This Says It All

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Mosque vs. Temple

An open letter to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

In case you don’t know, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the leading figure behind the Cordoba House (the "Ground Zero mosque"), now renamed to the Park51. (Cordoba, in reference to the Spanish city of Córdoba, a Christian city which was conquered by the Moors and became a Muslim caliphate.) The Mosque and cultural center is planned to be built 2 blocks from Ground Zero.

Cordoba House's proposed location has triggered an intense national controversy. Polls showed that a majority of Americans (a margin of 54%–20%) opposed the building of Cordoba House on that site, as did most people from New York State (61%–26%) and New York City (52%–31%); in Manhattan, 46% supported the project while 36% were opposed^[1].

Dear Imam Rauf,

I wholeheartedly support your building the Mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero. I’m sorry you were not able to find a location even closer so that you would be afforded a better opportunity for Muslims to demonstrate peaceful Islamic values.

However, you should be aware that there is a cost associated with building your Mosque near to what is considered a sacred site, where 3000 people were murdered. To demonstrate your peaceful Islamic values to a world skeptic of these values, Muslims should, in turn, vacate one of there sacred sites.

For Muslims to build their Mosque near Ground Zero they should return The Dome of the Rock, and the ground upon which it stands, to the Jewish people.

If you look at the line of history you will see that the Jews have a longstanding claim to the Temple Mount which is where the First and Second Temples stood. Solomon, King of Israel, who ruled between about 971 – 931 Before Common Era (BCE) is credited with being the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem. Babylonians attacked and burned the Temple in 586 BCE. Construction of the Second Temple, began in 538 BCE, and was dedicated 23 years later. The Second Temple was destroyed by The Roman army in 70 CE. For over the next 600 years the Temple Mount was not used as a site with any significant religiosity.

Mohammed, from about 570/571 - 632 CE, the founder of the religion of Islam, did not live to see the Dome of the Rock even begin construction. In fact he did not even live to see Jerusalem conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate army in 637 CE. The Dome of the Rock, for those who don’t know, is an Islamic shrine and major landmark located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It was completed in 691-692, making it the oldest existing Islamic building in the world^[2]. Jews prayed on the Temple Mount before there was the Dome, before there was Islam. Jews continue today to pray at the Western Wall, the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, the one that was closest to the Holy of Holies when the Temple stood.

Therefore my dear Imam, there is no reason for Muslims to keep the Dome of the Rock since Mohammed really had nothing to do with it. After all, isn’t it just another Mosque?

Shalom,

Steve

[1] Wikipedia/Cordoba House http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordoba_House

[2] Wikipedia/Dome of the Rock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock

A Prayer for Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day

At our Synagogue, Congregation Agudas Achim, in Austin, Texas, we have a program where each Shabbat morning a member of the congregation gives an original prayer. The following is a prayer I composed for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year was April 11, 2010.

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God, where were you during the Holocaust? How could you let this happen, God?

How many thousands of times have these questions been asked over the past 65 years?

But God was there during the Holocaust. He was at the Extermination Camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Treblinka, giving his people strength to face family separation and death. God was at the Concentration Camps: Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Theresienstadt, giving his people strength to survive one more day, helping them to keep faith in their religion, teaching their children love of Torah.

God was in the Warsaw Ghetto giving courage to the few poorly armed Jews, who in April and May of 1943, stood up to the German army. And he gave courage to Oskar Schindler of Germany, Victor Kugler of the Netherlands, Sempo Sugihara of Japan and over 22,000 Righteous Among the Nations from 44 countries, non-Jews, who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

God continues to give courage to those survivors, dwindling now in number, to rebuild their lives. God helped us build Holocaust memorials and museums in places like Poland, Germany, France, America, and Israel, that they may serve as a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man, that they will stand in the face of those who deny the Holocaust.

Tomorrow is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. As we gather around the world and read lists of the 5,693,851 Jews who perished let us also hold in our hearts those 6 to 12 million others who were slaughtered in the Nazi holocaust: Ukrainians, Poles, and Russians; Gypsies, Mentally/Physically Disabled, and Homosexuals; Clergy, Political Prisoners, and Countless Others. Our voice must speak for them too.


