Let's be rid of the best gentleman's club in London

 I think the house of Lords will end up being in the dustbin of history ,not just in their attempts to derail Brexit - which will get many conservatives on-board, but also if labour win.

The Lordships are likely to frustrate Corbyn's agenda as well, given that they're setting precedent in Brexit ,there is enough of the soft left and liberal left along with conservative peers to delay legislation of what will be a hard core socialist government.  Plus if you can ignore 17 million votes of a national referendum , you can ignore the much smaller amount of votes any Corbyn would get. I think at that stage there would be a constitutional crisis or more accurately a consensus to abolish the house.  

And why not?  Ever since Tony Blair vandalised  it, the house, by getting rid of most of the hereditary Peers ,  has become nothing but a revolving door for career politicians and patronage for party leaders. Let's get rid of it and replace it with something else as it is so sickeningly corrupt it's time to go.

Essays

A list of essays or interesting posts written by us (updated every so often):

Jewish and Gay- a look at this controversial subject from our point of view

Judaism and Christianity - Coming soon

Am I Sephardi or an Orthodox Jew - Coming soon

Am I an Orthodox Jew still? -Coming soon

Home Office: Kafkaesque run mad

Hi All,

In respect of the Windrush Scandal.

I think Rudd and May should resign for this disgrace, it was on their watch and especially May's rule of the home office. I also think that Labour and the Guardian are using this scandal for their own agenda, i.e.  promotion of unlimited mass immigration without any limits or conditions . 

Instead this should be seen as a matter of justice for the individuals concerned, who were of course here perfectly legally- this could easily have been my grandparents - but were easy prey for a target driven and Kafkaesque home office. 

If you've ever had to deal with either, you will quickly discover that both the Home Office and the DWP are the epitome of a Byzantine &  Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

Wild in the aisles

Hi All,

Another cool song , in remembrance of Dale Winton, the classic entertainer and wonderfully camp guy from the 90s and naughties. He was Jewish, gay , suffered from depression  and suffered from many tragedies during his life.. he still entertained and  we will miss him & support all those who suffer with depression &  mental illnesses  .

British Grenadiers

Hi All,

Cool song:

The Friday feeling

Hi All,

Open thread as usual.

Shabbat Shalom!

On Christian Passover Seder

Hi All,

Incidentally the meaning of the word seder is order , so it’s akin to an order of service , like you have in Anglican church. In which there are several versions of the book of common prayer. I doubt you’d have a whole page dedicated to prayers for britain, parliament and the royal family in an American Anglican service book.

There’s more modern liturgy books not in Shakespearean language , so too are there multiple versions of the Passover Seder; even the symbolic food vary from Ashkenazi to Sephardic households and whether rice and beans can be eaten . Plus there’s sometimes different traditions within communities. Moroccan Seder have traditional things that would be different to an Ashkenazi Seder (e.g. at the start , the Seder plate is held over each guest and a blessing said , the recitation of the ten plagues is done differently).

I”d suggest that Jesus did do a Seder, there was bread, wine and a meal after all, but maybe it was from an oral tradition (they got written down after the destruction of the Temple) or a different, but close version. But then this wasn’t the point was it ? Reading the gospels , Jesus tells his disciples that the bread and wine are his body and blood, thus changing the dynamic of whatever of Seder was to him and them. But clearly it wasn’t, for Christians, going to be a festival recalling the exodus from Egypt. Instead it becomes the mass/ holy communion/ lords supper in a public place of worship .

Passover Seder are- as with a lot of Judaism – traditionally done within the home, rather than “public ” acts in the synagogue and the thing is Christian Seder aren’t going to be anything like Jewish ones because the focus and emphasis is shifted from the God/Jewish people/ exodus story to Jesus and his death / resurrection etc . So I’m not objectionable, just more baffled at the intent of a Christian Passover Seder.

I think if Christians want to celebrate or understand Passover in the original context or an ecumenical context , they’re better off actually being invited to a Passover Seder in a Jewish home. As my partner is Ashkenazi and I’m Sephardi, we do different Seders on the first and second day of Passover.

The problem with...

Hi All,

The problem with today's  political , social and religious discourse is that it is besieged by people who  base their view and their view of others  upon absolutist assumption of what they think and what they think  the  other thinks  and a absolutism  into any and every sphere that makes everything tribal, whether it's something mundane or something vitally important .

