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jackk > I find myself at times posting things which I do not really believe in
Patient: Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do THAT.
Doctor: Don’t do THAT.oops, wrong thread.
ujm, not sure about anglo-saxon men, but Catholics and Jews are overrepresented onthe court for some time.
A good question. I think this is the answer: it is one thing to have courtesy of appointing a woman when none are on the court, or appoint a black man instead of the other (not that this was appreciated by any true progressive), but now we are making a multi-dimensional grid: someone has to be both right color and right gender. This is most weird for the supreme court – that is supposed to consist of lawyers, not representatives of aggrieved groups. During some previous confirmation when the mental ability of a candidate was questioned, someone quipped that stupid people also need to be “represented” in the court.
I second Gadol’s opinion. Religious parties need to come with a positive agenda that does not sound as self-serving. There are a lot of things religious Jews could do in addition to learning.
Yehoshua was approached by malach hamaves for not learning at night, but the malach did not suggest disbanding the army, just combining the milhama shel mitzva with learning a night.
a debate here will be actually interesting if we could use our Jewish norms to argue, rather than repeating partisan messages that have no regard for emes, just aiming to convince someone. It is true for both sides.
for example, the “debt” discussion purposefully conflates spending, often to allies, with reduced taxation. If I take jackk’s money and spend them in a casino and now “we” owe money – is it the same, as if I return money to jackk and now “we” do not have money, but jackk does?
You don’t have to agree with R Berel Wein, but from everything I read and heard from him, he generally knows what he is talking about. People from Chicago probably have more to say. And his own insight are always interesting, again whether you agree with him or not. Not sure why you are comparing a Rav who specializes in history with some non-religious writers. I think people like him who are able to approach an area of general knowledge with a kosher perspective is a precious resource we need to use. Again, you don’t have to agree with everything, but argue accordingly.
Syag, I would be happy to talk, but you are even more cryptic than I, or your humor is way over my head. If you clarify, I’ll try resonding, bli neder.
jackk, it might be a coincidence but all amputations of Ukrainian territory happened under Obama and Biden, and not Trump. Georgia did happen under Bush, but there was some resistance shown there.
It is unprovable but seems plausible that if occupation of Crimea were resisted or lead to real consecutives, then Eastern Ukraine might not have happened.
Unfortunately, half measures (such as light symbolic sanctions) seem not to work here. George Bush played Trump at Budapest NATO summit trying to convince others to have Ukraine and Georgia in NATO until he annoyed them. Maybe there will be a new defensive block consisting of US,UK, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Georgia, Scandinavians, leaving West Europeans to fight their greatest enemy – global warming. I am sure Estonians can accidently cut through NordStream 2 on their own.
Hm, not black PS, either a different mod or a different mood.
Do mods have mood? Can I ask this in honor of Adar?
I was just reading about one of the Afghani trying to get his special visa stamped in the last days of Kabul, and he was confronted by the over-worked Statie who seemed to be angry at the previous person and talked to him in a rude and loud way for no reason. I wonder whether mods lose balance after an outrageous post, or maybe have a l’chaim to get it back.
Syag > And the saddest part is that you actually see it as a parallel.
there is no parallel, I am taking it seriously, don’t you know there are more people dying from car accidents than anyone who died _from_ covid and flu combined!?!? I hope you are not encouraging anyone to drive and use cell phones, whether kosher, mehadrin, or treif.
PI, I do not like meaningless praise even less than undeserved abuse 🙂 I am frustrated at the daf speed: in person I was able to sabotage it a little with discussion, but it looks ruder on the zoom.
I think it is not so much the pace, but the monotone speed: famous lines and major issues deserve same attention as figuring out whether the mishna is according to R Yosi or not. I get it why the latter was important for the Gemora to develop halakhic patterns, and maybe even for someone in a semichah program, but I would rather spend more time figuring out implications for the modern life (as this is what Bavli is doing – developing a research method, according to Maharal that we discussed here months ago). I am trying to jump off the daf to research sugyot on a side but don’t always have time. That is why I am throwing provocative statements here sometimes – hoping someone will expand on the topic.Mishlei talk about answering a fool. If you see that your answers causes even more problems, then you need to stop. But it may be worth to have at least 1-2 posts, provided you give reasonable factual information once, and then point how the other side fails to respond. This might help the readers, if not the posters. But don’t get into a fight with a pig.
