Happy Birthday

"i like that"

Just testing....

Yep, still works!!

It's Pinky and the BRAIN....

Papa Roach - Scars

http://youtu.be/rORPLLZzIwA

Roy Orbison

In the Real World http://youtu.be/pb8n6_om6rI

Only the Lonely http://youtu.be/kjq4wYuwgxs

In Dreams http://youtu.be/zbxsmcT7GOk

Crying http://youtu.be/ls2lC7DQFMI


Hurt - Cash

http://youtu.be/o22eIJDtKho


Save the Last Dance for Me - Drifters

http://youtu.be/o7upKCWxMQU

read about Doc Pomus writing it here..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_the_Last_Dance_for_Me

In the song, the narrator tells his lover she is free to mingle and socialize throughout the evening, but to make sure to save him the dance at the end of the night. During an interview on Elvis Costello's show Spectacle, Lou Reed, who worked with Pomus, said the song was written on the day of Pomus' wedding while the wheelchair-bound groom watched his bride dancing with their guests. Pomus had polio and at times used crutches to get around.[4] His wife, Willi Burke, however, was a Broadway actress and dancer. The song gives his perspective of telling his wife to have fun dancing, but reminds her who will be taking her home and "in whose arms you're gonna be."[5]

Military Tribute to this Thread!

http://youtu.be/wdtUWXivlZo

The Restroom Door said "Gentlemen" - Bob Rivers

http://youtu.be/n22-Xk4MTEc

Iran sends elite troops to aid Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria

By Con Coughlin, Defence Editor
8:59PM BST 06 Sep 2012

Iran is intensifying its support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad by sending 150 senior Revolutionary Guards commanders to Syria to help repel opposition attempts to overthrow the government.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9526858/Iran-sends-elite-troops-to-aid-Bashar-al-Assad-regime-in-Syria.html

Western intelligence officials say that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has personally sanctioned the dispatch of the experienced officers to ensure that the Assad regime, Iran's most important regional ally, survives the threat to its survival.

In addition, Iran has shipped hundreds of tons of military equipment, including guns, rockets, and shells, to Syria through the regular air corridor that has been established between Damascus and Tehran.

Intelligence officials believe the increased Iranian support has been responsible for the growing effectiveness of the Assad regime's tactics in forcing anti-government rebel groups on the defensive.

In the past few weeks, pro-Assad forces have seized the offensive by launching a series of well-coordinated attacks against rebel strongholds in Damascus and Aleppo.

The Iranian operation to support Mr Assad is being masterminded by Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Guards' Quds force which is responsible for overseeing Iran's overseas operations. The decision to increase Iran's support for Syria was taken after the Syrian defence minister and Assad's brother-in-law were killed in a suicide bomb attack at Syria's national security headquarters in July, together with a number of other senior defence officials.



Syrian government forces take position with a tank in the Saif al-Dawla district of Aleppo Photo: AFP

Whoops!

Should have read:




Since Iran brutally represses their own population with hijab
police, apostasy charges, severe punishment for criticizing the
Iranian radical Islamic theocracy etc...Since Iran has a well
documented history of being one of the worlds worst sponsors of
terrorism war crimes....I figured that those references would
justify to show how Iran has perverted Islam.

Iran's abuse towards women is just one obvious example which shows
how silly is is to suggest that there is no perversion of Islam or
repression in Iran as you suggest.



