Al Gore Confronts An Inconvenient Truth

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

From the Times of London:

There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change

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WP’s Ezra Klein Turns Vicious About Joe Lieberman

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

From Newsbusters.org:

Whatever happened to just opposing policy for the sake of it being bad policy, as is the case of many people’s view of the current health care reform proposals making their way through Congress?

That reason is just not good enough for some, particularly Washington Post blogger and food critic Ezra Klein. In a post on The Washington Post’s Web site dated Dec. 14, Klein viciously attacked Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Ct., after reports surfaced that Lieberman would filibuster the current health care bill if it meant expanding Medicare (h/t Amanda Carpenter at The Washington Times) (emphasis added).

“And if there’s a policy rationale here, it’s not apparent to me, or to others who’ve interviewed him,” Klein wrote. “At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.”

A single overstatement like this makes an ordinary person such as myself disinclined to ever treat this Ezra Klein seriously.

Dennis Prager: “In other words, I am on the Left and all of my opponents stink. They are selfish, despicable human beings. Watch Keith Olbermann and much of the crowd at MSNBC and you’ll get that.

“All the policies that liberals advocate are couched in the hysteria of mass death. The extinction of the human race is possible if we don’t believe in man-made global warming caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

“I happen to believe that more people will die if we pass this legislation. If the government takes over healthcare, it will be inferior healthcare.

“This is the reason you don’t have to think on the Left. There’s no thought in this piece. It’s all emotion.”

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Dennis Prager For President 2012

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

Half a dozen times over the past few months, I’ve heard Dennis Prager talk about how much he’d love to run for president in 2012.

He’s at the height of his talkshow and public speaking powers. He seems to have more influence than ever and more powerful friends. He has a devoted fan base. He’s a formidable debater.

Dennis hates fundraising, but if he feels like he can gather enough help, he might just do it.

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Missing Christmas

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

“It’s a very personal autobiographical detail,” said Dennis Prager on his radio show Dec. 15, 2009, “but it really shook me up and began my oddysey toward who I am today. I was 20 years old when I went for my junior year to England. During the Christmas break, which was about three weeks, like most students in England, I left England for warmer weather. I crossed the English channel, took a train down the western part of Europe, then to the bottom of Spain and then took a boat to Morocco. This was on my own. This was a very adventurous trip. I was in Morocco for Christmas that year. To my amazement, because I monitor my own emotions a great deal. I have a lot of feedback. I’m very fortunate in that way. I realized what’s troubling me. I’m missing something. To my amazement, I didn’t immediately realize it, but I was missing the Christmas season. It was not Morocco’s fault. It’s a Muslim country.

“I couldn’t believe how I missed it.

“I was two years away from immersion in Jewish education. Of course I never had it, but it permeated my life. My parents, both Orthodox Jews, would watch the Christmas mass from Rome every Christmas eve. I loved it. My father, I and the Pope were all wearing yarmulkes.”

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The Last Station

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

Jane emails: We saw The Last Station, the story of Leo Tolstoy’s tempestuous marriage. The take away: you can’t live with love and you can’t live without it. Helen Mirren and the director were there afterward for a Q&A.

Tolstoy had a long unkempt beard and dressed like crap. His wife told him he looked like a peasant, which in the 1920s in Russia is equivalent to a homelessman. They had wildly differing opinions regarding politics, after he suffered a stroke. He decided to give away his entire estate and all publishing rights to the people of Russia. He didn’t care a wit anymore for money or property. His wife had been quite comfortable living the aristocratic life. The strife in their home was emotionally violent and so were their reunions. I kind of loved the movie. You kind of remind me of Tolstoy.

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Disturbing Dream

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

Last night, I dreamt that I befriended Michael Vick.

I had him over to Shabbat dinner with some girls and my rabbi.

After dinner, I got up on the couch with a couple of girls and mounted them (one at a time, I’m not a freak) right in front of my rabbi.

As he walked out the door, my rabbi paused, pulled me aside for a quiet word, and said, “Levi, that meeting we were going to have about returning to the shul, let’s put that on hold. When you’ve got your life together, let me know and we’ll talk.”

I walked out on to Pico blvd to Michael Vick. He was being traded. He showed me his camper van and said he wanted to sell it. It wasn’t parked right. It was jutting out into traffic. I should be holy on my own time, I thought. Now I must act for God and moved this. So I got in and moved it.

And I was sitting there in the driver’s seat as scores of my community walked by. I was guilty of violating the Sabbath and dishonoring two young women. Oy vey!

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Rabbi Leib Tropper Resigns

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

Here are sound files:

The holy man on the tape says he can “role play a rape of you but I couldn’t really rape you.”

From Vozisneas: “Suffern, NY – In a significant move, the Eternal Jewish Family has appointed a new director after the abrupt resignation of Rav Leib Tropper, the former Chairman of its directing committee. The Eternal Jewish Family has been at the forefront of numerous conversion issues, from spearheading conversions of non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples to conducting seminars affecting the future of hundreds of converts from other Batei Dinim across the country.”

Saturday, I received this email:

Kindly listen to this new audio selection wherein one of the females present in the Tropper Sex Scandal video admits that the events actually occurred and participants are identifiable.

Further materials pertaining to the Tropper Sex Scandal have not yet been released.

Any person or persons wishing to submit confidential reports of abuse by Rabbi Leib Tropper or the organisation known as the Eternal Jewish Family are invited to send whatever information they deem appropriate to: [email protected]

Report from Jerusalem:

Mekubal’s translation of a poster in Jerusalem:

Get out Unclean thing!!!

Eretz Yisrael is shaken for 400 parsangs upon the 400 parsangs in which the lie has been revealed of such a boorish man – it is the very Leib Tropper from America that stands so to speak as the head of the body of giur, who pretends to draw near and convert hearts to our Father in Heaven.

Truly he does the acts of Zimri and seeks a reward like Pinchas. And in this we are alerting that if he does not cease from this filth and from these actions and he will not separate from his work and he will continue upon this way of lying about our holy Rabbis, we will publish his disgrace publicly accompanied by terrifying pictures, photographs and video.

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Passionate marriage: love, sex and intimacy in emotionally committed relationships

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Luke Ford

Two therapists have recommended this book to me.

I think of sex as being more fun in uncommitted relationships. It is easier to look at the other person as a sexual object. When you get into a committed relationship, you get an awareness that the other person is more than just groovy genitals, and that tends to detract from their being an object.

Sex has never struck me as a particularly loving act. It’s more frantic.

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Dennis Prager Calls Hanukkah Music ‘Pathetic’

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Luke Ford

At the end of the first hour of his radio show today, Dennis Prager said that Christmas has inspired more great music than any other religious holiday. He was tuning through the channels on his cable TV the other day and came across one playing Hanukkah music. “It wasn’t impressive,” says Dennis. “Don’t start me. There definitely needs to be an upgrade. The holiday has such an important message but the music is by and large pathetic.”

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Shanda!

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Luke Ford

Joe emails: A reform jew is walking down the street and he looks in the window of the kosher deli. He does a double take as he is utterly shocked to see his reform synagogue’s pulpit rabbi eating lunch. He cannot believe that the rabbi would eat at such an establishment that kept to the anitquated rules of kashrut. He does not want to embarass the rabbi on the spot, but when he sees the rabbi in synagogue he confronts the rabbis and says “I saw you at that kosher deli, and I saw you eating there, i cannot believe it”, to which the rabbi responded, “I only had the fish!”

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