Caroline Glick, the Queen of Catastrophic Raving Lunatic Zionism

There are real people and there are raving lunatics. Real people work to bring new value into the world. Raving lunatics merely froth at the mouth and run around in circles.

Every article that I have read by a Ms. Caroline Glick has convinced me that she stands alone as the Queen of Catastrophic Raving Lunatic Zionism.

In her latest screed, "The bitter fruits of corruption," published by JWR and other wingnut outlets, she just raves on and on and on about the catastrophic state of affairs in Israel. In her lunatic world, everyone is corrupt, everyone is inept and Israel is headed for hell in a hand basket.

This is not your typical run-of-the-mill catastrophic Zionist blather. Glick opines ravingly, "And so to extricate itself from the morass of ineptitude and criminality that has become its public sector, Israel must find the way to rid ourselves of the current political and military leadership that embody both."

You see, the ante has been raised. The entire government of Israel - in Glick's never humble opinion - is evil and corrupt and the nation is careening towards oblivion.

You may ask, what are Ms. Glick's expert credentials for her role as arbiter and predictor of destruction and despair? As far as I can tell, they are simply put nil, null and void. This woman knows how to write English sentences. Other than that, she has absolutely no claim to any authority, insight or expertise regarding the state of affairs in the Middle East or anywhere else.

We thank Binyamin L. Jolkovsky, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of JWR, for his untiring cutting and pasting of articles which promote the catastrophic raving lunatic fringe of Zionist and Judaic thought.

And we caution all our friends who credulously read the republished nonsense that he promotes to repent, relent and come to your senses.

Seven million strong, Israel is a great nation. It is not hovering on the brink of destruction.

Caroline and Binyamin, why in the name of all that sane do you want to promote the idea that it is?

O yes. Forgive me. I forgot. To make a coupala dollars.

Bar Ilan Responsa Library Comes Online

The Bar Ilan Responsa data base is now online at
http://www.responsa.co.il/.

Globes reports:

The Bar Ilan University Responsa Project is now available online.

The Responsa Project is the world's largest electronic collection of Torah literature. Like its CD version, launched in 1991, the Online Responsa encompasses Jewish sources representing over three thousand years of Jewish literary heritage. It includes the Bible and its principal commentaries, the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud with commentaries, Midrashim, Zohar, Rambam, Shulchan Aruch with commentaries, and the collection of Responsa questions and answers on matters of Jewish law.

... The Responsa texts in this online database include over 80,000 legal decisions, representing over a thousand years of development of Jewish law, and capturing the historical, social, and economic milieu of Jewish communities all over the world.

... Bar-Ilan University can now allow all Internet users full access to its Jewish cultural treasures, thanks to C.D.I.'s NetIS technology, which identifies users and protects the data from being abused. The multi-lingual interface (Hebrew, English, and French) enables users to swiftly browse and study the contents of several sources simultaneously.

Subscribers can choose between various options, such as subscriptions to specific parts of the database, annual or monthly subscriptions, or cumulative time viewing rights.

The results of a search come up quickly. A search for "Tzvee" produced 4907 hits, showing two lines of the reference. Further access to the texts is restricted by login.

Login is not necessary in order to view a result list.
If you wish to view content, you will have to login as a subscriber or register as a guest.

After login, the content will be displayed according to your access rights.
Login is also required for browsing the online store and viewing your personal account.

More to follow after a thorough review.

Reb Yudel slams Reb Rosenblatt

Our colleague (Larry Yudelson) takes to task our esteemed colleague (Gary Rosenblatt) to wit.

Gary Rosenblatt et al peddle Republican Party talking points again

and do you know what? Larry is right. Gary is way off base.

Keep 'em honest mar Yudelson.

Harris Invention Award Winner: USBCELL

What a great idea. Here is a rechargeable AA battery that can be plugged into your USB port to recharge.

Harris Epstein, my great grandfather the inventor, would have been proud of this invention because it is clever, thrifty and ecologically sound.

After careful deliberation we are awarding our first Harris Invention Award Winner to USBCELL.

The product description says, "The USBCELL has been designed for real-world ease of use. By opening the cap and plugging into any powered USB port, you can recharge pretty much anywhere there's a USB socket. By making it easier to recharge batteries we can help the environment: easier recharging means more frequent use, which means fewer disposable batteries get made and thrown away."

After reading the reviews at Amazon we recommend that you purchase this winning invention.

