Pipoca

joined 2 years ago
[–] Pipoca 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Let me make sure I understand you: your argument is that any self-consistent Jew cannot make an image of anything that can be compared to religion? So anything grand that people find meaning in that requires sacrifices with weird superstitions and rituals.

So no flags because of the religion of nationalism, no money because of the religion of money, no On Food And Cooking because of the religion of French cuisine, and no pictures of Rossini because of the religion of opera?

[–] Pipoca 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Race is the wrong word in the modern American context. Jews aren't a race in the sense of black vs white.

Jews are, however, an ethnicity - much like how you can be ethnically Navaho or ethnically Basque. It's a matter of being part of a community of people with a shared culture and ancestry. And yes, beta Israel and Ashkenazim are both ethnically Jewish.

[–] Pipoca 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yes. Children do not literally worship their nation-state with literal religious reverence. No rabbi would tell you that the ten commandments are about prohibiting metaphorical sacrifices to metaphorical religions.

No rabbi would say that saying that someone "worships money" turns their wallet into an alter and their job into idol worship. Religiously, it's just a metaphorical turn of phrase.

Maimonides, probably the most influential rabbi of the middle ages, explicitly called Christians idolaters. The trinity isn't precisely considered polytheistic; the Hebrew term is shituf.

Can you find a single rabbi who would call volunteering to join a military and dying at war halachically prohibited human sacrifice to the nation-as-god or flag-as-idol?

And where exactly did I call myself a religious nationalist? I'm just saying that your argument that the term is an oxymoron is idiotic and betrays a deep ignorance of the religion. I mean, you couldn't even quote the right commandment - in Judaism, the first item on the ten commandants is "I am the lord your God", which makes your argument a complete non sequitur.

[–] Pipoca 0 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Nations aren't considered gods, and flags aren't idols of those non-gods. You don't sacrifice goats to the flag, or burn incense for it.

Judaism has historically looked at Christian beliefs and practices with way, way more suspicion of polytheism and idolatry than it's ever looked at national flags.

The teacher here is unhinged, but you clearly don't really know very much about the ten commandments, especially from a Jewish context.

[–] Pipoca 15 points 1 year ago

Netanyahu's popularity tanked after October 7th.

70% of Israelis want him to resign. But only 25% want him to resign now - most want him to wait until the current war settles down. Which unfortunately gives him and Ben Gvir some perverse incentives, because there's no way they remain in power after the dust settles.

[–] Pipoca 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not quite. To quote from the opinion:

Though the statute affords physicians discretion, it requires more than a doctor’s mere subjective belief. By requiring the doctor to exercise “reasonable medical judgment,” the Legislature determined that the medical judgment involved must meet an objective standard. Dr. Karsan asserted that she has a “good faith belief” that Ms. Cox meets the exception’s requirements. Certainly, a doctor cannot exercise “reasonable medical judgment” if she does not hold her judgment in good faith. But the statute requires that judgment be a “reasonable medical” judgment, and Dr. Karsan has not asserted that her “good faith belief” about Ms. Cox’s condition meets that standard. ...

Nothing in this opinion prevents a physician from acting if, in that physician’s reasonable medical judgment, she determines that Ms. Cox has a “life-threatening physical condition” that places her “at risk of death” or “poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.”

Basically, the opinion is a fairly legalistic argument that the physician didn't use the right magic words, but that the ruling doesn't matter because there's no de jure requirement for court preapproval. It completely misses the point of why doctors are unwilling to perform abortions without that approval.

[–] Pipoca 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Seems like a weird mix of hygiene rules (don't unwrap the baby, don't touch the telephone after cleaning your hands in alcohol for feeding time), superstitions (no candy), and restrictive rules (only one visitor, have the name already picked out)

[–] Pipoca 2 points 1 year ago

Water law in the west is really weird.

It was developed around the idea that the first mine in an area could use the water that they wanted, and the next mine in the area could do the same only inasmuch as it didn't affect the water available to the first mine.

So you've got water rights that are primarily based on seniority and continuing to use your allotment so you don't lose it. That's not very well aligned with goals of conservation.

[–] Pipoca 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's two links there. One is to those graphs, the other is to the article.

Basically, they're measuring the population that's within a 30 minute public transit trip of the center of the city. Because the city relies mostly on slow busses that get stuck in traffic, the number of people who can reasonably commute to jobs in the center of the city is about half of the nominal population of the city.

Larger cities are more productive per capita than small cities due to economies of agglomeration. Birmingham's productivity is well below what it should be given its nominal population numbers, but if you use the number of people within a 30 min bus ride of downtown at peak commute times then it's on the lower end of normal.

Our hypothesis is that by relying on buses that get caught in congestion at peak times for public transport, Birmingham sacrifices significant size and thus agglomeration benefits to cities like Lyon, which rely on trams and metros. This is based on our calculations that a whole-city tramway system for Birmingham would deliver an effective size roughly equal to the OECD-defined population.

[–] Pipoca 5 points 1 year ago

The average carbon footprint in the US is 15 tons.

So the largest megayacht in the world pollutes as much as about 1,500 extra Americans.

Honestly, everyone needs to do their part. Billionaires, corporations and average Americans alike. It ain't gonna get fixed otherwise.

[–] Pipoca 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

There's a pretty good Wikipedia article on it

As mentioned, it's the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. It's been used by Palestians since at least the mid 60s in a number of different chants, e.g. "from the river to the sea Palestine will be free/Arab/Islamic" (technically, the latter two are "from the water to the water" because otherwise the Arabic doesn't rhyme).

Hamas's charter says

Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea

While Netanyahu's far-right Likud party's 1977 manifesto says

between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty

It's historically been somewhat controversial, with Zionists typically saying that it calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and/or the expulsion of Jews from the area. CNN fired a political commentator for saying it ~5 years back, and it's regulated as hate speech in some places in Europe. Most pro Palestinian activists think that's ridiculous, but it's worth being aware of.

[–] Pipoca 2 points 1 year ago

You'd have to be budget conscious, but it's doable if you're not eating anywhere sit-down, don't drink soda, and don't get snacks. But yeah, the average person is probably spending $100+.

For example, at Hollywood studios, the oats at the star wars location are $7. A chicken club and fries for lunch at ABC commissary are $18. A pizza for dinner is $12. That's $37; not sure what it would come to with tax.

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