For example in respect to politics I voted for Brexit. This in a British context puts me , in the eyes of the" liberal left" ,  before I'm even explaining my view point , as automatic racist, xenophobic,  uneducated, easily deceived, poor , but even worse , hypocritical (as my grandparents were immigrants ,although  I never based my Brexit vote on immigration) , a sort of  creature from the blue lagoon,   on a par with Genghis Khan. As a collary to this and in an  American context  , I'm  automatically and magically assumed to be  a "Trump supporter" (of which I'm not).

In addition , there's an underlying assumption based upon an archetype of a person with a particular view , which morphs into further assumptions about my other political / social  views. 

If one identities as left or right , you  must be further  "yoked"    to the entirety of the package, which has been decided by someone else for you. Having an independent or otherwise view isn't having the capacity to make your own mind up but an insincere  "cherry picking" person who isn't a true believer . If you agree with Trump on just one policy you are a "neo Nazi". If you agree with democrats on one policy you are a "lib tard"

In respect of my absolutism  comment, I mean that  you cannot seem to escape politics  or at least the worst kind of poisonous politics that goes beyond policy or philosophy into something primordial and tribe like. It drips like fat on a bbq onto non political forums.

So if I want to chill and take time out from politics and discuss my favourite pastime of science fiction ; true, it  does cover a certain amount of politics and social commentary, but in which cleverly done sci-fi, will allow the reader to make their minds up . But instead we get a social-  politics discussion by proxy. So instead of discussion on whether or not star wars is any good , it's replaced by mountains of rantings about "SJWs" and "political correctness", which then is countered by accusations of bigotry, sexism," you're obviously a Trump /Brexit supporter".  That's before I log onto a Dr Who forum and its all about the fact the character has changed into a woman and not about the quality of the  plot or acting.

This is probably why I don't bother with a lot of forums. 

Prayers for Israel

Hi all,

On this blog we are unashamedly Zionist and pro -Israel Jews. So herein is a Prayer for Israel.

Our Father in Heaven, rock and redeemer of Israel;Bless the state of Israel, the first fruits and approach of our redemption.

Shield Israel with your loving kindness, envelope her in your peace and bestow your light and truth upon her leaders, Rabbis and advisers: Grace them with your good counsel.

Strengthen those who defend our holy land , grant them deliverance and adorn them in the mantle of victory. 

Ordain peace in the land and grant eternal happiness and lead us, swiftly , to your city of Zion and to Jerusalem , the abode of your Holy name. Bring all the lost sheep of Israel back to the fold of our people.

For as it is written in Your Holy Torah, written down by your servant and our teacher Moses :

"The L-rd thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the L-rd thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And the L-rd thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers." [Deuteronomy 30].

Draw our hearts together to worship and praise you alone and to observe and remember the precepts of your Holy Torah and to look for the day when you  send the son of David , the Messiah.

May we be the light to the world and may the world affirm that the Lord is One and that the Lord , the creator , the God of Israel is the only Lord , king and His dominion is absolute.

Amen and forevermore

Plus a well cool song I've snuck in 

George's day

Time to slay the Dragon..... &  congratulations to the Duke and Duchess over today's birth. What will he be called?

It MUST be a woman or not

As usual a guardian article explains exactly why I cannot be a third wave feminist /  frothing at the mouth social justice warrior.

The idea that a woman (above a man) should  be chosen to land first on Mars just because she's a woman is exactly the kind of argument women have in the past said about chauvinistic thought. In short , women having equality is not and should not be about putting men down, overlooking them or hating them. In fact real and genuine equality doesn't work in that way and preferably should be merit based.  If the best captain or leader for a one way ticket to mars is a woman so be it. But that decision shouldn't be based on political decisions over gender discrimination / equality.

If Martians exist, I really doubt they'd care about the gender of an alien setting foot on their planet. But in the SJW , one could imagine them bullying everyone else into asking them to leave  , should aliens land on earth and  have an all white, cis gendered male crew.

Dystopian future?

Hi All,

Thought from bro Sam

" As you are looking for some inspiration re sci fi
 Maybe the Pet shop boys  might help and were were onto something with this utterly ridiculous song - an anthem for a futuristic one world government!

Okay there's also the parody  version , hope this is helpful!"

Hmmm ....?

Its POETS day!

Hi All,

Open thread as usual. I hope you all get to enjoy this nice sunny day!

Shabbat Shalom!

