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As many of us are aware, from 1948 to 1993, Israel generally adopted a policy of strategic deterrence. As Or Honig tells us, when attacked from beyond its borders, "responded with disproportionate force." I can see why: a war of attrition would be too much of a threat, and Israel lacked territorial depth. However, in 1993, Israel tried a different plan: strategic restraint. And it did not work.

Honig explains that the logic behind the new plan was threefold: to improve its international standing, to allow Arab governments to deal with Arab terrorists, and to allow social and political conditions in the Arab world to improve in a manner that would reduce the appeal of terrorism.

Unfortunately, Israel's opponents saw any Israeli restraint and concessions as a victory for their policies. A good example was the withdrawal from Lebanon in the year 2000.

Finally, however, Hezbollah crossed a line that convinced Israeli leaders to change their mind. In 2006, it attacked Israel in the Western sector of the border, an area not in dispute. Honig explains that Hezbollah underestimated the "resiliance of Israel's civilian leadership to fight a just war."

Honig reminds us that the choice between deterrence and restraint is not a choice between war and peace. These are simply two different approaches to maintaining security. And he argues that "Israeli policymakers would be remiss not to recognize the effectiveness of deterrence and the folly of restraint." In addition, "deterrence may actually enhance the effectiveness of Israel's diplomacy." But if it is to work, Honig suggests that "Israeli politicians must make a sustained rather than episodic commitment to the doctrine."

Is Honig right about all this? Maybe. But I think the article is worth reading if only because it makes a serious attempt to deal with reality.

There's plenty of information about the failures, counterproductivity, and untrustworthiness of the Bush administration. And Matthew Rothschild says we do not have to invent conspiracy theories in a misguided attempt to beef up the case against this administration.

He's right. Such theories just sabotage one's credibility. And this article is pretty good at explaining how far from reality the 9/11 conspiracy theories are.

I read these works for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.

Soul- De Anima Latin for Greek word Psuche=Life. It is a Phenomenology of Life. Living things are Aristotle¡¦s primary interest. Renee Descartes says thinking is only aspect of soul, not life. For Descartes the soul is the mind. Aristotle classifies features of living things. A soul can¡¦t be a body, (like a corpse). Psuche=life is a living form of the body, the phenomenon of life. Capacity to live is what he means. Ergon=function or work, thus when he talks about soul it is a body¡¦s function. Thus, a corpse is a deactivated body. Dunamis=capacity, Energia= actuality, thus both words are active words and can be seen as ¡§activating capacity.¡¨ Like a builder while building a house, past potential but not actual until the house is complete.
Entelecheia=¡¨living things have their ends inside them.¡¨ A living being has an end in itself.

What is the soul? Psuche= soul is being working toward ends of a self-moving body having the capacity to live. This is another way of talking about desire (like an animal that is hungry). Desire-animals have this as we do. Orexis=desire. The phenomenology of desire is to be motivated towards something that is lacking at the time, hunger, etc. Pleasure and pain.
Desire and action there are 3 kinds of desire.

1. Appetite like hunger and sex.
2. Emotion-like love not on crude level as appetite.
3. Wish-desire of the mind, (I want a good job).

All three strive towards something that is lacking. ¡§Desire is movement of the soul.¡¨ Human life is a set of desires. Human desires are more complicated. Desires clash like dieting and appetite.

¡§All humans desire to know.¡¨ This is the first line of the Metaphysics. Knowledge examined in terms of distinction between matter and form, perception has to do with intelligible form. Perception takes in visible form of something without the matter. Like imagination, an animal and human can do this. All knowledge starts with perception thus memory. Ultimate knowledge is intelligible form from visible form but mind is also using abstractions, this is a human capacity only. Humans use language to do this. Animals have image of a cat, word ¡§cat¡¨ is an abstraction for us. True knowledge organizes language.

Seing<³being seen. Two beings, seer and seen, this is act of vision it is only one actuality and two potentialities. In effect, Aristotle is saying that the capacity to see can only be actualized by seeing something. However, he goes the other way as well; something seeable only actualizes its seeability by being seen. One actuality, two potentials, the potential to see, the potential to be seen. In the modern world since Descartes, it is spoken as two actualities, the mind, and the outside world and there is a split between the two, two actualities, the mind as a separate thing and the object as a separate thing being seen. This is the source of the classic problem of skepticism. When there is seeing obviously you have two beings, the seer and the seen, but the act of vision is one actuality. Aristotle does not have this skeptical problem because he seems to stipulate this idea of single actuality and the whole point of the capacity to know is meant to hook up with things known. The whole point of knowable things is to be known by knower¡¦s, that is what he means by one actuality, thus there is no split between the mind and the world. There is no purely inside and outside. It isn¡¦t that minds are in here and the world is out there, and we might wonder about how they hook up. The nature of things and the nature of the mind are meant to hook up. Thus, Aristotle is not a radical skeptic like Descartes or Hume. Act of seeing the desk is joint actuality of seer and seen.

