http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ With something like a 10-60 record as coach of my children's soccer teams why do I do it? Because I'm Soccer Dad! en-us dhgerstman@hotmail.com 2010-11-15T06:19:14-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/15/not_a_good_90_day_bet.html In a "news analysis", A 90-Day Bet on Mideast Talks, Ethan Bronner and Mark Landler of the New York Times analyze the issues involved in the possible agreement of Prime Minister Netanyahu to extend a building freeze for another 90 days. However one line sticks out as describing the problem with this extension. The initial reaction by conservative Israeli politicians was to oppose the deal, saying that the previous 10-month settlement freeze was a one-time gesture and ought not to be extended. They emphasized that for the first nine of those 10 months, the Palestinians did not negotiate. They also... 45860@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Israel 2010-11-15T06:19:14-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/15/.html 45859@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ 2010-11-15T06:19:14-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/15/making_the_political_personal.html From Larry Sabato last week: Obama may be able to count on the 200 electoral votes in the Democratic states, but if his reelection had been scheduled last week, he might well have lost every swing state--all of which he won in 2008. After all, most Republican candidates for top offices did quite well in every swing state on November 2. If you combine the 158 electoral votes in these swing states with the 180 votes in the solidly Republican states, the GOP nominee would have 338, far more than the 270 needed for election. (The chart's electoral votes are... 45858@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Politics 2010-11-15T06:18:36-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/15/recent_jewish_blogging_111510.html IsraMom hosted the 60th edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival. Do the math. Divide 60 by 12 and you get 5. Batya's kept the Kosher Cooking Carnival going for 5 years. Much of blogging is transient. Keeping a project alive for 5 years is not easy feat. 5 years in blogging time is virtually an eternity. Let Batya know how incredible this accomplishment is. Frume Sarah hosted Haveil Havalim #290. Haveil Havalim #291 is up at the Rebbetzin's Husband. Who is Stephen Harper and why is he being honored? Finally the latest J-Pix is up Around the Island. No the... 45856@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Blog Carnivals 2010-11-15T06:03:19-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/15/oh_that_historic_compromise.html In a bit of fractured history, Saeb Erakat writes in the National (h/t Martin Kramer): On November 15, 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organisation declared statehood by passing the Palestinian Declaration of Independence while exiled in Algiers. That declaration constituted the Palestinian people's historic compromise for peace as they limited their national aspiration towards the establishment of the Palestinian state over 22 per cent of historic Palestine, thus tacitly recognising Israel over the remaining 78 per cent. Disregarding our historic compromise, Israel has instead strengthened its occupation through an illegal settlement enterprise. Throughout a negotiations process lasting over 19 years, the... 45855@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Israel 2010-11-15T05:46:00-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/14/bibi_toms_frequent_non-flier.html In order to hit a number of targets he doesn't much like, Thomas Friedman came up with an analogy, I believe I can fly: If you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 floors you can think you're flying. It's the sudden stop at the end that tells you you're not. His first frequent non-flier is Binyamin Netanyahu. Where to begin? Well, first there's Israel's prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, who has been telling everyone how committed he is to peace with the Palestinians while refusing to halt settlement building as a prerequisite for negotiations. At a time... 45850@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Doubting Thomas 2010-11-14T14:39:38-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/14/just_like_tom_friedman_greens.html In order to hit a number of targets he doesn't much like, Thomas Friedman came up with an analogy, I believe I can fly: If you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 floors you can think you're flying. It's the sudden stop at the end that tells you you're not. I hope to get to all his examples, but here's one that just cries out for a fisking. Closer to home, America's climate-deniers mounted an effective disinformation campaign that made "climate change" a four-letter word in the Republican Party. This undermined efforts to get a clean... 45849@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Doubting Thomas 2010-11-14T13:32:01-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/13/happier_times_for_happy_meals.html Here's a setback for San Francisco Moonbats, who have been preparing a sort of legislative Happy Meal. It includes, as you may have heard, a food item:San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has vetoed a ban on sales of McDonald's Happy Meals with children's toys as too intrusive. "Parents, not politicians, should decide what their children eat, especially when it comes to spending their own money," Newsom said Friday in announcing the veto. The city's board of supervisors passed the legislation forbidding giveaways of toys with kids meals unless they met strict dietary criteria. McDonald's Happy Meals, seen as the target... 