Israel at 70

Hi All,

Last night and today is Israel's  celebration of 70 years as a nation state.  Cool eh?

Powerful speeches

Hi All,

I have been watching the Parliamentary debate on antisemitism and I have chosen two speeches for this post.  I would add words, but to my mind they say more than I could in a dignified way :

Picard voting remain: shocker!

Hi All,

Patrick Stewart musing that his character Jean Luc Picard would have voted remain (forget that the character was French and therefore wouldn't have had a vote)

But should anyone familiar with star trek be surprised? 

You see star trek from the TNG onward is leftist through and through, like the Feds as a post scarcity socialist utopia . They don't have money or cling to wealth / assets/ investment portfolios : Picard says so . Everything's done for the * good* of society, i.e. [ in the show's internal logic ]the government or Starfleet / Federation.

Picard was a Starfleet Captain of the United Federation of Planets :a government and society which praises inter racial, multi species, multicultural beliefs and cooperation, but with a Starfleet that was uniform enough to keep the whole thing together . A paradox we can explore later, but suffice to say that if you just read the Soviet constitution and talked to the upper strata of Soviet society you would think that Soviet society and therefore socialism had produced both  a duty bound polity where everything was undertaken for a "higher purpose", which had achieved a   liberal and  utopian state.

You would only find something different by actually going outside the bubble /datchas / elite / military to see the food lines and rationing of what the west thought of as basic necessities,such as indoor toilets , toilet paper and yes food. In the star trek parallel, we only see and hear of this utopia by the elites of Earth and Federation, not how the average citizen coped.  

Incidentally the same happens with the Klingons, where we only see their warrior - nobility , which is the top of what is in effect a feudal society which happens to somehow have existed for hundreds of years and can master faster than light warp drive.  You never see, say, a,camp Klingon hairdresser.

A one world government of Earth was a member  planet in this Federation alongside other aliens. So logically captain Picard would support a supra national state , as that is exactly what he does do in the show, except on a galactic scale.

As Picard himself explains that the federation is a form of collectivist socialism:

The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity

P.S. earth did seem to dominate Starfleet and therefore the federation. One thinks of Russia in the Soviet Union.

P.S. 2 , I'm not advocating  that this is a good or bad thing, just that if it looks like a duck....

P.S. 3,  apparently we do see earth in Deep Space 9 and the TNG, both showing people owning businesses or property. In the DS9 one there is a coup attempted by Starfleet. And interestingly there's no riots with soldiers on the streets and taking compulsory blood samples (for plot reasons) , so it shows the population is docile and unperturbed by the coup, in other words people are used to powerful government without challenging it. The only character who does is captain Sisko's father, who is clearly old enough to have been of the Captain Kirk style Trek , thus of a different generation.  This makes me think, was there some kind of shift leftward- why-  between 2293  and2374?

The businesses are captain Sisko's father's restaurant and the second example is Picard's Chateaux and vineyard . All I will say is that there's a difference between possession of something (e.g. a form of rent on a government  council house)  and property rights (ownership , yours to sell for profit or loss) . Second , even some socialist societies do allow for small or micro businesses to be operated without state ownership, albeit with hefty regulations.

Open thread

Hi All,

Open thread as usual.

Shabbat Shalom!

Calling all crazies

Hi All,

Calling all crazies : of  course everything is a "Zionist"  conspiracy. Like even Elvis is really alive still. His death was just a "false flag"  by us lot. Must dash. Off to the bidergerberg group, supper with the council of foreign relations , shed my shape shifting reptile skin etc. Etc.

P.S. here's the irrefutable proof Elvis is alive :

What are we doing?

Hi All,

Wars. And Rumours of wars. 

Whatever you think about Syria, I wish in one sense those who will make the decisions would be in the front line. In the ancient times , Emperors,  Kings and Queens, would lead their feudal  nobility and common soldiers on the battlefield.  Even in world war one , the junior officers - mostly upper class aristocracy suffered a greater per capita loss rate , as they were * trained* to lead from the front. In the second world war and later wars , the politicians had at least had a taste of war in their youth or had experience of some form of warfare , whether on the home front or battlefield. Somehow I can't see May on a white horse boudicca like. Or Trump doing an Andrew Jackson.

