Blog/December 2015/Dec 11th

Dec 11th (See this week's devar torah)

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It’s been a pretty good week, all told. Ḥanukka (which is still going on) is always a pleasant holiday, though it’s not much of a holiday in terms of work. None of us did anything all that special for the holiday, just work and food… as usual. Well, actually, Esther and I did have sufganiyot for the first time in two years (and probably the last time for two more).

Sarah finished up the work she had to do on her classmate’s film project, so she’s relaxing now. And just in case you didn’t know, it’s her birthday this shabbat… so we’ve been told.

I did some work on 8th itself this week, but most of my time was actually spent working on getting contracts, making contacts, and applying for contests. So I don’t have much to show for my week except for adding serial I/O support in 8th.

Someone posted an article about how Americans should read these five great Islamic books before doing “stupid stuff”. Let’s leave aside for the moment the fact that none of those books is “Islamic” per se — and in fact, many of the stories in the “Thousand Nights and a Night” are pre-Islamic or without any connection whatsoever to Islam or Arab culture. Rather, concentrate on the indisputable fact that the only important book in this dicussion is the Quran, which the only one the ISIS/Daʿesh folks care about. Americans should indeed read it, and understand how the enemy interprets it, rather than holding hands, singing Kumbaya and smoking pot while celebrating their diversity. This enemy is really not interested in your interpretations of Sufi mysticism — especially since they consider Sufis to be heretics.

Various and sundry:

• Egyptians react to Obama’s priorities
• The great orator reassures America
• Truth about the “settlers”
• And praise God, Trump postponed his Israeli junket. We can rest easy now…

I didn’t realize that Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert), also has a blog. Further, I didn’t realize that he has interesting insights about Trump. Worth reading to the end, I think.

This week Sarah’s friends will be shabbatting with us in celebration of said daughter’s birthday. The all vegetarian menu will include:
orange soup, black-bean sweet potato stew with peanut sauce, eggplant stacks, roasted beets, roasted potatoes, red rice with mushrooms, chard pashtida, salatim, chocolate mousse, and apple pie.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom, ḥodesh tov, and ḥanukka sameaḥ, !

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