Standing 4 inches tall, spanning 4 inches across, it is the Elephant King of burgers, compared with which all others are pygmies.

The elements stacked and inserted between halves of a crunchy parmesan and black onion-seed roll could stock a small gourmet shop: braised short ribs and foie gras tucked into the burger, made from first-class beef and pan-seared to a crusty finish; ground horseradish and French mustard; crackling, curly chicory and tomato confit on top and fresh tomato underneath; and, of course, layers of freshly shaved black Provencal truffles - top, bottom and in between.

In 1982, Rabbi Bezalel Stern of Vienna published a brief responsum regarding the proper time for prayer, Shabbat and festivals on a spaceship. He concluded by saying that "this is not currently an issue of halakhah l'ma'aseh (practical halakhah) but only of research for the sake of knowledge. Therefore, this brief note is sufficient for now." In 1980, Rabbi Solomon Freehof (1892-1990) also thought that this was a theoretical question. Twenty years have passed and this is now a question of halakhah l'ma'aseh.

1. Simple logic. All astronauts set their watches by Houston time. Otherwise they would spend all of their time in space changing the time on their watches as Rabbi Sheloosh would require.

2. Secondly, we have a classic source for dealing with a similar situation. We have learned in Shabbat 69b: "A person lost in the desert who doesn't know when it is Shabbat, counts six days and rests on the seventh". In other words, when you are in a place where normal time divisions don't exist, you arbitrarily adopt a method for observing Shabbat after six 24-hour days.

3. Finally, we have a clear precedent for Shabbat in space, as already hinted above. Since the eighteenth century, rabbis have discussed how to observe Shabbat in "inner America", Norway, Sweden, Alaska, Iceland and other areas where the sun does not rise or set for months on end. Polar days are unusually long; space days are unusually short – but the general problem is similar.

Shabbat starts for Jewish tourists on the moon at the same earth time as it would start at their point of origin - Cape Canaveral, no doubt, since until recently, the Soviets have tended to fling their Jews into jail, not into space.

Were Jewish media influence as important as many would have us believe, the Jews have had done with it a long time ago. Israel would already have wiped out or expelled every single Palestinian. A Zionist US government would have suppressed all anti-Israel material as 'hate literature' or terrorist propaganda, overthrown every pro-Palestinian Arab government, and used American troops to deal with the consequences. That this hasn't happened is symptomatic of a deep incoherence within the view that Jews don't control everything, but only the crucial things. If the things were really crucial, Jews really would control everything after all.

... that's why you don't see Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the widowed, retired Israeli paratrooper, raining fire and death on the leering Palestinian thugs who killed his children and gang-raped Selma Hayek, their beloved Israeli Arab nanny.

The Ottoman Empire never looked like some great machine turning out treats for eunuchs. The eunuchs simply took a certain limited advantage of the power vacuums appeared in a decaying, increasingly ignorant and feckless ruling circle. If anyone trembled before these neutered potentates, it was only at the good pleasure of the society that bought or castrated them in the first place.

But what is needed is not yet another list of the Jewish court jesters hired by the American establishment, or the groups that lobby for policies the US government anyway wants to promote. Nor do we need more dark hints based on collections of scattered facts rather than serious comparative data. Far more revealing and just as damning would be the story of how ordinary Jews either applaud the worst Israeli crimes, or deplore them and support Israel anyway, or denounce them with rhetoric that somehow never gets around to advocating anything that would stop them. It is a story that just lies there, ready and waiting to be told.

... an issue with part 3 of the terrorism definition. It excludes the majority of IRA activity - and I'd tend to think that there's something wrong with a definition of "terrorism" that would suggest that one of the world's best-known terrorist organizations was for the most part, not "terrorist."

I'm not sure that terrorism can be defined very precisely (beyond political violence) but one element in the definition should perhaps be that the act of political violence frequently has as its aim communication (sending a message of continued defiance, drawing attention to a cause, inspiring fear etc.) rather than something more concrete.

[S]houldn't the piece of rhetoric (otherwise known as a "word") attached to an act be related to the nature of the act itself, rather than the nature of the party that carried it out.

In practice, state actors would still mostly not be terrorist, as they do not generally use the same anti-civilian tactics. But is a state does something anti-civilian, shouldn't it be branded with the T-word just like everyone else.

I'd prefer not to call state atrocities terrorism. This is basically a matter of keeping the terminology clear for me: "terrorist organization" would tend to become a very fuzzy, not very useful term if it were not confined to non-state actors.

