Begin vs Olmert

As usual, I must start a post by commenting that I haven't posted in a while. However, as in the past, I came across something that has to be noted for those who missed it.

Menachem Begin was someone who had a lot of aspects to him.
People remember the freedon fighter or his giving away of the Sinai in a so called peace deal with Egypt.
But, there is one side that, I think, is usually gets forgotten, and this is sad because it is this part of him which made him great.

In fact, some one told me that the Begin museum does Begin a huge disservice by not portraying this aspect of him at all.
I am referring to his apprecation for the specialness of the Jewish People and their place in history and the world.

There was a column in the Jersualem Post recently that compared Begin's behavior to the way in which Olmert has been recently scurrying around the world and sniveling and kow-towing before various Heads of State.

The whole column itself is worth a read but I will quote one story to you here (for those who aren't too good at clicking on links)

From The Jerusalem Post:
"THREE WEEKS later, the very same issue cropped up once more when prime minister Begin first met president Jimmy Carter in the White House. As their encounter drew to a close, the president handed the premier a piece of heavy bond White House stationary on which the formal communiqu to be released in their name was drafted.

"I trust this will meet with your approval," said Carter in his reedy Georgian voice.

Begin ran his eye over the one page text, and said, "Totally acceptable, Mr. President, but for one sentence."
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, an unruffled man as a rule, who had invested much effort in drafting the document, became momentarily agitated. After a year at the job he had perfected a manner of drafting such joint statements designed to convey as little meaning as possible.
"And what might that be?" he asked.

"Please delete the sentence which reads, 'The United States affirms Israel's inherent right to exist.'"
President Carter's steely pale-blue eyes flared in surprise. "It would be incompatible with my responsibilities as president of the United States were I to omit this commitment to your country," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, every Israeli prime minister has asked for this public pledge."
"I sincerely appreciate you sentiment, Mr. President," said Mr. Begin, his tone deeply reflective as if reaching down into generations of memory, "But it would be equally incompatible with my responsibilities as prime minister of Israel were I not to ask you to erase that sentence."
"But why?"
"Because our Jewish state needs no American affirmation of our right to exist. Our Hebrew bible established that right millennia ago. Never, throughout the centuries, did we ever abandon or forfeit that right. Therefore, sir, we alone, the Jewish people - no one else - are responsible for our country's right to exist."

An Important Lesson with Humor

It's been a while since the last post and a few of my many vast and wide-spread readers have been kind enough to point this out to me, so perhaps it's time to post again.
This time, it is a Calvin and Hobbes that gives me a good excuse to post.

The following comic is a classic Calvin and Hobbes and is a tremendous example of the power of a comic and one might say the "gadlus" of Bill Watterson. In four little pictures, Watterson manages to make you stop and think about things for a minute but then at the same time, he makes you laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Just Tremendous.
(OK Perhaps I just oversold this a bit - but anyways, enjoy)

What the world needs...

I know I haven't posted in a while but I couldn't let today's quote of the day pass without comment since it is something I think all the time.

Oscar Levant: "'What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.' "

The truth is that I hadn't heard of Oscar Levant before, but thanks to that great quote I have become a fan. (For those wondering: he is a pianist, composer and a comedian - more info here)

It's enough to make you sick

Once again, the Israeli government has decided to destroy Jewish houses purely for political reasons.
All talk of law and order is just a big smokescreen to distract from the real reason. If law and order was the only thing that motivated these people then they would also be busy demolishing all the illegal Arab building that is going on.

But as before, the media acts as the smoke generator for the law and order cover story rather then clearing the air about what really goes on.
By reading or listening to the general Israeli media you would have thought that all the Police violence yesterday was caused by the cops having to defend themselves rather then them coming in swinging as the following story from the Arutz 7 email news report describes:

"We were outside the 5th house, with the goal of forming a line to stop the police from climbing into the windows. We had planned in advance, because of modesty and the like, that when the police would tell us to go, we would go right away. But they didn't let us. They just set upon us - all of them: Yasamnikim, Border Guard, soldiers, everyone - and didn't give us a chance. I screamed, 'I'm going by myself!' but they didn't care; I heard them saying, 'Smack them! Get them!' They hit me with a club on my leg, and then they pushed me to the ground and smashed me with clubs twice more - once on my face, right near my eye. Miraculously, he didn't hit me on the skull; I saw others right near me bleeding from their heads, unconscious - it was just terrible... It was just by miracle that nothing worse happened to me."

Someone commented to me that it's enough to make him want to join Neturei Karta. I am not sure if I agree 100%, but I can understand the sentiment.

Some interesting links

Today we have some interesting links for our readers.