TC Airport: Muslim Taxis Must Take Booze and Dogs

We've been following this story because it's got all the elements of high religious drama. Airports, alcohol, dog saliva, fatwas, Somalis, demands for a prayer room - watch for this on the new Law and Order: G.O.D.

Tighter airport cab rules proposed: Officials want tougher penalties for refusal to transport passengers carrying alcohol.

By John Reinan, Star Tribune

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport officials want to crack down on Muslim taxi drivers who refuse to carry alcohol or service dogs in their cabs.

At a meeting Wednesday of the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), airport staff members asked the commission to give the go-ahead for public hearings on a tougher policy that would suspend the licenses of drivers who refuse service for any reason other than safety concerns.

Drivers who refuse to accept passengers transporting alcohol or service dogs would have their airport licenses suspended 30 days for the first offense and revoked two years for the second offense, according to a proposed taxi ordinance revision.

"Our expectation is that if you're going to be driving a taxi at the airport, you need to provide service to anybody who wants it," commission spokesman Patrick Hogan said.

The penalties would also apply to drivers who refuse a fare because it is too short a trip.

The full commission is expected to vote on the proposal for public hearings at its next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 16.

Airports Commissioner Bert McKasy called the dispute -- in which some drivers complained that carrying alcohol or dogs violated religious precepts -- "unfortunate," but said that serving the public has to be the primary goal.

"I think it's pretty much the consensus of the commissioners and the staff that we have to provide good service to the public, and that's pretty much the bottom line," McKasy said.

About 100 people are refused cab service each month at the airport. Roughly three-quarters of the 900 taxi drivers at the airport are Somali, many of them Muslim. In recent months, the problem of service refusals for religious reasons has grown, airport officials have said, calling it "a significant customer-service issue."

Last year, the airport proposed a system of color-coded lights on taxis, indicating which drivers would accept passengers carrying alcohol. That proposal was dropped.

Hogan said the goal is to have a new policy in place by May 11, when all airport taxi licenses come up for annual renewal.

"We want the drivers to know about the policy in advance, so that if they don't think they can work under these conditions, they have the option of not renewing their license," Hogan said.

Last year, the airports commission received a fatwa, or religious edict, from the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society. The fatwa said that "Islamic jurisprudence" prohibits taxi drivers from carrying passengers with alcohol, "because it involves cooperating in sin according to Islam."

Eva Buzek, a flight attendant and Minneapolis resident, called the new proposal "great news." Buzek recently was refused service by five taxi drivers when she returned from a trip to France carrying wine.

"In my book, when you choose to come to a different country, you make some choices," said Buzek, a native of Poland. "I never expected everything to be the same way as in my homeland, and I adjusted. I never dreamed of imposing my beliefs on somebody else."

'A violation of faith'

But Hassan Mohamud, imam at Al-Taqwa Mosque of St. Paul, and director of the Islamic Law Institute at the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, one of the largest Islamic organizations in the state, said that asking Muslims to transport alcohol "is a violation of their faith" as well as of the spirit of the First Amendment.

Mohamud, an attorney who teaches Islamic law at William Mitchell Law School in St. Paul, said, "Muslims do not consume, carry, sell or buy alcohol." Islam also considers the saliva of dogs to be unclean, he said.

Mohamud said he would ask airport officials to reconsider, adding that he hoped that a compromise could be worked out that would serve as a bridge between the American legal system and the cultural and religious values of the immigrants.

Currently, he said, more than half of the state's taxi drivers are Muslim and about 150,000 people follow Islam in Minnesota, most of them in the metro area.

"So the commission should respect the will of the majority of the taxi drivers, with complete accommodation to the consumers," Mohamud said.

Many Somali taxi drivers don't have any problem transporting passengers with alcohol and are worried about a backlash, countered Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center. Jamal said he supports the tougher penalties.

"We tell the taxi drivers, if you don't want to do this, change your job," he said. "You are living in a country where alcohol is not viewed the way it is in your country."

But Jamal and Mahmoud both disagreed with the airports commission on another issue of religion and airport operation. Jamal said his group will continue to push for a separate prayer room at the airport reserved solely for Muslims.

That won't happen, according to Hogan.

"Our position is that there will be no room for one faith," he said. "We have a quiet seating area that can be used by anybody for quiet contemplation or prayer. If that is inadequate, we could possibly look at finding a larger space.

"In no case would we be looking at [exclusive] space for one faith or another."

Staff writer Joy Powell contributed to this report. •

The greatest bowl game ever!

Who would have ever imagined that the Boise State Broncos (in orange and Oklahoma in red) would win the greatest bowl game of all time!



