Why oh why do people still use fax machines? We don't have a fax machine in our office. From the beginning I decided that we would withstand the pressure and insist that people email documents to us so that we can be a mostly paperless office. Yes, I know that there are fax services that will deliver faxes to your inbox, but in that case why not just use email? And for those that think that there's no way to get a piece of paper to someone remotely without a fax machine, I'd like to introduce you to a handy device called the scanner. We have so many ways to communicate online today: email, facebook, twitter...there are ...

Have you ever asked someone for directions in Israel, or given directions yourself? Giving directions in Israel is an art and almost a religion. While there are those who will misguide you, many will take five minutes to tell you exactly where to go, and if you ask someone who is in their car, they will often tell you just to follow them. And streets in Israel aren't like in Toronto (where I grew up) - there, everything is north, south, east and west. Giving directions there is easy since it's all about the number of blocks until you turn right or left. In Israel, parallel roads are never exactly parallel, and they can end up meeting each other at some point. ...

[Go to the end of this post to see the original ad] If any of us thought that the West was going to work to stop Iran from developing nuclear capabilities, at least economically if not militarily, then think again. The following pretty much indicates that profit, even the smallish profit derived from newspaper advertising, is way more important then the lives of little ol' you and me. Ad: Looking for ethically-challenged people to build Iran's nuclear reactor Let's say you're a despot trying to build up your nuclear powers. You've got one nuclear reactor in the making that will hopefully soon be able to blow whole cities into oblivion. So far so good. But let's say you want to be able to ...

Last year my dad took a classic photo of a guy on his way to his Yom Haatzmaut barbecue. I made a short video all about Yom Haatzmaut and barbecueing in honor of this guy who is the most serious mangaler/barbecuer I have ever seen. [googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1616233732685486555[/googlevideo]

Aner Ravon at De Gardener writes about an initiative of his friend Shahar to sign off every post with the sentence "Moreover, I advise that the genocide in Darfur must be stopped." Shahar explains this sentence in Hebrew, and Aner explains it in English: "This is a paraphrase on Cato the Elder, who used to sign off every speech with a pledge to destroy Carthage (”Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse”)." I admit that I don't know much about what is going on in Darfur except that hundreds of thousands have been killed. One of the outrages of the Holocaust was that the world stood by while millions of Jews were ...

Today I came across three surprisingly prominent uses of Hebrew and Yiddish words on the web: WordPress.org – the official WordPress site allows you to complain about their popular blogging platform on their "KVETCH!" page. Where you can enter your Kvetch, the word "kvetch" links to its definition on Answers.com. The fact that they felt the need to link to a definition means that the word is still not ...

In Part 1 of my series on Self Employment and Maternity Leave, I discussed the technical aspects of getting compensation from social security for maternity leave. In Part 2, I discussed whether it is realistic for a business owner to disappear for three months and hope that the business will still be there when she gets back from her maternity leave. My conclusion is that it is not. Having said that, I promised that I would explain how it is possible to get any work done while on maternity leave. There are two main "environmental" supports that I found play a significant role in ...

Thank You for Smoking is the first good movie I've seen in a long time. The characters are great, the script is brilliant, and it addresses interesting issues like moral relativism, political correctness, and our responsibility to our children. All of this takes place around a man who defends the tobacco industry to the world. We all know that cigarettes are bad for us. They have been linked to diseases, diminished quality of life, and death. The general consensus is that smoking is bad, and therefore someone who spends their life defending cigarette producers is obviously morally questionable. But cigarettes are a clear cut case. How ...

This past Sunday I gave birth to Tifferet at 11:11 pm. She weighed 3.4 kg at birth, and got perfect results on her Apgar test. Tifferet (which means beauty, glory, or splendor in Hebrew) was born with a heart condition called pulmonary stenosis. This condition affects the flow of blood from the heart to the lungs. Pulmonary stenosis can appear at different levels of severity. Tifferet's condition was defined as "severe/critical" and when not treated immediately results in death. My doctor noticed a problem during a routine pregnancy ultrasound, and referred me to a fetal eco-cardiogram, where the problem was diagnosed. Thanks to this diagnosis, we could prepare as needed for the birth, ...

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. Bob Hope I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Thomas Jefferson You know the scene in Mary Poppins where Jane and Michael cause a run on the bank because Michael refuses to deposit his tuppence there? (If you don't, please hang your head in shame for a few seconds and run to your nearest video store to rent the movie.) Well, sometimes I wish that we could have some kind of symbolic run on the banks here that ...