Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka

Looks like Al Gore is just a male version of Gulfstream-liberal" Laurie David; a big fat hypocrite.

Drudge links to press release by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which says that Gore's mansion uses 20 times more electricity than the average house.

Now I don't care if someone lives in a house so large that it needs its own coal-fired power plant. But if you're going to be a energy hog while preaching that global warming is going destroy the planet unless we radically change our lifestyle and cripple our economy, well then I might just get annoyed at the hypocrite.

My latest crusade has been against lying shadchanim. See here, and here. Here are my main thoughts on the matter.

A couple of justifications are generally given for stretching the truth or simply outright lying. The most common one, which I somewhat understand, is that singles have all sort of silly hangups that prevent otherwise fine shidduchim from being set up. Age, weight, height, looks, occupation, everyone has at least one silly hangup (even me), and shadchanim feel free to dance around the edges a bit. Does it really matter if the girl is 5'4 and not 5'6? Does it really matter if the guy is 37 and not 35?

Sometimes it does matter and sometimes it doesn't. But lying isn't the answer. If someone has a hangup, deal with it. Tell the guy that most girls aren't supermodels. Tell the girl that not every guy in the age range she's dating still has a full head of hair. Trust me, it's better that they respect you for speaking the truth and perhaps making a match instead of conning them into a date where they learn the truth when they open the door.

As for the second justification for lying- the "You Never Know/ I Know This One Couple" excuse. It's brought out all the time when a shadchan makes a terrible suggestion, and lies like crazy to get the two people to go out. Somehow, all the lies are justified because the shadchan knows this one couple, who, if they knew the truth about how old each other was/ how short/ how tall/ how short/ etc, they would have never gone out, but they did, and therefore never have ended up happily married with three kids.

I believe, however happy the “This One Couple” is, there is no justification or excuse for lying. The problem with lying is that for every one of these "success" stories, there are hundreds of miserable, miserable dates. And there are repercussions of miserable dates. The weary, lied-to dater gets angry, depressed, annoyed, and it affects you on later dates. Every terrible date takes a little piece out of the disappointed dater. And this particular disappointment could have been completely avoided if the shadchan simply told the truth.

So if any shadchanim are reading this- please, just tell the truth. Tell everyone at your next shidduch meeting. Consider it an easy step in easing the shidduch crisis.

So I went shopping for pants the other day. I browse through the pants in Marshalls, find a couple of pairs in size, pay for them, and go home.

Well I had a bit of a surprise when I tried one pair on when I got home. It seemed a bit tight as I was putting them on, too tight for a size 32, and I know I haven't put on any weight lately. Then I try closing the button. Oddly, it seems to be on the wrong side.

Then the light bulb appeared over my head. I'm wearing women's trousers. That's right, a nice pair of size 12 women's pants.

Somehow they ended up in the men's department, attached to a hangar with 32 on it.

And no, I have no plans on wearing the pants on Purim.

Ok, that's a little to harsh. How about Anthony Weiner is a Democrat?

How else do you explain his reaction to a non-partisan study that showed that New York City is by far the most taxed large city in the U.S.?

From the article:

Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Queens and Brooklyn and ran for mayor in 2005, called the report “a surprise to no one.” He called for imposing hefty surcharges on incomes over $1 million to lessen the tax burden on the poor and middle class.

Newsflash to Weiner: Those who make more than $1 million a year are the kind of people who are most likely to pack up and leave for suburbs if you jack up their taxes. Then you'll be left with less money and will be forced to raise taxes on the poor and middle class. Not smart.

And what does Weiner have anything to do with this issue anyways? He's a Congressman. This is purely a state and local issue. He has no power to do anything here.

Swarm of hornets invade France.

Richard Cohen takes on Mitt Romney, whose views on gays, gun-control, and abortion have "evolved" over the last few years. I'll admit, Romney has been my early favorite for the GOP nomination, but I'm starting to reconsider. The pandering to the Right is just a bit too shameless. And it's a shame because I think that Romney has a lot to offer.

Cohen points out that Romney is a perfect example of what's wrong with our system. Candidates have to run to the Right or Left for the primaries and then swing back towards the center for the election. So we never get to know what a candidate truly believes. Cohen nails it perfectly when he writes:

Why should anyone have to tailor his beliefs to get past ideological bottlenecks in the early primary states? For Republicans, it's the religious right; for Democrats, it's economic pressure groups such as teachers unions. The rest of us can only stand by, helpless, waiting for extremists to pick a man or woman on the basis of issues that mean less to us -- not the war in Iraq, for instance, but gay civil unions.

Ann Coulter and Maureen Dowd take on Barack Huessien Obama.

Coulter:

Most weirdly, he said: "I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this — a certain audacity — to this announcement." What is so audacious about announcing that you're running for president? Any idiot can run for president. Dennis Kucinich is running for president. Until he was imprisoned, Lyndon LaRouche used to run for president constantly. John Kerry ran for president. Today, all you have to do is suggest a date by which U.S. forces in Iraq should surrender, and you're officially a Democratic candidate for president.

