Really great quote

Via Andrew Sullivan's blog:
"Studying the past few years, one could arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan's army is epically incompetent. One could similarly arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan's army is competent -- but fighting for the other side," -Abu Muqawama

Absolutely great economy article

Seriously. Read it.

“These are the Jews and the Palestinians here.”

So describes an RNC member about the state of various factions within the Republican party. Nice.

Jewish Anti-Zionists

Those of us in LA, really don't see these feelings espoused very often. I mean, I couldn't agree more, but it's important to know that these views exist, that Zionism shouldn't be just taken for granted by us but must be actively defended, even within the Jewish people.

Best article title of the day

"The great foreskin debate"

49%

... is the percentage of Americans who support same-sex marriage, not just civil unions, according to a new ABC/WashPost poll. Other fun facts, support for the legalization of marijuana is at all time highs (hehe...) with 46% over all- that's 49% of dems, 53% of independents and... 28% of republicans, who I would think would have wanted to spend the next 4-8 years stoned out of their minds... ah well.

Cool Music Video

See here. Apparently everything was done live and in one take, which is really quite impressive.

Really wants me want to watch it

via the NYTimes: "Despite a threat from Islamists, two Pakistani brothers stealthily manufacture fetish and bondage wear, earning more than $1 million a year from their Western customers."

Swine (Mexican?) Flu in Israel

Ack.

Club for growth spokesman related to the Rav?

Her name is Nechama Soloveichik. Just asking.

Damn

SCOTUS say that a "fleeting" curse word can, in fact, be regulated by the FCC.

Update: Longer discuss, including excerpts, here.

Visiting the DMZ

Cool post. When was the last time you read about the border between South and North Korea?

60 in the senate!

Holy cow. Senator Arlen Spector, formerly R-PA, is switching parties to be a Democrat. With Franken, this gives Democrats 60. Of the top of my head, this probably means that Republicans will try every possible trick to keep Franken out of the senate. Wow....

Update: Why did he do it?

They don't call it swine flu in Israel...

... because that's not Kosher. Seriously. Guess what they call it?

Guess who did this ad?

I'd be very impressed if you guessed who made this ad. Watch all the way till the end. Random, no?

21%

... is the number of self identifying Republicans in the USA right now, according to WaPo/ABC.

(35 identified as dem, 38 as independent)

Love this headline

Israeli Mercs 1, Pirates 0

Stonehenge, USA edition

This is a really trippy article about an anonymous effort to build a 16 foot solid granite structure as a set of rules for the end of times. But more in an anti-Christian way than Christian way. Read about it.

I was wrong

Apparently Orszag, Obama's OMB director, isn't gay. Huh. Oh well.

Update: Read this article! It's a great of example of the long New Yorker format that gives such a full picture of what it's describing, which, in this case is Orszag and Obama's whole economic policy- not to mention some wonderful details of how the Obama White House works.

Hates the torture, Loves the drones

Obama is, apparently, doing the whole CIA drone attack thing in AfPak in ways that Bush never would.

MIT massacre...

... of their sports teams. Damn you, financial crisis!

Durban II update

Two more reports on Durban II and Israel stuff here and here from The New Republic. The second one talks about Neturei Karta...

Best headline of the day

Yes, it's a bit early in the day to crown a best headline, but here it is:

"Two homes good, Four Homes bad."

Awesome.

Jails with cellphone sensor arrays?

Sure, to detect prisoners with smuggled cellphone.

NY busdriver sings opera as he drives

This is either really annoying, or really cool.

This wouldn't happen in the U.S. congress

Apparently Hamas head Khalid Meshal addressed a bunch of British lawmakers by satellite.

The hypocrisy of "open orthodoxy"

A great rant, which, while I disagree with some of it, is nevertheless really good food for thought.

Buy plane tickets now or later?

Always something good to think about.

Texas Seceding?

Texas Republicans are 48%-48% on whether or not Texas would be best as an independent country. See the bottom of the page.

Head Scratcher

Levi Johnston on Larry King last night:

What was he doing when Sarah Palin's candidacy was announced? Sheep huntin'. "Sheep herding?" King asked, confused. Sheep huntin'.

Is that like quail hunting in an enclosed area?

Best tagline this morning:

Is Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival at war with Robert Redford's Sundance?

Blago: Judge save me from eating bugs

Maybe the judge should have let him go?

Pesach and Streits

Did you know that there was a movement in NY to say that all Streits products weren't kosher for pesach? Here's some thoughts on it.

Update: See the comments to the link. Los Angeles' Rabbi Korobkin responded- which shows I guess, that the linked blog is at least somewhat widely read.

Goldberg on the Economy

Great piece by Jeffrey Goldberg on the economy. Interesting, but mainly funny and well written.

NY DHS: Hamas in the USA

This is a FOUO report by the NY Department of Homeland Security (yes, they have one) on... Hamas' American activities.

Avigdor Lieberman says

"Believe me, America accepts all our decisions"

Is Hinduism Avodah Zarah?

Some might not care, but if so it creates some serious problems. Read more here.

Interview about Shaindy.com

It's a NY hookup site for frum marrieds. For more about it, see here.

Here's an interview with its editor.

We do not F*cking Torture!

Shep Smith everybody.

Security You Can Trust In

Apparently the Brits lost a bunch of prisoner data on a USB stick. Luckily, the thing was encrypted. Unluckily, the password was attached to the stick by a sticky note.

Reason #133,123,685,564 why YouTube is cool

The Bybee torture memo. Put to music.

Really Cool Graphic

It's the rate of slaughter of animals in America.
But it's realllly cool.

HUC Los Angeles to Close?

The LATimes is reporting that Reform Judaism's HUC is running out of money, so they may close up to two campuses (they have three: Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and New York).

Wiesel in Geneva

Elie Wiesel called a Zio-Nazi at Durban II. Oh Boy...

Where does oil come from?

This is a question that Energy Secretary David Chu was asked by a congressman. It appears that the congressman thought he stumped the energy secretary. WTF?

Kosher Wines

When Pesach comes around, everyone talks about kosher wine. This video one of the better posts, from two guys who are awesome: Gary Vaynerchuk, who's fun to watch; and Daniel Rogov, who is THE Israeli wine critic.

A Contrarian take on Susan Boyle

If you don't know who she is, watch this.

Most people think it's amazing, apparently this person doesn't.

For what it's worth, I found the whole thing cool.

Sharks with Frickin' Laser Beams

Or a UAV that's a sniper.
Cool Stuff.

Torture

Here is the report of the US Senate Armed Services on torture by the Bush Administration.

Here(1,2,3,4) are the newly declassified torture memos from the US DOJ OLC.

There's been a ton of analysis on this. Something recent is this from Jane Mayer who wrote the book on Bush and torture.

Here's something from someone who went through SERE training, which was the basis for much of the US's knowledge on torture.

Fun first post, no?

Beginning

OK,
So I've said to myself I was going to to this for a while. The pupose of all this is simple: to post links that I find interesting. They will be on Judaism, Orthodox controversies, science, tech in general, defense/national security, secrecy, politics, things I find funny, and some other stuff. I'll try to keep my own commentary to a minimum, but the links will speak for themselves in terms of my own bias.

Have fun!
josh