Here is some more commentary about radical Islam and official support of
terrorist activities by Iran which I contend are a perversion of
Islam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state_terrorism

Since the declaration of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the government of Iran has been accused by members of the international community of funding, providing equipment, weapons, training and giving sanctuary to terrorists.[1]

The United States State Department describes Iran as an “active state sponsor of terrorism.”[2] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice elaborated stating, “Iran has been the country that has been in many ways a kind of central banker for terrorism in important regions like Lebanon through Hezbollah in the Middle East, in the Palestinian Territories, and we have deep concerns about what Iran is doing in the south of Iraq.”[1]

See also testimony before Congress on the subject:

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/testimony/LevittTestimony20120725.pdf

also the list of Iranian terrorist activities cited by the
Council on Foreign Relations

http://www.cfr.org/iran/state-sponsors-iran/p9362#p2

The U.S. government first listed Iran as a terrorist sponsor in January 1984. Among Iran's alleged activities have been the following:

- Observers say Iran had prior knowledge of Hezbollah attacks, such as the 1988 kidnapping and murder of Colonel William Higgins, a U.S. Marine involved in a UN observer mission in Lebanon, and the 1992 and 1994 bombings of Jewish cultural institutions in Argentina.

- Iran still has a price on the head of the Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie for what Iranian leaders call blasphemous writings about Islam in his 1989 novel The Satanic Verses.

- U.S. officials say Iran supported the group behind the 1996 truck bombing of Khobar Towers, a U.S. military residence in Saudi Arabia, which killed nineteen U.S. servicemen.

- Military officials say numerous attacks since 2001 on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and coalition forces in Iraq, have been attributed to Iranian-made weapons.

- A set of classified documents leaked by the website WikiLeaks.org in July 2010 reports extensive collaboration between Iran and the Taliban, Afghan warlords, and al-Qaeda, but all the claims have not been corroborated (Guardian).

- Iran has also been blamed for attacks in Balochistan in Pakistan.

- In April 2011, the United States and the European Union accused the Quds Force of providing equipment and support to help the Syrian regime suppress revolts in Syria.

- In October 2011, Washington accused the Quds Force of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador (NYT) to the United States, and plotting to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina.

Actually, the taking of life according to Jewish law is apparently
completely unjustifiable except in the case of self-defense and
capital punishment for murder. Even in the case of murder, Jewish
courts ruled long ago that since there is a possibility of error
that the error would be so serious that capital punishment was
made to be essentially prohibited.

From the Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_corporal_punishment_in_Judaism#Contemporary_attitudes_towards_capital_punishment

Contemporary attitudes towards capital punishment

Leading rabbis in Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and Orthodox Judaism tend to hold that the death penalty is a correct and just punishment in theory, but they hold that it should not generally be used (or not used at all) in practice. In practice the application of such a punishment can only be carried out by humans whose system of justice is nearly perfect, a situation which has not existed for some time or never existed at all.

Rabbinical courts have given up the ability to inflict any kind of physical punishment, and such punishments are left to the civil court system to administer. But the modern institution of the death penalty is opposed by the major rabbinical organizations of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism
Reform Judaism

Since 1959, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) and the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) have formally opposed the death penalty. The CCAR resolved in 1979 that "both in concept and in practice, Jewish tradition found capital punishment repugnant" and there is no persuasive evidence "that capital punishment serves as a deterrent to crime."[3]
Conservative Judaism

In Conservative Judaism the death penalty was the subject of a responsum by its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which has gone on record as opposing the modern institution of the death penalty:

The Talmud ruled out the admissibility of circumstantial evidence in cases which involved a capital crime. Two witnesses were required to testify that they saw the action with their own eyes. A man could not be found guilty of a capital crime through his own confession or through the testimony of immediate members of his family. The rabbis demanded a condition of cool premeditation in the act of crime before they would sanction the death penalty; the specific test on which they insisted was that the criminal be warned prior to the crime, and that the criminal indicate by responding to the warning, that he is fully aware of his deed, but that he is determined to go through with it. In effect this did away with the application of the death penalty. The rabbis were aware of this, and they declared openly that they found capital punishment repugnant to them… There is another reason which argues for the abolition of capital punishment. It is the fact of human fallibility. Too often we learn of people who were convicted of crimes and only later are new facts uncovered by which their innocence is established. The doors of the jail can be opened, in such cases we can partially undo the injustice. But the dead cannot be brought back to life again. We regard all forms of capital punishment as barbaric and obsolete.
—Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, Statement on capital punishment, 1960. Proceedings of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards 1927-1970, Volume III, pp. 1537-1538