If you did not stay up to one AM to see the game live, you gotta watch this.

We have converted!

We've converted to the new blogger. (And what did you think?)

It's a no brainer. Automated labels and layouts. Sure to be more goodies.

You may notice a few changes in design but we've tried to keep it familiar.

Go Google! We luv ya!

Was the Saddam hanging justice or revenge?

The Latin lex talionis means the law of retaliation. Usually we think of the goal of this law as a core element of early biblical justice, familiarly expressed as, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an arm for an arm, a life for a life."

One time I was teaching a Jewish Studies class about how Talmudic law interprets virtually all retaliation in terms of monetary compensation. The Talmud provides methods to determine what is the money value of the damages to an eye, the cost of pain, medical expenses, loss of income, suffering and humiliation.

This is a qualitative advance over the previous forms of justice via the literal direct retaliation of an eye for an eye, I explained.

A student raised his hand and asked, “How can you say the biblical idea is justice? It is barbaric to take out an eye. What kind of biblical morality is that?”

Momentarily I was caught off guard. Then I replied, “By the standards of our developed sense of civilization you are right. But imagine what came before the biblical reforms. If I put out your eye, then you took vengeance on my entire family, and I in turn came to wipe out your whole tribe. In comparison, the biblical scales of lex talionis were a step forward in civilization. The bible said that vengeance must be measured and managed.

And the Talmudic interpreters carried this notion further forward. They precluded direct physical retaliation and prescribed that money substitutes for bodily revenge.

Fast forward now to our world. We are taught to believe that it is governed by law meant to preserve universal order and to achieve justice. As such surely we reject the notion that one tribe may use laws as just another way to take vengeance on another tribe, regardless of the latter's brutality.

In our world we take for granted that the biblical "law" of lex talionis – a tooth for a tooth - is an outgrown quasi-legal principle. In modern civilization, it does not qualify as a principled or moral law. All it ever did was to balance tribal revenge, to keep it from getting out-of-hand. It was an improvement over a village massacre for an eye.

Merely managing our basest impulses has never been the civilized goal of the rule of law. We believe that it embodies ideals like justice, liberty, equality and that it be used to foster a good, ethical and moral life and to punish and deter crimes and evil.

Using courts as a sophisticated way to wreak a bloodthirsty revenge is actually a perversion of justice.

So now we ask, Was the Saddam hanging the immoral and bloodthirsty revenge of George W. Bush and the Shiites? Was the whole point of the invasion and war a veiled means for W to seek out and kill Saddam in revenge because in 1991 Hussein threatened to assassinate his father George Sr.?

Were the Shiite judges and executioners gleeful to hasten the death of Saddam to fulfill their need for blood vengeance against Sunni brutality? If so, then the hanging was a new low point in Middle Eastern society and a black chapter in the history of the American civilization.

Watch and listen to the cell phone video of Saddam’s hanging. You will hear the derision and mocking that is evidence of vengeance, not of justice.

Was the trial really about bringing to justice a man of evil for his crimes against humanity?

Or is it more fitting to drop the pretense that we and our partners acted out of any moral motive, any ethical imperative, any thirst for justice.

Would it have been better to say what we suspect motivated the whole process? To hell with law and justice. We wanted and got our revenge.

Was the Saddam Hanging Bush's and the Shiites' Immoral and Bloodthirsty Revenge?

Noah Feldman, a law professor at New York University and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, asks some contrarian questions in this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine (login req'd).

What gave the Iraqis the direct legal right to execute Saddam? I'll provide an excerpt below.

My ruminations about this go off in a different direction. We do live a world that we believe is governed by law meant to preserve universal order. As such we reject the notion that one tribe may use laws as just another way to take vengeance on another tribe, regardless of the latter's brutality.

The biblical "law" of lex talionis - an eye for an eye - is an outgrown quasi-legal principle. All it did was balance tribal revenge to keep it from getting out-of-hand. It was an improvement over a village for an eye. In modern civilization, it does not qualify as a principled or moral law.

Merely managing our basest impulses has never been the loftiest goal of law. We prefer to think that it embodies ideals like justice, liberty, equality and that it be used to foster good and moral life and to punish and deter crimes and evil.

Using courts as a sophisticated way to wreak a bloodthirsty revenge is actually a perversion of justice. So now we ask The Question.

Was the Saddam Hanging Bush's and the Shiites' Immoral and Bloodthirsty Revenge? Was the whole point of the invasion and war a means for W to seek out and kill Saddam because in 1991 Hussein threatened to assassinate George Sr.?

