Interesting Posts and Articles #55

1. Eliyahu forwarded me the two following videos. This one
   
   
   and this one:
   
   
   
   
2. At BeyondBT, Rabbi Dovid Schwartz talks about crafting a new nomenclature. I agree. I think when the gemara was talking about baal teshuva, it was speaking about avaryanim who repented. "Baalei Teshuva" in modern times are more along the lines of tinok shenishba, and they actively sought out, found, and chose the Jewish religion. Which is more than many "frum from birth" folks have done. True, they may have committed sins beshogeg in the past, but they were good, moral, ethical people, who were motivated to seek out and choose Orthodox Judaism. This background is nothing to be embarrassed about.
   
   
3. Chaptzem notes that you, too, can own a kosher gym. And publishes a letter from the former owners explaining why they finally had enough.
   
   
4. WolfishMusings discusses an interesting case in shul where they had exactly ten people for the minyan and the kohen walked out in order to not receive the first aliyah.
   
   
5. Reb Akiva of Mystical Paths notes Ahmadinejad visits the UN for the third -- or the fourth -- time, and believes this may the beginning of the fulfillment of what is predicted in Midrash Eliyahu that the King of Persia will visit Rome three times, and then, revolt 12 months later. If this revolt does not occur by this September or next September, I wonder if that would be sufficient cause to reevaluate the whole Bush = God, US = Rome bit.
   
   
6. Nava at Dreaming Of Moshiach replies to a comment that her predictions don't make logical sense. Thus,
   

   How can Iran attack America and at the same time have Bush leading the world to occupy Israel. This is especially problematic if Iran cooks America goose.
   
   Why would Iran even threaten America before the elections. Any serious threats would help McLean. Iran and all the Arabs prefer Obama, so they wouldn't want to upset the people in America. Bush will not have justification to declare marshal law.

   I am no political pundit to assess whether his objections are valid, or whether his suggestions are any more sensible. However, her response is not to defend the logic of her predictions, but rather to declare that the fact that it is illogical is not a bug, but rather a feature. It is a good thing that it is illogical, because that is how things work on the religious, and spiritual realm.
   
   She gives an example, that spraying bug spray actually brings more bugs. And it is because on a spiritual level, the bugs are coming to mourn. It is a lofty explanation, ayin sham. I don't know whether this is scientific fact or urban legend, but if fact, it would indeed be scientifically explainable (and likely has been) as some function of alarm pheremones, or some other pheremones such as trail pheremones, the bugs emit shortly before death. Thus, for ants:
   

   One of the simplest examples of alarm communication is that of Acanthomyops colonies. These are subterranean ants that are large in size and dense in number and therefore it could be speculated that they would respond to alarm pheromones by the “fight” reaction because of the unlikeliness of dispersal.