A personal blog by a Jewish guy living in Seattle, working at the University of Washington as a scientist, working on blood vessels while taking pictures, and commenting on science, religion, politics and other taboos.
I would like to see someone blog about restaurants in Seattle.
The food sites I can find fall into three categories:
1. Restaurant of the week columns derived from traditional newspaper food columns. These also seem to me to have wandered off from food into the chef's lives and the charm of the decor. This existential epicureanism celebrates the author's own talents as much as the pleasures others might obtain from frequenting the same emporium.
2. tWITTER tWAT ... cloud based chatter similar to the annotation of sex in a particularly robust men's room. Sorta like this .. "Call 661 2342 for the best burger you ever had !" or " Where can I find a fast hand role from a Christian sushi chef?"
3. Foodie-ism .. Sometimes these DO discuss restaurants but the overall theme seems to me more about foreplay .. err preparation for the act of ingestion. personally I enjoy talk about sexual foreplay more than I do about the thrill of kneading thyme into a loin roast.
BinyaminNetanyahu has offered no idea for his vision of an end game .. whether that is in the Turkish mess, or in a longer term solution to peace with Palestine. Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Ministers seem to be living in some fantasy world where Israel would be cleansed of its own Arab population while miraculously presiding over the birth of a Yidden-frei Arab state. Barak and others of the rational part of Netanyahus coalition are in another world from Lieberman and Netnayhu seems like a dysfunctional teacher with no idea of how to lead hid class.
In contrast Palestinians have clear overall objectives. In a world where democracy is challenged, there is no sympathy for Israeli cacophony.
U.S. midfielder Benny Feilhaber playing club soccer last fall.
CREDIT: Henning Bagger/EuroFootball/Getty Images
Three yidden are on the impressive US football squad in the World Cup melee. Benny Feilhaber, Jonathan Bornstein, and Jonathan Spector were roommates at UCLA and have played together since their teens.
The Jews team, aka the American squad, plays Algeria today at 7 PST. Of course the last time we fought in Algeria, we were led by Princess Kahane against the invading Arabs. We lost.
Ten days after checking into his hotel and receiving a customary police escort (which is typical for westerners traveling in this part of Pakistan), Faulker snuck out, heading towards the border with Afghanistan. When the Pakistani police caught up with him, in the Brumboret Valley, Faulkner was packing “a pistol, a dagger and a sword, carrying night-vision goggles, a night-vision camera and religious literature on Christianity.” When questioned after his arrest, Faulkner replied, “God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing [bin Laden].”
"The iPad is useless. Beautiful, but useless. In the span of about a week I purchased, gave up on and feverishly resold an iPad after realizing Apple already made and I already own the more utilitarian and ergonomic version: the iPhone.
The iPad is unwieldy eye candy. It's an aluminum- and glass-wrapped homewrecker. Just two days with it led me to appreciate my lowly laptop and undersized smartphone more, and Apple's design sense less."
“Kim Jong-Su, the general secretary of the North Korean FA, has said the Dear Leader gave ‘in-depth guidance’ on how to develop the game in the country and the coach himself has claimed he received regular tactical advice during matches, apparently using mobile phones that are not visible to the naked eye.”
Jong-Il, a man of many talents, is said to have developed the technology himself. Before you laugh in disbelief, remember this is the man who scored 38 under par in his first-ever game of golf — with five holes in one — making him the greatest golfer of all-time. He’s got skills.
No word yet whether North Korea also has an invisible vuvuzela in the works.
Raad Salah is an Israeli denialist. He claims that our claim to Jerusalem is based on a false view of history. This view and his other actions, however, do not change his freedoms as an Israeli citizen.
The Sheikh is pro Palestine and may be even pro a single state. Israel, as a democracy, gives Sheikh Salah the freedom not only to speak but to act. ..non violently.
Isn't there a way to turn this Israeli into a tool for peace? As a Jeffersonian I believe that free speech is the center of resolving conflict, as follower of Hillel I believe that tolerance is central to peace. As a Gandhian, I believe that non violence is the strongest tool for achieving justice.
Seeing Salah through the hyperbole of the media is difficult, but he can not be the only free thinking Palestinian Israeli. Could the real peacemakers on the Palestinian side now be living in Israel?