Dowd:

He poses for the cover of Men's Vogue and then gets huffy when people don't treat him as Hannah Arendt.

Less than 24 hours into his presidential run, he has made his first mistake. Part of the appeal of Obama is that he is supposed to be a straight shooter, someone who would rise above typical politics. Well, based on what he said on Monday, he's not.

On Sunday, Obama criticized the war in Iraq, saying:

We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.

Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with that statement. I'm not sure why some conservatives got all upset. If you believe that the war was a terrible mistake, and then by extension, it has got to be a waste as well. I don't agree with the statement, but when in comes to Iraq, reasonable minds may differ.

But Obama backtracked from what he he said.

"I was actually upset with myself when I said that, because I never use that term,'' he said. ''Their sacrifices are never wasted. . . . What I meant to say was those sacrifices have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission."

Or as James Taranto put it, this is what Obama meant:

We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans that have not been honored by the same attention to strategy, diplomacy and honesty on the part of civilian leadership that would give them a clear mission.

If Obama had any conviction, he would have stood by what he said. Turns out, he's just another politician. Not a good start.

If only 10% of this article is true, it's still really scary.

A NY Times Op-Ed that I agree with!

While I'm on the topic...

About a month ago, I'm set up with a girl. Everything sounds great on paper. The shadchan says the girl is 5'7, which is fine, because I'm 5'10. I'm not comfortable going out with girls who are taller than me, but it's rarely a problem, as not many Jewish girls are that tall.

Well the girl wasn't 5'7. I'm not a great judger of height, my guess was she was at least 5'11.

Needless to say, I was not exactly pleased. In the end, it wasn't a good date, height problems or not. But even if it was a great date, I probably wouldn't go out again because of the height thing. It makes me very uncomfortable.

Flash forward to the phone call to the shadchan the next day.

When the topic of height was mentioned, here's the shadchan's response.

(Thick Hungarian accent) "I knew she was taller. But you know, if it's bashert.....you know!"

Stuff like this makes my blood boil. More on the lying problem later.

Shadchanim lie all the time. Many will say anything in order to get two people to go out. But plenty of times it backfires- here's a story:

Shadchan calls up boy's mother, asks a few questions about the boy, including his age. Mother replies, "25". Shadchan then says she has a wonderful girl, yada, yada, yada, 20 years old, yada, yada, yada...

Mother quickly interjects, saying that her son really doesn't like going out with girls that much younger than him.

Conversation winds down, mother thanks shadchan for her time, but says that it's probably not going to happen, due to the age difference.

Shadchan then pauses, and then says, "you know, she might be older!", she quickly does some mental calculations, and wooop!, turns out the girl is 22, not 20!

Mother again thanks shadchan and hangs up.

So this sounds like a shadchan lying in order get the two to go out, right? The girl is really 20, not 22, right?

Wrong!

Turns out, the girl is really 22. So why did the shadchan say she was 20? An honest mistake?

Nope. Not a chance.

What probably happened, is that the shadchan, hearing that the guy was 25, figured that he likes going out with younger girls. So she just dropped the girl's age by 2 years. but ooops! Turns out the guy likes girls who are closer to his age. If the shadchan had simply told the truth, it might have been a shidduch. Instead, the shadchan is never going to be trusted again.

So the Republicans in the Senate are blocking a resolution condemning Bush's "surge plan".

Why? For the love of God, why?

It's a meaningless, non-binding resolution. It's not worth the paper it's going to be printed on. It is just a cover for all the Senators who to claim they're doing something about Iraq without actually doing something, and having to take responsibility for it.

Hey, if you oppose the troop surge, then cut off funding. It's that easy. But voting in favor of the resolution, and then voting to pay for it is just pulling a John Kerry in reverse. You were against it before you were in favor it.

While I disagree with pretty much everything Senator Feingold says, I got to give him respect for actually putting his money where his mouth his- he wants to end the war, and he his doing everything he can to actually end it, instead of hiding behind a silly resolution.

Ha'aretz is reporting that the Orthodox Jews of Monsey of trying to prevent Wal-Mart from opening up in their heilige shteeble. One of the reasons given is that they don't want the unwashed, uncircumcised masses coming into their town.

This obviously presents a problem to lefty OthoBloggers like DovBear. On one hand, everything that Wal-Mart does is wrong. On the other hand, everything that the Jews of Monsey do is wrong. Who do you root for?

I'm rooting for Wal-Mart. And it's not because I love Wal-Mart and everything that they stand for. This is a classic example of NIMBY, as anyone who has been to the Wal-Mart in Monticello during the summer knows, Orthodox Jews love to shop at Wal-Mart.

On days like these, I almost feel bad for the smokers. Almost.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Conversation in class today

Professor: “Ms. Doe? Can you tell us about Irving Bank v. Bank of New York.”

Doe: “Umm…I was on call last class”

Professor “Yeah, but we’re still on the same assignment. Sucks, doesn’t it?