Always_Ask_Questions

Gadol, Stern is a good option and I know many people who had good experiences, but, again, for those paying full price, way overpriced over quality. I hate sound so materialistic, but may I use a car analogy: it is wrong when all I need is to commute to work and I am forced to buy a Ferrari “like everyone else”. I understand that contrary to regular colleges, YU counts high/elementary school tuition as part of parent burden, so it may work reasonably for many.

Could you say more about limudei kodesh groups for college women – this sounds like a reasonable approach.

As to “where”, there was a striking article in something like OU magazine ~ 30 years ago by a non-NY Hillel Rav at a big university – where, contrary to his financial interest, he strongly advised parents _NOT_ to send their children (both boys and girls) out of town for college, saying that this is an American tradition with no Torah support. This is the age where you have a chance to teach the kid – and you are sending them away?

(cont) and if you don’t value your time to the degree that from 9am you wait when it is gonna be 5pm (and eventually, when is it going to be a vacation, and them retirement), then you will take same attitude to your davening and learning after 5 pm. “Hashem pours wine into a full cup” (Brochos ~ 5)

very appropriately, a topic on insults ended with them.

kanoy, I apologize for mistreating your post. I appreciate complexity that indeed exists in these matters and I am all for considering them. Still, I think we first need to review simple things before going to esoteric.

Biden did not have that many tasks from Obama. He needed to be sure that his son is not doing dirty business in the country he is … fighting corruption. And not flying with him to meet Chinese “investors”. I am not sure why Obama sent Biden to Ukraine given the embarrassing situation. In real life, everyone related to Hunter would lose government security clearances due to possibility of blackmail.

By the way, it is not fully clear how this fighting corruption was good business. On one hand, we do want to have clean countries. On the other hand, Ukrainians just got rid of pro-Soviet president and needed, and still need, all the help they can get. Their President said at Munich that even now, emergency help they get is tied to corruption benchmarks. Biden’s people are as full of “theories” that blind them to reality as Germans – who just now are starting to reconsider their gas supplies – as Trump told them repeatedly.

> Crimea has historically been part of Russia for hundreds of years

kill parents and ask for forgiveness as an orphan?! Crimea was populated by Tatars, was first conquired by Russian empire, and then Stalin deported them en masse, Sanheriv style, with a large part dying on the way. After that, it became mostly Russian.

I was always wondering how during cold war we had people focusing on minor US faults and what is Nixon’s fault, and fighting nuclear weapons and energy, rather than confronting the evil empire, and now I see that the same thing happens again. At least Covid is new and invisible, so you can understand ignorami, but this is a 300 year virus with known side effects (to borrow a phrase from Ukrainian ambassador) – and posters seem prefer entertainment at the expense of human lives.

Gadol, maybe I was not clear, but I am suggesting something similar. I am not suggesting a diploma mill. I more and more prefer online because of dangers on campus. Another option is a local college with kids living at home. But this might protect from wild parties, but will not protect from hearing what professors are saying and you will never know. With online, I discuss with kids in real time when bad ideas are mentioned, both college and high school.

this is personal. In previous generation, I saw kids who already came as learners from MO schools, going thru college without apparent damage, but I am not so sure about those who were not so strong after high school. In this generation, kids who went to non-MO schools, are ready for overpriced “frum” colleges that are possibly a reasonable option if you can get a good discount. Otherwise, it is throwing a lot of money into the wind.

Yes, I mentioned Haber’s connection to poison. He stopped at home after testing gas on the western front on the way to eastern, and his wife committed suicide because of this issue… He was one of the last Jews still employed in Germany – due to his stature, and he made a huge effort to help his fired employees to find jobs in other countries. Weitzman invited him to rehovot, but he died in Switzerland from a heart attack

I don’t know how you define am haaretz, but you use t.ch. too loosely. T ch can make a mistake, but is expected to review his actions and fix it. If you see t ch doing aveira in the evening, don’t approach him in the morning, as he already did teshuva

Random, thanks for looking up wiki for me…

Gadol, you can’t be serious about Ukraine. First thing Biden declared was – we are surely not going to send soldiers. First thing Trump did when Russian contractors moved towards US base in Syria – bombed them. Trump also supported Eastern European countries in their armament, posting US troops there, and blocking Nord Stream2 that Biden immediately rescinded.

(To be fair, I don’t think Trump issued the command, he simply put capable people in charge, and delegated this decision to Pentagon; Pentagon delegated that decision to the local commander, who did what he needed to do).

Random, a good point on melachim. This would exclude Kims, while Hu and Putin exist by some quiet agreement of their countries who did not come to rebel against them. Not different from melachim of the past who did not have frequent elections. The idea of democracy was considered unworkable for most of history between Athens and modernity – and, for me at least, it is still unclear whether it works and clearly pure democracies are bound to fail.

Avira, there were early amoraim interested in moving to E’Y and Israeli ones that considered leaving E’Y an aveira. This does not happen later on – probably a combination of hardships in E’Y and Bavel becoming true center of learning. Would help if you bring the quotes that you referring to so that we see both sides of the issue.

