Dror

No new Arab help Speaks for itself.

During my mission, the government of France had a big media campaign encouraging people to have babies. Oddly, at the same time, they had government officials campaigning against nudity in public advertising! Makes 'em sound almost Mormon! (Ok, maybe not... ) At least they didn't have creepy youth camps with uniforms and electronic monitoring devices. Dror

Yes, CK, I did read the article. *yawn* Just because they have "rationales" doesn't mean I have to agree with them. Everybody has excuses. I just have a hard time believing weapons won't find their way into the hands of terrorists via corrupt government officials or by outright theft.You folks make the Saudi government sound so moderate and benign. They have a lousy human rights record and are considered the eighth most authoritarian regime in the world. They claim the Qur'an to be their nation's constitution, the only elections they have are for local government officials, and only men are allowed to vote. Yeah, such a moderate Middle-Eastern paradise. What are we trying to do in the Middle East, anyway, make money by arms dealing, or stop terrorists? Terrorists are pouring into Iraq from neighboring countries and killing innocent Iraqis and U.S. troops. It doesn't make sense to me to supply weapons to one of those countries, especially not without seeing honest efforts on their part to help us in the war against terror. Even when the U.S. was treating Iraq as a tentative ally against Iran during the Reagan administration we made it a point not to supply weapons of any kind. It smacks of war profiteering. Dror

O-k-a-a-a-a-a-a-y....... Whatever.

Arms deal w/ Mideast Is it really a good idea to pump more weapons into this region? After all, wasn't it largely Saudis who participated in the 9/11 attacks? Aren't a lot of the suicide bombers, etc. in Iraq also from Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries? What gives? Dror

My mother is an immigrant... and an American. She became a naturalized citizen many years ago. Some Americans are blockheads and just don't like foreigners. Normal Americans understand we are a nation of immigrants and have no problem with legal immigration.BTW, your view of the Old World is rather simplistic. Migrations, invasions, and intermarriage between populations have been going on for thousands of years in the Old World, too, so the question of who is an Englishman, a German, a Greek, etc. is most definitely NOT straightforward. Dror

I see. I hope, though, that you're not saying all of us liberals are products of the same mold! And I believe the core principles of "political correctness" are basic courtesy and tact, such as not using the "n word" in reference to black people, etc. Of course, being the liberal I am, I firmly believe in freedom of speech, and would defend people's right to say offensive things (though I would advise against it)! PC? Maybe not, but freedom of speech is, in my book, a higher value. Is the culture in the eastern part of the state different? I have an LDS friend from eastern Oregon who is VERY conservative.I think this hysteria about sex offenses has gotten a bit out of hand. I've heard of six-year-old children getting in legal trouble for kissing other children!! When I was a kid that was considered cute. 'Course, I remember the days before trick-or-treating was considered life-threatening. *sigh* Dror

Fiannan, I'm still scratching my head as to what this has to do with "hippies and politically correct yuppies!" In any case, I agree that they're making too big a deal of it. I would say give them detention or something the first time, and notify their parents. If they continue the behavior they could work their way up to a suspension. Only if they're truly incorrigible would I have gotten the police involved. Yes, teens can commit serious crimes, but patting somebody's rear end, while definitely inappropriate, is not as serious as other things they could be doing. Dror

Another possibility is that the fallible humans who wrote the Bible did not always accurately represent things. Why is it that we LDS always hold that the Bible is not absolutely infallible, and yet we never point out specific instances where it isn't quite right? Seems to me that some people might find the idea of God condoning mass slaughter to be highly questionable--this might be one of those places where the Bible is not right.Ok, maybe I should go to my room now! Dror

Yediyd,I wonder if in many cases it's less a question of what God does (actively) than of what He allows to happen (passively). IMO, most of the scary and tragic events in this world are either natural (like hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) or caused by humans, whether by accident or evil deeds. Of course, that still leaves the question: Why does God allow bad things to happen--why doesn't He intervene? The answers to that question are probably not as simple as we'd like them to be, but I do believe God will somehow eventually turn these things to our good. I'm sure you're right that the little ones go straight to the Celestial Kingdom. :) Dror

Actually, if I want to scare them away I'd leave my clothes off!!Dror

NORTH!!! (To cool off.) Oh, and to England, to visit a couple of family members. And Scandinavia would be kinda nice to visit. I've never been there, I'm curious, and I've heard it's beautiful. Dror

Does that mean I can leave work early? COOL!!Thanks, Brother D!

