Neturei Karta & Iran!

And Hamas

Assisted suicide debate in England

NYTimes

LONDON — The controversy over the ethical and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide for the terminally ill was thrown into stark relief on Tuesday with the announcement that one of Britain's most distinguished orchestra conductors, Sir Edward Downes, had flown to Switzerland last week with his wife and joined her in drinking a lethal cocktail of barbiturates provided by an assisted-suicide clinic.

Although friends who spoke to the British news media said Sir Edward was not known to have been terminally ill, they said he wanted to die with his ailing wife, who had been his partner for more than half a century.

The couple's children said in an interview with The London Evening Standard that on Tuesday of last week they accompanied their father, 85, and their mother, Joan, 74, on the flight from London to Zurich, where the Swiss group Dignitas helped arrange the suicides. On Friday, the children said, they watched, weeping, as their parents drank "a small quantity of clear liquid" before lying down on adjacent beds, holding hands.

"Within a couple of minutes they were asleep, and died within 10 minutes," Caractacus Downes, the couple's 41-year-old son, said in the interview after his return to Britain. "They wanted to be next to each other when they died." He added, "It is a very civilized way to end your life, and I don't understand why the legal position in this country doesn't allow it." [...]

Living together first - can ruin marriage

Fox News

Couples who shack up before tying the knot are more likely to get divorced than their counterparts who don't move in together until marriage, a new study suggests.

Upwards of 70 percent of U.S. couples are cohabiting these days before marrying, the researchers estimate.

The study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, indicates that such move-ins might not be wise.

And it's not because you start to get on one another's nerves. Rather, the researchers figure the shared abode could lead to marriage for all the wrong reasons.

"We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting," said lead researcher Galena Rhoades of the University of Denver.

Couples might also be nudged into nuptials because of a joint lease or shared ownership of Fido — along with other practicalities.[...]

Shoteh - How defined /psychology or behavior?

Shalom Reb Daniel Eidensohn,

I was directed to you by a Rav who said you are a psychologist and a talmid chochom who has thought a great deal about the topic matter I would like to bring to your attention and get your opinions on.

Basically, my question is would you consider a person who thinks perfectly rationally, but who is prevented from acting accordingly because of severe OCD (on the level of Howard Hughes) and psychotic paranoia, to be a shoteh according to halachah?

This is a real-life scenario as the person in question absolutely exists and they have been diagnosed by a board certified psychiatrist with those mental illnesses.

Thank you for your time and I very much look forward to your feedback.

RS

Obama's Stimulus Plan - failing

Time Magazine

The $787 billion stimulus plan is turning out to be far less stimulating than its architects expected.

Back in early January, when Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers, and leading proponents of a stimulus bill, predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in America hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983. (See 10 ways your job will change.)

The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in Obama's Administration. Romer is the head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Bernstein is the chief economist and economic-policy adviser to Vice President Biden. And the stimulus bill that both economists championed became law in mid-February. What has not come to pass, however, is the boom in job creation that Romer and Bernstein predicted. A little over a month ago, the Administration said the stimulus bill had created or saved 150,000 jobs. That's a far cry from the 3 million to 4 million jobs that Romer and Bernstein foresaw back in January.[...]

EJF's hilchos geirus program - what is it's purpose?

It has been claimed by Kanoimpogimbo that his community is being destroyed by rabbis as the result of EJF's welcoming attitude toward interfaith couples. The question is whether EJF in fact encourages the proselytizing of non-Jews who are dating Jews and encourages non-Jews to attend Torah lectures or that these rabbis who are participating in EJF hilchos geirus program have serious misunderstood EJF. Perhaps Roni could explain the purpose of the hilchos geirus program and what it teaches. If in fact these rabbis have misunderstood it, it is obviously necessary to inform R' Tropper that the goals of EJF - in least in this instance - are seriously misunderstood and that he needs to make sure the participants properly understand it. Below is the contract that participants sign. Perhaps R' Tropper should write a public letter condeming their attitude and I would be glad to pass it on and/or publicize it.

Agunos - Fairness and halacha

JPost

Susan Weiss, founding director of the nonprofit Center for Women's Justice, will never forget the day in 2000 when a 36-year-old mother of five walked into her office and pleaded with the New York-born lawyer to help her fight for a divorce.

"She'd been trying to obtain one for more than 10 years," recalls Weiss, a Jerusalem-based mother of five, who in June received an award from the Israel Bar Association for her work in helping agunot or chained women, whose husbands refuse them a get (divorce).

"The rabbinic court had ordered the husband to give a get and to pay child support, but he was still refusing," she continues, adding that the husband had invoked an ancient Jewish law where he claimed to be willing to divorce but only based on certain conditions.

"He said he would divorce her but that she had to waive all her rights to child support," remembers Weiss. "[The rabbinic judges] said that if she did not agree to his demands, then the fact she did not yet have a divorce was her own fault. When she asked the judge how she would be able to support herself and her children if the husband did not pay some form of child support, the rabbis said, 'Go to the haredi community, they will support you there.'"[...]