WolfishMusings

Stores competing for who’ll make the most over-the-top donuts, meat boards and fish boards for $300, hiring a band instead of just playing music. Is this what chanukah is meant to be? It’s almost as if the Yevanim won. People in Israel are at war with people displaced and held under hostage and this is how we celebrate? Where are the Rabbonim when it comes to addressing needles spending?

Those things may or may not be bad, but they’re hardly dystopian.

The Wolf

When I was a kid, we had two dogs.

As married adults, my wife and I had hamsters.

The Wolf

No, my daughter does not have a school yet. But then again, my daughter is more than 25 years old.

The Wolf

halachically not be engaged

What does it even mean (in the absence of tenaim) to be “halachically engaged?”

The Wolf

So many logical and factual errors…

1) The flag is waving in the wind. There is no wind on in the moon.

The flag didn’t wave. It moved when Armstrong and/or Aldrin moved the pole it was attached to.

2) Any slight degree of deviation of target in 238,900 miles, would result in missing the moon by hundreds of miles. There was no such powerful computing power in 1969 to do that. A cell phone today has much more computing power than a computer the size of a large building had in 1969.

You are correct that today’s computers are far better than what they had in 1969. But so what? How does that prove it was impossible to do in 1969?

That’s like saying today’s ovens are much better than they were a century ago, so my great-grandmother must not have been able to bake a cake.

3) Every video tape today of the first moon landing is proven to be a copy, not the original tape. If cutting and pasting was actually done (to produce a forgery,) it can only be proven on the original. The original is gone. Nasa says they accidentally taped something else over the original video tape. What was this? Someone’s bar mitzvah video that someone accidentally taped a football game over it?? It cost 355 million dollars, and billions in today’s money, and they weren’t careful???

I don’t know if this is true or not, but so what? Because someone may have done something stupid with the tapes after the fact proves that it didn’t happen?

If I tape over my wedding video to record a football game, does that prove that I was never married? After all, who would do something so stupid?

4) President Kennedy vowed to beat the Russians and that the USA would land on the moon before the end of the decade. They had to show something by 1969. The pressure was enormous.

So, the argument here goes: Kennedy promised something, they had to get it done, there was pressure to get it done, so therefore it wasn’t done and the whole thing is a fake???

5) They were no where near the technology in that time to do this.
This is a repeat of the argument above in #2. And completely without evidence.

6) Everyone involved in this hoax on the world, including the 3 original astronauts, could never ever reveal it, without becoming the most hated charlatans in history.

So, the proof of the hoax is that no one ever snitched?

One would wonder, however, if it were fake, why didn’t the Soviets scream it to the heavens? Or were they in their arch-rival’s scheme?

7) There was never evidence found of a USA flag post left on the moon.

I don’t know what evidence you’re looking for. None of the landing sites have been revisited, and none of the satellites in orbit around the moon can resolve an object as small as a flag.

However, satellites in orbit have been able to resolve larger items, such as lunar rovers that have been left on the lunar surface. In addition, mirrors attached to the lunar surface by Armstrong and Aldrin are used regularly by scientists.

The Wolf

“Rabbi Yisroel Reisman [a very respected Orthodox Rabbi] spoke out against those Jews who plan their vacations for locations like: Switzerland, France, or Italy where the people hate Jews.”

SOURCE: Flatbush Jewish Journal, 2010/6/17, page 32

I can’t speak to those places (and I would probably agree with the sentiment), but I can say that I was in Iceland twice and walked around with a kippah only (except when too windy, in which case I put on my baseball cap, but that wasn’t too often) and had no problems whatsoever.

The Wolf

Didn’t we have this argument during the funeral for Elizabeth II?

The Wolf

However when moshiach comes, and techias hameisim happens, we will have the greatest minds of all times so we’ll be able to review everything Halachically according to the new circumstances. Hence we will rule according to Beis Shamai etc.

The greatest minds of all time do not have the power to completely nullify a Torah commandment.

The Wolf

Sha’arei Shalom (Ave P and Madison — not too far away) has a Mincha minyan at 7:00 pm.

The Wolf

“100% , cannot and will never be a queen of any kind”

And yet, she *is* the Queen.

The Wolf

Zaphod Beeblebrox was the President of the Galaxy. He was born on the fifth planet orbiting the star Betelguese. As President, his job was to draw attention away from the true rulers of the universe. In this he was very successful. He is easily identified by having two heads.

The Wolf

wolfishmusings

I’m still around.

The Wolf

I’m so sorry to hear this. Baruch Dayan HaEmes.

May your memories of her be a source of comfort to you and your family.

HaMakom Yenachem Eschem B’soch Sh’ar Aveili Tziyon V’Yerushalayim.

The Wolf

I find it very difficult to accept compliments.

Criticism, on the other hand, I accept readily, provided it has some basis in reality and it’s something that I can use to improve.

The Wolf

Wolf, why do you always end off with The Wolf?

Because I like doing so.

The Wolf

alternate possible other children

Ugh… I used four words when one would have been enough. I need to better edit myself. 🙂

The Wolf

What are you saying, isn’t the opposite true, most of the Jews not alive today would have ended up existing?

That’s absolutely true. But I’m not convinced that it’s morally and ethically good to sacrifice the millions of people that currently exist for the millions of people that could have existed.

Were that the case, you could never make a marital decision in your life. Sure, marrying my wife helped my kids come into existence, but it also precluded the large number of alternate possible other children that might have existed had I married any one of the thousands* of other available women. But we have to make choices in the here and now and cannot be concerned about the unknowable possibility of lives that might come into existence if we took a different action.

The Wolf

* Not that there were thousands of women who would have wanted me, but you get the point.

My kids are adults, so we don’t enforce bedtime.

The Wolf

You should however, avoid groups containing anybody and everybody.

You mean like an Internet message board?

The Wolf

@wolf, because I know you do some photography in the national parks.

That’s true. But I’m certainly no park ranger.

The Wolf

Wolf, אין אדם משים עצמו רשע, a person should not consider oneself a rasha.

You do realize that that is strictly an evidentiary rule that has applicability only in the context of testimony, right?

The Wolf

Wolf: Your apikorus shtick is old and stale. Try something new for the next five years.

I’m sorry if you find my self-opinion “old and stale.” I’ll try to find new ways to think negatively about myself.

The Wolf

Except for a wife (אשתו כגופו)

If that’s the case, then I’m still an apikorus, since one doesn’t answer “amen” to one’s own b’rachos.

In any event, I’ve also said “amen” to the b’rachos of my daughter, sister, mother and nieces as well. So, I’m still a complete rasha.

The Wolf