I have thought many times about the dilemma of a non-violent leader arising on the West Bank or Gaza. Gandhi and King never feared for violence from their own sides. It may not be possible to be a non violent leader living in Gaza, but a new Dr. King could arise in Haifa!
Of course there is a speck of pork in this kosher and hallal view of the future of Israel. Fundamentalims may trump non violence! the picture to the right is of cheridim blocking an archaelogical dig in Jaffa. Imagine a Selma styke march of Palestinians blocked by a cheredi phalanax.
Laura Berman: After almost three decades as an elected official from northwest Detroit, Wayne County Commissioner Burton Leland is the self-described "last white man standing." In his race for re-election, he is portraying himself as a veteran public servant being disparaged unfairly because of his race. -
Leland's major opponent, McCormick, is an African-American political neophyte who is hopping mad over his flier that reads "There are some folks who say they have a problem voting for me because I am white and Detroit is an African American city," it reads.
"If there are those who won't support me because of the color of my skin, I must accept it. But you don't have to."
Adolph Mongo, a Detroit political consultant who earned notoriety playing on racial politics, says Leland is "trying to portray himself as this poor little white guy."
...............True or not, the racism charge against McCormick is working against her.
..............
Although Leland's the politician with the power of incumbency, deep connections and the ability to out-fundraise her, it's McCormick, the challenger, who finds herself on the defensive.
"He's a social worker and he's using psychology," she says, with frustration.
"He's saying, 'I'm a white guy who has been serving the community and I want to help you and now certain people are judging me on the color of my skin and not the content of my character.' "
Arizona’s controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act echoes as similar debate surrounding some 1,200 children of illegal migrant workers in Israel . Israel’s long-standing policy against the deportation of minors provides protection to parents who lack legal status.
Interior Minister Eliyahu Yishai sees these Israeli-born children as a threat to the character of the Jewish state and hopes to expel them this summer, along with their parents.
Israel began replacing Palestinian laborers with foreign workers in the late 1980s, during the First Intifada. The foreign population grew steadily from there, ballooning during the early days of the Second Intifada.
A growing community meant babies. While these children are allowed to attend Israeli schools, they receive few state benefits. Unlike children born on U.S. soil, who automatically become U.S. citizens, children born in Israel are granted neither citizenship nor permanent residency. And although many children of foreign parents would like to serve in the Israeli army, service does not make soldiers eligible for citizenship in Israel, as it can in the United States.
Migrant laborers who enter into romantic relationships in Israel are likely to lose their residency permits if the Interior Ministry gets wind of the bond. And a worker who gives birth in Israel is forced to pick between her visa and her baby—keep one, lose the other. This is a choice most of the 1,200 children’s mothers have had to make.
President Shimon Peres penned an emotional letter to Yishai, asking him to cancel the expulsion. “Who, if not a people who suffered embitterment in the lands of exile, should be sensitive to their fellow man living amongst them?” Peres continued, “I heard Hebrew ring naturally from their mouths. I felt their connection and their love for Israel and their desire to live in it, to serve in its army and to help to strengthen it.” ....
In her modest apartment outside of Tel Aviv, Judith, a domestic helper from the Philippines, says she is most worried about her children, aged 8 and 15. “They don’t know how to leave,” she says.
Judith and her husband Eldy, who is also Filipino, have been in Israel for almost two decades. They lost their visas a few years ago when their employer left the country. Their Israeli-born and -raised kids don’t speak Tagalog. Like most of the 1,200 children, they speak English with their parents and Hebrew with each other.
Michelle, Judith and Eldy’s teenage daughter, says, “I want to go to the army, I want to study here. I feel Israeli.” Indeed, her dress, cadence, and mannerisms lend Michelle the air of an Israeli.
But during Christmas, Judith was afraid to put a tree in the window. “We’re afraid to walk on the street,” she says. “We live like criminals.”
Critics have slammed the move as inhumane. They point out that the children attend local schools, speak Hebrew, and celebrate Jewish holidays.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was looking for agreement from the Netanyahu government that the basis for borders would be the 1967 lines with agreed land swaps, an arrangement he said was in place during his direct talks with the previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert.
“Everyone around the world talks about the ’67 borders, but with some amendments, some swaps here and there,” he told a Brookings Institution forum the day after he met with US President Barack Obama and other top American officials.
