Another reason I know I'm old and/or just out of it
I have no idea what a "hoodie" is. - served up by Ralphie @ 1:13 PM 4 comments

 
Addicted to 24
The wife and I are seriously addicted to "24." Really. It's a problem. The kids could be outside playing in traffic for all we know, as long as they leave us alone so we can watch the next episode. We've been ripping through the first five seasons on DVD and are just about finished. We'd head bad things about the last few seasons but we like 'em just fine. There's something about avoiding commercials and week-long gaps in viewing.

One thing I've come away with is that if our real federal agencies are as inept as CTU - Counter-Terrorist Unit - we're all in trouble. Sure, Jack always saves the country and possibly the world, but the agency itself is a joke. They've been bombed, gassed, infiltrated, have moles all the time and basically just seem to let anyone hang out there wherever and whenever they like.

Anyway, here's to Season 6 coming out on DVD soon... - served up by Ralphie @ 12:00 PM 2 comments

 
Netanyahu on the difference between Al Qaeda and Hezbollah
"I think one wants to send us back to the ninth century and one wants to send us back to the seventh century."

Great stuff in the WSJ. - served up by Ralphie @ 12:41 PM 0 comments

 
Bean fix
Miss the Bean? The good doctor has a guest post over at Psychotoddler.

Traitor. - served up by Ralphie @ 9:00 AM 2 comments

 
Badump-bump
It's hard to find good help these days: Our housekeeper is demanding to work remotely. - served up by Ralphie @ 10:50 AM 5 comments

 
When Restaurants Die
The other night I stopped by my (and my family's) favorite kosher eatery for some take-out and found it closed. The posted sign read, "Closed for Filming." I found it odd, but figured they had rented out the joint for a restaurant scene on some cable show. Yesterday I ran into the owner at a lag b'omer street fair, and he told me he sold it and that the new owner was opening a different, non-kosher restaurant in its place.

This was quite a blow to my family. My kids even cried and demanded that the restaurant hold a goodbye party. Alas, it is not to be. Kosushi / Pasta Vino (yes, it's a hybrid sushi/italian restaurant) is no more.

True, there's a kosher Subway opening around the corner, but it's just not the same. - served up by Ralphie @ 2:17 PM 4 comments

 
Through the looking glass
Today's march for illegal immigrants in downtown LA is slightly less populated than last year's estimated 650,000. This year there's only around 100. Not 100,000: 100.

But that's not what moved me to write this post. The LA times blog is at the scene of the paltry march, interviewing illegal immigrants who, despite their lives led in fear, seem to have no qualms about giving their full names. Here's a snippet of an interview:

"This is not right," said Andres Meza, 41, an electrician from Placentia in Orange County who immigrated illegally from Mexico nearly 20 years ago.

Meza said the lack of comprehensive immigration reform has left him a life full of uncertainty, and prevented him from doing things like taking his 15 year-old daughter Arleth, a student of Japanese, to Japan, or even reporting simple crimes.

Here's what struck me: Meza says that "the lack of comprehensive immigration reform has left him a life full of uncertainty..." I guess that's one way of looking at it. But isn't there another way of looking at it, namely, that he lives a life of uncertainty because he immigrated illegally?

I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately - how I feel like I live in an opposite world from others I listen to or read about. Some people live in a world where the Bush administration has ruined diplomatic relations even with many of our friends abroad (overheard at Shabbat lunch). I live in a world where, say, France attacks America and criticizes the liberation of Iraq because of its own economic interests. Some people live in a world where Bush lied about weapons to lead us to war (read in the letters section of a newspaper - I know the letter writer). I live in a world where the U.S. Senate authorization of the use of force included around 20 other reasons, not mention where every other nation's intelligence believed Iraq to have the weapons. Some people live in a world where a U.S. withdrawal would make the world safer for America. I live in a world where a U.S. withdrawal would make the world safer for Al Qaeda.

We can't both be right, can we? - served up by Ralphie @ 9:50 AM 1 comments