The 40th year of Eli Cohen's (Our man in Damascus) Yahrtzeit is coming and so some articles are starting to be written about that.
Here is one that has some interesting information on his personality and how or why he got caught. (Note: registration is required)

On a different topic altogether, here apparently is the future (or at least one future) of Jewish music. It seems, Matisyahu has started quite a trend. For full the full effect, make sure to watch the video there as well.

First Refuge of the Scoundrel

Though I am running the risk of turning this blog into an analysis of various famous quotes, I will present another good quote

Michael Crichton: "'Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.'"

Any connection between this quote and the actions of the pro-hitankut crowd in their constant assertions that the majority of Israelis wanted such a giveaway is made at your own risk.

Write for yourself

I can't say I completely understand this but I think today's quote of the day can be a good theme for this blog.

Cyril Connolly: "'Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.'"

I will paraphrase this as:
"Sure, no one reads what I write, but at least I agree with myself."

I Cry

This is making the rounds with author unknown and needs no further introduction:

I Cry by Unknown

I cry, Arik Sharon.
I cry for ten thousand Jews whom you brutally forced from their homes.
I cry for the ten thousand Jews who live in hotel rooms, in poverty, and degradation.
I cry for the innocence of the young idealistic Jewish soldiers whom you
forced to participate in brutal crimes.
I cry for the glee of the world as they watched a Jewish prime minister
order his solders to beat Jews and bulldoze their homes.
I cry for the glee of the world as they wondered why Jews are upset when
they order areas to become Judenrein by force.
I cry for the kavod of the Jewish people and the God of Israel which you
desecrated.
I cry for the tens of innocent teens whom you imprisoned with hardened
criminals because they utilized their democratic right to protest your
policies.
I cry for the honorable soldiers and police who lost their livelihoods and
financial security because they refused to harm their brothers.
I cry for you, Arik Sharon.
I cry for a beloved hero of Israel who sank into corruption.
I cry for your good name which you besmirched.
I cry for your neshama, which you lost.

Israeli Talk Shows

Someone sent me this Calvin and Hobbes with the caption "Israeli Talk Shows" and I think that about says it all:

Happy Birthday

I just wanted to wish a very Happy 29th Brithday to Rochel.

May you have many more 29th Birthdays.

Hevron

What has been going on in Hevron the past week or so is enough to turn your stomach and
I am not talking about those the media likes to refer as lawbreakers. These kids and people protesting are heroes who deserve all the credit in the world. The Govt is wrong here. But, right now I am really and more importantly talking about how the media is protraying everything that is going on there.
The media, the so-called watchdog of democracy, has once again gone out of its way to portray the events from one side of the story. There is no semblance of balance at all to the presentation of events. As long as your attacking right wingers, apparantly everything goes.

To get a more complete (and accurate) picture of what is happening it's important to find alternative news sources. Read one such account here plus there are some good pictures here.

Sudoku

Here is a post that's slightly different but the technical ones out there (which at this point I think is all of you) may enjoy it.
It's about Sudoku (which if you haven't heard of - go do a quick google search on it.
(A side note: I'm not so sure why Sudoku, of all logic puzzles, has become so popular - but that's a subject for a different post)
As a programmer, the first thought you have (OK maybe not THE first, but at lest on of the first ) when seeing a game like Sudoku is how hard it would be to write a program to solve such a puzzle.
Of course, with a little thought you realize that to solve Sudoku wouldn't be that hard. It's not much more then the famous Eight Queens Puzzle we all learned in one of our first data structure classes. It's nothing that a nice recursive algorithm couldn't solve. But this is just your basic brute force approach.
The more interesting thing is to write a program that solves the puzzle logically. This would be much more challenging to write and helpful to a person trying to solve the a problem and is looking for a little help.
At most the brute force approach will be able to do is figure out the solution and then give hints to the solver by filling in squares for him. But the solver will learn nothing from this.
What would be much more useful is a program that dynamically solves and figures out the next logical move to the puzzle and explains to the user why it's a good move.
One of the best examples, I have seen of this is in a game called FathomIt (created by Har Nof's Moshe Rubin which some of you may know) which is a pretty good solitaire puzzle game. But what makes it great is the solver which does exactly that (i.e. logically explains what your next move shoud be and why.)
So, in my spare time, I have started working on a program that will do exactly that for Sudoku. (Of course my spare time seems to be somewhere around a half an hour a week - so I am not progressing too fast :-) )
The other reason (and probably the real reason) I am doing this is as an excuse to learn a new programming language called Ruby. (More on Ruby another time)
So, since I am trying to learn Ruby at the same time, it is really going slow.
But to quote from a well known source "Life's a journey, not a destination".