Christopher J. Arndt fights a never ending battle for truth and justice...


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Google Can Be Incredibly Stupid

I was working with public television on in the background and (the program was Great Getaways) and a catchy song came on so I decided to search for the lyrics as long as I could retain them. The gist was

I am a Michigan man ask where I'm from I'll show you my hand

Knowing no better I typed those words into the Google search field, without quotes, made it do its thing. I'm pretty sure that I did not get the lyrics entirely accurate, and I will skip ahead to tell you that entering those words just like that inside of quotation marks gets you no results. Outside of trapping the line within punctuation I get the oddest results, including nothing near the answer of my question. The very first entry on the results list the home page of Hugh Hewitt, the conservative talk show host, simply because Hewitt has pronouns on his webpage. The same for the next site, Alderac something, it admits "I'm just like Regularguy" and uses a possessive. Next is Instapundit! I do a multi-word Google search and instead of delivering something close to the relevence of the subjects, nouns, I get a list of sites that have pronouns, extremely common words, on them, with no real sense of why those sites in that order have been summoned in relation to the original sentence! Whoever coded Google is to some extent a fool or an idiot.

I was under the impression that Google didn't react much to extremely common words; in theory it should react to the most special and proper words and seek something of formulated relation/relevence. Oddly enough it seemed to choose only words that could not help a search.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/24/2006 03:55:00 PM | |

American Jewry Shoah

InfoTrac Web: InfoTrac OneFile.

AL Academic
AT American Jewry's response to the Holocaust: some reflections from the last
eyewitnesses.(Shoah)(Benzion Netanyahu)(Saadia Gelb)(Critical Essay)
AU Rafael Medoff
CT Midstream
DE American Jews_Influence
DE American Jews_Political aspects
DE American Jews_Personalities
DP March-April 2005 v51 i2 p20(2)
IS 2
LW 20(2)
NA Critical Essay
ND 20050604
OT (Shoah)(Benzion Netanyahu)(Saadia Gelb)(Critical Essay)
PB Theodor Herzl Foundation
PS Wise, Stephen Samuel_Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
PS Wise, Stephen Samuel_Influence
PS Gelb, Saadia_Influence
PS Gelb, Saadia_Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
PS Netanyahu, Benzion_Influence
PS Netanyahu, Benzion_Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
PT Magazine/Journal
RM COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
SN 0026-332X
SU Holocaust, 1933-1945_Analysis
SU Holocaust, 1933-1945_Influence
SU Jews, American_Influence
SU Jews, American_Political aspects
SU Jews, American_Personalities
SU Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
SU Influence
SU Political aspects
SU Personalities
SU Analysis
VO 51
ZZ

Source: Midstream, March-April 2005 v51 i2 p20(2).

Title: American Jewry's response to the Holocaust: some reflections from
the last eyewitnesses.(Shoah)(Benzion Netanyahu)(Saadia
Gelb)(Critical Essay)
Author: Rafael Medoff

Subjects: Holocaust, 1933-1945 - Analysis
Holocaust, 1933-1945 - Influence
Jews, American - Influence
Jews, American - Political aspects
Jews, American - Personalities
People: Wise, Stephen Samuel - Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
Wise, Stephen Samuel - Influence
Gelb, Saadia - Influence
Gelb, Saadia - Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
Netanyahu, Benzion - Influence
Netanyahu, Benzion - Beliefs, opinions and attitudes

Electronic Collection: A131080412
RN: A131080412


Full Text COPYRIGHT 2005 Theodor Herzl Foundation

Six decades after the Holocaust, American Jewish leaders' response to the Nazi
genocide is still very much on the minds of many in the community. Some Jews
involved in protests over human rights abuses in Sudan have said they are
trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of their parents' generation. Recent
newspaper articles marking the anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Jewry
protest movement have cited disappointment over the Jewish leadership's
response to the Holocaust as an impetus for the activists.

The men who led the major Jewish organizations of that era have long since
passed away, as have most of the dissidents who tried to stir a more activist
response. Two of the last living eyewitnesses to that chapter in Jewish
history still recall those events with passion and insight.

One is Benzion Netanyahu, who during the 1940s served as executive director of
the U.S. wing of the Revisionist Zionists. Today at age 93, a prominent
historian of medieval Spanish Jewry and father of Israel's finance minister,
Netanyahu is widely regarded as the elder statesman of the Zionist right.

In an editorial in the New York-based Revisionist journal Zionews in 1944,
Netanyahu sharply challenged Jewish leaders: "They cannot claim, with a clear
conscience, to have done everything within their power to save those condemned
people," he wrote. "They have been too cautious, too appeasing, and too ready
to swallow the meaningless statements of sympathy that were issued, from high
places."

