False Dichotomies

What came first? The chicken or the egg? Recently, scientists claimed to have resolved the issue. It was the egg. Apparently, genetic material doesn’t change during an animal’s life. Hence, in prehistoric times, the chicken must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg. This is, of course, the causality dilemma par excellence. One cannot have one without the other. And somehow, resolving the issue doesn’t prove satisfying in the slightest. Because we still know that we need a chicken to produce an egg, and vice versa. Knowing what came first doesn’t alter those basic parameters. Continue Reading »

From the distractions posed by his rabbinic studies. Check out his blog at www.bogosalen.blogspot.com. Stuff in English, Spanish and Hebrew…It’s as real as it gets…

In politics, whether through peaceful or violent means, everything happens for a reason. The task of the analyst is to establish why things are happening, and whose interests they serve. The flaw of this process is that it relies on assuming the rationality of the actors, but it still remains the only way of shedding light on events. Continue Reading »

This excerpt was written in the aftermath of the 2003 Bam earthquake: Continue Reading »

Continuing the excerpts from Nasrin Alavi’s We are Iran. Continue Reading »

This analysis piece in Haaretz gives a good explanation of why the IDF are killing so many civilians in Gaza at the moment. It draws a distinction between three different types of attacks: targeted assassinations, bombings of terrorist-related targets, and ‘interception’ of military units.

I am a very keen swimmer. A swimming pool should be a place where everyone can go and enjoy themselves, whether they want to do 100 laps or just to splash around. As a result, I got a real feeling of dejection when I read the following story in Haaretz this morning.

We Are Iran is a fantastic compendium of the bloggers coming out of Iran. Farsi is the fourth most frequently used language for keeping on-line journals. There are more Iranian blogs than there are Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese or Russia. There are more than 64,000 blogs writing in Farsi. In We Are Iran, Nasrin Alavi does a fantastic job in weaving together excerpts and commentaries. Here’s one example… Continue Reading »

Here’s an interesting piece from a Canadian blogger, Dave Zarnett: http://davidzarnett.wordpress.com/2006/01/16/a-theory-for-terrorism/

Two Palestinian children have just been killed in an IDF air strike on a Fatah cell involved in launching Qassams. Right now, it’s unclear whether they were off to fire their rockets or were on their way back. Either way, they managed to escape. 13 other bystanders were injured. I am not sure there is anything particularly new to say about the absurd assassinations policy. But I do have one idea: next time, the IDF should target the children. Maybe then it would manage to get the rocket launchers…