Were the Shiite judges and executioners gleeful to hasten the death of Saddam to fulfill their need for revenge against Sunni brutality? If so, then the hanging was a new low point in middle Eastern society and a black chapter in the history of the US.

As I said, Feldman takes a look at the question more focused on what was the actual legal basis for the execution. He concludes,

In part, the tribunal sought to draw legitimacy from international law. The court found Saddam Hussein guilty not of ordinary murder but of ''crimes against humanity,'' a grand-sounding, internationally recognized charge with intuitive moral force. When the phrase ''crimes against humanity'' was used at the Nuremberg trials in 1945, the convening nations did not bother to explain what gave them the right to define and punish such crimes. It was presumed self-evident that certain actions were so terrible that they must be treated as illegal, even if they might have been permissible under Nazi German law when they took place. The so-called Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, specifically defined crimes against humanity in terms drawn from the Nuremberg charter, and the definition used by the Iraqi special tribunal was copied from there.

Yet it is hard to believe that the Iraqi tribunal could convincingly claim its authority from the international community. Like the United States, Iraq has not ratified the Rome Statute. Indeed, the Iraqi tribunal explicitly avoided submitting itself to international standards so that it would be able to apply the death penalty, which most of the international community rejects. This resulted in near complete withdrawal of international cooperation in the investigation of Saddam Hussein's crimes and the trial itself, and the tribunal lost some of the perception of fairness that would have come from broader international participation.

So where, if anywhere, did the Iraqi tribunal get the right to punish Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity? Sovereign nations like Iraq can, of course, punish whatever crimes they choose, and can change or abrogate their own earlier laws to do it. But there is something unsatisfying about offering this as an account, for it diminishes the tribunal's credible claim that the Iraqi dictator's actions reverberated worldwide, implicating not just Iraq but all of humanity. There must be some deeper source of law, apart from treaties or the dictates of the United Nations Security Council, that bans the systematic killing of innocents.

The most persuasive answer is that a law prohibiting crimes against humanity derives its authority from the inherent moral responsibility that lies with whoever has the capacity to punish truly heinous deeds. To be sure, in some cases the international community will bear that responsibility. In the case of Iraq, though, the international community was not in a position to act, not only because of the question of the death penalty but also because many of its members denied the legality of the invasion. Responsibility rested with the powers that actually held Saddam Hussein within their grasp. Their right - and their duty - was to bring him to justice.

By these lights, the decision to charge Saddam Hussein with crimes against humanity was morally and legally justified. Nevertheless, the process fell short of what is needed to invoke the transcendent norms of universal justice. This was a profound failure. As with the other shortcomings of Iraq's government, many players were at fault here: the Americans for failing to provide security for the Iraqis, including the defense team; the Iraqis for failing to get the trial - or the country - to run smoothly; the international community for sanctimoniously disengaging.

But the fact that blame is to be shared does not mitigate the tragedy of this missed opportunity.

It would have been a lot more fitting to to drop the charade of pretending that we acted out of an, "inherent moral responsibility that lies with whoever has the capacity to punish truly heinous deeds" and said what we suspect motivated the whole process.

To hell with law and justice. We wanted revenge.

The Halakhah of the Hajj

The proper way to practice religious law (called the Halakhah in Judaism) can be complex and worrisome to the average practitioner. AP reports on some of the ways Islamic pilgrims coped with their queries at the Hajj that just concluded.

Questions posed to the religious authorities by the lay people this year included: What time of day may I throw the seven pebbles at each wall at the three jamrah pillars and then curse Satan? It used to be only after noon. To prevent stampedes, they've tried to allow this to be performed throughout the day. How much hair must I cut for my ritual haircut? Some pilgrims want only a symbolic haircut.

The Minisry of Hajj enumerates the practices -- Pilgrims must gather 70 pebbles previously --

Proceeding to Mina from Muzdalifah

10th of Dhu'l-Hijjah: You will be in Mina for the stoning (ramy) of Jamarat ul Kubra; the stoning must be performed according to pre-determined schedules. The stoning is followed by shaving/cutting of hair (Halq/Taqseer).

Here seven times you will stone the pillar that represents the devil, saying "Bismillah, Allahu akbar" each time you throw a pebble. "Bismillah" means "in the name of Allah". "Allahu akbar" means "God is great".

Women and those who are old or otherwise infirm need not themselves perform ramy, leaving it to those delegated to perform it on their behalf.

