From steveg at swhi.net Fri Sep 4 09:04:18 2009 From: steveg at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 09:04:18 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Goglog] In need of some entertainment? Message-ID: <57791.144.183.224.2.1252073058.squirrel@www.swhi.net> This may not be it. A cantata about the grilling of Alberto Gonzales on US Attorney firings in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The libretto is taken directly from the transcripts. The link is to an article including an interview with the composer. - Steve G From ben at bl.com Tue Sep 8 19:15:36 2009 From: ben at bl.com (Ben Liberman) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 19:15:36 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] another volley in the global warming debate, from MIT Message-ID: http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Carbon-Dioxide-irrelevant-in-climate-debate-says-MIT-Scientist excerpt from the article: Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT's peer reviewed work states "we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate." -- ------------------------------ ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman ------------------------------ From rrostrom.21stcentury at rcn.com Wed Sep 9 16:17:05 2009 From: rrostrom.21stcentury at rcn.com (Rich Rostrom) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 16:17:05 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] a very unusual route to mideast peace In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Steve Gruenwald" wrote: > >Rich Rostrom says: > >> Somehow, a large population of Jews came to exist in >> Ukraine and Poland-Lithuania. It seems unlikely that they >> were all the descendants of migrants from the Middle East. > >Why? >> Many Ashkenazic Jews have blonde or red hair >> and very fair skin, > >Really? Not in my experience. Never met a blond Russian Jew? For instance, Paul Waitsman. Or a girl I knew in high school, who was Jewish and had bright red hair (as did her brother). I won't say it's _typical_, but it's _far_ more common than it is among Mizrachim or Sephardim. >> Incidentally, while it is true that Jews do not evangelize, >> there have been other apparent cases of conversion. At the >> time of Mohammed, the population of Arabia included "Jewish" >> tribes. The Koran draws on the Hebrew scriptures (Yusuf, >> Daoud, Suleiman, Yakub, and Ibrahim are all common Moslem >> names). > >How are these factors evidence of conversion? It seems fairly clear that some of the tribes in pre-Islamic Arabia adopted elements of Hebrew religion and culture. If you don't like the word conversion, call it something else. -- | Rich Rostrom rrostrom.21stcentury at rcn.com | | | | Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons | | emmerdes. -- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan | From SteveG at swhi.net Wed Sep 9 20:48:57 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 20:48:57 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] a very unusual route to mideast peace In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Rich Rostrom says: > >> Many Ashkenazic Jews have blonde or red hair > >> and very fair skin, > > > >Really? Not in my experience. > > Never met a blond Russian Jew? Not that I can think of, and I don't think I know Paul Waitsman, and Russian Jews may or may not be ethnic Ashkenazi. But all this is entirely beside the point - you said "many," in context implying that the numbers say something about whether Ashkenazi Jews as a group are or are not descended from the Hebrews of the Mideast. The fact that some European Jews intermarried with northern European stock is in no way strong support for either thesis. I do know some Jewish redheads of central European descent, and FTM a blond freckled Jew named Patterson, but I don't see how either demonstrates anything significant. > I won't say it's _typical_, but it's _far_ more > common than it is among Mizrachim or Sephardim. OK, I don't know if that's true either, but in view of intermarriage, what does it demonstrate as to whether the Jews of Europe are largely descended from the Hebrews of the Mideast? > >How are these factors evidence of conversion? > > It seems fairly clear that some of the tribes in pre-Islamic > Arabia adopted elements of Hebrew religion and culture. No, from what you recited all that is clear is that (a) there were Jews living in Arabia, and (b) the Koran draws on the Hebrew scriptures. The first implies either conversion or migration, the second implies nothing relevant. It is a well-known fact that Muhammad lived in close proximity to Jews in Medina and learned a lot from them. He married two of them. As far as anyone knows, they were ethnic Hebrews who had settled around there, although this is uncertain - some of them may have been converts. Again, I am not suggesting that there were never conversions - of course there were, some individual and some large-scale. There have been some in my own family. So what is their significance? - Steve G From bentley at crenelle.com Thu Sep 10 15:57:23 2009 From: bentley at crenelle.com (Michael Brian Bentley) Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:57:23 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] another volley in the global warming debate, from MIT In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Carbon-Dioxide-irrelevant-in-climate-debate-says-MIT-Scientist > > ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman A recently published research paper by David Schneider of National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado indicates that Arctic temperatures have measurably increased during the last few decades against a 2000 year long cooling trend. His conclusion, that greenhouse gasses from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic's natural climate system, is perhaps based on speculation and not on his research findings. Or the paper could be completely bogus. http://www.adn.com/news/environment/warming/story/921418.html Dr Lindzen may be correct in his findings, so I am excitedly awaiting updates by both sets of researchers to explain why the Arctic icecap has been melting so much. I'm so far unable to find links to the actual papers, but then I'm at work and not supposed to be searching for that sort of thing. From ben at bl.com Thu Sep 10 16:10:56 2009 From: ben at bl.com (Ben Liberman) Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:10:56 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] another volley in the global warming debate, from MIT In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 1:57 PM -0700 9/10/09, Michael Brian Bentley wrote: >Replies are directed to the list. >If you wish to respond only to the sender, please edit the To: line! >____________________________________________________________ >>http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Carbon-Dioxide-irrelevant-in-climate-debate-says-MIT-Scientist >> >> ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman > >A recently published research paper by David Schneider of National >Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado indicates that Arctic >temperatures have measurably increased during the last few decades >against a 2000 year long cooling trend. His conclusion, that >greenhouse gasses from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic's >natural climate system, is perhaps based on speculation and not on >his research findings. Or the paper could be completely bogus. > >http://www.adn.com/news/environment/warming/story/921418.html > >Dr Lindzen may be correct in his findings, so I am excitedly awaiting >updates by both sets of researchers to explain why the Arctic icecap >has been melting so much. > >I'm so far unable to find links to the actual papers, but then I'm at >work and not supposed to be searching for that sort of thing. I took a second look at some of this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen I read a bit of Lindzen's wikipedia page to see if it shed any light on weather or not a trusted, respected, and unbiased scientist from MIT was really saying these things. I really can't tell what is going on without in depth study but, at first glance it appears to me that he takes the other extreme from the "CO2 is the end of the world" people, and that he is heavily funded by oil and coal interests. While this is NOT any kind of direct evidence against him (maybe they picked him to give money to because he just happens to already have a point of view that they like), it does make me want to dig further before accepting anything that he says at face value. (see reference notes 22,23,24,25 at the bottom of the wikipedia page) Here are a few more related links http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Science_and_Public_Policy_Institute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Public_Policy_Institute -- ------------------------------ ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman ------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.zarquon.net/pipermail/goglog/attachments/20090910/43aa6eb9/attachment.htm From ben at bl.com Thu Sep 10 16:32:07 2009 From: ben at bl.com (Ben Liberman) Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:32:07 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] another volley in the global warming debate, from MIT In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >For the interested, a link or two from SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_warming_skeptics http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Portal:Climate_Change -- ------------------------------ ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman ------------------------------ From ben at bl.com Sat Sep 12 16:44:57 2009 From: ben at bl.com (Ben Liberman) Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:44:57 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] George Gilder's book "The Israel Test" Message-ID: There is just something about all of this that weird's me out... don't have a clue why. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gilder http://www.amazon.com/dp/0980076358 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804542810&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull http://www.gildertech.com/ -- ------------------------------ ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman ------------------------------