2008 > what ever happened to “Venishmartem meod es nafshoseichem’??!
This is such a naive cry, might have been from 1950s. We know better by now: who said that driving w/ cellphone is dangerous? How many people got into accidents _with_ cellphones, rather than _because_ of cellphones? You should not count “cases” of accidents with cellphones, they are double-counted by lawyers. Furthermore, most people killed in the accidents did not have cell phones! In 1960, ALL people who died in accidents did not have cellphones!! And if you take cell phones from people, you will take away freedom!!! Teenagers driving without cellphones are not able to see their faces for two years already (as they are masked in person). Also, 99% of all accidents are just nothing, especially if you are young and healthy. So, let the old people not use their cellphones! Protect the elderly.
Mod X > We don’t usually let these through
How is this opinion worse than other opinions? Maybe “evil jews” is a bad turn of words, but his thought is pretty clear and he calls Jews not to constantly find reasons to hate. Some may disagree, but there is nothing treif. I am not trying to argue with the mods, just stating that your admonition in this case is not clear to me.
on the substance, you should have no problem with R Yehudah: if he was so strict with a regular baal aveira, kal v’homer with worse cases.
Conclusion of keeping it quiet sounds problematic, maybe that is what you are pointing out. When I questioned that going back to R Yehudah, Rav suggested that maybe at R Yehudah’s time, people would understand this properly, but at later times, they would start thinking worse about Talmidei Chachamim in general. But, I think, the main thing we can take from the gemorah is that this is a trade-off: on one hand, we want to punish openly to show that we stand to the aveira and T’C; on the other – we don’t want people blame all T’Ch when they hear about such cases. If someone ealrned this sugya further, please share.
Note specifically comparison of Rebbes to Malachim – and rejection of “we need him to teach” in favor of “we do not need teachers like that”. This does not seem to be rejected at the end, only the public cherem. Would it be a leap to apply this notion to books of Torah that are same as teaching Torah? does not have to apply to science books, or fiction, or even Jewish songs.
hey, guys, I said “from cursory reading” as a self-admission of guilt and hoping that someone else looked up into that. Stop beating me up. It is the first time I am doing the daf, first after watching the wonderful siyum with the kids (even after realizing that it was way limited in speakership), and then continued as it helps keep up at pandemic and shared it with kids – so that online learning does not become “do as I say, not as I do”. Before that, I preferred short masechtot so that I could finish in a year, and lose a hevrusa at a half the masechet.
>> whether or not .5 and the .50 that was written on the orders was the same thing.
for several people laughing, these are actually not strictly the same:
0.5 means one digit is accurate, 0.50 would mean two digits are accurate (that is NOT 0.51), so should require a more precise measurement. This may be not what the confusion is about, of course.From cursory reading, gemora should fit any related sexual crimes. Did you see a reason not to?
The only team-player VP in recent years was Dick Cheney. Pence tried, but had a difficult boss. All others for the last 40 years were used to win elections and then sent to pasture.
next page in Moed Katan says that when someone is accused (possibly falsely), there was something there – either he did this avera before, or did it in part, or thought about it, or saw others doing it and did not object. Exceptions are when rumors are spread by enemies and when they are short-lived.
This romantic view of workplace is clearly by someone who is still coming of age, or is a victim of the welfare system.
Avira > Tell them you have doubts about if the wars were miracles,
I can answer that, I think: Hashem introduces himself as One who took us out of mitzrayim – because this is what Jews just witnessed. So, someone who was sitting in a tank in 6 day war is naturally talking about that. You would too if you were there.
Avira, re:IDF, I think you are right in terms of ideology there. I do not ascribe it though to specifically attack on religion, but to the real goal of building a cohesive nation the best way they knew. We all have tendency of looking at the negatives – attitudes towards religion, towards Sephardim, but disregarding the enormous challenge of putting together a country consisting of survivors and immigrants from different countries and surrounded by enemies. It is silly not to appreciate their hishtadlut, and Yad Hashem involved into the whole enterprise.