Let’s consider a “what if” history – Zionists do not move to E’Y and current E’Y looks like Jordan and Iraq at best or Syria and Iran at worst. There are several Jewish communities existing peacefully in general, with no mmodern avoda zora, under duress, and occasional mass murder. Would you move there?

I forgot fertilizer (Fritz Haber) in ~ 1910 – saved billions of lives from starvation. On the least of most forgotten greatest inventions. Stricken out of history for being a German patriot during WW1 and inventing poison gas. He fully did teshuva though for his German sympathies before his death in the 30s.

R Yohanan says when dying “be afraid of King of Kings (at least ?) as the mortal Kings”. Given lack of power for the current monarchs, we should observe carefully remaining dictators – Hu, Putim, Kim, to appreciate what yerat shamayim is.

ok, so we agree on big picture here. Practical question is which medicines are seriously affected by possible quality problems… I think I heard of synthroid issues also, as ubi says.

for politically minded, this seems like a lose-lose – choosing between “china” and “big pharma”. Hope you side with US pharma for a change. And also note that those who attack “big pharma” implicitly support “big China”, similarly as those who fight “climate” help Russia as previous generation those who were fighting nuclear were helping USSR to sell their oil/gas.

Where can I get sefer of teshuvos by Achashverosh, could you ship it by Purim?
Seems like respect would require indeed talking to the husband in his language, you can also consider that women have more feelings and prefer to talk to children in appropriately called “mama loshon”.

We have an example of a bilingual family, right? A woman who had to spit into Bava’s eye due to language problems with her husband. Any piskei halakha coming from there? One thing is true (and is evident in that story) that men are less flexible and more fixed in their ways, so the wife might consider speaking his language as it is hard for him to change.

But it would be also wise to look long-term: do they plan to settle in E’Y, or go back & forth? If they are planning fully Israeli life, then the husband, and future children, would be better off talking the language of their neighborhood. OTOH, if children are planning to earn a living, speaking American English and having American business attitudes will help them land a job in one of the above mentioned IBM, Intel, Rafael, so that they can have a good-paying job and spend half a day in learning.

I thin Bava Metzia talks that things are not usually bad by themselves, depends on who and how is using them. Nuclear weapons ended WW2 in Pacific quickly and probably prevented USSR from occupying a lot of countries thereafter. Internet gave a lot of poor people access to information and education; people in China access to less filtered news. Jewish kids can get access to quality professional education without stepping into a campus with a lot of noreshkeit; people in Brooklyn can write on YWN about what they hate without leaving their heder.

jackk, thanks for defending the honor of emoji research. do you have an opinion whether NPR public funding is indeed 2% as claimed?

I think you guys have a legit an interesting debate, but it is outdated. I am claiming that current Israel is not permeated by original Zionism. The anti-religious left is now more into global liberal ideas; traditional, mostly Sephardi, Jews were not affected by it to begin with. What you have is – a state consisting of multiple Jewish groups, many of who are not observant or partially observant. It is the same as in other countries, except that all of them share the bus. In other countries, you simply do not meet these people and do not depend on them. Maybe, Israel gives you an opportunity to show these Jews – who mostly were not religious before they came to Israel – the beauty of Torah. Instead, you are hating them. Look at Yonah and Kikayon. Do you have no chesed to this small country populated by Jewish people?

significant ones, ordered by time, more or less, not dividing into bad and good:
wheel (Amerindians did not), alef-beis, paper, military horse saddle, growing beans with wheat (responsible for growth of Northern Europe and Ashkenazim), long bow, printing press, marine chronometer (enabled measuring longitude and actually going to an exact location), steam engine, electricity, cotton gin (American thingy), radio, federal reserve (economic stability), Kalashnikov, potential functions and support vector machines (first serious machine learning technology), PC, Netscape browser (rather than internet, making it available to non-geeks), altavista search engine (first working one), zoom

rw, could you clarify how many and out of how many were taken off the market, according to your sources, hopefully separately for brands and generics?

also, taken from the market may be a sign of monitoring working, even if at this late stage

note that late during Trump administration, after shortages of medicines started, there was an initiative to identify what ingredients are sources from non-friendly countries and looking for substitutes.

It may depend on the drug. Some are very sensitive to changes in production, many others are easily copied. you would need to research a specific drug.

Another example of a well camouflaged false claim: there was popular theme in the 80s and 90s of accusing “rich getting richer”, and the simple jingle proof was “2% of highest earners earn XX% of GDP” or something like that. Heard it on NPR many time and it sounded convincing. What’s the catch?

These 2% of “rich” people are not the same people each year … Someone sells a business, a farm, wins a lottery – he joins the “rich” for that year (and gets taxed accordingly). This is not to deny that are rich people, but the proof was a lie.

Mark Twain +1 I am quoting this to my teen kids all the time.

HaKatan notices that Reform is dying and Zionism is not to justify bigger evil of Zionism. Maybe it means that Reform was wrong (more)? They led their communities to full assimilation. I would add that original Zionism is also not around. You describe it how it looks in 1930s, maybe you read some seforim from 100 years ago and did not go out much.