The passage of time has not altered his analysis. "Most American Jews would
have supported an activist response to the news of the massacres in Europe,"
Prof. Netanyahu told me in a recent interview. "When our small organization
held rallies or placed advertisements in the newspapers, we received a very
strong, enthusiastic response from the grassroots. But the major Jewish
groups, which had the funds and the ability to organize nationwide protests,
did not do so--they were afraid of risking their positions, afraid to seem too
controversial."

Netanyahu is not the only Israeli elder statesman who speaks of American Jewry
and the Holocaust from personal experience. Another is Saadia Gelb, now 90, a
lifelong Labor Zionist and kibbutz movement activist who has lived at Kibbutz
Kfar Blum since 1947. Gelb has a unique perspective, because during the 1940s,
when he was active with the U.S. Labor Zionists, he was also a rabbinical
student in New York under Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the most prominent Jewish
leader of that era.

In a telephone interview with Gelb, I asked him to what extent Wise spoke to
the students about the plight of European Jewry, when he met with them each
week. "He always told us the latest news he had received from Europe and about
his latest meetings with governments officials and others," Gelb recalled. "On
one occasion, Rabbi Wise was telling us, very proudly, about his access to
President Roosevelt--how the president had promised him, 'you can call on me
any time, if not through the front door, then certainly through the back
door.' So I went up to Rabbi Wise afterwards and said to him, 'That's the
whole problem--he'll keep you at the back door, he'll con you with his soapy
words, but he won't do anything to help the Jews in Europe.'"

Gelb still speaks of Wise with considerable affection. He deeply admires
Wise's oratorical abilities, intellectual prowess, and tireless commitment to
the causes he embraced. But he feels Wise's political judgment was clouded by
his attachment to FDR.

Gelb noted that criticism of the Jewish leadership's record cut across party
lines, both then and now. Just as Netanyahu's Revisionist magazine, Zionews,
took issue with the American Jewish response to news of the Holocaust in the
1940s, Furrows, a magazine edited by Gelb and other young Labor Zionists,
likewise denounced what it called "the black record of inactivity of the
American Jewish community."

In the academic world, too, there is continuing interest in the activities of
Wise and other Jewish leaders during the war. I recently chaired a session on
U.S. Jews and the Holocaust at a conference sponsored by the American Jewish
Historical Society and held at the Library of Congress. One of our panelists,
Dr. Zohar Segev of Haifa University, said that Wise and Nahum Goldmann, as
co-chairs of the World Jewish Congress, "worked actively to tone down any
Jewish criticism of the Roosevelt administration regarding the Holocaust and
Palestine." Segev said they feared that aggressive protests would stimulate
domestic antisemitism and undermine Jewish leaders' relationship with the
Roosevelt administration. He also said they were concerned that more activist
elements, such as Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, might usurp their positions of
leadership in the community.

Another of the speakers, Prof. Mark Raider of SUNY-Albany, was less critical
of Wise, although he found Wise's response to the Shoah to be "cautious and
ineffective." He mentioned Wise's advanced age, declining health, and
involvement in a wide range of social and political causes as factors that
hampered his effectiveness with regard to the plight of Europe's Jews.

Professor David S. Wyman, author of the 1984 bestseller, The Abandonment of
the Jews, says that as a Christian, he has always found the issue of American
Jewry and the Holocaust "among the most complex and heartbreaking topics in my
research." Abandonment dealt primarily with the response of the Roosevelt
administration to the Nazi genocide, but also covered attempts by both Jewish
establishment groups and Jewish activists to influence U.S. policy. "The slow
response of many Jewish leaders, and the amount of time they spent fighting
among themselves, is astonishing in retrospect. Going through the archives of
the Jewish organizations is a journey through a landscape of constant rivalry
and fighting," Wyman says. "It is a subject that requires additional, careful
research by historians."

Three new books are likely to keep these issues in the spotlight during the
coming year. Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important
Newspaper, by Prof. Laurel Left, to be published early this year by Cambridge
University Press, analyzes The New York Times's coverage of the Nazi genocide,
including complaints by American Jews at the time over the Times's coverage.
Prof. Joseph Ansell's new biography of the artist Arthur Szyk, recently
published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, deals in part with
Syzk's prominent role in the Bergson group, which often clashed with the
Jewish leadership over Holocaust policy. Dr. Alex Grobman's Battling for
Souls, recently published by Ktav, sheds new light on the efforts by the Vaad
Hatzala, an American Orthodox group, to aid the Jews in Europe.

Are such historical questions relevant today? "Absolutely," says former U.S.
Congressman Stephen Solarz, one of the founders of the International Crisis
Group, which encourages more activist responses to crises such as the ongoing
massacres in the Sudan. "Learning from the mistakes of the past," he says,
paraphrasing the famous quote from Santayana, "is the only way to ensure that
they will not be repeated."