As to Satmarer and your smarting at 6 day war, I would take them serious if you can point out to this sentiment expressed before the start of hostilities. edited
BG7 > Personally, as a Torah-Jew, I am completely repulsed by Trump’s personality,
I understand where you are coming from, I am just wondering whether everything we hear is completely true. There are obvious political attacks, but then there are things that sound true and they still may not be. Some examples – a lot of stories on how he disregards experts and comes up with uninformed decisions. They sounds true. At the same time, we now know that he was persuaded not to follow – or at least delay – his “gut” decisions, such as withdraw from Afghanistan; we also now have current new CDC head saying that she is trying to change organization, so seems like Trump was correct at side-stepping them when necessary. He is also less polished and also often uses his directness to access voters. Obama/Netanyahu relationship was much worse than anything Trump ever said but it only came to surface several times. Just the fact that 6 years of investigations did not uncover anything inappropriate so far – in such a suspicious business as NY real estate … I have some unbiased info: actually watched Trump’s apprentice years ago with an eye on business decision-making, and found a lot to learn from that. All of that not to deny that he has personality flaws, but they need to be taken in the context and comparison to others.
Avira, I see. I don’t know details on what is happening inside of IDF, but from people I met, those who were chilonim before, stayed that way, and those who were datiim stayed that way. With dati leumi, would them going to other paces instead of IDF lead to a similar loss? Probably, yes. I don’t see IDF doing some specifically eveil thing rather than just being representative of the overall society.
Daf Yomi Moed Katan 17 talks about this: a talmid chacham suspected of improper behavior with the ladies. Some suggest that we can’t put him in herem because we need him as a Rebbe in yeshiva! This follows with the conclusion that Rebbes need to be – and seen – as malachim. Otherwise, we don’t need them. So Rav Yehuda puts him in herem, and later when R Yehuda is dying, this guy shows up – to the delight of R Yehuda. The guy says – and you also laughing at me. R Yehuda explains that he is happy to show up in Olam Habo showing courage that he put this guy in herem, despite him being an important guy. At the end, after some other cases, gemora seems to suggest that we don’t want to publicize herms against T’Ch, it is better to just give them makos in private.
ujm, probably! While I am not aware of purposefully unchecked Arabs, it would be an easily exploited vulnerability to have some category of passengers unchecked. One of the British Arabs in the 80s, I think, exploited his pregnant Irish girlfriend. He gave her some long excuse why they need to travel separately to E’Y to meet there to get married, and put a timed bomb into her luggage on London-Tel-Aviv flight. She behaved totally not suspicious because she was not aware of anything. Somehow, her story sounded weird to the British security officer despite checking her things a couple of times.
Taking a bigger picture: the wonder of having millions of Jews living – and keeping mitzvos – in e’Y is something worth appreciating. So, it came through activites of non-religious Jews and various empires scheming for their own benefit. What is the extra “defilement” of Har Habayit? That we have a shul at the Wall instead of the garbage dump? The army is immoral because their kashrus is not up to your standard, while they are risking their lives? “come on”
Gadol, I did not see those polls, but presuming Trump is a nominee, are there people who voted for him in 2020 and would not vote again? Are there cases in reverse? I think there are after all the Biden antics.
As to primaries, I am very skeptical about “trump light” versions. We get a lot of people who say right words and then not do them or do not have skills to do those.
How do you deal with issues on shabbos and yom tov if you are a sole operator? Do you explain to tenants about it? Do you hire a shabbos goy to handle the issues? You can provide phones for plumbers and electricians, but there are always issues that needs to be resolved.
RW > Charlie Hall how does you showing the NYPD officer your receipt stop the fare evaders?
If police were to stop a shady person, the other evaders would say – I do not look as shady as him.
