I Would Also Like to Congratulate Gaby 'n Fish

On winning the first annual OTI baseball draft last year. You delicious human.

Congratulations Gaby 'n Fish

On winning the second annual OTI baseball draft.
You mamzer.
(Wasn't sure if the english translation would get automatically edited out).

Sending an invitation to Michael Fine & Parents... Or so I thought

From: Mike Fine [mikesfine@gmail.com]

Hi,

Thanks for the lovely invitation to the upcoming marriage of Elana and Eli but I won't be able to make it for the following reasons.

1) The invitation was only to myself and my parents and my wife was upset that she wasn't invited.
2) I am busy that weekend.
3) I have no idea who Elana and Eli are.
4) I think you might have meant to send the invitation to the other Michael Fine in Ottawa. :-)

Thanks for thinking of me and I hope everyone has a wonderful time, mind you my wife and I did think this would have been a great chance to be Wedding Crashers!!!

the other Michael Fine

The Dark Lord's Dictionary

Defenestrate, v. An English word, notable for possessing the lowest ratio of usefulness of denotation to rudeness of sound.

The Dark Lord's Dictionary

Man, n. Person.

The Dark Lord's Dictionary

Paralegals, n. pl. Two legals.

The Dark Lord's Dictionary

Second cousin, n. Someone related to you just closely enough to make it embarrassing that you can't remember whether he's divorced.

The Dark Lord's Dictionary

Periodic, adj. Recurring at regular intervals, as a phase in a cyclical system, or the demise and revival of any of the eating establishments around Yeshiva University.

The Dark Lord's Dictionary

Brainwave, n. The stroke of genius that enables Frank to save himself and Joe, plus one of their girlfriends, after they've been captured by the bad guys. Usually his inspiration derives from his shop teacher at school or from reading his Boy Scout manual or the latest edition of Popular Science.

The Dark Lord's Dictionary

Marooned, p. part. Stranded on a remote island in a Disney adventure flick.

Quote

"It's your uncle's car."

- guy at Hertz, re. Buicks

Quote

"It's like driving a couch."

- guy at Hertz, re. Buicks

Any Suggestions?

I just sat down with a coffee to read today's Ottawa Citizen when I came across this excellent tidbit:

It all started when a donkey at an Algerian market ate the money of a man who came to buy him, making the unfortunate buyer and the owner wonder who the animal belongs to, an Algerian newspaper reported. Al Shuruk al Yawmi, a newspaper published in the northern Algerian town of Tizi Ouzou, said the customer and the seller were traditionally bargaining for price and failed to notice the donkey consuming the stack of banknotes that was meant as payment. Neither the Tizi Ouzou distruct court nor the city court were able to make a ruling that would satisfy both parties, so the case was passed on the Supreme Court.

Isn't there a gemara somewhere like this?

Lubavitch Atheists.

I stumbled on this Facebook group recently. Aside from the catch all complaints about religion, this was somewhat enlightening on the question of Lubavitch attitudes. Here is the group description:

Description:

"If you have been fed the religious lies of; creationism, hell, superstition, the devil, the megalomaniacal celestial dictatorship, sexism, bigotry, the rebbe scam, the moshiach scam, the territorial fight for some decrepit land in the middle east, and - particularly for Lubavitch that zealously keeps the laws of mishnah and gemorroh when they say that you are allowed to - steal from a non-jew (however they do steal from their own tribe as well)... than this group is for you. Basicly, if you believe in morality and in respecting ALL of humanity. Jewish fundamentalists all over want superiority over the world and over all human beings, just as the muslims and christians do. They also want everyone that is not like them to either die or be severly punished for what they see as immorality. We are told that gay people are chayiv misah ("they shall sure die"), that someone that does something as benign as flicking a switch on a certain day of the week, deserves death as well (how in the universe does this possibly affect an omnipotent GOD of all things!?!?), and let's sincerely hope we never find the fictitious nation of 'Amoleik' because than we have the obligation of blatantly murdering them for something their ancestors did (or, in all likely-hood, didn't do). As well, the Bible commands them to kill me, because I am trying to lead them astray from faith ("you must be the one to strike the first blow") as well as for not keeping shabbos. I personally do not feel that I or anyone else on this planet would ever have a legitimate reason to murder or harm anyone. I also find it quite interesting that people are dying to get into a celestial North Korea, where all they get to do all day is praise God (as if doing it in a shul once a week is not tiresome and boring enough), they get to pray to him all day, always, forever!!! Sometimes they are granted the accompaniment of harps and strings! Oh Goody!!! This is exactly what North Koreans have to do but at least with them they have a solution - death. With the believer, death is actually where Gods fun with you REALLY begins, as if all the superstition, religious war and bigotry were not enough of a reward for obeying god. I also sincerely don't and would not want to believe in a Messiah, but if there were one, that would be the worst reality ever! Besides for not having ANY of the pleasures we are granted right now (food, sex, independent thought, democracy, choice) as we will be godly creatures living under the old jewish monarchy, we are also told that we will be thrown back to pre-emmancipation humanity and that ALL non-jews will be our slaves and, if you believe anything, they will be holding on to our tzitzis and obeying our every beck and call (sorry ladies, you're not allowed to actually own anything let alone slaves). Money will grow on trees, although at the same time money won't be needed anymore because of the communist regime we will be running and because we will be so pure, what - with praying to god all day and all the other exciting activities - when will we have time to buy stuff that will be free anyways and be made with slave-labor¡¿?! So, if you want to kill gay people, kill me for only trying to have you question your ridiculous upbringing and for not keeping shabbos, stone your kids in a public square simply for being an adolescent and all the other horrible things religion teaches like that women and animals and non-jews are inferior ("sheloi osani isha - sheloi osani goy" "do not walk between two dogs, two pigs or two women" something lubavitchers still take very seriously), than it's a shame there is no hell for you to go to. This is all before anyone even gets into the fact that there is no evidence for ANYTHING it says in the Bible and 'on contrare' everything has been proven false; the world is round, the earth goes around the sun, we evolved from primitive life forms (yes, its a fact), the universe was created over 13 billions years ago, democracy is better than monarchy and dictatorship, slavery is immoral, racisms is despicable and sexism is SOOO passe, germ theory is what causes deseases - not sins, nature creates catastrophe - sin does not, the jews were NEVER in egypt (I know, I know, you were told that there were egyptian writings about it - there weren't!!!), and a nation the supposed size of the isrealites never travelled through that desert (we can only hope that the story of the Jews coming into Canaan and killing all men, women and children AND cattle - only to leave the virgins alive for some unmentionable and unthinkable reason - is not true. Don't bother thinking about how they figured out which girls were the virgins. Too late, you just thought about it.). People have to start standing up for truth and start educating the people around them, and in the words of the rebbe l'havdil, "un especially dee children...". I live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and as often as possible I encourage youngsters (that usually look quite forlorn, lost, miserable and are usually drug-addicts that at the same time claim their religious convictions - so much for religion making you happy "Oy, a broch" "hashem, till when?" they are looking forward to a miraculously better world - how can they possibly be happy?) to question authority, to educate themselves on the history of the universe and the history of religion itself and to always ask why and demand evidence and reason for anything they are told. At the very least, I would like to ask people to, just as we do not expose children to the tragic truths of the real world (like rape, murder etc...), to stop exposing our children to the traumatic lies of religion like: hell, the devil and eternal damnation in hell-fire for VERY benign acts such as only THINKING bad thoughts or simply watching television on a certain day of the week - using electricity, in any stretch of the imagination, can not possible harm anyone or anything especially something as great as a god would be. And a god would not make such stupid rules when he knows that there are a lot more important issues to deal with on this planet; like the fact that Lubavitchers don't even say good morning to their black neighbors and eventually wondering why people hate them and they derogatorily call other jews 'am oratzim' if they are not religious and call still other jews 'snags' (what ahavas yisroel!!!) and if Lubavitch actually survives in its current trajectory, it will be the only group since Jesus (and maybe Shabtzai Tz'vi) that have some crazy delusion about a messiah rising from the dead and we all know what that leads to: like all religions it leads to trampling, killing, raping, pilaging and the massacre of other 'inferior' faiths and followings."