Blessed art thou oh Lord our God, King of the universe, who gives his children strength and courage to his people.

Amen

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Obama, Pelosi, and Reid Got the Economic Stimulus Package Wrong

The $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package is nothing more that a big spending bill pasted together in a hurry without any real estimates of how many jobs will be saved or created. Nor does it address how those jobs will be sustained. Each line item in the package should have had an estimate of effect on jobs provided by experts in that area, a statement of how those jobs will generate growth in terms of GDP, and then the entire list prioritized. As is, it is a big picture with states and cities struggling for their piece of the pie.

And as for tax cuts. Not much there either for us low men/women on the totem pole. I'm really looking forward to my $15 to $20 more per month based on our family tax bracket. Wow, I can maybe I can take my wife to the movies.

It also looks like we are trying to fix a problem without trying to determine the root cause. How did all this happen? Was it greedy Wall Street with their outrageous bonus systems, greedy bankers who would broker mortgages with wild abandon, easy credit? Columbia professor David Beim says:

"The problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us... We've been living very high on the hog. Our living standard has been rising dramatically in the last 25 years. And we have been borrowing much of the money to make that prosperity happen."

U.S. consumer debt rose sharply between 2000 and 2008. In 2007, it came to equal gross domestic product -- we owed as much as our entire economy was worth, roughly $13,000,000,000,000 (that's $13 Trillion). The last time that happened? 1929.

As I expected, the root cause of the economic problem is us, we have been living high off the hog. Exacerbated by corporate greed. Gordon Gekko, in the movie Wall Street (1987) said "Greed is Good". So the only real solution to the problem is to get the economic stimulus package to us. I suggest the Federal Government provide a tax free (i.e. federal, state, city) economic rescue package of $500,000 for each bonafide taxpayer with gross income less than $200,000, including those who do not pay tax because of their income level.

So what would be the result of giving $500K to each taxpayer?

For those who own a home and are facing foreclosure because they overbought or got into a bad mortgage they would have between $500K and $1M to pay off (or down) that debt. So why would they pay? Well the mortgage holder would be after them so fast they would have no choice.

But what about the folks who have no mortgage problem? Well they could keep all their money or pay off their mortgage as they chose. They would be rewarded by having more disposable money than those who overbought.

Credit card companies would be after those who had bad credit debt and force them to pay up, or else.

As for all those homes that banks own, well now would be the time for apartment dwellers and homeless folks to purchase the home to clear the debt from the banks.

As a result, banks would clear their toxic assets, either eliminating them all together or at least getting them to a manageable level. With the additional influx of cash they would now be able to start credit flowing to businesses.

With everyone now flush with money the demand for goods and services would go up. People would purchase cars and trucks with their excess cash or could now get reasonable credit. With the demand up we would not have to bail out Detroit, leaving them to sink or swim driven by the market forces (which we should do anyway).

Demand for other items would go up as well, How about that new 60 inch plasma TV, or the around-the-world trip, or you name it. With demand up so would the need for a workforce to fulfill the demand. Reasonable people, I believe, would keep on working, having experienced the worst financial disaster in their lifetime. They would see this as a once in a lifetime chance. They would realize that the money can go only so far and would need to keep working for their future financial security, health care, college tuition, unforeseen expenses, etc. Those that blow it by blowing the money well tough luck, find a nice homeless shelter.

To make sure we don't fall into the same situation as currently exists we will need stronger regulation of the financial industry, Wall Street, executive bonuses, etc.

So you get the gist, this would be a win-win situation between taxpayers earning under $200K per year, the government, the banks, and credit companies.

And as for those folks earning $200K or more, well screw them. They have been fat cats long enough and should know better how to manage finances.

A German’s Point of View on Islam

From a post on the Issues of Concern for Justice and Society (ISCJ) web site

by Paul E. Marek
Wednesday January 2, 2008
from (forwarder) Dr. Emanual Tanay

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War ll owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.

'We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the 'peaceful majority', the 'silent majority', is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.The average Japanese individual prior to World War ll was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilian s; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghan is, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.Lastly, at the risk of offending, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems of expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world wide, read this - think about it - and send it on.