But now evaders saw that NYPD can stop even a person in an impeccable suit and beard, so they got scared. Deterrence effect. NYPD knows that.smerel> If I KNEW that what I hear about the Uyghurs is true
I thought you can find camps in satellite imagery, but it is even easier – look for censored spots 🙂
China’s Baidu blanked out parts of its mapping platform. We used those locations to find a network of buildings bearing the hallmarks of prisons and internment camps in Xinjiang ( from prize winning articles in 2020, Blanked-Out Spots On China’s Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang’s Camps(
I don’t think long history is important for current politics, as long as we realistically remember that any country can turn against us at some point. Ukraine is definitely a current frontier against totalitarians and need to be supported. Russians chose the moment well: a defeatist Pres of USA with a weak team; new government in Germany even less anti-Russian than previous; outsider President of Ukraine; middle of winter with expensive gas and frozen marshes… Why did Hashem put a Jewish comedian in charge of that country at this moment? I guess we will find out later on whom the joke is.
common > quite a few cities filed for bankruptcy.
just sell Manhattan back to Indians. It is worth lessnow (negative)( with all liabilities.
ejm> have learned there are more libs on this site than I thought.
I think there is less than a minyan so far, so not a community.
It looks like opinions vary as to personality, and media-propagated TDS is endemic, so that even the poasters with high vaccine of derech eretz still get infected. Still, if you look simply at policies and achievements, as amom says, there is not much that a moderate conservative should be upset about.
The only difference between how Trump and other R- politicians are treated: they are all called names, just in his case, some might actually apply. Maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy – you called R- villains, so you get one! Al tiftach pe l’satan.
amom > We need a good, legal process of getting immigrants into this country.
US has a reasonable legal process. Here are numbers: 14% of USA population are legal immigrants, 3% illegal. Other countries legal immigrants: israel 26%, canada 21%, Germany 17%, spain 15%,Uk 14%, France 9%, Italy 7% hungary 2%
historically, US foreien born population went up & down: very high in 1880-1920, then way downm etc
“need to handle themselves”? – this would make sense for a democratic country, where voters are eventually responsible for their choices. I am not sure why such reluctance calling reshayim reshayim when taking about commies, nazis and other dictators.
CtLawyer > I supported letting countries make their own domestic decisions.
I read it the same way. You seem to be usually sensitive to human condition. Maybe you are not realizing yourself the pretzel you are putting yourself in to feel comfortable representing CCP types in American courts.
Syag, I am very interested in your or others’ challenges, but please talk to the substance rather than just saying that you disagree.
jackk, you are right at equivalent ratings, with minor difference: Trump was attacked by media, Biden – defended. As we just saw above, you do not remember what Biden said – why? you did not pay attention then, and you never heard about it again. Imagine, Hunter’s – just the ones documented by Congress – payments from China and Russia would be on first pages of papers daily, what would be his ratings? As I said before, it does not help d-s in the long run. With some criticism from outside and within, he could have avoided many of the disasters. Unfortunately (for us), criticism only starts after obvious failures when it is too late.
Syag,
I also tried a mediator, I asked shailos, etc.
I appreciate your help trying to manage my affairs over the newsgroup. I am fine, thanks. I am trying to discuss general issues here, using my experiences as an illustration. you are questioning my every word, pushing me for more illustrations, and then you don’t believe those.There is a google doc flowing around internet that people edit with school costs. When I find it again, I’ll quote.
Syag > and find out from the schools what they really say.
I did go and talk to that teacher during PTA, (and to other teachers, and to the principal whom I knew for years). Her focus was on asking me when is the time to apply for seminary. I was politely evasive about it, she then paternalistically (maternalistically?) said – if you can’t afford, I can help you find one that is free/affordable (I am glad that the school is not sharing financial info with teachers :). In her defense, I do not wear a hat like her husband, and our kids transferred from another school that the teacher considers inferior (“I know less chazal than others” cried one for several first months), so the teacher seemingly was in “kiruv” mode. School concern for the kids had a limit though: when we decided to leave, two of the girls made an awesome offer that I could not refuse – they would do secular subjects in a different place and go for some of the Jewish classes at BY. I was very proud of them. But it was a non-starter for the school – “what if others ask for the same”.