RAFAEL MEDOFF, Ph.D., is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for
Holocaust Studies, which focuses on issues related to America's response to
the Holocaust (www.WymanInstitute.org). His most recent book (co-authored with
David S. Wyman) is A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America and The
Holocaust (The New Press).

-- End --

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/21/2006 01:46:00 AM | |

Mythology gods guides for the Greek

I was looking for data on the purportedly mythical Titan Hyperion. Outside of my discoveries I found The Theoi Project Guide to Greek Mythology, and Greek Mythology. Both should be useful in the future.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/20/2006 06:42:00 PM | |

A Five-Day Gap Between Successful Posts

This is unacceptable. Especially considering the sheer amount of material that I have in Draft form.

Looking back to a template update from April 11, 2006, I find

While on that topic, I wonder if I should retain a standing link to the fine blog of the American Lady.

I checked my list and I cannot find a link. I see the following recently.

If you link me, thank you very much. Let me know if you would like me to link you in return- leave a comment asking me to read your blog.

I wonder if I removed the link and did the correct thing in that. I cannot say. Is it a healthy exchange of referrals? There was none before. It resembles a good question. Template updates always bring up good questions.

I will post another couple of things at most and then I must terminate.

I find that one person come here from what seems to be the most excellent blog, Passionate America. I have never heard of it. It looks great; I cannot find a link to here from there. I suspect the link was on the Blogs for Bush list and then scrolled off the bottom. Perhaps it came from the Random "next Blog" button on the Blogger Bar. Either way, I don't believe that the new potential reader stayed long enough to read something good.

He came from a neat place, though.

Nope. Wait. It was from a Wictory Wednesday list. I have to keep up on that again. huh.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/20/2006 06:22:00 PM | |

the Fair Tax

Join Fair Tax Fans

What do we know about the Fair Tax? I don't know much yet. It seems intriguing, however.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/20/2006 05:09:00 PM | |

Kelvin Inman Contradiction in Lost

In Episode 2x03 Orientation Desmond states that when he got to the Island, his boat having "ran aground on the reef" Kelvin just ran out of the brush, had just ran out of the brush, was just running out of the brush and was hastily, none-too-calmly urging Desmond to come help him "'save the world'".

In the season 2 finale Live Together, Die Alone, the flashbacks revealed that Desmond's first moments on the Island were spent drifting in and out of consciousness on the beach as his boat was caught in the storm and he was swiftly thrown overboard. His first notice of Kelvin was a man in a bunny suit approaching him and his first coherent encounter with the man was inside the Hatch (Station #3, the Swan).

There's no way to cleanly reconcile the contradictions between the recountings within each respective episode in a way that the details fit together literally. Keep in mind that our first mention of Kelvin is in a quickly told anecdote told from Desmond's perspective. He's abbreviating what happened for the sake of time. The flashbacks, however, are narrative devices told from the same omniscient outside perspective that most of the show is told in. In the flashbacks we see what happens and we see stuff that occurs within the continuity of the show but not from a character's isolated perspective. Obviously, once we see the last episode, see how Desmond would desire to obscure how Kelvin died, considering how he may feel some degree of guilt or embarrassment considering his participation in the man's death.

The two stories are told from two different points of view. Desmond tells his story in such a way to keep the anecdote short of the sake of time; the writers keep it short to keep up the pacing of the episode and avoid any form of "full disclosure" and to cause more questions. Desmond also doesn't want to reveal too much of himself. I will also point out that even though the broad strokes of the series are planned out well ahead of time, the details and/of the individual episodes are written individually, sequentially, being made up as the writers go along. So it is certainly quite possible that when the writers were writing Desmond's spoken narrative exposition in episode 2x03 that weren't yet aware of what was going to be told or revealed in episode 2x23. Both episodes have the same director, but the creators of the show did a fairly good job at keeping discrepancies between episodes small, obscure and few.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/15/2006 12:01:00 PM | |

Flag Day

Today is Flag Day. Naturally this holiday does not commemorate or celebrate just any banner for any cause, State, or nation. We recognize and honor, today, the Star-Spangled Banner, Old Glory, the flag of the United States of America.

The American Flag was established in 1777 and the holiday was officially, nationally established in 1949 by President Truman. The holiday has a long tradition between those two events, as well as the Flag itself.

• A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America - Flag Day and National Flag Week, 2006
• A website dedicated to The Flag of the United States of America
• The History of Flag Day, according to USFlag.org

Also it would be wise to recognize that today is the birthday of the U.S. Army.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/14/2006 04:25:00 PM | |

Michael Hutchison on The Main Problem with Poll Numbers

All below from Michael Hutchison, posted on June 07, 2006 at 08:36:42 right here.

