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May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: 'Noodles,' Asian style is a carb sub, sure. But they are also amazingly delicious and colorful

April 19, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When violence seems the only answer

Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy

Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Harvard Health Letters: Can you die of a broken heart?

Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds

Nora Schultz: Oxytocin helps beat booze cravings

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: Middle Eastern cuisine meets Italian delicious with this lentil and eggplant pastitsio

April 17, 2013

Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom

Geoffrey Mohan: Can computers decode dreams? Researchers take a first step

Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 heart-healthy eating tips help cut saturated fat but not taste

Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Told your child has sensory processing disorder? Seek a second opinion

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Corn and Curry Add Zing to Chilled Soup

April 15, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Death of Education?

Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral

Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators

Kristin Ohlson : The loneliest fight

The Kosher Gourmet by Dana Velden: A tasty, rich dish that hints at spring's arrival while still anchored in a favorite winter staple


Jewish World Review Dec. 29, 2008 / 2 Teves 5769

Don't believe everything you read

By Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." So wrote Oliver Cromwell in 1650, and the world would be a better place if Cromwell's words were prominently posted over the desk of everyone who works in the pundit racket — those who get paid to tell the world what they think, but too infrequently pause to consider, let alone confess, that they might not always know what they're talking about.


Like weather forecasters and economists, those of us in the commentariat get paid even when we're wrong. If we didn't — well, just think of the political sages who would have been pounding the pavement after asserting confidently that Mitt Romney was sitting pretty in Iowa and New Hampshire, or that Barack Obama had no chance of defeating the Clinton machine. Fortunately, error — even egregious error — isn't usually a hanging offense in this business. Just ask Dick Morris, the Fox News/New York Post commentator, who wrote a book in 2005 called Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race. Or Shelby Steele, the Hoover Institution scholar and frequent op-ed essayist whose latest book, on the Obama phenomenon, was titled A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.


BusinessWeek was chortling recently over a list of what it labeled "truly spectacular" wrong calls about 2008, such as President Bush's soothing analysis of the economy last March ("The market is in the process of correcting itself") and Jim Cramer's response on CNBC's "Mad Money" to a viewer who was thinking of dumping his Bear Stearns stock ("No! No! No! Bear Stearns is fine! Do not take your money out . . . Bear Stearns is not in trouble!").


But not every howler made the BusinessWeek list. For example, it didn't include this elaborate forecast, which proved to be mistaken in every detail:


"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will enter the presidential race in February, after it becomes clear which nominees will get the nod from the major parties. His multiple billions and organization will impress voters — and stun rivals. He'll look like the most viable third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. But Bloomberg will come up short, as he comes in for withering attacks from both Democrats and Republicans. He and Clinton will split more than 50 percent of the votes, but Arizona's maverick senator, John McCain, will end up the country's next President."


That impressive string of blunders was one of "Ten Likely Events in 2008" foretold by — yes — BusinessWeek back on Jan. 2. Anyone can make a bad call, of course, but it generally takes a professional — a paid journalist or expert analyst — to be wrong about something so comprehensively (and publicly).


Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, nicely illustrates the point in the November issue of Commentary magazine. He rounds up the reaction of much of the punditocracy to the 2007 change of strategy in Iraq — the "surge" that led to such remarkable progress in the war. As Wehner shows, one commentator after another expressed not just doubt about the surge, but utter contempt for it.


Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post assured readers that the surge "could only make sense in some parallel universe where pigs fly and fish commute on bicycles." Time's Joe Klein derided it as "Bush's futile pipe dream." Former ambassador Peter Galbraith explained in the New York Review of Books that the surge "has no chance of actually working." And Jonathan Chait announced in the Los Angeles Times that there was "something genuinely bizarre" about anyone who would support the new strategy. "It is not just that they are wrong — being wrong happens to all of us from time to time. It's that they are completely detached from reality."


Do tell. (I was wrong, too. A month before Bush announced the surge, I wrote that his sagging approval ratings would surely revive if only he would "make it clear that he is serious about victory" in Iraq and "will do whatever it takes to achieve it." Two years later, Iraq is in vastly better shape, but Bush's approval numbers are even worse.)


"Think it possible you may be mistaken." My resolution for 2009 is to keep Cromwell's reproach in mind with every column I write. I'm not planning to get anything wrong, but it's been known to happen.


Caveat lector.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.

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