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Rabbi Yosef Edelstein writes:

So, at least theoretically, the Torah can be said to be pro-capital punishment. It is not morally wrong, in absolute terms, to put a murderer to death… However, things look rather different when we turn our attention to the practical realization of this seemingly harsh legislation. You may be aware that it was exceedingly difficult, in practice, to carry out the death penalty in Jewish society... I think it's clear that with regard to Jewish jurisprudence, the capital punishment outlined by the Written and Oral Torah, and as carried out by the greatest Sages from among our people (who were paragons of humility and humanity and not just scholarship, needless to say), did not remotely resemble the death penalty in modern America (or Texas). In theory, capital punishment is kosher; it's morally right, in the Torah's eyes. But we have seen that there was great concern—expressed both in the legislation of the Torah, and in the sentiments of some of our great Sages — regarding its practical implementation. It was carried out in ancient Israel, but only with great difficulty. Once in seven years; not 135 in five and a half.
—Rabbi Yosef Edelstein, Director of the Savannah Kollel

Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes:

In practice, however, these punishments were almost never invoked, and existed mainly as a deterrent and to indicate the seriousness of the sins for which they were prescribed. The rules of evidence and other safeguards that the Torah provides to protect the accused made it all but impossible to actually invoke these penalties… the system of judicial punishments could become brutal and barbaric unless administered in an atmosphere of the highest morality and piety. When these standards declined among the Jewish people, the Sanhedrin… voluntarily abolished this system of penalties.
—(Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Handbook of Jewish Thought, Volume II, pp. 170-71






Your bias is obvious. You take extreme examples like bible stories
and attempt to define Jewish law without regard for the fact that
Jews do not believe in a literal interpretation of the bible but
have already interpreted these stories as parables and not in a
literal sense. Instead of researching it as far as the Wiki article
which I cited above, instead bible stories are presented in an
overt attempt to smear the religion. That is bias.



Just showing that many Muslim scholars excoriate terrorist activities. There are many more instances where Muslim scholars
say that killing and murder of innocent civilians is wrong under
any circumstances and I am sure that most Muslims would agree.





So all the news reports and films of radical Islamists calling for
death to Jews, death to America etc. are all hearsay!? This might
also be bias...






The population of Jews in Iran has gone down by 17,000 or so since
2005 because of the brutal repression of Jews in Iran. You did not
not make any effort to check the figures yet you call me a liar.

My source is the most recent Iranian census:

Islamic Republic (since 1979)

At the time of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, there were approximately 140,000–150,000 Jews living in Iran, the historical center of Persian Jewry. Over 85% have since migrated, with the immigration accelerating after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the population dropped from 100,000 to about 40,000.[25] Following the Iranian Revolution, some 30,000 Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel, while many others went to the United States and Western Europe.

On March 16, 1979, Habib Elghanian, the honorary leader of the Jewish community, was arrested on charges of "corruption", "contacts with Israel and Zionism", "friendship with the enemies of God", "warring with God and his emissaries", and "economic imperialism". He was tried by an Islamic revolutionary tribunal, sentenced to death, and executed on May 8,[22][26] one of 17 Iranian Jews executed as spies since the revolution.[27]

Estimates of the Jewish population in Iran vary. In mid- and late 1980s, it was estimated at 20,000–30,000, rising to around 35,000 in mid-1990s.[28] The current Jewish population of Iran is 8,756 according to the most recent Iranian census. [29]

see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iran

I expect that the films of the Jews showing how nicely they are
treated in Iran are old and staged.




Since Iran brutally represses their own population with hijab
police, apostasy charges, severe punishment for criticizing the
Iranian radical Islamic theocracy etc...Since Iran has a well
documented history of being one of the worlds worst sponsors of
terrorism war crimes....I figured that those references would
justify to show how Iran has perverted Islam.

