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July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 28, 2006 / 7 Kislev, 5767

Space: Our ticket to survival

By Paul Johnson


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Over the last generation the U.S. economy has performed as well as at any other time in its history. Productivity growth is excellent, and vast numbers of highly skilled immigrants are finding jobs in this high-employment environment. America seems on course to reach a population of about 420 million by midcentury, by which time the U.S. economy will have expanded many times.


The flourishing economy is best left alone, and government must be wary of adopting any of the interventionist philosophies currently in vogue. The latest and most fashionable — emanating, of course, from low-growth Europe — is that if the industrialized countries fail to adopt vast state programs to combat the consequences of global warming, the world will be hit with a 1930s-style depression. If we are entering a long period of warmer temperatures — a big if — I believe we should react to this calmly, systematically and on the basis of actual evidence, not theoretical projection.


Individual businesses that have to plan for the future in a hardheaded manner are more likely to get things right than are governments staffed by bureaucrats who have no business expertise or politicians who are competing for headlines. Policies are most likely to be wrong when they emerge from international conferences, at which governments angle for media attention through gestures of compassion and concern.


The Final Frontier


While it is true and salutary that governments should in general leave economics alone, it is, however, right that from time to time they offer leadership and/or encouragement. Currently there are two areas in which such leadership from the U.S. would be prudent. The first is in the push for increased use of nuclear power in preference to other fuels, especially oil, which is volatile in price and entails many political ramifications. I've written about this before: Increasing the use of nuclear energy, along with developing more advanced methods of generating it, are legitimate goals for Washington to pursue.


Space is the second area, the importance of which seems to have faded into the background in recent years. The Bush Administration is well aware of space's importance in military terms and has recently issued new rules governing what it will not permit likely enemies to do there. But I am thinking more in the long term, particularly in regard to large-scale space travel, colonization and commerce. If the human race survives, I have no doubt that it will eventually colonize space. But will working actively and purposefully for such enterprises actually help us to survive? I believe so.


Gloomy Greens argue that unrestrained human activities can, by changing the climate, doom humanity to extinction. But they've yet to prove their case, and it looks increasingly improbable that they ever will. However, large-scale natural disasters — though rare and well spaced out in time — undoubtedly have that power. Such an incident took place about 65 million years ago, when an object about 6 miles across hurtled through Earth's atmosphere and landed in the sea off the coast of Mexico, releasing energy equivalent to billions of A-bombs and a fireball hotter than the sun. After 150 million years of triumphant existence the hardy dinosaurs, unable to withstand the resultant climatic changes, became extinct. The human race would have suffered the same fate had it then existed.


Bill McGuire, professor of geophysical hazards at University College London, has written a book entitled Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction in which he calculates the size of objects big enough, if they struck Earth, to end life as we know it. This book is a good read (though I disagree with the professor about man-made threats). Depending on whether an object hitting us were a fast-moving comet or a slower asteroid, it would need to be about 2.5 miles across to set in motion the process of reducing light and destroying photosynthesis, without both of which Homo sapiens and the other forms of life on our planet could not survive.


Obviously, at this time there's little we can do about such a monstrous threat to our existence, except pray. But in due course — provided we pursue our space efforts resolutely — three progressive forms of action should be possible. We must develop the means to secure the longest possible warning of an approaching object, as well as its likely trajectory and impact zone. We're well on the way to securing this knowledge, but the process could be much accelerated.


With early knowledge our chances of diverting such an object obviously increase. But we also need to acquire and perfect the technology to detonate a nuclear explosion in space that would be sufficiently powerful to alter a huge object's course and send it into unpopulated space. Thanks to America's efforts, our capabilities are heading in this direction, but there is much more to do.


As well as being able to detect and deflect objects, we need to have a workable planetwide evacuation plan. We must stop thinking of space travel as a childish fantasy or a movie or television plot and recognize it as a serious project that may at some point become an absolute necessity. Practical space travel is one answer to all calamitous danger — man-made or natural — and I would like to see Mr. Bush give it serious consideration during the last phase of his presidency. It is the next great adventure for man, as well as his survival ticket.

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Previously:

10/24/06: Envy is bad economics
10/11/06: Better to Borrow or Lend? Rethinking conventional wisdom
08/22/06: Don't practice legal terrorism
08/08/06: A summer rhapsody for a pedal-bike
08/03/06: Why is there no workable philosophy of music?
07/11/06: Historically speaking, energy crisis is America's opportunity
07/06/06: The misleading dimensions of persons and lives
06/06/06: First editions are not gold
05/23/06: A downright ugly man need never despair of attracting women, even pretty ones
04/25/06: Was Washington right about political parties?
04/12/06: Let's Have More Babies!
04/05/06: For the love of trains
03/29/06: Lincoln and the Compensation Culture
03/22/06: Bottle-beauties and the globalised blond beast
03/15/06: Europe's utopian hangover
03/08/06: Kindly write on only one side of the paper
02/28/06: Creators versus critics
02/21/06: The Rhino Principle

© 2006, Paul Johnson

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