Today there's the generation of western politicians , from Blair, Clinton , Bush onward , who get warfare either from Hollywood or the idea it will be always like gulf war 1 :  i.e. quickly done,massive victory without external challenge or civilian casualties. Unfortunately those wars were very much like the German wars or unification or the  colonial wars of the 19th century.  Now it's all different. If anyone thinks bombing Syria , who has  Russian support and more importantly anti aircraft batteries,  is going to be easy or short or a quick win and not have the potential to escalate into a larger  bloodletting conflict, then they need to check their sanity.

In Britain's case I think we are insane. The fact is this government has slashed the defence forces to a crippling degree and the cuts continue. Why then are we seeing government ministers salivating & doing the best Churchill impressions, at the prospect of entering a war with the defence forces at their weakest , since at least the 1930s? 

Yes we've got this big carrier. But the aircraft that are supposed to be on them?  The sufficient number of  anti submarine, anti aircraft destroyers?  The landing platforms, that are being flogged off?  The soldiers?  Have we ever gone into a conflict with such a contrast between whatever politicians say and what they've done to the very force that's supposed to execute those grandiose objectives? 

Furthermore we have to ask ourselves is what I call   Tony Blair's "liberal imperialism"  an appropriate strategy for a multi polar world?  Who ,exactly, appointed the west to be - an incredibly inconsistent( to wit Africa, Burma etc)  - cop, judge , jury and executioner for the world? 

And herein lies the problem. No-one really knows what it is we are fighting and what we are fighting for and how this ends . In other wars that's been clear. 

But this one?  

Can people tell me?

Bloom speaking sense

Hi All,

Following the arrest of an elderly man, who killed a criminal- in self defence -  who was trying to rob his house , it has yet again raised the question :  what do the police do?  It seems not catching criminals and too busy acting as thought police for one line hate crimes.  Maybe.  But . If you ask me people do have a right of self defence when confronted by thugs, criminals and burglars.  And Godrey "bongo bongo land" Bloom MEP agrees (reminds me of my great uncle Henry when he was alive and my great uncle Yitzhak who's still with us ):

Tally ho!

What would you do?

Hi All,

The Galactic Confederation provided itself on having escaped the blight and evils of capitalism. It wasn't exactly a socialist state, more like somewhere between California and France. The state controlled vast swathes of industry and people had automatic right to free houses, food, healthcare and subsidised public transport.  There was officially  no wealth accumulation  as such, given that this was an ultra capitalist concept and thus there was no money. Instead the 'money' or currency of the state was in the Merit of 100 Credits.  Everyone got a basic amount of allocated Credits as pocket money, with Merits being allocated along the lines of merit to society (as decided by the government). Thus government employees from doctors to teachers and starship captains to professors were given Merits according to government fiat and supposed worth.  These merits and credits were used as units of account and a means of exchange for goods and services that were not included in the automatic rights, albeit the government had outlawed inflation and officially controlled prices.  In reality this simply meant that some products, especially imported ones,  were not available to most people, except on the black market at inflated cost. 

Externally the Confederation, without a  monetary or convertible currency, controlled the import/export trade &  used barter, hard currencies that other powers would use, precious metals or liquids and equivalent exchange of products (e.g. Vodka and Mullary Wine).  Even so and despite its best efforts to clamp down , impose bureaucratic and other obstacles to what the government civil servants  thought were unnecessary imports , the trade balance was frequently in the red and therefore the government was forced to borrow, but not from its own citizens who didn't possess any hard currency, but from outside banks and other governments.  The largest imports was the materials used in energy consumption and primary metals and materials that could not be replicated.  This was confusing to outside observes as the Confederation was a resource and energy rich state and was constantly expanding to include new members, but in order to maintain the huge welfare state at home and provide what the government thought was necessary for the defences for its equally  huge, scattered & expanding realm, required more resources than the state could produce.

The Confederation analysts  had the following options to avoid almost certain bankrupting themselves  and the response to each is given by the President's National Security Adviser :

1. Cut the welfare state and reform itself into a capitalist state . Impossible because that's the whole point of our self proclaimed utopia in which we smugly state that we've 'evolved' from the chaos and greed of capitalism to better ourselves and the universe .Oh and the plebs might revolt if we take away what they consider to be basic rights.

2. Cut the military budget. Impossible. We've been at war with almost half the warp capable  civilisations- the pre warp ones are always left to die as per our primary social Darwinian  directive-  we've encountered and they hate us now. We're in a cold war with the three other major powers. We can't cut it or even freeze it.