Iran's abuse towards women is just one obvious example which shows
how silly is is to suggest that there is perversion of Islam or
repression in Iran as you suggest.






Actually, if you read the views on capital punishment given above
you would see how seriously Jews actually take the issue. Your
chances of fair treatment by Jews are pretty good.

Are you claiming to be a Mishneh Torah expert?
More so than leaders of all three branches of Judaism?


Maimonides did not advocate capital punishment for even the most
severe situations actually.

Capital punishment in classical sources

The harshness of the death penalty indicated the seriousness of the crime. Jewish philosophers argue that the whole point of corporal punishment was to serve as a reminder to the community of the severe nature of certain acts. This is why, in Jewish law, the death penalty is more of a principle than a practice. The numerous references to a death penalty in the Torah underscore the severity of the sin rather than the expectation of death. This is bolstered by the standards of proof required for application of the death penalty, which has always been extremely stringent (Babylonian Talmud Makkoth 7b). Because the standards of proof were so high, it was well-nigh impossible to inflict the death penalty. The Mishnah (tractate Makkoth 1:10) outlines the views of several prominent first-century CE Rabbis on the subject:

A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says that this extends to a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: Had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: they would have multiplied shedders of blood in Israel.

According to the Talmud forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE (i.e. in 30 CE) the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment.[citation needed]

The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar Maimonides stated that "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death." Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice." Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_corporal_punishment_in_Judaism

But since you are an expert at Mishneh Torah you can probably pull
some random quote out of context to prove that all the other Jewish
scholars throughout history have made some mistake in their
interpretation!







It's OK anyone could make the mistake of finding a rogue booklet
that was not widely distributed and attribute it to someone who
didn't write it and didn't read it until later.





I go to my remedial classes every day in the school of life.
Truthfully, I will get out the honey. Never went to propaganda
school. And, I do appreciate your thoughtful gifts of wisdom.







It was purely a personal skewer but no biggie.



Nothing wrong with it. Just video evidence of the situation in Iran.



Well the citations are there.
That is how you know it is not completely made up.

always enjoy!

Thanks Andy



Let's just say that I find it distasteful to see the repeated Israel
bashing in the forums and feel that the best way to counter it is by
showing patiently why it is a bunch of hogwash.

It is not very difficult to discredit most of the antisemitic and
anti-Israeli rhetoric because it is flimsy and without any substance
other that ignorance and bigotry and that rhetoric is dispatched
effectively with just a couple obvious counterarguments and some
real documentation.

Mostly the anti-Israel blather is so exaggerated, strained and
hyperbolic that it parodies itself!



I mean like women and dissidents in Iran are never mistreated and
Jews live in Iran just happy as clams. Never mind the US embassy
hostages or shipments of Iranian missles to the Taliban, Hezbollah
and Hamas. Never mind the nuclear enrichment facilities and the
Holocaust denial conferences, the antisemitic speeches and calls
for Jihad against the great Satan.

Really - I am not even making this up!

Rather than attempt to recognize the teachings of Judaism, you
cite bible stories about battles which do not attempt to discuss
anything about ethical behavior.







Sounds like you are just adopting my position. Except you actually
simply wish to declare your DISbelief of anything which disagrees with your preconceived bias without consideration.






http://dawn.com/2012/10/11/fifty-muslim-scholars-issue-fatwa-against-taliban/

etc.





Sounds like a kid who puts their hands over their eyes and
says - "See no evil, see no evil"



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/weekinreview/28sanger.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/iran-new-report-finds-surge-repression-dissent-2012-02-28

http://amnesty.ie/content/womens-rights-iran

I mean really now. It is not believable that you could know
nothing of this as it is on the news every day and has been
discussed here on forums many times.






Well EVERYBODY has documented it but here is a summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state_terrorism

The principle tactics of the terrorist activity supported by
Iran and documented in the article above - is the killing of
civilians which are war crimes obviously.

