Thomas Friedman, why don't you break up?

Legal system: mixture of English common law,
British Mandate regulations, and,
in personal matters, Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim legal
systems; in December 1985, Israel
informed the UN Secretariat that it
would no longer accept compulsory
ICJ jurisdiction

It would appear that muslims and christians can sort that one out for themselves, but it does suggest that for personal matters the Torah takes precedence to a certain extent.

in December 1985, Israel informed the UN Secretariat that it would no longer accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction.

?

It's code for "Fuck you, we'll invade who we like"

I believe that Jews are not solely a religious grouping, and the first Zionists (first self-identified Zionists, not the messianic return-to-Palestine groups that have always existed no matter how small) believed this as well. In fact it was many religious Jews in E. Europe that were most opposed to Zionism--to the politicization or secularization of Jewish identity.

"Nation" per the OED:

An extensive aggregate of persons, so closely associated with each other by common descent, language, or history, as to form a distinct race or people, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory.

Note the "usually." Jews are an instance of a nation without a state.

I'm not trying to assert this as common sense, although I think I may have given that impression. It's a contentious issue.

Zionism \Zi"on*ism\, n. [Zion + -ism.]
Among the Jews, a theory, plan, or movement for colonizing
their own race in Palestine, the land of Zion, or, if that is
impracticable, elsewhere, either for religious or
nationalizing purposes; -- called also {Zion movement}. --
{Zi"on*ist}, n. -- {Zi`on*is"tic}, a.

It's possible to argue that the early Zionists, savvy assimilated Western Europeans as they were, realized that to win adherents to the cause and to get support from modern European democracies, they had to frame Jewishness as a national and not a religious identity--by contrast Jews in Iran post-Shah have had to frame it as a religious identity lest they be perceived as an Israeli satellite community. A question is whether there is a Jewish identity which remains--relatively--constant despite these shifts in "approach."

I still honestly believe in the idea -- which has had a rough time in practice so far -- that the only way Israel can be free from terrorism is by working as hard as possible to help transform Palestine as an organized entity, something that has so far been given only the most tentative and half-assed efforts. (And sadly, the lack of success in those attempts has led Israel to decide to put less, and not more, effort into them.)

i just had to read a chapter from "the world is flat" for an economics class and gooooooooddaaaaaaaamn is friedman a pandering brainless blowhard. endless fluff about how "globalization" is making the world safe for democracy followed by a stern reminder that americans are "falling behind in the global work force."

friedman's biggest problem is imagining that everyone wants to work hard for money. the man has apparently never observed a successful crime in his life.

Aren't we falling behind in the global workforce, though, with all those Indians suiting up and working all shifts?

I lost all my illusions that Friedman was writing about anything resembling reality a long time ago.

Smooth.

She said, finally, that Friedman gives generously to charity.

This man's career has been a miracle. He and David Brooks should get on their knees every day and thank whatever saint is the patron of mediocrities.

Be a rather bland saint. St. Whatever.

Well then.

"Instead of asking who clogged the toilet, maybe we should be asking why America’s scores on standardized math and science tests are so low." Ha ha.

How is it this thread doesn't contain any mention of Matt Taibbi's infamous takedowns of the mustachioed one.

<a title="http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html"; href="Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman">Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman</a>

<a title="http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html"; href="Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded">Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded</a>

Doh.

Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman

Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/opinion/the-day-our-leaders-got-unstuck.html?hp

This is a scary economic moment. The response we need is not easy, but it is totally obvious. We need a Grand Bargain between America’s two parties — and we need it right now. Until you read the following news article, we’ll be stuck in a world of hurt.

first time i've clicked on a friedman column in forever and it has to start like THAT??