Still, during his trip to the US, Abbas sought to emphasize his credentials as a peacemaker. His Brookings appearance, billed as his first public address in Washington, was sandwiched between a similarly rare meeting with Jewish leaders and former government officials Wednesday night and visits with members of Congress later Thursday.
British Columbia is switching from a sales tax to a value-added tax. According to Washington law, residents of states or provinces that do not have a sales tax are exempt from Washington’s sales tax.
So, our northern neighbors are going to be able to buy stuff here at a big discount!
Palestinians enjoying a water pipe while looking out into the Mediterranean Sea. The waters off the Gaza Strip could get busy this summer.
A group of German Jews has stepped up efforts to send a humanitarian mission to the Gaza Strip in defiance of the Israeli sea blockade. Increasingly, it looks as though the group will have plenty of competition. The waters off Gaza promise to be busy this summer.
Yekke .. affectionate term for German Jews.
The dome below is of the "new Synagogue" on Oranienstrasse in Berlin. This is a museum/ruin from the Nazi era and, ironically, a gathering place for modern progressives, Israelis, and Berliners. It is aslo the venue for the play by Nir de Volff:
The U.K. just got its first female Muslim cabinet member, a divorced young baroness who represents the country’s contradictions. Naseem Khan on what Pakistanis—and the Taliban—think of her.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi embodies the sprawling contradictions of contemporary British politics: She is a young, divorced Muslim woman—and the co-chairman of the Conservative Party.
Last week, she dazzled the cameras, resplendent in the vibrant pinks and shimmering gold of her traditional Pakistani dress, striking a remarkable contrast to her dark-suited colleagues, who are mostly white males educated at Oxford or Cambridge.
The oddity of Islamic dress is that it is, in its won way , as provocative as Western sex obsessed teen's clothing. The ad below illustrates the irony .. with all apologies to the Baroness.
The odd thing is that after thirty years of feminism, the bra burnings and dress for success of the Steinem years has finally been replaced in the West by an almost neutral attitude towards most woman's clothing, Although both exposed lingerie and enveloping Islamic hadjibs remain sexually provocative, the flowered blouse with pearls is a female and ordinary as the manly bulging breast of an Armani suit when either costume is worn by a CEO.
"...under the opportunities of the American government and the inspiration of Christianity, the American Negroes have acquired professions, property, banks, homes, and produced a rising class of refined, home loving people. This is far more remarkable than that many Negroes are still backward. The Reds play upon the Negroes' love of their own people and represent them as persecuted in order to inflame them against the very white people who have in reality given the colored race far greater opportunities than their fellow negroes would give them in Africa today."
I was hardly able to contain my rage as I read this book, but, after having some time to digest it, I can only thank Miss E. Conversa Dilling from the bottom of my heart. I had always suspected that BOTH Alexander Hamilton (who was born in HAITI, mind you) and Tho. Jefferson (did HE fight? he just talked!) were perfectly willing to subject Good Americans to their silly and diabolical One Worldish schemes, but I did NOT know, until I read this book, that both were Communists.
And now Karl Rove! Who CAN you trust?
California Republicans optimistic about their prospects in November could find themselves with a bit of a problem after the votes are counted in Tuesday’s primaries — a statewide ticket with the so-called “Birther Queen” as one of their candidates.
Now she’s running for the GOP nomination for secretary of state, and with her establishment-backed primary opponent mounting a less-than-stellar campaign against her, operatives say there’s a chance she could win.
G-20 Cancels Fiscal Expansionism: Hooverism on a Global Scale
By: David Dayen Monday June 7, 2010 7:40 am
The G-20 nations over the weekend basically held up a “Let Them Eat Cake” sign for the rest of the planet’s citizens to read. And a white flag to the bond market vigilantes, to boot. Not in this country or abroad has the private sector stepped up to drive the recovery. And yet, the deficit scolds have won. There will be no more fiscal stimulus, generally speaking, for most of the world. And that’s true despite mass unemployment in America and rising joblessness in Europe. This is precisely the kind of thinking that turned a jarring stock market crash into a worldwide depression in the 1930s.
Those people might care to hark at deeply relevant news. God will be defeated by science. No, not by faltering Wi-Fi systems at a conference. And, no, these are not my words. This is the considered opinion of someone sometimes referred to as the cleverest man in the world, Stephen Hawking.
