Shlomo Sand on Zionism

news.pol/zionism/jews are an invention?

. Mixing respected scholarship with dubious theories,

the author, Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University,

frames the narrative as a startling exposure of suppressed historical facts.

The translated version of his polemic has sparked a new wave of coverage in Britain

and has provoked spirited debates online and in seminar rooms.

Professor Sand, a scholar of modern France, not Jewish history,

candidly states his aim is to undercut the Jews' claims to the land of Israel

by demonstrating that they do not constitute

"(a people), with a shared racial or biological past.

Consider, for instance, Professor Sand's assertion that

Palestinian Arab villagers are descended from the original Jewish farmers.

Since Professor Sand's mission is to discredit Jews'

historical claims to the territory,

he is keen to show that their ancestry lines

do not lead back to ancient Palestine.

He resurrects a theory first raised by 19th-century historians,

that the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe,

to whom 90 percent of American Jews trace their roots,

are descended from the Khazars,

a Turkic people who apparently converted to Judaism

and created an empire in the Caucasus in the eighth century.

Professor Sand accuses Zionist historians from the 19th century onward

-- the very same scholars on whose work he bases his case --

of hiding the truth and creating a myth of shared roots

to strengthen their nationalist agenda.

He explains that he has uncovered no new information,

but has organized the knowledge in a clarifying way .

any low-crime societies?

11.24: web.pol/any low crime societies?:

low crime recently is a mystery:

. crime is lower than years ago, but is increasing with industrialization .

crime rates by area (and much more):

. very cool site with rich set of views:

click a country to see all the variables per country .

Confucianism

yun, ilhong, American Society of Criminology, 2009-10-26

Confucianism serves as the origin of reintegrative shaming

as well as low crime rates in East Asia, including Japan.

It also shows how Confucianism relates to

communitarianism, interdependence, and social dynamics that affect crime rates.

Finally, it suggests a strong moral education, both formal and informal,

as a potential way to decrease high crime rates in the United States.

lessons from usa-brit independence revolution

11.10: pol/lessons from usa-brit independence revolution:

. I noticed how anti-communism is rooted in

the independence revolution .

. if your subjects could run away,

would they?

during the dawn of America,

britain should have pushed only for

what it really needed:

. the important thing in the european wars

over control of the new world

was that one superpower should not be able to

use america's vast wealth as a weapon against

another superpower .

. they could have achieved that

not by enslaving the colonists

but instead by insuring that no other euro'power

could enslave them either .

. the war on communism could be seen as having this stance:

[11.14:

. dictatorship is slavery,

and communism is the most alien dictatorship,

if we can root out the slavery of dictatorship,

forces of democracy will at least choose to

sacrifice themselves in a fight against

anything that is alien to our own democratic values . ]

communism and capitalism can complement each other

11.10: pol/communism and capitalism can complement each other:

. use plug-in architectures to both insure separation of power

-- a great american value --

and find the most efficient place for capitalists

within a communistic framework;

eg, finding and motivating employees

is always a cutting edge technology;

so make employment agencies a capitalistic module,

but make them open-book servants to

the separate branches of

directorship and quality assurance .

[11.14:

. the way this would differ critically from the current system

is that corporations have privacy rights like people do;

and under a communistic system,

there would be outsiders who both documented

who initiated the fresh productive ideas,

and also watched for

the rot that occurs in dark places . ]

what health plan were nearly half holding out for?

11.8: co.pol/{newspapers}/what plan were nearly half holding out for?:

. it's hopeful to see the House majority could agree on some bill;

but what were nearly half of the them holding out for?

maybe if the planners would start from first principles:

we are paying so much for religiously-mandated charity care;

how can we have gone this long without mandated health insurance ?!

. to make it affordable,

there should be right-to-die plans excluding your choice of conditions:

I do want full coverage for accident recovery;

I do not want treatments for cancer or obesity-related disorders .

. insurance providers would drool at deals like that!

. I was so grateful they compromised on deal-breaking abortion issues,

lets see some more vision like that:

sane first, and democratic only if they're sure they can pull it off .

. see Michael Moore's Sicko movie again .

. republicans make the dem's look like Death panels and Liberals;

ha! weren't they tossed after outraging seniors

by telling them that the cheap Canadian meds were unsafe?

. lets see less regulation of seniors,

and more leashes on pharmaceutical and insurance co's .

Healthcare X PRIZE

11.6: co.pol/Healthcare X PRIZE is to create an optimal health paradigm:

American health care system requires fundamental transformation

to meet the needs of the nation.

An Initial Prize Design for a proposed $10+ Million Healthcare X PRIZE

was announced on April 14, 2009 by the X PRIZE Foundation, WellPoint, Inc.

and the WellPoint Foundation.

This first-of-its kind competition will focus on

reinventing the health care system in a bold, measurable and scientific fashion

to catalyze dramatic improvements in health and health care value

in the United States.

The Grand Challenge for the Healthcare X PRIZE is to create

an optimal health paradigm that empowers and engages individuals and

communities in a way that dramatically improves health value.

The proposed prize is designed to improve health value by more than 50 percent

in a 10,000 person community during a three year trial.

In order to effectively compete for this prize,

teams will need to fundamentally change health financing, care delivery,

and create new incentives that will result in

achieving the required improvements in health value

for both individuals and communities.

finance regulation lessons from Islam

11.6: pol/finance regulation/lessons from islam:

. another muslim-unique rule is no money from lending .

. this could mean that all customers have to pre-pay,

or that all markets should be in stocks not bonds,

where you use your savings to buy co.ownership in a money-maker .

. a usaa fin.mgt and depression historian

pointed out how deflation works:

demand falls off massively in a fin system that borrows a lot;

it involves doing production in huge batches

or for very expensive items .

. mass production can be very cheap

but if the masses don't buy the product

then the business is scrambling to pay for the loan,

because money is rented, so time is money .

. this forces unfair sales prices just to pay off the loan .