Gush, gush.

The theory:

Deuteronomy 7:5

But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire

The practice

On Monday evening, during the traditional singing and dancing with Torah scrolls at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem, yeshiva head Rabbi Moshe Tzadka ordered one of the worshippers to break his phone.

Patrik Johansson: Spreading the word about good butter

Patrik Johansson used to be a professional fisherman, once managed a coffee plantation on Madagascar, and made salt from seawater. Now, finally, he has found his true calling. "I am a butter man," he says. Sometimes, the 45-year-old eats butter, with a spoon, right out of the churn (bread ruins the taste). Three times a week Johansson leaves his little wooden house in the forest north-east of Gothenburg and drives to a nearby castle. In one of its chambers, filled with pots and fridges and a small centrifuge, he makes what must be the most prestigious butter in the world. He is known as the Butter Viking.

Being a rarely beef-eating omnivore, I do appreciate good butter - for cooking and baking. For spreading I use Oivariini, which is a butter/vegetable oil mix. I like my bleary-eyed spreading easy, and my toast to pop up perfect: otherwise the day is ruined.

You can't be me, I'm taken

I'll just leave this here...

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

PhysOrg - Why Moderate Beliefs Rarely Prevail

We live in a world of extremes, where being fervently for or against an issue often becomes the dominant social ideology - until an opposing belief that is equally extreme emerges to challenge the first one, eventually becoming the new social paradigm. And so the cycle repeats, with one ideological extreme replacing another, and neither delivering a sustainable solution. Political revolutions, economic bubbles, booms and busts in consumer confidence, and short-lived reforms such as Prohibition in the US all follow this kind of cycle. Why, researchers want to know, does a majority of the population not settle on an intermediate position that blends the best of the old and new?

(...)

Of the seven strategies the researchers tested, only one could effectively expand the moderate subpopulation - and the strategy was based not on social interaction but on other environmental stimuli, which might take the form of a media campaign in real life. By integrating this new parameter into the model, the number of moderates increased without threat of extinction. "The one successful strategy, nonsocial deradicalization, involves a particularly strong sort of encouragement of moderation; for example, its terms with the new parameter are independent of the size of the moderate population," Marvel said. "Hence, our findings suggest that this strong form of encouragement may be necessary for spreading a balanced perspective in a sustainable way."

Tying in with Coleman's broken ribs from yesterday - I was at a BBQ on Sunday where someone decided to punch me in the ribs. I'm still feeling it today. It's probably been 10 years since someone even play-punched me, so it's novel and almost amusing to be feeling the pain (obviously I would not be saying that if I had broken a rib).

you are the media you consume.

You can't be me, I'm taken

A new book, "1973: The Road to War," by Dr. Yigal Kipnis, has become the focus for discussion in Israel. It makes Golda Meir look like the worst Prime Minister Israel ever had (and there's tough competition). From Ha'aretz (behind paywall; this is my last free article for now, so I'll have to go back to the Hebrew version for a while)

This story reflects guilt within guilt:  The Agranat commission failed in its duty to carry out an unbiased investigation of the background of the war, without playing favorites. The commission completely disregarded the political factors, which were most important of all.

Thus the commission allowed Meir's supporters to claim that her government left no stone unturned in searching for peace. In reality, Golda simply overturned Abba Eban, the excluded and rejected foreign minister, who was left of out of major channels of communication with Henry Kissinger. The circle of secrets only included Meir, Dayan, Galili, then ambassador to Washington Yitzhak Rabin and PMO Director Simha Dinitz, and later Mordechai Gazit.

In particular, this included a specific peace offer from Egypt (not that different from the eventual Camp David accords) which Meir and Dayan made sure did not come to the attention of anyone who might be in favour. These included the army Chief of Staff and military intelligence. The offer came with a deadline of September 1973 for a response. The war started a few days later....

Slogan from the Tory conference unpacked:

Britain = not United Kingdom. 'Great' understood. Nationalistic. External (threats). Vaguely Caucasian mythical. False inclusive.

Can = catchall motivational. Conditional. Obamaish

Deliver = Government will save you. Services. "Formally hand over".

You can't be me, I'm taken

There's so much wrong with this I don't know where to begin. Wonga is no legal loan shark - and Newcastle is in the right to accept their cash (Julian Knight, The Independent, 10 October 2012)

"Legal loan sharking" was the phrase used by the leader of Newcastle City council to describe Wonga, the short-loans company which has just signed a four year sponsorship deal with Newcastle United Football club. Local MPs have also piled into the club run by entrepreneur Mike Ashley for their greed in opening up to a loan company which charges an eye-watering 4214% a.p.r.

...

What's more, just because a shirt is sponsored doesn't mean that we are more likely to borrow money from Wonga - we are sentient human beings after able to make our own decisions. We have to trust people to make their own decisions in life.  And what really qualifies as exploitative in the world of finance?  I'd argue that Northern Rock - a former sponsor of Newcastle United - has a lot more to answer for than Wonga. It was the Rock after all that signed thousands of borrowers up on 125% mortgage deals which has literally chained them to years of negative equity. In addition, the Rock bust itself by betting the farm on the wholesale money markets rather than acting like a responsible bank and growing through acquiring deposits.  This helped precipitate the first British bank run in well over a century - isn't that a little more damaging than lending someone £100 and asking for £120 back a week or two later?

...

It's worth remembering too that Wonga and fellow payday lenders do actually meet a purpose. With banks only lending to `prime' customers it's hard for many - and very expensive -  to actually get an overdraft or an extension on a credit card when they a struggling. A couple of hundred pounds to tide over to payday is actually a useful service to them. Of course, as I have written before, there needs to be tight regulation on these loans and authorities need to be careful about who they are marketed too - there was one ridiculous case of a lender pitching payday loans as a viable alternative to a student loan  - but that applies to the whole financial services industry.  Payday lenders are a new service, born of the credit crunch and the recession, and its emergence makes many uncomfortable but the useful thing would be to tackle why they exist - bank lending policy, personal finance education and poverty pay - rather than giving Newcastle United a hard time for acting like - shock horror - a business.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

Under Ponte Marconi in Rome.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.