The aid shipment that the Palestinian activists' flotilla was hoping to bring to Gaza before they were halted by Israeli commandos is now awaiting delivery. But Hamas will only let the badly needed goods into the territory under certain conditions. In the Gaza Strip, aid is not always greeted with enthusiasm.
Having built a three-storey house in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, Zaed Khadar used to be a proud homeowner. He ran a supermarket from the ground floor and made enough profit there to provide for his seven children. His wife bred chickens on the roof. Then came the Gaza War, a three-week conflict between December 2008 and January 2009, and suddenly Khadar's life was in ruins. His neighborhood, his house and his business were all destroyed. Since then, the 46-year-old has been helpless in every sense of the word. Donations coming to the Gaza Strip from both large and small aid organizations never arrive at the Khadars'.
"People who are not in with Hamas don't see any of the relief goods or the gifts of money," Khadar says. On the sand dune where his house once perched, there is now an emergency shelter. The shelter is made of concrete blocks that Khadar dug from the rubble, and the roof is the canvas of a tent that provided the family with shelter for the first summer after the war. "Hamas supporters get prefabricated housing, furnishings and paid work. We get nothing," Khadar complains. Hamas Members Take and Distribute 'at Their Own Discretion'
The reason his family receives nothing: Like many of his neighbors, Khadar is a die-hard supporter of the Fatah party, the sworn political enemy of the more radical Islamists in Hamas. That's why Khadar has little hope of seeing any of the 10,000 tons of aid that the activist flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip tried to bring to Gaza's harbor at the start of this week.
Using sophisticated genomic analysis, scientists have probed the ancestry of several Jewish and non-Jewish populations and better defined the relatedness of contemporary Jewish people. The research, published by Cell Press in the June issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, may shed light on the question, first raised more than a century ago, of whether Jews are a race, a religious group or something else. The genetic, cultural and religious traditions of contemporary Jewish people originated in the Middle East over three thousand years ago. Since that time, Jewish communities have migrated from the Middle East into Europe, North Africa and across the world. The migration of Jews to new locales is known as the Diaspora. This study shows that although Jewish people experienced genetic mixing with surrounding populations, they retained a genetic coherence along with a religious one.
It is very sad when you receive more and more proofs that your leaders, that decide your future, hopes, that in their care we leave the future of our children and people are stupids, insane and incompetents. The generals that we pay huge wages and advantages, the political leaders that live from the" fat" of the land and from our hard earned money, are stupid, mean, proud. The seven deadly sins are their domain. But I was hoping that they have what Napoleon asked from his generals: to have some luck.
The proud bastards don't have this either ...They are repeating the same mistakes and now an heroic Exodus archetype image is created from the dead fools that came on their boats to help a terrorist organisation/govern and a population that democratically elected the Hamas and voted for blood, terror and tears.
Another Irish ship is approaching: let's see if we learned something. I doubt.
Israel acted in international water because in the 12 miles you'll have hundreds of Gaza fishboats, Israeli Arabs boats, ships of Israeli activists and maybe the Israeli Right counter-demonstrati on ships . The best solution was sabotage/imobilize in the middle of the sea at night, as nobody with no sophisticate cameras may give news cover and images. To stop the motors and to leave the ships imobilized on the sea.
Another solution was to use special forces as Mishmar HaGvul, prison special anti-riot units...people trained from childhood (in their Georgian, Druze, Russian, Israeli slums, Ethiopian village) how to beat someone without needing to shoot.
To beat someone BUT not to injury/kill him is a profession; the Israeli comando (navyseal style) is trained to enter, search and terminate. When they were in danger, they falled on the training that they received. And they were in mortal danger.
The blunder was due to the fact that the imbeciles that are our political and military leaders sent the wrong men in the wrong place.
I have a profound feeling that all over the world, in private societies as in states governs, the fools and the idiots are now leading to our doom. The corrupts, the fools and the ignorants are our leaders. In the history of humankind, with drums and trumpets sometimes we are dancing to the March of Folly. And now is this time
As in other countries, Israel is no exception; it is a very sad day: people died and Israel lost again the battle of communication. In the future this day will be paid by us in land, money, Honor and respect.
Thank to our proud political and military leaders. May they rot in the dustbin of history.
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." —Benjamin Franklin
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." — G.K. Chesterton
U.S. midfielder Benny Feilhaber playing club soccer last fall.