45848@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ 2010-11-13T22:47:37-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/12/mediterranean_conference_cancelled_on_account_of_cooties.html When I read something like this Mediterranean summit canceled again due to Arab threat to boycott over Israel (via Daily Alert Blog) An international summit of Mediterranean leaders has been canceled for the third time because Arab states threatened to boycott if Israel was invited. I wonder how there's ever going to be peace. So many in the media, along with diplomats and politicians fall all over themselves to criticize or condemn Israel for building in its own capital and yet not a single one seems concerned by this infantile hatred of the Jewish state. Is there a single world... 45840@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Arab World 2010-11-12T06:27:51-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/11/the_day_the_anniversary_died.html There were two recent news stories about attempts to stop commemorations of what Ma'an News terms "the death of anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat." Oh well, we get the idea. I can't say for sure, but I think this one, ascribing anti-Arafat motives to Zionist Entity Forces, is false:Israeli forces surrounded a school in the northern West Bank to prevent students from marking the death of anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian president. Forces threatened to raid the school if the celebration did not immediately end, the director of education at the Jeet Male... 45834@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ 2010-11-11T22:32:23-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/11/submitted_11112010.html The Watcher's Council nominations are up. Council Submissions Simply Jews - Mutual backscratching society Joshuapundit -Jews, Democrats And 'Progressives' Right Truth - Obama Forces Jihad Down India's Throat, and America's The Colossus of Rhodey - Election Post-Mortem Rhymes With Right - Keith Olbermann Suspended From MSNBC -- UPDATED Bookworm Room - Why I am a fascist (according to my liberal friend) The Razor - California: SNAFU GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD - Asking For It Mere Rhetoric - J Street Candidates Wiped Out In Senate, Lose More Than Half Of Competitive House Races VA Right - The Bush Administration Never ... The... 45825@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Watcher's Council 2010-11-11T02:58:31-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/11/peace_-_its_not_what_might_have_but_what_couldnt_have_been.html Last week, Former President Clinton wrote an op-ed making the fanciful claim that there would have been peace in the Middle East had Yitzchak Rabin not been murdered. I showed from the historical record that his claim was not accurate. But there's another assumption that's faulty here. Implicity Clinton is blaming Israel. But by making Yitzchak Rabin the one indispensible person for peace to succeed he ignores that Rabin's positions and those of current Prime Minister Netanyahu are actually pretty close. It's a point that Yaacov Lozowick makes in two recent posts. In one he writes: Mitchell Plitnick and many... 45828@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Israel 2010-11-11T02:05:02-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/11/taking_a_shyne_to_judaism.html Jeffrey Goldberg liked this quote: "There's nothing in the Chumash that says I can't drive a Lamborghini." The quote is from Shyne, a former protege of Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. Shyne, born Jamaal Barrow, was convicted of reckless endangerment in a nightclub shooting in 1999. As you can tell from the quote, Jamaal Barrow - son of Belize's current Prime Minister, Dean Barrow - has taken an interesting turn or two as described in the New York Times. (via memeorandum) For one thing he legally changed his name to Moses Levi which reflects the fact that he is now an... 45824@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Israel 2010-11-11T00:32:48-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/10/but_sunnis_would_never_side_with_shiites_.html Tweeted by Martin Kramer - Ehud Ya'ari writes: For the last few months, a forty-three-page Arabic-language booklet has been emailed to Hamas activists in the Gaza Strip and to select members of the group in the West Bank and elsewhere. Titled The Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Revolution in Iran, this new publication represents the most important attempt to date to connect the growing cooperation between Hamas and its Iranian mentors to religious affinities, rather than political expediency. The argument, in essence, is that the Muslim Brotherhood -- with Hamas as its Palestinian branch -- is a natural partner of... 45817@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Iran 2010-11-10T08:30:14-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2010/11/10/beer_civilization_whiskey_american_politics.html via Instapundit, Beer Lubricated the Rise of Civilization ... "The brewing of alcohol seems to have been a very early development linked with initial domestication, seen during Neolithic times in China, the Sudan, the first pottery in Greece and possibly with the first use of maize. Hayden said circumstantial evidence for brewing has been seen in the Natufian, in that all the technology needed to make it is there -- cultivated yeast, grindstones, vessels for brewing and fire-cracked rocks as signs of the heating needed to prepare the mash." Maybe but whiskey was essential to politics: But for all of... 45816@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Insta-pudding 2010-11-10T03:54:39-05:00