Emanuel Tanay,
M.D. Ann Arbor, MI

And my own thoughts:

Remember:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

Have you ever noticed that in most all photos and videos of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Queda, and other radical Islamists/terrorists, they are always wearing masks? Could it be that they are gutless cowards afraid to show their faces? As they walk into crowds and blow up innocent women, children and old men, as they launch rockets from hospitals and crowded schools, as they use their friends and neighbors an human shields is it any wonder that they want to cover their faces?

From Annual Jihad Report 2008
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Jihad Attacks: 2204 Countries: 41 Religions: 5 Dead bodies: 10779 Critically Injured: 18213

Should We Bail Out Detroit??

Or maybe the question should be:
"Should We Bail Out The United Auto Workers Union?"


It has been a while since Ford, GM, and Chrysler CEOs flew to Washington, tin cups in hand, asking for $25,000,000,000.00 (that's what $25 billion looks like when spelled out). They were told by Nancy Pelosi to come back and show us (read that as US Tax Payers) a plan before we show you the money. Tell us why you won't be back in three to six months asking for another handout.

But the lingering questions are why do they need the money? Who will it really benefit?

A recent republished article in the business section of the Austin (TX) American-Statesman addressed "6 myths about the Detroit 3" which showed that Detroit is holding their own in terms of volume, quality, fuel efficiency, and hybrids.

What is the difference that is causing the problems? The major difference between the Detroit auto makers and the foreign auto makers is the UNION. In Detroit the UAW workforce and the Corporations have an adversarial relationship. With foreign auto makers, the workforce works for the company and work hard to see it succeed. They are a stakeholder.

Another item is the wages paid the UAW workforce vs the workforce for foreign auto companies. It is roughly stated as $70/hr on average for union work verse $40/hr for non-union. There seems to be a lot of controversy about this. Most of the arguments state the pay for the fully employed worker is roughly the same including wages, benefits, vacation, etc. But the way Detroit figures their hourly wage average includes all benefits for retirees (pension and health care) divided by the number of full time workers. So it would again seem that wages are about the same except Detroit carries a greater load for benefits for retired UNION workers.

All things being equal, it looks like the real root cause is the United Auto Workers Union. I believe that if the Big Three were allowed to get rid of the UAW that they would become more competitive in the world market. As proof text here is a video from detnews.com (The Detroit News) on how Ford's most advanced assembly plant operates in rural Brazil.

So back to the questions of should we bail out the Big Three and the UAW. I strongly recommend against a bailout. The best way for Detroit to get going again is to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. All the pundits scream "no-one will buy a vehicle from a company that is in bankruptcy". Well, to that I say HOGWASH. Anyone who wouldn't buy a vehicle from a company in Chapter 11 most likely would not have bought a vehicle from them anyway. Chapter 11 will allow Ford, GM, and Chrysler to reorganize/restructure under court supervision. One of the main benefits would be breaking with the UAW and dumping/reducing benefits for workers, including retirees.

Where's My Money??

Congressman Barney Frank
Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee
2252 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515

Subject: Financial assistance for my home enterprise

Dear Congressman,

I am seeking $2,000,000.00 in financial assistance for my home enterprise. I am retired and have my financial resources invested in the stock market to support my retirement. In addition I receive an income form social security and a pension. So you may say that my home enterprise is managing my investments which qualify me as a financial manager.

With the ongoing financial crisis I have lost a substantial amount of money and fear my enterprise will fail without this assistance. Please note that this is not a bailout but more of a loan. Following is my business plan (something the Detroit Big Three forgot back at the ranch) showing how the US Government will be repaid.

1. The $2 million immediately sent to the US Treasury Internal Revenue Service as a estimated tax payment. Thus the government will have full use of this money until I file a tax return.
2. The after tax, including alternate minimum tax, refund will then be placed into the now depressed stock market, investing in a balanced portfolio (well maybe not the Big Three).
3. As this portfolio grows over the next ten to fifteen years I will be cashing in stocks and paying capital gains tax, most certainly at a higher rate that the current 15% for long term investment. This capital gains tax will be the basis of loan repayment.

This is money that the US Government would not have made from me otherwise. I look at this as a win-win situation for both the Government and myself.

I look forward to receiving the $2 million check at my business address.