It's hodgepodge day. Brief comments on a few unrelated items.
R. Aharon Feldman's revolting letter on Slifkin has actually provoked the response it deserves from someone calling himself Eliyahu Zecharia Rabinovich. Is he for real? (RAF may have hit a new low in intellectual dishonesty in arguing that chazal's science must have been inspired by ruach hakodesh since they anticipated the discovery that "hemophilia is transmitted by the mother’s DNA". In fact, chazal believed that all of a person's blood comes from the mother, a false claim in the name of which otherwise intelligent people are still making doofuses of themselves (see, e.g., Tzitz Eliezer 13:104) and, moreover, this claim is taken from Aristotle.)
Makor Rishon has revealed that Sharon's coordinator of the "disengagement" is also head of a venture capital fund with half a billion dollars earmarked for investment in the Palestinian-held territories. This obvious conflict of interests is the scandal of the decade and has received zero attention in the media.
We've hit the all-star break and the Mets remain a streaky and slightly interesting .500 team. Martinez has been superb, Floyd and Cameron streaky, Wright consistent at the plate and goofy in the field, Beltran the .270 hitter he has always been, Reyes might end up with more triples than walks and the rest of the team ain't worth discussing. (And I guess I should admit that so far Victor Zambrano's stats have been spookily similar to those of Scott Kazmir.)
The never-ending saga of my attempt to find justice in beis din has just taken an interesting turn which I intend to discuss if discretion permits.
My son just lost his glasses in the Kenneret. If anybody finds them, please leave them where they are and tell him that the next time his mother tells him to take glass guards he should listen to her instead of rolling his eyes (where did he get that nasty habit from?).
On the baseball front I would add that those who were quick to scoff at the Oakland A's Billy Beane (and his "Moneyball" approach) when the A's were struggling in the beginning of the season should take note that their record at the All Star break is the same as the Mets' at a third of the cost.
ReplyDeleteBen-based on your recommendation, I got Ozrad Lev's book. I have as yet read only a few pages, but already I see the filth and corruption of the ruling gang in Israel is mind-boggling. Thus, this revelation about the "hitnatkut" supervisor being invested in the Arab side is no surprise. Already from Lev's book, I see that the people at the top in Israel have no Jewish identity at all (the story where Lev is riding in Tel Aviv with Muhammed Rashid and Rashid tells him that soon, the Arabs will get all of Israel). What is really scary is that Israel's supposed ultimate weapon, THE BOMB, is a bluff, because even if it exists and, if G-d forbid, there was ever a need to use it, the oligarchy would commandeer all the aircraft in the country, get them and their families out, and then pat themselves on the shoulder in public about how moral they were in not retaliating with the ultimate weapon, since "two wrongs don't make a right", "what good would killing a lot of Iranians do if (G-d forbid) Israel was already gone", "it is better to turn the other cheek", "the world will look on the remaining Jews in the world as victims which is the highest honor today, etc".
ReplyDeleteOne bizarre thing about Lev is that although he regrets his role in the corruption, and he says he is convinced the Arabs intend to destroy Israel (G-d forbid), but he still clings to the Marxist idea that "if we only increase their standard of living they will live in peace with us" apparently forgetting that 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 were from rich Saudia Arabia, one of the bombers in London came from a rich family in Leeds, etc. This
blindness of Israelis due to years of Marxist indoctrination (i.e. man's overriding motivation is economic) has really screwed up the people in this country and has led to the terrible crisis we are in today.
http://deralter.blogspot.com/2005/07/mussar-must-be-relevant-disengagement.html
ReplyDeletePlease see the URL above for an attempt to formulate a Mussar-based approach to the Disengegement.