Archive for April, 2007
Reading the partial report
In the next few days I’m going to be focus on reading, and hopefully learning, the Winograd partial report. In the past I had the privilege of reading the entire report written by the Agranat Commission about the 1973 war.
The investigation scope for the Winograd Commission was broader than the one defined for the Agranat Commission but I’ll be looking for similarities, mostly because The Agranat Commission Report was very important document.
I don’t know if the partial report, but for the Hebrew readers I can only recommend reading the source itself and not only the filtered reports.
Tags: Second Lebanon War Winograd Partial Report Agranat Commission
Monday morning wonders
While I was reading this I start wondering: are politicians born naturally without shame, or do they need some operation to remove it?
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. – Despite their many political battles in the 1980s, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy praised the late President Ronald Reagan here Saturday, particularly noting Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War.
[...]
“It had been waged as a bipartisan enterprise by Republican and Democratic Congresses and administrations from the first moment to the last,” Kennedy said.
Tags: Politic Politicians Humor
Alarming
I’m a little bit late to this story, I only heard about this yesterday in a conversation and start looking for the news report. The city of NY decided that it will be a good idea to open a school which will:
Come September, an Arabic-language public secondary school (grades 6-12) is slated to open its doors in Brooklyn. New York City’s Department of Education explains that the Khalil Gibran International Academy will boast a "multicultural curriculum and intensive Arabic-language instruction."
The decision is obviously somewhat controversial and a cause for worry. Unlike these who are worried about the political agenda of the school, issues of separation of church and state and similar issues I would recommend to encourage many schools like this. Why not open a Chinese oriented schools, and Korean? and why stop here? why not a Persian and Russian and Swedish? I’m seriously all for it, with one major condition - I don’t think these should be public schools.
If the new school was a private school I would not have worried about its curriculum, or its agenda. I would consider it in the same category as Catholic schools, Jewish schools etc. , although the school’s orientation isn’t (at least in the public agenda) about religious. However when being forced to accept this school as part of the public system I can only wonder why not others, and if yes - on whose, or what, expense?
Tags: Public Education Khalil Gibran International Academy Libertarianism Private Education
Reliable sources
Well they have first hand knowledge…
PARIS (Reuters) - The French dislike themselves even more than the Americans dislike them, according to an opinion poll published on Friday.
The survey of six nations, carried out for the International Herald Tribune daily and France 24 TV station, said 44 percent of French people thought badly of themselves against 38 percent of U.S. respondents who had a negative view of the French.
Back pedaling
Does Giuliani’s statement yesterday is a sign of departure from his previous support for guy’s civil union? Ryan Sagar, a long time supporter of the Giuliani calls is worried that it might be:
In a startling departure from his previously stated position on civil unions, Mayor Giuliani came out to The New York Sun yesterday evening in opposition to the civil union law just passed by the New Hampshire state Senate.
I tend to believe that this was rather a tactical move, regardless how wise. The typical primaries moves - move to the right, or left in the case of the democratic party, and than slowly back to the center for the general election.
Not only Toilet paper
When reading Sheryl Crow’s ideas about fighting global warming I thought that it will be hard to top her ideas. However the Time magazine gave it a try and came up with 51 suggestion how to each of us can reduce global warming.
Among these suggestions, and I read all of them, you can find some gems like: pay the carbon tax, move to a small house - a shack will be the best, Skip the steak, get rid of the tie (I like this one!) and many more. But above all, my favorite advice is this one:
Make One Right Turn After Another
United Parcel Service took a detour to the right on its way to curb CO2 emissions. In 2004, UPS announced that its drivers would avoid making left turns. The time spent idling while waiting to turn against oncoming traffic burns fuel and costs millions each year. A software program maps a customized route for every driver to minimize lefts.
In metro New York, UPS has reduced CO2 emissions by 1,000 metric tons since January. Today 83% of UPS facilities are heading in the right direction; within two years, the policy will be adopted nationwide.
Considering that Global Warming has nothing to do with human activity, following these suggestion going to be a great deal of wasting time. However you can still enjoy making your life harder, it will probably will make you tougher 
(H/T from The Club for Growth)
This should be ceased, immediately
Since I open the blog I’m trying to avoid writing about Israel, not always successfully. I don’t think it is my place, writing from the US, to "educate" the people that bearing the risk and the hardship of day to day life in Israel.
However, I just can’t avoid expressing my shame an embossment after reading about the "modesty buses":
The other day I was waiting for a bus in downtown Jerusalem. I was in the bustling orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Sharim and the bus stop was extremely crowded.
When the Number 40 bus arrived, the most curious thing happened. Husbands left heavily pregnant wives or spouses struggling with prams and pushchairs to fend for themselves as they and all other male passengers got on at the front of the bus.
Women moved towards the rear door to get on at the back.
When on the bus, I tried to buck the system, moving my way towards the driver but was pushed back towards the other women.
These are what orthodox Jews call "modesty buses".
The separation system operates on 30 public bus routes across Israel.
Israelis will have to make a clear decision - if they want to maintain their position as a liberal democracy they have to stop this shame immediately. Otherwise they can declare that they finally integrated and are the same like Iran and similar regimes, I wouldn’t be proud about it.
It start getting ugly early
Here is an example for really dirty politic. I’m not surprised that Rush Limbaugh chose to air this on his show, it is typical for him. I can only wonder who were the good souls that made this stupid parody, I would not be shocked if it is not someone from the GOP …
Following up
So far its looks good. It will be a poetic justice if the first nail in the coffin of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 will involved one of is major sponsors:
Last year, a lower court relaxed the law’s restrictions on issue ads that are run by corporations, labor unions and other special interest groups in the final weeks of a campaign. That court sided with Wisconsin Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that had sought to run ads during the 2004 campaign, asking voters to contact the state’s two senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and urge them not to filibuster President Bush’s judicial nominees.
But because Sen. Feingold was up for re-election, the group couldn’t run the ads in the final stretch of the campaign, under the law named for Sen. Feingold and Sen. John McCain.
Tags: Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 BCRA the McCain-Feingold Act Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. v. Federal Election Commission Freedom of Speech Campaign Finance
The FCC’s Ayatollahs will protect your moral
For all of those who seek the government to protect "Net Neutrality" with legislation I can only suggest to look at the new development regarding content regulations in air and cable broadcasting - this is the Internet future would you succeed. From regulating the allocation of air channels, which use to be in scarcity, evolved into regulating the content broadcaster on these air waves - and is now being expand into broadcast that doesn’t involve any air waves. Much worse is the fact that the FCC maintain, artificially, the state of scarcity so it can continue to justify its involvement and regulation of the broadcasting industry.
Federal regulators, concerned about the effect of television violence on children, will recommend that Congress enact legislation to give the government unprecedented powers to curb violence in entertainment programming, according to government and TV industry sources.
The Federal Communications Commission has concluded that regulating TV violence is in the public interest, particularly during times when children are likely to be viewers — typically between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., FCC sources say.
Well, we invited the FCC to be our gourds, now when they appointed themselves as our moral protector it is rather hard to get rid of them isn’t it?
Tags: FCC Freedom of Speech Decency Act Net Neutrality Libertarianism