"We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terrorists in their midst. We know that free peoples embrace progress and life, instead of becoming the recruits for murderous ideologies." -George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly, September 21, 2004 One of the tenets of the Bush administration is that the proliferation of democrat...
Anyone who reads my blog with regularity knows that I teach Sunday school at the Jewish Cultural School, a Jewish secular humanist school and congregation. I teach the 7th Grade, the last year of education before the kids have their B'not Mitzvahs. As an important part of this education, we study how religion in general, and Judaism in particular, are practiced in other congregations. I take the class on trips to other congregations for first-hand experience. We always begin by observing S...
Well, the cartoon war just won't go away. "An Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the same principles of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed." It is not as if anyone should be surprised. At the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, there were close to 100,000 Jews living in that country. Today, less than 30,000 remain. The rema...
February 5th, 2001 was my first day as Sales Manager at Stardock! It has been a great adventure and I am grateful for the experience. In early 2001, Microsoft was about to release a new operating system called Windows XP. We were unsure how that would effect us and tension was high. We worked with Microsoft, the release of WindowBlinds 3 was announced at Microsoft Great Lakes, we became first a Microsoft Partner and then a Gold Partner. Today, Stardock is considered a high level ISV by Mic...
Microsoft has released for public download the second Beta of the next version of their Internet browser. I have downloaded and installed the Beta 2 of IE7 (Internet Explorer 7) and so far I like the experience very much. Key Features: Tabbed Browsing, a Streamlined (and highly configurable) user interface, greatly improved security, RSS feed support, toolbar search box. For a full feature list see Link (Some IE7 features will not be available until Vista rolls out. Killer Feature:...
A Danish newspaper printed a series of cartoons, caricatures if you will, of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed that have sparked a controversy with world wide ramifications. The cartoons have since been republished in a variety of newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain and have sparked demonstrations and riots across the Muslim world. In France the front page of the France-Soir tabloid carried the headline "Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God" and reprinted the cartoons. (The manag...
The CNN lead to this story reads "Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Cisco came under sharp attack from leaders of Congress and human rights advocates for aiding China's efforts to censor the Internet and punish dissidents." Having read the story, it is more apt to describe what happened as the major companies that, to large measure control the Internet, refused to attend a scolding. But....I post the story because of the wider implications. On one hand, the Internet stands poised as the gre...
I wasn't home last night to hear the President deliver the State of the Union, but I read the transcript this morning. That sound you heard last night was the sound of the Democratic platform being yanked out from under them. "We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks,or swit...
...We have to. We pick and choose our battles, looking for the greatest good. We negotiate with terrorists in the attempt to persuade them not to be terrorists any more. Turn their submachine guns into plowshares and all that. One of my favorite bloggers (and high on my list of favorite people) is BakerStreet. If you don't read him, well all I can say it that you should. Gentleman and a scholar and all that. I have linked to his blog, in fact. But this doesn't imply agreement in all ...
Some of the largest companies on the Internet, Google, Sun and Lenovo, have formed a group to expose and publicly shame the makers of Spyware, Malware and other programs that do "bad things" to our computers. Toward this end, they are going enlist the help of Web users to create an on-going list. A good idea in theory, but while further announcements and details are still going to come forth, let me express some reservations. Hopefully these will be addressed as further information goes ou...
This article is written for my co-teachers at the Jewish Cultural School Link and to illustrate how technology in general and the Internet specifically provides tools to enhance the educational experience. Aside from providing examples, I will also include links to software programs and web sites that I find useful. What can you, as educators, do on the internet? You can do up-to-the-minute research, link to current events, link to sources and research sites, include pictures, sounds and...
NOTE: THIS IS THE FIRST OF FOUR PAPERS THAT MY DAUGHTER WILL WRITE AND PRESENT AS PART OF HER BAT MITZVAH PROGRAM AT THE JCS ANN ARBOR. Introduction I chose Marc Chagall because I wanted to learn more about him, and because he is a Jewish artist and I am interested in art too. I thought that choosing him would be an inspiration for me. He is a very interesting person and I really liked learning about him. Marc Chagall was most famous for the Jerusalem Windows. There are 12 wind...
Ray Nagin does it once again. At a rally on Martin Luther King Day, the mayor of New Orleans said "I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be." Which part of that is most offensive? The "chocolate" part or the Mayor's conceit that he knows God's will? You have to hand it to Mayor Nagin. That's not the stupidest remark that he made.....
This article is a really interesting take on today's events at Macworld. On stage with Steve Jobs were Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel and Roz Ho, GM of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit. CNN author Owen Thomas suggests that this is the beginning of an alliance aimed at Google, Yahoo and smaller players like Six Apart and Odeo. I had never thought of it that way. But even the casual observer has to acknowledge that there have been strange tech alliances over the past years. Microsoft's App...
Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law H.R.3402, the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005. Among other sections is "a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity." A number of journalists, including Declan McCullagh of CNET see this as threatening free speech. Mr. McCullagh went so far as to say "This ridiculous prohibition, would likely imperil much of Usenet." I don't...