Delmar, NY -- Week 17 NFL Results
A quick thanks to Ari for covering for me while my computer's on the fritz. I should be back up and running on Monday.
It was close last week between me and K-hole, but he prevailed for the fifth time in six weeks, leaving him up fifty bucks and at with a really impressive record for the season. The week's results:
JB: 6-9-1
K-Hole: 7-8-1
Our overall record for the (six weeks of the) season was:
JB: 43-49-3
K-Hole: 50-42-3
Binghamton, NY -- Sharon in critical condition
Ha'aretz reports that doctors have operated on Sharon for a third time in order to release pressure on his brain. While there has been substantial improvement, doctors still say he is in severe condition and has likely experienced irreversible brain damage.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, is calling for the cabinet to select a successor to Sharon to be the permanent acting Prime Minister until the elections.
Olmert is the most likely candidate since he is one of the highest ranking ministers in Kadima.And finally, what do televangelist Pat Robertson and the Ayatollah's puppet, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have in common?
Both have deemed Sharon's stroke an act of God. Pat Robertson looks to be building on his momentous
2005 comments regarding the small Pennsylvania town of Dover when he said the town will incur God's wrath for "rejecting God." And Ahmadinejad is seeking to continue his
quest to follow up on Hitler's legacy in calling for "Israel to be wiped off the map." Wiping Israel off the map would essentially replicate what Hitler did -- killing six million Jews. The White House has criticized Robertson and condemned Ahmadinejad.
Binghamton, NY -- Kadima under new leadership
Today Israeli doctors put Ariel Sharon into an induced coma for 72 hours to try to minimize any sort of brain damage that has occurred. Regardless, one thing is clear, Sharon will not return to office. Throughout his tenure as an IDF General and a politician he has had his fair share of ups and downs, but history should look back at his legacy as a man of peace who made unprecedented steps towards peace in the region.
Meanwhile, Kadima now has a critical matter at hand -- deciding upon a new leader for their party. The top candidates are as follows:
1. Ehud Olmert: former mayor of Jerusalem and current acting Prime Minister
2. Shimon Peres: dovish former Prime Minister and current Vice Primier
3. Tzipi Livni: current Foreign Minister
4. Shaul Mofaz: former IDF chief of staff and current Defense Minister
5. Meir Sheetrit: longtime Sharon loyalist from Likud
Assuming it's one of the top 3 candidates, Kadima is still expected to take roughly 40 seats (or 1/3 of the Knesset).
Olmert is likely to be the named the party leader, but one of the others could pull a surprise. In addition it is still possible that some of the Kadima members who joined specifically for Sharon may now jumpship back to their original party. Olmert's biggest challenge will be to convince the other Kadima leaders (specifically Peres) to remain part of Kadima as the party moves forward -- no pun intended.
Binghamton, NY -- Olmert comments on Sharon
Acting PM Olmert's remarks at the start of special Cabinet meeting(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)Ehud Olmert's comments this morning:
"Today, Thursday, we are holding an extraordinary Cabinet meeting in light of the state of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's health. At this time, we are all praying and full of hope for the Prime Minister's quick recovery. We are all closely monitoring developments in these difficult hours and our eyes, and those of the entire world, are directed towards the hospital in the hope of seeing the Prime Minister, who has been in so many previous battles, emerging from this battle as well and taking his seat here.Throughout last night and this morning, I have been in contact with the people at Prime Minister's Bureau and hospital staff and I have been updated on the situation at the hospital. I also received the necessary security updates. This is a difficult and unusual situation. The strength of the State of Israel will know how to deal with it.Naturally, this will be a short meeting. Attorney-General Meni Mazuz will brief the Cabinet. After the meeting we will all go back to running the affairs of state and we will continue praying and hoping for good news from the hospital.On behalf of all ministers, I embrace Gilad and Omri, Arik's beloved sons, and pray with them for their father's recovery. Arik is not only Prime Minister and a leader but is the good friend of all of us. This is a difficult time and we - all of us - will be up to the task."
Gaithersburg, MD -- How to Fix Congress
A rebuke to the Republican party comes from an unlikely source; David Brooks, conservative columnist for the New York Times,
excoriates the Republican party for their handling of the Abramoff affair and gives a seven-point plan for the Republicans to take the moral high ground:
If Republicans want to emerge from this affair with their self-respect or electoral prospects intact, they need to get in front of it with a comprehensive reform offensive.
