this blog is closed

Thank you all, it's been a blast!

not worth it

I was going to publish here something and then, why bother? People who remain anonymous and tell me that they enjoy the blog mean nothing to me. Enjoy yourself. If this is not a vehicle for human contact or revenue is it worth it? I will be back in a different place and time.

let's say there was a god

Praying to the blood thirsty thug would be beyond contempt. Associating with the hypocrites and sheep that cling to the sadist would be simply uncool.

Next Year in Nevada

Burning Man 2007 208, originally uploaded by jmannaz.

The Vanishing Republican Voter

David Frum, NYTimes.com: The Vanishing Republican Voter:

"THE TREND TO INEQUALITY is not new, and it is not confined to the United States. It has manifested itself just about everywhere in the developed world since the late 1970s, and for the same two reasons.

The first reason is the revolution in family life. Not so long ago, most households were home to two adults, one who worked and one who did not. Today fewer than half of America’s households are headed by married couples, and married women usually work. So America and other advanced countries have become increasingly divided between families earning two incomes and those getting by on one at most.

The family revolution coincided with another: a great shift from a national to a planetary division of labor. Inequality within nations is rising in large part because inequality is declining among nations. A generation ago, even a poor American was still better off than most people in China. Today the lifestyles of middle-class Chinese increasingly approximate those of middle-class Americans, while the lifestyles of upper and lower America increasingly diverge. Less-skilled Americans now face hundreds of millions of new wage competitors, while highly skilled Americans can sell their services in a worldwide market.

As long as all Americans were becoming better off, few cared that some Americans were becoming better off than others. But since 2000, something has changed. Incomes at the middle have ceased to rise. The mood of the country has soured. Conservatives who disregard the mood of unease may forfeit their power to defend the more open and productive American economy they did so much to build."

head stand

During reception in a wedding, just befor "Hopa"., originally uploaded by dubi feiner.

regular readers

There are regular readers from OZ, from Vienna, from Paris. Why don’t you people introduce yourself, at least in private.

A Look at How the Kosher Sausage Gets Made

Forward.com: As Industry Faces Criticism, a Look at How the Kosher Sausage Gets Made.

Red Hat buys Israeli Qumranet for $107 mil

Globes: Red Hat buys Israeli virtualization co Qumranet.

Yosef Karduner: Shir Lama'alot

conspiracy theory of the day

Raționalitate commenting to mentalblog.com: Claim: Al-Zawahiri is guided by KGB successor agency.

If you look at a chart of historical oil prices, they started to spike right around the time al-Zawahiri joined al-Qaeda. That was also the start of al-Qaeda's oil-related terrorism. For example the East African embassy bombings, which al-Qaeda did most likely to draw America into Afghanistan. They didn't have to draw America into Afghanistan, but they did accomplish their goal: American investors fled from a proposed natural gas pipeline project through Afghanistan, and the plan collapsed. That was right around when he joined, but since then, the price of oil has skyrocketed, largely on the back of fear about political instability related to terrorism. They intentionally provoked America into a crusade overseas in order to drive up oil prices. They knew too well that the US wasn't gonna go and clean house and then all the oil would be on the market – they knew they'd blunder around and then finally give up, and meanwhile the region will still be just as authoritative (if not more), and instability will continue in the Middle East, which drives up energy prices, which is good for Putin and his cronies.

I've always wondered: who around the Italian secret services made the Niger uranium forgeries? Ya never know, but I can't help but remember Litvinenko or some other defector saying that the Italian secret services were crawling with Russian agents.

Photographer's Journal: Following McCain

The New York Times: Photographer's Journal: Following McCain.

AlJazeera - the last Jew of Babylon, a love story

Dora and Miriam Rakowski

Two Jewish sisters point out their journey to America on a wall map soon after their immigration to the US, originally uploaded by ~~*♥♥♥Michelle♥♥♥*~~~.

Marie Claire (now Miriam) Rakowski is the daughter of Ephraim and Blima Rakowski, a Jewish couple from Poland who had moved to Belgium in the interwar period. Marie was born in Brussels during the German occupation on December 23, 1943. She had one sibling, Dora (b. 1939). Shortly after Marie's birth, the Rakowski's placed both their children in hiding. Dora was sent to a Catholic convent school and Marie was placed in the home of a Belgian pharmacist named Hicket. The Hickets had no children and treated Marie as their own flesh and blood. During the occupation Ephraim and Blima were deported to Auschwitz, and Ephraim perished there. Blima survived but was too ill to care for her daughters. After the liberation she contacted the Hicket family and asked if they would care for Marie for another two years. At the end of that period Blima wanted to resume custody, but the Hickets, who truly loved Marie, refused to give her up. Blima then authorized a Jewish organization to kidnap Marie and bring her to Switzerland. Marie was traumatized by this experience since the Hickets were the only family she had ever known. Marie's reunion with her natural family was not a happy one. Her mother was still too ill to care for the children, and Marie felt that her sister resented the fact that she had spent the war in the home of a loving family. While Blima struggled to regain her health, the girls were sent to a series of foster homes. In 1949 the family received papers to immigrate to the United States. However, Blima, who had been born in Poland, had to remain behind, since the Polish quota was filled. Once in America, the girls were placed in another series of foster homes under the sponsorship of the orthodox Agudat Israel movement. The only stability in their lives was provided by the summer camp they attended each year. Blima finally arrived in the US to reclaim her children in 1953. Marie was already ten years old when she went to live with her mother. The scars of the war were too deep to be easily healed, and when Marie was sixteen she went to live in a group home for girls.
Courtesy of www.ushmm.org

50 ft spider roams Liverpool

La Machine Liverpool, originally uploaded by pharmcat.