The Voldie Oldie

"Theme from The American President" (Marc Shaiman, 1995)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"If someone forgets, he can know that the old geezer is doing it for him."

- RBP, re. his doing Eruv Tavshilin for the entire city

G'mar Chatima

tova!

Contest failure?

At a time of the Jewish calendar when blogging should be at a max (Gabyness is close to G-dliness, just change a few letters) what has happened?
Gaby, maybe, since you are after-all a devious (and possibly deviant) genius, you should come up with your genius questions and request answers. We can publish this in some sheilos u'teshuvos sefer to be named by the winner with the best answer....
I just suggest.

Viva los Mets!

Yarrrrr

Avast, ye landlubbers?

The Voldie Oldie

"If I Had a Hammer" (Peter, Paul & Mary, 1962)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"Ah... Sheila"

- GS, in odd voice

My big toe just suffered a major casualty

Half of its nail was unexpectedly lost in a horrific table-leg accident just moments ago.

Shamanic Healing

So here is what you do:

Using your amazing and fabulous talents with sign and/or body language, you indicate to the tribesmen that you need their assistance in ridding this man of the dying death demons that have possessed his human form. After much confusion and hilarity, their leader realizes what it is you want from them and they begin their shamanic rituals - each one mounts his trusty unicycle and begins to ride around the deathly dying man in ever widening concentric circles.

Next on your list of things to use/do to heal this man is the induction of vomiting (that's where the bamaba comes in, duh) into the beige Mounty hat, a rather handy receptacle. Wiping his mouth with that used tissue, you are able to tell the deathly dying man that a forensic report of his vomit (that's where the rusty nails came in) indicate that he is actually merely suffering from acute IBS and he should be fine as soon as he is checked out by Herr Frau Doktor Baron Von Rofelofen.

The Mailbag: Question #1

Oh goodness, this segment sucks. I can't think of anything even remotely clever inducing. Nevertheless, I will continue typing.

Posed to: Maxiebaby & Wife

Question #1: So 'Maxiebaby & Wife' you're basically almost a doctor (or at least half of you is) and let us just say that you should find yourself in a forest with a dying man, this man needs immediate medical attention in the form of an appendectomy or he will unfortunately die a death of dying, and there is no one around to help him but yourself, further to this dire situation are the following circumstances: You only have the following items to assist you in the performance of this appendectomy, a full bag of Bamba, four rusty nails, a used kleenex, a dozen unicycles, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police hat (the beige variety), and several African tribesmen who only speak the language 'Lojban' and remember there are no trees in the forest to assist you in this operation, and don't forget the more of these items you use the better chance the poor man has of surviving this horrible ideal, so please tell us as an almost experienced doctor how would you save this man from dying a death of deadly proportions?

ps: not all questions have to be this lengthy and remember 'Maxiebaby & Wife', you only have 24 hours to respond, otherwise this becomes a free-for-all question and you will have to suffer the extreme embarrassment of letting this man die a death filled with dying.

Not Again

Well, I've been mulling over several ideas for a new ultimate challenge to try and reinvigorate the crowd here and hopefully I'll come up with something remotely fun and even less appropriate but until then I figure I might as well start a new 'feature'.

Some of my features have been fantastical hits (who can forget the "Ultimate Blogger Challenge", or the "Do or Diarrhea Challenge") while others have been less than unpopular (such as the memorable "Investigative Reporter" consisting of three completely uninspired posts and "From the Meaning of Liff" which was initially started to compete against the long-standing popular segment authored by HWMNBN entitled "From the Devil's Dictionary") so basically I start this venture with no expectations whatsoever. Here's the general idea:

