=jplt8 not yet sent: Small-minded political leaders tend to personify and then demonize opposing forces. For Old Bush it was Norriega; for Bush Junior bin Laden and Hussein. Now Sharon's group are trying to characterize Sheik Yassin as such. ---------------------------------------------------- ================================================================ Re: Jlem Report, issue of 5 April '04 (Levy): Dreymann, 'Goodmail'; Cf. Gates at Davos Save your money: this notion of an E-mail postage stamp as a SPAM-constrictor has some conceptual bugs in't. Even Microsoft, whose sluggish thinking and closed-source operating-system near-monopoly dominates end-user interfaces, has not, yet anyhow, dominated E-mail. Internet is neither strictly hierarchic nor regulated. It was conceived so that: if you don't like the route you're offered -- eg, if it's been blasted by an H-bomb or if it filters out free porno -- you can always find an alternate route. So the effectiveness of an E-mail postage stamp will depend upon voluntary compliance at the ISP and higher levels, and be subject to end-user veto as expressed in customized E-mail platform options. An ISP cannot promise to deliver stamped bulk E-mail, since an end-user can refuse even to admit it (most simply, by the option of a green-light filter). An ISP can promise only to not throw out stamped E-mail. So an E-mail postage stamp, eg by Goodmail, cannot, as Dreymann claims, guarantee the Sender, eg a selective SPAMer, "a safe passage to the mailboxes of recipients". ---------------------------------------------------------------- Ref: Jlem Rpt, 5 April '04 (Mirsky, 'The Shabat of History': Mister Mirsky, in a bombastic burst of dated rhetoric, leads by asking "How can we celbrate Pesach when Israel has become a world leader in sexual slavery and traficking in women, and place where foreign workers and their families are routinely abused and taken advantage of?" A minimally witty illustration (Katz) iterates this otherwise undeveloped point. One is tempted to respond: well, at least we ain't in the USA, where sexual and economic exploitation is arguably much more severe. Nor Germany, where every city has its whorezone. Nor Thailand, where sexual chatelage is a tourist industry. Ina Friedman notes (Jlem Report, same issue) that Israel is beginning to sytematically combat involuntary sexual prostitution. And a number of Israeli organizations have long attempted to redress exploitation of illegal sub-minimum-wage workers; a problem that, by its black--labour-market nature, is difficult to confront. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ref: Jlem Rpt 5 Apr '04 (Horowitz) David Horowitz points out that Mel Gibson's shlock-buster in a very insidious anti-Jewish attack because, as a religious movie, it puts a devout Christian audience in a state of high receptivity and then insinuates virulent anti-Semitism. It should be opposed by any effective means possible. Eg: If, as some journalists seem to suggest, Mel Gibson is or even was a 'homo' of the worst sort, he should be outed as such, that he no longer misrepresent a complex of sublimated sado- masochism as Christianity. (Incidentally, a 'homo of the best sort' would be someone like Dave McReynolds who, apart from throwing the last Presidential election to Bush, personified all the masculine virtues excerpt heterosexuality.) ------------------------------------------------------------------ INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE: WILL THE SUN RISE TOMORROW? The Affaire Sharon is complex, and demands the most deliberate, unhurried consideration by Sharon's Attorney-General. The mere payment by an indicted businessman of a half-million to the otherwise unqualified son of the then--2nd-highest government official is not something that the father can be assumed to have known of, much less been influenced by, even if they did live in the same house and/or share a bank account. As the legal teams for Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton have demonstrated, the wheels of justice grind slow for a CEO. Fallibilist epistemology is the last refuge of a scoundrel. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 31 March '04 REFLECTION ON A PROPOSED RETROSPECTIVE REFERENDUM Sharon is a rather large loose cannon. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 31 March '04 Who would want 70 virgins; one is quite problem enough. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 31 March '04 In the world to come the shaheed will, as promised, be rewarded with 70 virgins. These will be genuine flesh-and-etc. virgins, willing and (as virgins go) able. Unfortunately, the shaheed will not have a body. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 31 March '08 -- Letters, Newsweek [ not sent ] Re: French Headscarf flap Contrary to a recent letter (Newsweek, 8 March '04), orthodox Jewish practice is similar to that of fundamentalist Islam. Married women cover their hair, men must pray with the set time- frame, and orthodox women observe a strict separation from men. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To the Editor, JP [not yet sent ] That claque who fill our your Letters column: do they also do minyans? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Evaluated in most dimensions, Sharon's assassination of Sheik Yassin seems to have been a bad move. It will likely turn out to have been tactically stupid. It is difficult to evaluate it strategically, because Israel has no apparent strategy for dealing with the Palestinian insurrection. (Beilin, and maybe still Peres, do have a clear strategy, albeit possibly one of national suicide.) It was most ungallant; a noble warrior -- which is what the Palestinians imagine themselves to be -- does not zap a paraplegic with a missile from a helicopter. Nor does one attack at man at his prayers; even warfare must respect limits. For those reasons it may be termed immoral. It was not obviously unjust -- Sheik Yassin bore at least indirect responsibility for many murders; and presumably would have at least inspired and encouraged, and maybe planned, more. Nor was it necessarily ethically unjustified; killing Sheik Yassin may have saved lives. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ===============================================================