March 19, 2010 Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel March 18, 2010 Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America? JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes) Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum March 17, 2010 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth? March 16, 2010 Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes) Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel March 15, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes) Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT March 12, 2010 Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades March 11, 2010 Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes) The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing March 10, 2010 Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE) Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S. March 9, 2010 Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES) David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral March 8, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss? JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES) Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion March 5, 2010 Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES) Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause March 4, 2010 Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses? JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES) Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative March 3, 2010 Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: NEVER!!! JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES) The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub March 2, 2010 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo? March 1, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Lender responsibility JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES) Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute Feb. 26, 2010 Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES) Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost Feb. 25, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES) Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives Feb. 24, 2010 Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’ Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack Feb. 23, 2010 Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No! JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES) Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes Feb. 22, 2010 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically? JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES) Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk Feb. 19, 2010 Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us? JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES) Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State Feb. 18, 2010 Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain? JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES) Everything's Relative By Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel : The altruist in hell Feb. 17, 2010 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Entitlement Vs. Charity JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES) Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah Feb. 16, 2010 Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES) Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief Feb. 15, 2010 Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES) Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review June 17, 2009 / 25 Sivan 5769 A fine madness in the Washington air By Tony Blankley http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | To borrow Niall Ferguson's metaphor, if finance is an evolutionary process, then regulation is its intelligent design — which, I would add, is a cognate of faith, not science. Or, to take the observation of former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin, if "the financial system (is) the brain of the economy," then, I would suggest, heavy regulation is its lobotomy; while it removes the emotional highs and lows, it also dulls the perception, facility and adroitness. (Disclosure: In keeping with my long-held public view, I give professional advice to financial institutions seeking low regulation and taxation.) A century ago, medical science had faith in lobotomies. Today, it seems, Washington political science has faith in new financial regulation. Medical science began to gain wisdom when it learned what previously unrealized damage it caused when it lobotomized human brains. We must hope that the "experts" today who are drafting new regulations by which they would impair our financial system gain wisdom soon by recognizing how little they understand the effects of these new regulations on our economy's future health. However, the current financial regulatory efforts in Washington may not even deserve the honor of being compared to intelligent design or a lobotomy. At least with those two processes, each has the intellectual dignity of an internal logic — even if that logic does not accurately describe the reality it attempts to explain and manipulate. Rather, the current likely financial regulatory efforts have an almost random nature to them, as the legislative logrolling is collecting unrelated and sometimes-inconsistent ideas that eventually will be called, I assume, the Frank/Dodd Comprehensive and Rationalized National Financial Redemption Act of 2009. The final bill will be the compilation of the results of various political battles being fought among the president, his various White House economic and political advisers, the Treasury and various powerful committee and subcommittee chairmen in the House versus their equivalents in the Senate, as well as the successful interventions of various interests, the institutional partial victories that are gained in the battles among the half-dozen or so overlapping financial regulatory agencies in existence, plus whatever the whimsical effects are of the backbenchers, the states, the commentators, the media and, of course, the public. Even if 10 of the smartest financial regulation experts in the world got in a room and wrote an internally consistent set of regulations, if history is any guide, it would not be likely to anticipate, avoid or mitigate whatever the next financial crisis would be. As Ferguson wrote in "The Ascent of Money," "It seems that, for all our ingenuity, we are doomed to be 'fooled by randomness' and surprised by 'black swans.'" (See — and read — two of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's intriguing books, "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets" and "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.") According to a study of financial data of the past two centuries, there is a 3.6 percent per annum probability of a financial disaster and, statistically, a 100 percent probability of a new financial disaster within 33 years. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — who is the lead executive-branch figure designing new regulations to protect us from the kind of systemic risk of failures by large institutions that we have just experienced and are trying to work our way through — inadvertently captured perfectly the madness of the current Washington moment. Geithner was quoted in last Wednesday's Financial Times: "I think this has been a searing experience for financial institutions across the world. The great risk we're going to live with for a very long time is that risk aversion remains very high." I happen to agree with him and made a similar observation in a column last month. But I wonder when it will dawn on the secretary that he is leading the team designing a regulatory system to protect us from "greedy" and impetus-excessive financial risk takers destroying the world economy, when, as he himself pointed out, the real next risk is probably "risk-averse" bankers failing to make even sufficient prudent loans and investments. In other words, he is designing regulations that will force more prudence and even slower and less circulation of needed money on a system that he believes is already predisposed to be too prudent and too slow and will circulate too little money to keep our economy humming. Realists like to point out that most generals think they are fighting the last war and thus lose the one they are in. So today, Washington is busy preparing to protect our future economy — which is likely to be stagnant, risk-averse and weighted down with excessive debt, high taxes, expensive energy and industrial policy crony capitalism inefficiencies — from yesterday's financial impetuosity and excessive risk taking. Thereby, we will increase the stagnation, risk aversion and middle-class poverty such habits will cause. Washington isn't writing a financial regulation; it is weaving an economic shroud. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Archives Tony Blankley is executive vice president of Edelman public relations in Washington. Comment by clicking here. © 2009, Creators Syndicate

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Froma Harrop  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works