You will now leave the state of Ihram. Shave your hair (or if you are a woman clip your hair). You may now shower, shave, and change into your normal clothes. The prohibitions imposed by Ihram are now removed, except that you must not have sexual relations. (Husband and wife may not enjoy conjugal relations until after Tawaf al-Ifadha - the Circumambulation of the Kaaba, central to the Hajj rites.)

You will now proceed to the al Masjid al Haram in Makkah to perform Tawaf al-Ifadha.

Here is an image of the Hajj pilgrims casting stones at a jamrah pillar.

Hajj safety measures spark controversy

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 1, 12:30 PM ET

The rituals of Islam's annual hajj pilgrimage are enormously complicated, so it helps to have someone to advise how to do them right: thus the long lines Monday at the "ask a sheik" booths scattered around the holy sites.

"Fast for three days when you get back to your home country," the Muslim cleric inside one booth told a pilgrim who had made a mistake in one of the rites Monday, the final day of the pilgrimage for many of the 3 million Muslims participating in this year's hajj.

More than two dozen pilgrims were lined up at the sheik's window, much like a ticket booth, pressing to ask the sheik questions at Mina, a desert plain outside the holy city of Mecca. On Monday, pilgrims spent a third day stoning three walls representing Satan in a rite forsaking sin and temptation.

This year saw controversy over one of the hajj rules amid attempts to prevent deadly stampedes that have marred the rites at Mina in past years. More than 360 were killed during last year's hajj in a crush that occurred when some pilgrims tripped over baggage while passing by the three walls to perform the stoning.

Since then, some Islamic clerics have issued fatwas, or religious edicts, declaring that pilgrims do not have to wait until noon to carry out the stoning, as tradition holds. Saudi authorities have supported the fatwas, hoping to spread the massive crowds over the course of the day and prevent lethal jams. But hard-line clerics stick by tradition.

"No, you can't do it before noon," said the sheik in the booth, his pronouncements broadcast by loudspeaker so all pilgrims in the area could hear.

"I know there are fatwas that say otherwise. But we have to adhere to the proper times or else it all falls apart. We'll have fatwas saying whatever anybody wants and then what kind of pilgrimage is it?" he told the man at his window.

The cleric, who refused to give his name, works for the Religious Affairs Ministry — reflecting the resistance even within the government to making changes.

Still, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims performed the stoning before noon, walking below and on top of a gigantic concrete platform that surrounds the three stone walls, known as the Jamarat. They threw seven pebbles at each wall, cursing Satan.

Saudi authorities tore down the old platform after last year's stampede and built a larger one at a cost of more than $1 billion. They also imposed strict traffic rules, keeping the massive lines of pilgrims moving in one direction across the platform and barring them from carrying large bags.

Unfinished concrete pylons and cranes surrounded the platform, a sign of the authorities' plans to build three more levels to allow more pilgrims to perform the rite at one time.

After Monday's stoning, most pilgrims packed up their belongings and left Mina for Mecca, where they circled the Kaaba — the black stone cube that is Islam's holiest site — for the last time, bringing their five-day hajj to an end. Some will stay an extra day in Mina, then go to Mecca to circle the Kaaba.

Pilgrims come from across the world to perform the hajj, a chance to purge themselves of sin and fulfill one of the five main tenets — or pillars — of Islam. Often pilgrims save up money for years for what is usually a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so they are eager to make sure they get the rituals right — and breaking the rules can mean the hajj is void in the eyes of God.

The rules — based on centuries of interpretation of the Sunna, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad — are extremely elaborate. Pilgrims must be at certain sites at specific times; some rites they repeat, but some they repeat only partially, and some are done only once.

There are also three different types of pilgrims, depending on whether they also performed the "Omra," or lesser pilgrimage, during the same trip — and the rules can vary slightly depending on what type of pilgrim you are.

Hisham Abdul-Ghaffour, a pilgrim from the southern Egyptian city of Minya, stood in line at the cleric's booth waiting to ask a question about his hair. He had clipped only a small part of it, leaving his stylish hairdo — unlike most pilgrims who shaved their hair entirely on Saturday in one of the rites.

He wanted to know if that was all right. It wasn't, according to the cleric.

"Cutting the hair means cutting all the hair," he pronounced, though some clerics allow pilgrims to snip off only a strand.

Abdul-Ghaffour walked away disappointed — and unsure. "That's what I was afraid of," he said. "By God, I don't know. Some say it's OK, others say it's not. I don't know what I'm going to do."