I think we zeroed on the reason for our different perception (in addition to possibly better schools in your big city): many schools work if you are satisfied with the product – either you fit into their worldview exactly or/and you are not aware of what you are missing. I don’t think it is an issue only in small communities. I know of a couple of families that moved to a too-“frum” NY satellite cities and were politely told by numerous schools that “you will not be happy here”. Maybe it is a by-product of spectacular growth of our communities in recent decades.
TVOP > I’d rather get infected and not lose my job. A statistic you might want to bring would be deaths.
I know this would be better number. I do not work for either CDC or KGB. This was from the phone opinion survey, and those of your interest are hard to reach that way, unfortunately. Deaths would be proportional to infections only if age distribution were similar, and we do not know that. Still, this one variable was the most predictive of everything else they cited. Tzarich yiun.
Re: lockdowns. Good question. I think initial lockdown was justified by the fear of unknown. It was clearly something extra-ordinary. There were no tools to measure anything. There was also initial hope that lockdowns will prevent entry into the country. Note that AU, NZ, and some other islands used lockdowns successfully. As to reduced mobility and SD overall, it continues helping. This not only shows up in cases, but also in severity. There is some research that confirms the obvious – the more people are exposed initially, the more severe the disease is. If that is true then short exposures give immunity at small risk, while longer ones carry more risk. So, any kind of caution matters. It is literally as Rambam says – imagine the world being 50% on a good side, and your one decision matters (a difference between exponential propagation factor R0 being 0.99 and 1.01 – same as difference between a nuclear reactor and Chernobyl).
RW, maybe you are still on their property? But sounds like a good observation to avoid moris ayn and be careful about carrying a ticket till the end. This is, after all, probably not just a private company but is subsidized by the government, aka our taxes. Shmuel’s father was careful to keep orphans’ money in a hiding place as a middle layer between two of his own money – top for the thieves and bottom for water damage.
Correction: yohrtzeit of Jan 6th was declared a long weekend off already (evening of Dec 25/morning of 26th Sunday)
In 1930s, NYT was able to deny that Soviets have labor camps and starving millions of Ukrainians,. Now you can see labor camps in China or North Korea in satellite imagery in Google maps or in Planet Labs daily imagery. We obviously have first responsibilities to solve problems within our own communities and other Jews, but we can spend a small percentage of the efforts supporting other worthy causes. Maybe we don’t feel for problems in China as it did not affect us before. It does now with Wuhan virus at least.
RebE > AAQ, aren’t you preaching water but drinking wine with the word “and”?
Great, someone passed the grammar test but not the hummar one. Alliteration of “ands” in several sentences was your clue for the second one (that I presume most people passed).
TS, mods don’t need me as a mod, they need me as the poaster – to point out to their employer how much work they have!
I suggest mods add another button near “submit” – “submit for rejection” that I could use as a courtesy to make it easier for them to reject.
Can YWN send this guy as a correspondent to China or North Korea?
jackk > >One of the immediate reactions was that Afghanistan will embolden Russia and China, and this has already been proven to be true, unfortunately.
> This is your opinion and is not based on facts.Jackk, this is how you test theories. There was a prediction above made by many 6 months ago and it turned out true now. Russia surrounded Ukraine and demands US/NATO pull out forces from whole Eastern Europe. US non-essential personnel evacuated. We can’t say there is a direct link between two events, but the fact of prediction is telling.
Who were military leaders who supported Biden’s direction for Afghanistan, specifically reducing personnel so that Bagram had to be abandoned. Afghani government/military is obviously not perfect/third country, but they had forces willing to fight, but not when US left them in the middle of the night leaving them without air support and repairs (all contractors had to leave also).
Some indeed said that if we were to not pull out because Taliban did not fulfil Trump’s conditions, then Taliban would start attacking US forces again. But this was a conjecture. There was a possibly viable plan to keep small force continuing supporting Afghans. Same as US has in Syria now supporting Kurds. It might have not worked, but Bidenistas did not even try – because of their internal political considerations.
jackk, Syria was a complicated campaign in multi-player environment. I am not saying that Trump did everything right. Who knows. Reasonable that some disagreed and that he made decisions disregarding some generals. He achieved a lot – defeating ISIS, keeping territory and oil for Kurds, defeating Russians when they attacked.