Snow's questions could be applied to other scripture stories, too. For example, would a good and just god really command the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman, and child in Canaan, or is there more going on here than meets the eye? Might the Israelites have committed genocide for their own reasons (they were hardly righteous people much of the time, after all!) and then claimed that God told them to do it, in order to justify their actions? You know, the "the victors write the histories" idea. Likewise, is it possible that the Flood was simply a natural event, so terrible that people had a psychological need for an explanation, and so they made up a story that God did it in order to punish them for their sins? People really do this sort of thing (witness what some religious leaders were saying after Hurricane Katrina). Boy, am I going to get in trouble for this one!! Dror

Hmmm.... as a librarian I'm interested to see how good LibraryThing.com is, and what exactly it does. Thanks for telling us about it! Dror

I'd love one! Don't want to get kicked out of my apartment, though. *wince* Did you ever hear the story of the sparrows in NT Jerusalem? The little orphan boys who had no place to live used to live in the cracks of the walls of the Temple and in makeshift tents alone the Temple walls and would survive by lighting torches and following the priest and leaders of the Temple home...lighting their way after the sun went down...The men would then pay the boys 2 pence. these boys were called Jerusalam sparrows. Or: Dror's . They called them that because they were so numerous, and as worthless as the tiny sparrow. This may be one of the reasons Jesus used sparrow as a reference in his sermon on the mount, Because he knew that these lost boys were valuable. I understand sparrows also represent liberty because they (supposedly) won't survive in captivity. But Jesus' reference is why I use the nickname, because it reminds me that even "the least" is valuable in God's sight, and also because it gives me a sense of His gentleness, looking after even the little birds. Thanks for the story, Yediyd. :) Dror P.S. You're right, it is kinda funny that a 'sparrow' should like cats!

I should amend what I was saying about big libraries! Size, of course, isn't everything, even with libraries. You could have a huge library full of crappy books! But, given a quality collection, a big quality collection is a real joy. Dror

Did you feel like a hobbit visiting Fangorn?

Heh! Normally I don't subscribe to the 'bigger is better' philosophy, but when it comes to libraries, I love big ones! The more books (& CDs, etc.) the merrier!Dror

As an education major, I'll tell you, you have no idea how right you are about this.. While on the one hand, everybody doesn't necessarily have the time to read all the source materials (or the knowledge to understand them), but on the other, they should definitely be available for people to read. Speaking as a librarian, both freedom of speech and freedom of access to information are VERY close to my heart, and both would seem fundamental to the healthy functioning of a democracy. In fact, one of the things they teach in library school is to try to develop a balanced collection, with differing points of view, and let the readers make up their own mind both about what to read and what to make of it.As far as Harry Potter goes, I wouldn't classify it as 'great literature,' but it does make for a fun read. Dror

You've got to be kidding.I, for one, absolutely love animals (especially cats!), but my apartment doesn't allow them. Don't know whether or not President Hinckley has a pet, and I don't really care. Lots and lots of LDS people do have pets, my friend--if you think they don't, you obviously don't know many LDS people. The Bible does teach us that the creatures God created are good, but that doesn't mean all of us HAVE to keep pets. This isn't an LDS issue, anyway. Plenty of people of other faiths don't keep pets, either. Dror (Hebrew for 'sparrow')

This is scary, and real sad: news story Our prayers are with the family and friends. Dror

*ahem* Guess I'm even worse--9/10! How embarassing.

Well, I never.... You folks are just terrible!

LOL! For a while my dad wore a full beard, and we'd joke that he'd better be careful lest people mistake him for a terrorist. Thankfully he shaved the thing off (he was always clean-shaven when I was a kid, so he looks more familiar to me that way).