of Defensive Shield and the current operation is properly appreciated in Israel. "They felt they were about to break us, but it didn't happen," said a senior officer. "For them, the dream has been broken. It's almost like 1967 or even 1948. Nearly everything they built since Oslo is gone. What kind of Palestinian entity remains if the IDF



Digging up the Facts: Back to Jenin (Ze'ev Schiff in Ha'aretz)
What was the spark that set off the rumors about a massacre in Jenin's refugee camp? It's been weeks since the controversy broke out during the hard battle the IDF conducted there during Operation Defensive Shield, and now two stories have come up that might be able to shed some light on how the rumors spread.
At one point in the fighting, the army used loudspeakers calling on all the men between the ages of 16 and 50 to turn themselves in. Many came out and were sent to Kafr Salem for questioning. Some of those questioned were sent for further questioning to Shin Bet facilities, while the rest were not allowed to go back to the city, where the battle continued. They were transferred to mosques in the villages of Rumna and Zabuba and the northern West Bank. Their families did not receive word from them or about them, and rumors began to fly that they had been executed.
At the same time, another story developed. Toward the end of the fighting, the army sent three large refrigerator trucks into the city. Reservists decided to sleep in them for their air conditioning. Some Palestinians saw dozens of covered bodies lying in the trucks and rumors spread the Jews had filled trucks full of Palestinian bodies.



State of the Corporate Police: Police Seize Assets of TestKiller.com (certicities.com)
For the alleged crime of copying questions from Microsoft tests, company has a half-million dollars seized by police. No charges have yet been filed!
And why didn't Educational Testing Services thinking of doing that to Stanley Kaplan?
And speaking of standardized tests: Check out Number 2 Pencil
"A psychometrician gives her take on the news and controversies about standardized testing and high-stakes assessment."



Wacky Search Term Watch:
For the record, neither Bill Gates nor Warren Buffet are said to be Jewish. But thanks for asking.



Keeping the Umma Safe: Our Saudi 'Allies' ban Mail Liberal Judaism website
New study of Saudi firewall reveals that MLJewish.org on list of banned sites. Wouldn't want to expose potential Islamic terrorists to the likes of Art Waskow, would we?



Waiting for my new PC
I finally gave up on my built-from-motherboard-and-parts homebrew PC. Everything seemed to keep dying - hard drives, CD Roms, etc. So my new, reconditioned Dell (courtesy of http://outlet.dell.com) is now headed my way. Click on the link above to see its progress from Texas to New Jersey.
Meanwhile, my pc-guru rabbi friend suggested that I should suspect the power supply &em; the oldest component of my machine (going back to the previous motherboard in 1995) and one which has the potential to mess with all my peripherals in turn. So I'll head off to CompUSA for a new power supply... but some other day, with an eye toward reparing the broken machine for the kids. For myself, I hope to spend the next three years wallowing in a Dell next day warranty.



Stasi USA: Bush Regime Proposes a Network of Informers
Informant Fever (New York Times Editorial)
The Bush administration plans to enlist millions of Americans to spy on their fellow Americans for a program called Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS.

The ever-profound InstaPundit chimes in:
I don't think it will be much use against terrorism. Our current domestic-security apparatus has shown itself utterly unable to cut through the data fog -- it can't even process tips from freakin' FBI agents! who think they've spotted a terrorist, as the Moussaoui case demonstrated. It can't possibly handle the vast quantity of low quality data produced by a million active participants, and there's no indication that anyone is addressing that issue, making the whole thing basically an exercise in PR.
Operation TIPS-TIPS: Report TIPS informants Internet pioneer Brad Templeton proposes watching the watchers. He also has a handy Letter to companies which send employees to my home



Chocolate's frothy past Scientists discover 2600-year-old chocolate stains (BBC SciTech)



Friday, July 19, 2002

House Takes Up, but Drops, Bermuda Corporation Issue. Rather than moving toward tightening a tax loophole, House Republicans allowed Democrats to lambaste them as the "allies of corporate traitors. [New York Times: Business]



Thursday, July 18, 2002

No good deed dept: Dog evicted from trailer park after rescuing man from fire (Sun-Sentinel via Romenesko's Obscure Store


Georgie's '80s Revival Show: Meet America's New Big Brother (Hereinreality.com, via boingboing.net)
On February 13, 2002, Americans were warned that our nation was facing the threat of danger to homeland security. Three hours later it happened, but nobody told America. That day, John M. Poindexter was appointed Director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office.
Who's John Poindexter?
A retired Navy Admiral, John Poindexter lost his job as National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal.
What's the Information Awareness Office (IAO)? It's a new office created by the Pentagon agency DARPA after 9/11 to gather intelligence through electronic sources like the internet, phone, and fax lines.



Scorning Corn: When a Crop Becomes King (NYTimes Op Ed)
How $4b in annual corn subsidies fuel obesity, antibiotic overuse, and our petroleum addiction.



Wednesday, July 17, 2002

Meet the Nigerian E-Mail Grifters. Those increasingly ubiquitous Nigerian e-mails 'respectfully requesting your assistance' and promising great rewards actually do work -- for the Nigerians. An admitted scammer explains how it works. [Wired News]


Monday, July 15, 2002

Short and Sweet: Online Chess Game in 5000 characters
I'm not sure which is better: The elegance of the coding, or the trade-offs conciseness demanded which enable me to beat a chess computer at last?!?



Skinheads slay Jew outside Toronto pizzeria (Jerusalem Post)


FYI: Suspect indicted in London slaying of rabbinical student (Ha'aretz)