Video: Gaza Reality - Israel is Proud to Aid the People of Gaza

Enough rhetoric. Facts. They really do matter.

Does Sarah Palin Want to Have an Affair With Dennis Prager?

If you look at the way Sarah Palin looks at Dennis Prager in this video from an event on May 24, 2010 at University of Denver, we wonder if there is something going on between them.

Well, now that we have your attention...

At 6:20 into the video, Prager opines: "It is not peace activists who liberated Auschwitz. It is military people who liberated Auschwitz." And then this bag of wind goes on to demagogue against the "Left". "The Left has everything wrong...and that is what this battle is about. It is a heroic battle but we have to win..."

Excuse me Mr. Prager but we do need to make a historical fact clear here. It was the Red Army of the Communist Soviet Union that liberated Auschwitz.

We thought it would be a bit extra-ironic to remind Mr. Prager of this fact by citing it from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum web site:

"On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying."

Now Mr. Prager, we come from the reality based liberal wing of American Jews. We condemn in no uncertain terms your demagoguery not only, to put it mildly, because it is a load of gibberish, but because we do believe in making decisions based on truth, history, facts and true empathy for our fellow human beings.

It would appear in fact that you, Mr. Prager, "...have everything wrong... and that is what this battle is about..."

Video: Veteran Journalist Helen Thomas Outed as an anti-Semite and Promptly Ousted from her Job

The power of the viral Internet was reinforced today with the ouster of Helen Thomas after her outing as an anti-Semite by www.RabbiLIVE.com c/o Rabbi David F. Nesenoff who interviewed Thomas on the White House Lawn on - of all days - American Jewish Heritage Celebration Day at the White House.

We believe in the power of repentance. Hence we suggest to Helen that she take a trip to Israel and Gaza and the West Bank and reassess her ignorant anti-Semitism.

Why Does the Times Publish this Ross Douthat Anti-Israel Craptrap?

Tomorrow in the times, OP-ED COLUMNIST -- "Israel and Outremer," By ROSS DOUTHAT, contains a tall pile of meaningless assertions cloaked in learned sounding historical contexts, like this one,

In the wake of the Gaza and Lebanon wars, and now the blockade-running fiasco, the Jewish state is as isolated on the world stage as it’s been since the dark Zionism-is-racism years of the 1970s.

To which all we can say is, ooh ooh - not isolated on the world stage again!

What ever does that negative sounding assertion mean anyway?

Don't the Times' editors even read or edit the claptrap op-eds that they publish?

Adam Lisagore: iPad = TV for your Tummy

Some detailed speculations from lonelysandwich blogger Adam Lisagore on the status and future of TV via Apple and others.

Yes, we do lots of iPad reading and writing while reclining with the device perched on our chest. That is what makes the thing truly amazing.

Are we Jews a stupid, block-headed nation? Ask Michael Chabon

Are we Jews a stupid, block-headed nation?

Yes says Michael Chabon in an op-Ed in the Times, which concludes with a plea that seems to us a vain oath, an utterance forbidden by the Torah:

"Let us shed our illusions, starting with ourselves, whoever we are and however august our inheritance of stupidity."

Read the rest here.

JStandard: Sabbath apologetics without any thought or intelligence

Ironic that the idea of the Sabbath that made it the backbone of the strength of the ancient Israelite people, the notion of a forced day of rest for the worker, has now become so totally trivialized, that it becomes nothing more than a way to learn some sort of arbitrary anti-technology self discipline.

This article in the Jewish Standard, pulled from j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California qualifies is our estimation one of the worst ever written about any Judaic value or subject, "Disconnect to connect: Sabbath Manifesto urges the Google generation to unplug and slow down."

As we see it, this manifesto described in the report, and all related to it, is not in the least bit what the Sabbath is all about. For most people the technology of our times is integral to both work and rest, to both productivity and diversion. Learning to relate to technology and use it properly does not happen when you totally ban it for one day every week. There is no insight in the free association of ancient Sabbath taboos with modern kvetching about your children texting all the time.

Just accept that we need for children and adults to learn the propriety of sexual relations without the apologetics about the absolute genius of the mechitza separating men and women in the synagogue. We also need to learn how to properly relate to technological communications without the apologetics of the brilliant foresight of the Sabbath restrictions of ancient times.

Ironic isn't it? The Sabbath, part of what made our people the most admired in the world in ancient times because it relieved the worker one day a week from the actual slavery of daily toil, now makes our people look utterly idiosyncratic, no matter the apologetics reported in the press.

The actual reasons for Sabbath observance in modernity are difficult and absurd, not based on convenient coincidences between some oddball notions of what is good for you, but on the actual ancient taboos that we keep because we believe the Torah was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai and we were commanded to observe it.

Review: WMWifiRouter is Simple Software that Transforms Your Phone into a WiFi Hotspot

We now have free data tethering on our Sprint Palm Pro mobile phone running on the Windows mobile operating system. How?

We downloaded the WMWifiRouter software to our phone, installed it, and in five minutes we had a hot spot from our phone over the power vision Sprint web access and connected our iPad to it.

The next day we found out that the Times had also discovered the package and included it in a review article, "Thrifty Wi-Fi That Travels With You."

Software can turn many new and older phones into hot spots, too. WMWifiRouter, from Morose Media, based in the Netherlands, works on a variety of phones. I used it on an HTC Touch Pro2, which runs the Windows Mobile operating system. The software ($19.99 at wmwifirouter.com) can be downloaded directly to the phone.

The only drawback to this arrangement is that the phone runs hot while serving as a router and the battery drains quickly. We estimate a few hours of usage is all you can expect before you need to recharge your cell battery.

And not to worry. You still get your phone calls while using your phone as a router.

We recommend giving this product a shot. At a one time cost of $19.99 and after that no monthly charges, i.e. free wifi data tethering, and with flawless installation and configuration, it's worth trying before spending $30 - $60 a month on a subscription elsewhere on one of the options described in the Times article.

Video: The Great Flotilla Con Game Song

To show that we are so disgusted with provocations by pseudo-victims -- we post a Caroline-Glick-produced satirical video. Hat tip to Mimi.

And read about how Gazan victims brag of their new swimming pool and much more here, "Fancy restaurants and Olympic-size pools: What the media won’t report about Gaza." Hat tip to Bernice.

New book asks, Why are there Islamic Terrorists?

Of course, the Islamic terrorism that is most dangerous is an organized social phenomenon, not a product of individual aberrations.

Even so, it is worth pondering what mechanisms in the Islamic culture or psyche help enable this most destructive phenomenon.

Nancy Kobrin's bold new book (The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing) investigates that problem, as reviewed in "Islamic Suicide Terrorism & the Stockholm Syndrome Writ Large" by Jerry Gordon in the New English Review.