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/Friedman-a-theory-of-everyting-sort-of.html?src=me&ref=general

This one is just so mind-bogglingly awful and empty.

seriously, did someone drop him on his head when he was a baby?

the existence of his column is far more baffling to me than the quiddities/style aspects of the nyt

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/books/niall-fergusons-empire-traces-wests-decline-review.html?hpw

this has got to be a banner day for ol thomas:

As usual, Mr. Ferguson, who teaches in Harvard’s history department and business school, uses his powerful narrative talents in these pages to give the reader a highly tactile sense of history. But his book as a whole has a hurried, haphazard feel to it that underscores its genesis as a companion volume to a British television series called “Civilization: Is the West History?” Not only do the book’s more cogent arguments owe a decided debt to ones made by the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman and the CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria, but its more original hypotheses also tend to devolve into questionable generalizations (“Europeans today are the idlers of the world”), contradictory assertions and silly Power Point schemas that strain painfully to be relevant and hip.

Friedman shows up in "the Revenge of the electric car" docu for no discernable reason at all

Oh no for Paul Simon fans:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/hey-isnt-that-paul-simon-and-thomas-friedman-at-the-bombay-club/2012/02/07/gIQAuvGCxQ_blog.html

Singer Paul Simon and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman dining together at the Bombay Club Monday night with two others. Shrimp, kebab, veggies among their shared dishes. What’s the occasion? Nothing special, the columnist’s office told us, “just a dinner with friends.”

Bombay Club in Washington D.C. I think

idk, i can see friedman and paul simon being friends and shit ... they're both on the same bland "one flat world" wavelength.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_04/taking_one_for_tom_friedman036755.php#

What a knucklehead. He wants Bloomberg to run for Prez as a 3rd party candidate. He whines:

had to catch a train in Washington last week. The paved street in the traffic circle around Union Station was in such poor condition that I felt as though I was on a roller coaster. I traveled on the Amtrak Acela, our sorry excuse for a fast train, on which I had so many dropped calls on my cellphone that you’d have thought I was on a remote desert island, not traveling from Washington to New York City. When I got back to Union Station, the escalator in the parking garage was broken. Maybe you’ve gotten used to all this and have stopped noticing. I haven’t. Our country needs a renewal.

He is right tho about the Acela being a sorry excuse for a fast train.

And only in his fantasy world is he going to get a Congress that will vote for the money needed to have a good fast train

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2012/04/one-true-wanker-of-decade.html

there are no limits to his idiocy

Yep.

What's your favourite 2Unlimited song?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/thomas-friedmans-new-state-of-grace-20120627

Love it. I just read Max's February Gawker piece on Friedman columns and Paul Simon lyrics too. Friedman's an unintentional laugh riot.

"Inside Deadmau5's Rolling Stone Cover Shoot"

slapped around by Greenwald... haven't heard the New Zealand radio interview at the bottom yet, but if it's "contemptuous" we should all like it.

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_value_of_tom_friedman/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/no-kidding-the-most-incoherent-tom-friedman-column-ever-20120725

Thomas Friedman and David Brooks are both people who allegedly have large audiences out there, and yet I've never met anyone professing to like them, or at least not in the last ten years.

Correction: October 28, 2012

A phrase in this version of the article has been changed to “every fertilized egg in a woman’s body” from “in a woman’s ovary.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-grenade-of-understanding-winners-of-the-write-like-friedman-challenge-20121115

http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/Power+With+Purpose+e25453#

god I hate his mustache muppet face

The American Conservative: Tom Friedman: High-Tech Philistine. And that's about right.

It’s P.Q. and C.Q. as Much as I.Q.

Y/N: this is the most tom friedman headline ever

The winners won’t just be those with more I.Q. It will also be those with more P.Q. (passion quotient) and C.Q. (curiosity quotient) to leverage all the new digital tools to not just find a job, but to invent one or reinvent one, and to not just learn but to relearn for a lifetime. Government can and must help, but the president needs to explain that this won’t just be an era of “Yes We Can.” It will also be an era of “Yes You Can” and “Yes You Must.”

Maureen Dowd is off today.

never have i so longed for maureen fucking dowd