Bush's disapproval/approval numbers are meaningless, because right now he's in trouble for dissatisfying many people on many conflicting topics. It's like those stupid "direction the country is going" polls.

I'M disapproving of Bush because he's not pushing for a fence with Mexico and actual enforcement of immigration laws, among other things. Democrats would actually LIKE Bush for that if they were capable of liking him for anything, but they hate him for other reasons. I'm a supporter of the War on Terror, though, so I still like Bush for that.

Too many liberals/Democrats look at Bush's poll numbers and think they are indicators that we should pull out of Iraq. I'M dissatisfied with Bush because we aren't bombing Iran and Syria.

source IP:129.42.161.36

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/14/2006 04:17:00 PM | |

Sean Hannity Listen Online

It's quite possible and easy to listen to the Sean Hannity Show online for free.

He provides the opportunity to stream live right here from 3 PM to 6 PM Eastern time.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/14/2006 03:19:00 PM | |

Ping-o-Matic!

Click! Update the throngs and subscribers, RSS, XML, and Blog Rolls!

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/14/2006 02:37:00 PM | |

Rush Limbaugh Audio Streaming on WLS

It's been noted by people that it is difficult to successfully obtain a free live audio stream of Rush Limbaugh's radio show. To do it from his web site you need to be a Rush 24/7 Member. You will rarely get such affiliation gratis. I am not one.

I realize that for bandwidth angles I am making my future my difficult for admitting this, however, I get live Rush off of the internet from WLS AM out of Chicago.

If you goto this website between 12 and 3 PM Eastern time then you will be able to listen to Rush Limbaugh live on/through your computer.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/14/2006 02:24:00 PM | |

the State News loves gays over kids

The State News presents an article whining that "Adoption agencies might have moral discretion when placing children" regarding new bills in the Michigan House that would allow the people who run these government-aligned entities to actually follow their respective ethos.

Essentially there is has never been a point where a child development organization, regardless of government affiliation, does not excercise some form of moral discretion in any of its actions or in the decisions of its officers. The quality and nature of that discretion varies but somebody is deciding what is right and wrong and affecting the future of a person.

In fact, if there is a person who can excercise sound moral judgement regarding the future of a child, then perhaps he shouldn't be hindered by something else. So what precisely are we dealing with here?

The bills, both sitting in the House Family and Children Services Committee, would allow agencies that place children in adoptive homes to refuse to place them if the situation violates the agency's written religious or moral convictions.

That doesn't sound unacceptable to me. If the conviction happens to be correct, it's quite possible many of us would not know until we are dead. There are schools of thought that many of these convictions are correct and it's quite possible that the alternatives would be damaging to the well-being of the child.

But since this is the State News the focus of the article isn't on the well-being of children but on the homosexuals who they believe will suffer without children. If the bill is a protection of Libertarian concepts of determination of right and wrong at a low level the State News is against whatever remaining open options government has been wedged open for homosexuals. If the bills are actually means to seperate kids from sodomites then I believe the burden of proof should be with the leftists that litle harm would come to the kids. The Leftist view is that sexual tendencies and sexual orientation is a non-issue.

Nancy English, executive assistant to the Board of Directors for Michigan Equality, an LGBT political advocacy group, said the issue should be about finding good homes for children, not politics.

"Adults can get over things and not being able to adopt," English said. "What the legislation does is deny children loving homes and a better quality of life."

The basic first assumption is that homosexuals would provide as good or "better" quality of life as those would-be parents that certain faith-oriented agencies would choose. Either way, I see no problem with the bills. If an adoption agency attaches an adoptee to a Christian family or to two guys or two women then the agency is making a moral choice. If the agency maks the wrong choice then it is too bad; if it makes good choices and people don't like it it is too bad. If the moral discretion is over-ridden by the government, then that really is bad. Protection of kids is not equal protection of any minority group's rights.

Of course, underlying political philopsophy and debates about standards and practices and even procedure are not the point for the State News. It's about the cuddly gays and lesbians. The article, which is front page, doesn't start with meat.

Mary Boudreau and her partner Susan Grettenberger have four children. All of the Lansing residents' children are teenagers, and this weekend they celebrated Antonio Grettenberger's — who at 18 is the oldest — graduation from high school.

It's just a human interest story. The article ends with talk about the children but it starts with the Lesbians.

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/12/2006 05:12:00 PM | |

I have not posted lately; the hit count has dropped

My computer has been broken recently. While it is being fixed I cannot post.

Last time I had the chance to post, Blogger had an error across its entire system, apparently.

That annoys me.

I had relevent news, too!

Carry on!

posted by Chris Arndt at 6/10/2006 04:06:00 PM | |