I've been rather busy of late and have had very little time to do the important things in life, such as check the depths of my nostrils for particularly nasty boogers and wash my hands after using the men's room, as you can see we are talking about some serious meaning missing from my day-to-day routine. In order to be more "in touch" with the world out there and to find out exactly what happens in the day of a life of a Gaby's Gobbledygook blogger (Jon? the rename? waiting to finish the MBA before you make this important decision?) I've decided to try and start up a segment that will be called "the mailbag". Essentially the way it works is I start by posing a question to a specific blogger and that blogger has 24 hours to respond to the question in a funny, witty, or completely boring manner and then in turn that blogger (the answeree) has the privilage of posing another question to a different specific blogger. So for example I could ask 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 (of course I would never do that seeing as his username is incredibly annoying and he has completely ignored our plea to change it, not to mention the fact that there's a glaringly good chance he won't be visiting this blog anytime in the next 24 hours, basically that was my way of saying don't ask the masquerading bloggers any 'mailbag' questions unless you inform them by email that you'll be doing so...), so where was I.... ah right, so suppose I asked 3.14... the following question: "How would you analyze, in the most mathematically complex manner possible while at the same time in a manner clearly understandable to the average reader, the roast beef sandwich that I'm currently thinking about, and that would be a typical if not standard roast beef sandwich with two slices of pickle, another two slices of tomatoe, and french's mustard smoothly spread on two pieces of Rideau Bakery's finest rye bread?" Yes, I know, it's a convoluted question, but you guys are smart and can probably figure it out, and are probably also aware that that was a horrible example of a potential 'mailbag' question, but it's all I could think of which is a bit of a problem seeing as I'm about to start 'the mailbag' off with the inaugural question.

Oh, and who knows if this will last, but if the blogger that was posed a question doesn't respond within 24 hours, the question becomes a free-for-all and any blogger can respond, oh boy! I can't wait, but first I'm going to take a nap.

The Voldie Oldie

"Losing My Religion" (R.E.M., 1991)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"So let me get this straight. Phil sold his rump for twenty-five million dollars to your father, who's an actor."

- SG, intentionally mangling one of DR's "anecdotes" (The original anecdote was that DR's father had acted on behalf of the Rump family when they sold a landfill to Laidlaw.)

Shanah tovah

umetukah!

From the NY Times
"

11 Arrested in N.J. Corruption Inquiry

By JOHN SULLIVAN

Federal agents used a phony insurance brokerage as part of a sting operation that resulted in the arrests of 11 public officials in New Jersey this morning, including two state assemblymen and the mayor of Passaic.

The officials, arrested in a sweep by F.B.I agents early today were scheduled to appear in federal District Court in Trenton this afternoon to face charges of accepting cash bribes to influence the award of contracts, according to a written statement from the office of Christopher J. Christie, the United States Attorney for New Jersey.

The investigation started in mid-2006 after the F.B.I. received evidence of corruption in contracts issued by the Pleasantville School District, federal prosecutors said. The school district, located just east of Atlantic City, is one of the state’s poorest; in July, a state monitor was appointed to oversee its finances.

Federal agents set up the insurance brokerage and used two cooperating witnesses as well as undercover agents to investigate contracts issued by the district, prosecutors said in the statement.

The investigation is the most recent of a series of corruption probes Mr. Christie and the F.B.I. have conducted across the state. Mayors in several of the state’s largest cities, as well as members of city councils and county boards have been charged in the past few years.

The statement said that several members of the Pleasantville School Board took thousands of dollars in bribes from the cooperating witnesses, and that they referred the undercover agents to public officials in other parts of the state who would also be willing to take the payments.

As the agents followed those leads, the investigation quickly expanded beyond Pleasantville to include officials in Essex and Passaic Counties, in northern New Jersey, prosecutors said. As part of the sweep this morning, federal agents arrested Mayor Samuel Rivera of Passaic; Assemblyman Mims Hackett Jr., a prominent Democrat who is also the mayor of Orange; and Assemblyman Alfred E. Steele, a Democrat from Paterson who is also the Passaic County Undersheriff.

Federal agents also arrested five current or former Pleasantville school board members, two Passaic city council members and the chief of staff to the president of the Newark City Council, prosecutors said.

A series of criminal complaints filed today in District Court by the F.B.I. describes covert meetings in restaurants, cash payments in cars, and officials who bargained for inside access to public contracts.

