העורך Editor

A very good resource by Gwern here…

An excerpt:

So I went back to excerpt the article—and while rereading, realized that in every case I thought might be a lie, rereading showed it had been so carefully worded as to be technically correct and to simply be misleading.

After this, I was in awe of the rare artistry of the piece, which elevated it from merely misleading to a wonderful example of “bounded distrust” (cf. “no evidence”) in journalism and how selective quotation and mere juxtaposition can lead astray the insufficiently skeptical reader.

מתוך החדשות:

מפלגת המילואימניקים בראשות יועז הנדל הקימה ועד רבנים אשר יקראו לו “מועצת חכמי התורה של מפלגת המילואימניקים”. הרבנים המרכיבים את המועצה שירתו כולם בצבא או במילואים. ועד הרבנים כבר יצא היום עם פסק הלכה חדש הקורא לגיוס לצה”ל.

As “Beyadenu” argues in detail, the proposed Kotel law is (also) a sneaky trick by the Noam party (methinks נעם is an acronym for נגד עבודת המקדש) to criminalize Jewish entry to the Temple Mount, by putting it under the jurisdiction of the Rabanut. The Rabanut that already has a sign saying Jews can’t go up…

From the news (in what looks like a PR piece they ordered):

Our voters brought us into the WZO, and it was that representation that gave us the ability to walk into the Knesset and speak on their behalf. Standing before the Constitution Committee, we made a historic declaration: This is what American Jews actually want. This is what Diaspora Jewry wants…

Rabbi Nechemya Malinowitz, a member of the leadership of Eretz HaKodesh…

For the first time in an official capacity, the authentic voice of American Orthodox Jewry was heard in the halls of the Knesset, standing firm to protect the kedusha of the Kotel for generations to come.

I like my own proposal to the Reform a lot more: “Let’s Make a Deal; You Get the Wall, We Get the Mount!”

Here’s an instructive article by Murray Rothbard (here’s a PDF, since LRC never seems to fix their broken links):

Download (PDF, 371KB)

Dr. Rothbard is discussing the origin story of Somaliland.

Lesson (retroactively vindicated by events): Foreign aid dependency and “humanitarian” intervention can be crippling, and make everything worse. See: southern Somalia. Aza is not succeeding either…

Somaliland had none of the “charity”, so they grew up organically, despite the war.

Funnily enough, in theory, libertarians ought to be very happy about a new secession, a new state. The more states the merrier; the weaker each one becomes over earth’s limited resources and humans, the more localism and subsidiarity, the more liberty and self-determination. And that logic is applied to Aza’s supposed “fight for liberty”.

In practice, however, the cheering for Somaliland is quite muted (probably due to the Israeli connection and worries about new neocon schemes, shades of the hatred for J. Milei*).

Libertarians are forever kvetching about American weapons going to destroy Aza, but not about the USG aid going to Aza. Hypocrisy? And I don’t see even the tiniest mention of their own theory of either. Somaliland was actually on the receiving end of the US-backed Barre regime…

* Note: I think Milei is a phony in practice (explained better in Hebrew here), but those who disagree should have been giddy by their lights about a supposed Rothbardian winning elections, putting Austrian theory into practice, etc. etc.

Hear a short clip here with Hebrew subs (I didn’t hear the unabbreviated original yet, but the gist is undeniable)…