Image via Wikipedia; remove Dome of the Rock and insert Temple hereJewish date: Jewish date: 18 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Pineḥas).
Today’s holidays: The Three Weeks (Judaism), First Martyrs of the Church of Rome (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. “Papa Doc” Duvalier (Church of the SubGenius).
NOTE: There was no blogging yesterday due to the Fast of Tammuz, which begins the Three Weeks, a period of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples and other tragedies in Jewish history.
Worthy causes of the day: “Save dairy farms from big agribusiness”, “Alliance for Justice: Tell Congress: Repair the Damage Caused by the Corporate Court”, and “Make Sale of Crush Videos Illegal Again!”.
Let’s face it: comedians can say true things with impunity that many other people would hesitate say at all. The Dry Bones cartoon “Immigrants (1990)” correctly notes the different attitudes of Israel on Jewish immigrants and Islamic countries on “Palestinian” immigrants; the former I, as a future immigrant to Israel, am grateful for, while the latter is beneath contempt and a complete betrayal of the notion that all Muslims are supposed to brothers and sisters. “Bret Stephens on Shalom TV: Will Israel Survive?” presents a “liberal case” for Israel:
Mr. Stephens correctly notes that the values of Israeli society and government are in close agreement with liberal values, while the values are Islamic countries are contradictory to liberal values; it therefore makes no sense for liberals to back Islamic states. “Telegraph Caught Recycling Gaza War Photo to Distort Today's Reality” documents using an old photograph as if it were applicable to the current situation, a form of quoting out of context. Rav Shmuely Boteach presents “Response to Congressman Rothman Calling Pres. Obama the Best Friend Israeli Security has Ever Had” and “The World’s Oldest Hatred”, noting correctly that Obama is no friend of Israel (actually, to be fair, every US president since at least Jimmy Carter, has tried to get Israel to do stupid things in the name of “peace”) and that Israel-bashers tend to be insensitive to things wrong with other countries, such as Israel’s enemies.
On a brighter note: “Dutch may use 'decoy Jews' to fight racism” discusses a new tactic in fighting anti-Semitic attacks in Holland. Apparently not everything is looking hopeless.
Also: Someone please prod me to get back to writing about Jesus for a change and not to concentrate too much on the Arab-Israeli War. We are most likely going to be dealing with the Arab-Israeli War so long as our planet uses petroleum as fuel, and there is no way one man can comment on everything on this one topic. Not to mention that there is material in Sanhedhrin 43a that presents a radically un-Christian picture of one “Yeshu hanNoṣri”, and there is some particularly un-Jewish and anti-Semitic material in the Gospel According to John which really needs to be discussed.
Topic 2: More Islamic misbehavior: “Pakistan's Karachi wracked by spate of killings” (as if killing those one disagreed with made one right), “Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for 'blasphemy'” (as if censorship worked), “Ad aims to propagate true Islam” (as if positive advertising made up for news reporting all the horrible things done in the name of Islam, especially when they contradict the ads), “Ill. police revoke 1st Muslim chaplain's post” (the guy was linked to terrorists, absolutely the wrong sort of person to be in public service).
Related commentary: “Jihad Denial Syndrome”. Wishful thinking will never make Islam a religion of peace. Only Muslims can actually make that happen.
Topic 3: For today’s religious humor: “Adam and Apple”. I am not quite sure what, if anything, this cartoon is meant to mean.
Peace.
Aaron
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