So you don't have to take my word for it.





See above.



Iranian Jews are persecuted horribly despite the propaganda flicks
you post. The history is well documented. Here:

Contrary to the claims made by Tehran’s apologists [particularly
those on the political left like Roger Cohen], Iranian Jews suffer
under one of the worst forms of persecution under Iran’s Islamic
regime.

http://newsflavor.com/world/middle-east/persecuted-iranian-jews/

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iranjews.html

Almost all of the 100,000 Jews living in Iran in 1948 have fled
or been forced to leave. Today there are only about 8000 Jews
left.



That's a "howler" to compare women's rights in Iran and the US,
Europe, Israel, Australia etc.







Marzel and his tiny band of radicals are no great leaders
of Jews but a splinter group Kach which has been outlawed in Israel!

=-=-=-=




Revisionist history indeed!

Read the truth about Maimonides in the Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides

Maimonides never called for holy war and was a man of peace
and healing as a doctor.

=-=-=-=


The above article states that the booklet in question is not an
actual call to holy war and that it was not from Rontzki!



Here is an excerpt from your citation:

"The controversial booklet distributed to Israeli soldiers during
the Gaza invasion by chief Israeli military rabbi Brigadier General
Avichai Rontzki was “unsuitable for military publication,”
according to the Israeli Defense Ministry.

In a letter to opposition MP Avshalom Vilan, an attorney for the
Defense Ministry tried to minimize the seriousness however,
claiming the book was only distributed in small numbers and that
Brig-Gen. Rontzki did not even see it until after its publication.
They added that Chief of Staff Ashkenazi had summoned Rontzki about
the matter."





Now this article talks about the same discredited booklet and
describes how Israelis themselves repudiated it.





Well what you have provided so far is just silly garbage.

Oh I would say based on the quality of your appeal to bible stories
which don't discuss ethics and your citation of a couple of fringe
repudiated nutballs and a pamphlet from some right wing uncredited
source that you have fallen somewhat short of the Crusades or the
current state of militant Islamic Jihad...





Best rebuttal so far! <= (dead serious)
Not in keeping with mingle2 policy however - tch tch!







Have a look. It is informative.

I note also that you do not seem to be able to come up with any
instance of a Jewish religious leader of any consequence who has
advocated holy war and have not been able to point out any Jewish
holy war in recorded history. Also I see that the existence of
today's well documented Islamic holy war or Jihad against the west
as described in the video link I posted above is not disputed.

Well it is very interesting to see your perspective.



I think you are selectively reading scripture. You missed
"Thou shall not kill" and other similar admonitions to do
no harm to anyone and to respect life and freedom.

I myself am also cynical at times but not so cynical as to
suspend belief in well documented and thoughtful analysis.

Many Islamic scholars repeatedly point out that their religion
does not advocate killing people under any circumstances in
modern interpretations and that terrorists like Hamas, Hezbollah
and the Taliban are perverting the religion much in the same
way that Christianity once justified forced conversions and
religious war.

I do find it extremely odd that you cannot see Iran's exceptional
intolerance and bigotry. Iran has been documented to be actively
advocating and supporting war crime terrorist activity. Iran
takes hostages and brutally suppresses their own population. Iran
does not tolerate dissent or any other open religious practices or
conversions. Iran tramples on womens' rights also. So that definitely
makes me wonder why one might have difficulty recognizing Iran's
unusual intolerance and religious perversion.

What is the basis for your disbelief?

Do you not agree that all major religions abhor violence?

Can you not recognize the difference between religious tolerance
in the US and Israel from forcible Islamic coercion going on in
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza?

Do you not think that the current Iranian regime is a bastion of intolerance?

Do you think that true Islam advocates the killing of innocent people?

I can accept that you and others don't necessarily believe me.
The reasoning behind such disbelief will be a good area for
personal introspection. It would be interesting to examine the
basis for this disbelief starting with answers to the questions
I pose above.