.
.
.
Back in the dim recesses of my mind, I remember a party that thought of itself as a reform, or even a revolutionary movement. That party used to be known as the Republican Party. I wonder if it still exists.
Gaithersburg, MD -- American MDs: Sharon Not Expected to Make Full Recovery
From Ted, following up on Ari's earlier story...
Startling news about Ariel Sharon's stroke, if true:
"It's among the most dangerous of all types of strokes," with half of victims dying within a month, said Dr. Robert A. Felberg, a neurologist who directs the stroke program at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.
Doctors rushed Sharon into surgery, which could be a good or a bad sign, depending on the extent, location and duration of the bleeding, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, director of Duke University's stroke program.
.
.
.
"His prognosis is not good," Steig said. "The damage may be too severe to recover from. It will depend on how severe the bleeding was and how long the pressure in his skull has been elevated.
"The fact that he's on a respirator means it's extremely serious. The likelihood that he is going to make a normal recovery is extremely slim. The death rate from this kind of thing is high."If this prognosis plays out, it may change the history of the Middle East. We'll do our best to keep you posted, but my computer is on the fritz and I won't be able to fix it until early next week.
Binghamton, NY -- Breaking news: Sharon in the hospital again.
For the second time in two weeks, Sharon has been rushed to the hospital. Nothing is known of the reason this time, but it's believed to be related to the stroke he had on December 18. I'll post again as more information is released.
Meanwhile, leading political commentator, Ben Caspit along with Maariv editor-in-chief, Amnon Denkner, made a prediction for a third and presumably final Sharon term:
1. The Palestinian elections will be followed by a wave of terrorism as fierce as any yet known. Sharon then drops the road map for an entirely new direction.
2. Israel, stating that there is no Palestinian partner for peace-making, opens talks with the Bush Administration as a caretaker-representative of the Palestinians in negotiations to determine the permanent borders of Israel.
3. Israel would complete the West Bank fence, which would constitute the new border.
4. Israel would gradually evacuate tens of thousands of settlers from settlements outside the major blocs of settlements to which Bush has alluded in the past.
5. Washington would provide large-scale additional financial aid to cover the massive costs of moving the settlers and setting out the new border.
6. The U.S. would express blanket opposition to a Palestinian right of return to areas within Israel.
7. Israel would have sovereignty over all of the Old City of Jerusalem, with all Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem ceded to Palestinian Authority sovereignty.A little too fantasy-based, but still with a plausible end outcome for this seven-step plan. The Palestinians would control roughly 94% of the combined territories with Israeli annexation of approximately 9 to 10% of the West Bank. I'm just not so sure the Bush Administration is going to be willing to put any more resources into this effort than they already have. The growing waves of protest on the Iraq War (both domestic and abroad) may seriously hinder all US efforts in the region.
Gaithersburg, MD -- Intel: Inside No Longer
One of the world's most ingenious and profitable branding campaigns, Intel's "Intel Inside,"
is being put out to pasture:
The new identity borrows a little from the Intel Inside campaign, with a circle swirled around the word Intel. It adds a catch phrase, ``Leap ahead,'' akin to Nike's ``Just do it'' and Apple's ``Think Different'' tag lines.I wouldn't say that "Leap ahead" is akin to the above; at least to me, it doesn't have that certain
je ne se quoi. Of course, Intel Inside will be hard to top... Intel took a concept that meant very little -- after all, the processor is just one of many components in a computer -- and made a fortune on it.
Gaithersburg, MD -- Jesus on Trial (Didn't That Happen Already? Or Did It?)
I apologize for the lack of posting over the last few days. Between New Year's and leaving for DC for the week, it's been difficult to keep up. On the bright side, I managed to get 3,388 visits to my site from 894 unique visitors. More than 250 of you came to the site more than once during the course of the month. Who the hell are all of you, anyway?
In what's probably a meaningless but interesting trial, an Italian judge
has ordered a priest to prove that Jesus existed:
The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.
Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.While I can't state with certainty that Jesus never existed (it's really hard to prove a negative), I agree with this statement from Mr. Cascioli:
there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.... which is why I'm a staunch heathen.