3. Cut both of the above in a equal fashion and try and muddle through. No good. See one and two above.

4. Keep going on until it reaches a crisis point and hope something will turn up. Which will make things ten times as bad when it happens.

5.  Launch a pre-emptive strike at one of the lesser powers and get their resources, to kick this problem can down the road. But we're not supposed to do that. Our space fleet is supposed to be a peaceful, exploring , diplomatic affair. The weapons we put on our ships, despite being able to destroy a planet's surface , are simply there for self defence. We're to boldly go etc...

6. Continue exploring and hope we meet a richer nation and get them to bail us out. Worked for the Greeks in the EU... didn't it?

Which option, though, will they decide upon?

Money and rationing

Hi All,

What is money?

Often people get confused about it. Some see it as the personification of all that's wrong with the universe. It creates a love of wealth, a skewing of resources to the many and not the few and that leads to greed. Greed leads to people suffering . Suffering is bad. Therefore money is bad and has not function in a modern, progressive, space faring society, wherein replicators can provide for free housing, healthcare, food and transport.

Except that is not what money is about .Money in its purist form , is not about wealth creation or greed. They may well be by-products of money, but they are not money itself. Money is in fact like a  three leafed clover. It is a unit of exchange, a unit of account and finally a store of value. You cannot have one without the other and should they be decoupled from one another, society and the economy quickly suffer, however advanced the technology underpinning the society.

You see without a unit of exchange , people would be forced to barter,  which creates inconvenience and no universally agreed way of  exchanging product a for product c ,  or  first having product b or d, which you might not have, but would need to obtain somehow. 

Without a unit of account, you simply don't know whether a tractor equals a chicken or 10,000 chickens .

Without a store of value, neither the industrialist  or farmer will exchange goods or services with money.  

Ah but in a post scarcity society, where one can replicate food and housing, we won't need money. We can , like Ben Bernake, simply created this stuff out of thin air for free.  While this ignores trade in services and like most socialist ideas concentrates on output of goods, rather than consumption of goods , even production by replication isn't free. It still requires an energy source and there's no such thing as an unlimited energy source.  Ergo there will be a need for a mechanism to distribute or decide what the cost of this apparent free stuff actually should be.  More on that down below.

The one thing that is unlimited is human wants and desires. In economics scarcity is defined as trying to match the limited resources of our planet, with the  unlimited desires of humanity. There is also a psychological element to this, if you've ever been lucky enough to get a pay rise, most of us will then live up to this new income and eventually not feel any different to the pre- pay rise situation.

We don't actually feel any richer as we are consuming more.  Or put it another way. A millionaire of 1870 would have less 'stuff' available to him than today's average middle class. No tv, internet, dvd player:  jetting off on cheap flights to parts unknown , as travel was done by boat and could be dangerous,  let alone the chances of surviving even routine surgery or living to 90, rather than 60. While on paper the millionaire of 1870 was a millionaire , he is actually quite materially and health wise actually poorer than today's middle class.  Yet today's middle class would not and do not consider themselves to be millionaires.

So even if we are able to replicate enough food for everyone  that's great. And if we could replicate enough so that everyone on the planet is up to a western civilisation them that's great. But people would still talk about poverty - which is always relative as my example above shows - and that's even when everyone is enjoying gourmet food, caviar and driving a Rolls Royce,  why? Because then people will consider this to be normal and a basic standard of living.  People will want to be looking at the chaps who are flying around in space ships or who have some other, more local, type of future luxury or high.

Therefore even in the future we will need money as a unit of exchange , a unit of account and as a store of value . True this is in effect a form of rationing, but maybe a way of rationing 'luxuries' of the time. Just as in 1870, money rationed what was considered luxury and today money rations luxuries ( not everyone can own Chelsea FC , a Rolls Royce or an indoor swimming pool) , but people are generally better off than millionaire in the 1800s.

You can of course suggest that the government could simply provide for a unit of exchange and a unit of account and use this to control the economy. Except we know from past experience of socialist states, that government is inefficient at controlling a command economy. It is easy to input how many goods are to be produced. It is not easy to force people to consume them or even predict if people will want them.  Even if the government was efficient, say by AI, then it will still be distributing and therefore rationing resources to people.  The difference is everyone has a say in distribution and rationing of resource in a capitalist monetary system.  With a government in charge of this distribution you are leaving it to those with the those who have the power to influence, corrupt , bully and lobby for whatever pet project or benefit they want.

Which system is better?