Passaic Mayor Samuel Rivera is charged in one complaint with taking $5,000 in cash while sitting in a parked car in Passaic. The complaint says he told a confidential witness that he could help him secure insurance contracts for the city of Passaic and the nearby Passaic Valley Water Commission.

“We can get you that, easy, easy,” Mayor Rivera said, according to the complaint.

The officials took bribes ranging from $1,500 to $17,500. In most cases, prosecutors say, they tried to keep in touch with the undercover witnesses in order to continue receiving the bribes.

“Moving forward, I have other friends in other municipalities, and I am all for getting my feet wet as well,” Jonathan Soto, a Passaic city councilman, told a confidential witness, according to a complaint. “I am very appreciative that, you know, you guys have counted me as part of the team.”

Prosecutors said Mr. Soto referred to bribes as “cake” and “green broccoli” in text messages with the witness and accepted $5,000 in cash while sitting in a car in a shopping center parking lot.

Another Passaic councilman, Marcellus Jackson, took $6,000 in cash while sitting in a car in Newark, according to a complaint. The complaint said Mr. Jackson told the confidential witness that he “laid the law” on a city employee to in favor of the witness’s insurance company.

“I appreciate it, baby,” Mr. Jackson said after taking the cash, according to the complaint. “Good things is gonna happen.”

In one case, an official warned the undercover operative to be careful of law enforcement, the complaint says. The official, Keith O. Reid, chief of staff to the president of the Newark City Council, told the witness that “under federal and state law, it is not only illegal to accept cash payments, it is illegal to offer them.”

“That’s the law’s attempt to keep everything above board,” he said, according to the complaint.

1) Someone had to have a great sense of humor to name his kid Chris Christie.
2) Yup, you guessed it, we live in a certain city that starts with "Pa" and ends with "ssaic."

A comment on comments

There are many things that the advance of computer technology has brought us.
For example, we can regularly check as to whether Abe Vigoda is alive or dead (www.abevigoda.com) and get personalized messages from the Rebbe (http://igrot.com).
However how come this website says that there is "1 Comments" to a post!
Couldn't someone program this blog to show "1 Comment" instead of "1 Comments?" Am I asking too much here?
And now, I am done.

Ephraim Stulberg on Ki Tavo, 5767: Two Rabbinic Views on the Contemporary Relevance of the Tokhaha

Students of religious historiography are no doubt familiar with the manner in which Doomsday prophecies, such as the infamous tokheha found in P' Ki Savo, have been interpreted and reinterpreted to refer to contemporary times. When I was in high school (I think) I was introduced to the meta-historical scheme of Jewish history espoused by the Meshekh Hokhma in his comments on P' Behuqosai. R' Meir Simha posits a cycle of Jewish migration consisting of a) poverty and a decline in religious standards; b) a gradual increase in Torah observance; c) a decadent generation which seeks to "improve" on traditional Jewish practice and comes to reject Israelite particularism in a bid to become identified with the host nation, to the belief that "Berlin has become Jerusalem"; d) persecution and exile. This not-too-oblique critique of the increasingly Western orientation of large parts of Polish-Russian Jewry, written well in advance of the Holocaust, was taken as being quasi-prophetic.

I wish to contrast the bleak prescience of R' Meir Simha with the comments of Ramban on this week's parasha. Ramban relates the Tokhaha to the destruction of the Second Temple; as for his own times, he is much more optimistic. "However, after our exile to the lands of our enemies we have not been cursed: neither our handiwork, nor our livestock, neither our vineyards nor our olive trees nor all that we have planted. Rather, in our land we are just like all the other nations who live there, if not better off, for [God's] mercy is upon us, for our dwelling in exile is premised on the guarantee that 'even in their dwelling in the lands of their enemies' (Lev. 26:44)". This was obviously written before Ramban was forced to leave Spain following his disputation with Pablo Christiani in 1263; yet it is striking that the passage remained in the final version of the Commentary.

The Voldie Oldie

"Bamboo" (Peter, Paul and Mary, 1962)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"It's always a round shape, usually."

- MD

I was in Montréal last week and I wasn't able to get tickets to my favorite baseball team!? I looked everywhere?! What the heck!?