Actual hearing and actual sounding occur at the same time. Berkeley¡¦s famous question¡K¡¨If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? For Berkeley, to be is to be perceived. Aristotle answers Berkeley¡¦s question that it does make a sound, but you have to have the capacity to hear, it is a joint venture. The mind and the world are not separated like for Descartes. Aristotle doesn¡¦t buy the idea that ¡§everything in my mind can be false¡¨ like the skeptics argue, Aristotle would say this is impossible. Getting things true and false are part of what the mind has to do, but the possibility that the whole mental realm could be put into question is impossible. Thus, he doesn¡¦t have to answer the question put to skeptics. ¡§If you are right that there is a radical doubt about the possibility of our knowledge hooking up with reality, why would the human situation ever come to pass in this way that it is possible that we could be totally wrong.¡¨ The skeptics answer we are not sure that we are wrong, they are saying we can¡¦t be sure that we are right. If that were the case then Aristotle can say, well is this a recipe for the human condition? One can be skeptical about this or that, but not about everything.

Aristotle moves from perception to thought. The thinking of the world and world to be thought is actualization. Nous=highest capacity of intellect for Aristotle. Mind is potential and until it thinks isn¡¦t actualization. The implication of this the world wants to be known according to Aristotle. The world also activates our desire. One actualization of two potentialities. Taking in form without matter that is what knowledge is. A knowing soul cannot be separation from the body. The mind has built in capacity to understand for Aristotle, no actual knowledge until intellect engages with objects. ¡§Actually thinking mind is the thing that it thinks. In this respect the soul is all existing things.¡¨ Soul is capacity to think the world in the passage.

I recommend Aristotle¡¦s works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

I read these works for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.
Definition of Rhetoric- capacity of persuasion. Plato is critical of the Rhetoric and the tragic poetry. Rhetoric is approach to political public speeches in the forum. Plato thought that they clouded the mind and thus created a part of his critique of democracy in general. Plato thinks Socrates was killed by rhetoric used by the Athenian democracy. Plato feared the danger of democracy. Poetry appeals to the base human emotions rhetoric, and poetry block rational truth according to Plato. Rhetoric is psychological force of language vs. logical force of language. Psychology leads people to believe things based on emotions. Speech must appeal to the masses in a democracy. Psychology is persuasion, logic is truth. Deduction and induction is arguing logically. Plato says rhetoric is not a technç, (craft) nor is poetry, because they are undisciplined and not uniform in design. Thus, appeal to psychology and emotion can never be done away with in a democracy, thus Plato abhors them and democracy. Plato calls it sophistry this psychological appeal and democracy requires this to exist, so the problem persists. Plato is clear and consistent in his abhorrence of sophistry and democracy.

Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics are an alternative to Plato. Aristotle's rhetoric tries to strike a middle position. Aristotle says rhetoric and poetry are a technç, the Rhetoric is a handbook. Aristotle says speaker needs to appeal to appropriate information for the particular setting. Much like a lawyer's argument, not just relying on facts, need to appeal to people's emotions. Aristotle does understand that rhetoric can be used in a harmful way.

Aristotle lays out three features in rhetoric:
1. Ethos= character of the speaker, also charisma, speaker earns the audience's trust, use of body language.
2. Pathos= condition of the hearer.
3. Logos= essential bearing on political persuasion, truth.

Thus, Plato's concern by definition excludes speech because it deals with emotion. These three conditions must be in play for a speech to be successful. The rhetoric contains a detailed analysis of the different human emotions and how to elicit them in a speech. Aristotle knows the speaker must be a good student of human nature to tap into human emotions.

Epistçmç is scientific knowledge. Phronçsis is the capacity of the soul for using education, experience and habit all this is in the ethics. This is the same in political world so politics is not an episteme no scientific reasoning. The things that come up in politics are not deduced scientifically. In politics, humans use deliberation between several possible outcomes unlike math where there is only one correct answer. Political speech is contentious because the nature of politics is contentious.

There are two circumstances in rhetoric.
1. Judicial rhetoric has to do with the past like in a court case.
2. Deliberative rhetoric has to do with the future, what decision should we make in political policies.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

I own well over one hundred books on trading and this is the most beneficial one on trader psychology in my collection. The authors have succeeded in driving home the point that trading is a business of probabilities and that no one particular trade is important in the grander scheme of things. It is the combination of all trades that make the difference. If you're afraid to pull the trigger, you need this book. If you second guess yourself and your system after a series of losses, you need this book. If you cut your profits short and let your losses run, you need this book. The author also suggests reading 5 pages per day of Mark Douglas' Trading in the Zone. I suggest reading 10 pages per day of The Essentials of Trading.

Fascinating and important stuff. Everyone who sends emails, gets emails, and has heard of email should read this book. Most political campaigns are light years behind the .orgs and .coms. And this writer seems to know the ins and outs better than most!

"Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary" is an outstanding volume worth adding to the collection of anyone interested in African Tribal Art. The color plates alone of Fang, Embette, and Kota Reliquarys make the price (low for a book of this magnitude) worth while.
Highly recommended.

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This is a great article if you need a reference to help you wade through the autism practices literature. I was glad to find it.

The price tag of Exploring Holotropic Breathwork: Selected Articles From A Decade Of The Inner Door is weighty indeed - but so is the information packed within its covers. This guide gathers well over a hundred field reports related to a non-drug altered-state work. Over eighty authors trained in breathwork published these articles between 1991-2002, providing a foundation of important information to practitioners in fields ranging from medical to spiritual areas. From work with trauma survivors to work with lupis and HIV patients, this details a range of effects of breathwork and offers invaluable advice on how it can blend with traditional and alternative therapies. A unique, invaluable guide highly recommended for the new age health library.