[...]

I'd agree with you that equivalent state acts of violence are just as bad: worse, in some ways. But terminologically speaking, I'd prefer that they be in another category.

I'm partly reacting to the definitional creep of "terrorist" to mean simply "bad killing"; I'd like it defined narrowly, technically, and with the acceptance that there's plenty of immoral killing out there that isn't terrorism.

The important thing to understand about terrorism is the difference between the "legal" and the "academic" definitions: While the former needn't bother the general public - sorry, Jonathan - all too much, it is the latter ("practical definition" would describe it better) that should cause serious concern to everyone.

an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets.

In a previous sentence... I had mentioned that I was talking about an occupation in the context of Israel and Palestine. By the normal rules of usage, any subsequent reference to "the Occupation" should be understood in that context. It's true that some people don't like capitalization in this type of usage, but it's fairly standard as far as I can see (an example being "the president of the United States" and later "the President").

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

The codeword "evacuation" is designed to calm the pangs of conscience of those who know that the issue is really one of "expulsion." It furthermore serves to get the public used to the concept of uprooting Jewish settlements. No politician has the courage to recommend an "expulsion order," for it simply sounds illegal and immoral. Instead, the airy term "evacuation" was conceived. Arutz-7 will punctually use the true terms: "expulsion," "uprooting," and even "transfer."

inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.

[T]he comparison with South Africa is intellectually lazy, morally questionable, and possibly even mendacious... Inside the state of Israel, there is no apartheid. In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest minority within its borders of any country in the Middle East. The official figure for Copts in Egypt is 10%. Non-Jews, mostly Arab Muslims, make up 20% of the Israeli population, and they enjoy full citizen's rights. Israel is one of the few Middle Eastern states where Muslim women are allowed to vote.

Certainly, Israeli Arabs are not always treated well, though not nearly as badly as the Egyptian Copts, or the few Jews left in the Muslim world. Israeli Arab towns are neglected and, particularly since the latest intifada, public suspicion has led to social discrimination. To make things worse, some politicians make no secret of their desire to remove the Arabs from Israel altogether. But apartheid, however satisfying it is for the morally outraged to think so, it is not.

Sites with a Hebrew name will be thus cited on Arutz-7. Other media sources may say Amman, while our [Hebrew broadcasts will call it Rabbat Ammon. We will even insist on saying Mt. of Olives, and not Ras el-Amud; Kfar HaShilo'ach [adjacent to the Old City] instead of Silwan; the Mashbir Junction [in northern Jerusalem] and not the A-Ram junction; etc.

4. Boy: According to the authoritative [Hebrew] Even-Shushan dictionary, "boy" means "a male from the time he is born until the age of Bar Mitzvah [13]". Accordingly, when our forces harm a 16-year old Arab, we need not be dragged under by the Arab propagandists and report, "An Arab boy was wounded by IDF fire." Similarly, the words "youth" or "youngster" need not be bestowed upon everyone under the age of 120.

Who is this 'Zionist party' that, according to Baaklini, owns 90% of the Canadian mass media and takes instructions from abroad? It is certainly not CanWest...

Izzy is right that Canwest's competitors are not Zionist (e.g. CBC, CTV, G&M, Star, Le Devoir, and La Presse). But is Israel Asper not a Zionist? Does he no longer believe in Jewish nationalism? Or the need for a Jewish state?

Izzy ought not to have run away from the term "Zionist" like Micheal Dukakis ran from the word "liberal". Izzy is a Zionist, and he should say it loud and proud. What he should have said is "The Ambassador is a nut. There is no conspiracy. But I am a Zionist, just like I am a democrat and a Canadian, and all media I own will always have a resolutely Zionist editorial stance. If the Ambassador has a problem with that, he can go back to Lebanon."

Izzy didn't say that, and I doubt he has renounced Zionism . I think Izzy is contributing to the idea that "Zionism" is a dirty word.

... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The State Department defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." In another useful attempt to produce a definition, Paul Pillar, a former deputy chief of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, argues that there are four key elements of terrorism:

1. It is premeditated—planned in advance, rather than an impulsive act of rage.
2. It is political—not criminal, like the violence that groups such as the mafia use to get money, but designed to change the existing political order.
3. It is aimed at civilians—not at military targets or combat-ready troops.
4. It is carried out by subnational groups—not by the army of a country.