Twitter

Mishna. Twittering does not count as blogging, if there are no more than 12 "tweets" a day.

Gemara. Why does the mishna discuss this matter? Is blogging not permitted? Blogging is permitted unless one has sworn a vow not to blog. If one has sworn before witnesses or if one has sworn in a public writing. It is public if there are two witnesses or if one witness can supply a URL. And if the URL is a dead link? Then, it is appropriate to check the Google cache. But R. Yehudah taught: If there has been removal of a document from a URL, one may infer that there is no intention to swear the vow.

What is a day? R. Ashi said: From midnight to midnight. In the opinion of R. Ashi, it is required to use Greenwich mean time. But whose time stamp would R. Ashi use? Some say the time stamp at twitter.com. But the sages said: From 18 minutes before sundown to the coming out of [three] stars. R. Jose objected: A man sends a "tweet" 10 minutes after sundown. This counts for two days according to the sages, but it is only one "tweet." But how may one think of this? A "tweet" is connected to another before or after it. It counts as one, according to what it is connected to. The halakha is in accordance with the sages.

Why 12? A baraita teaches, one for each tribe. R. Shmuel said: One for each two hours. This cannot be correct. A day is more than 24 hours. There is no contradiction. An hour is one-twenty-fourth of a day according to the sages.

Reply to all

For reasons not worth going into, I ended up on the mailing list for the symphony orchestra at an Ivy League college. I don't use the particular email address often, and I tend to be surprised whenever I check and there's mail for the address.

Today, there were 36 messages.

You know the rest. I had received a mass-mailed message from the orchestra a week ago, with the list addresses in the "To" line instead of the "BCC" line, a mistake I've occasionally made with small lists, and somehow, someone hit "reply to all" and started a chain of messages that grew to well beyond the original 36. This incident had all the telltale signs of the low IQ we've come to expect from the Ivy League:

1. At first, a dozen or so people send around their memories of having played in this symphony orchestra nearly 40 years ago. We'll call this "pre-onset Alzheimer's."

2. Suddenly, people start sending "reply to all" messages that say "remove me from this list" or something like that.

3. One sensible soul sends a message suggesting that the better way of handling it would be to ignore the messages. He says there was obviously an error, and sending "reply to all" messages asking to be removed will just worsen the problem. (I send the guy a reply to him alone, saying that with his common sense, he probably didn't go to the particular Ivy League college.) His plea goes ignored.

4. The "remove me" messages continue to fly.

5. A woman who identifies herself as a law professor specializing in civil rights law does exactly what you would expect: She scolds everyone for burdening the rest of us with their "remove me" messages.

6. The "remove me" messages continue.

7. Someone becomes crude, which was inevitable and surprisingly long in coming: "I think I know the cause of this problem," he writes. "Some douchebag tried to reply to one person but hit REPLY ALL instead? If no one replies then we should be all ok?"

8. The "remove me" messages continue, but no one, fortunately, responds in kind, crudely, at least for a while.

9. Someone sends a message with the subject line "IMPORTANT: [Orchestra] List Removal" and provides a link to unsubscribe. You will not be shocked to learn that this is a Rickroll.

10. Another submitter says, "stop hitting Reply to all. dumbasses" This person has an email address from a daily newspaper from a surrounding county. Freedom of the press, I suppose.

11. Some dude totally loses it, and his exclamation point key gets stuck in the effort: "STOP THIS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I Am BEYOND POLITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IF THE [orchestra] EVER WANTS A DIME FROM ME STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

12. Someone writes, "i don't know who any of you are but i received about 30 chats." Which possibly qualifies as the most helpful of all the responses.

13. One writer sends a strongly worded letter ordering everyone to stop: "OK. It stops here. Now. DO NOT send ANY messages to these lists. DO NOT send an unsubscribe message - it will just antagonize everyone, as all the other postings have this afternoon, and it will do no good." He goes on to say he will speak to the orchestra manager to get him to set up the lists so that no one else can post. Needless to say, he is ignored, and "remove me" emails continue to multiply.

As of tonight, the number of messages I've received exceeds 100, which is way above the IQ of any of these people.

UPDATE (7/6): I guess the college has been getting some flak over this, because now we've heard from its flack: "Can you please contact me at the Office of Public Affairs. I'd like to discuss best practices and what happened with the email that was sent out this weekend." It goes without saying that this was sent to all.

Barack Obama's July 4 proclamation

THE WHITE HOUSE

July 4, 2009

WHEREAS the Declaration of Independence was issued on July 4, 1776;

WHEREAS its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, was a slave-holder and, some say, the father of his slave Sally Hemings's children;

WHEREAS Charles Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution suggests that the Constitution was established as a counter-revolution by moneyed interests against poor farmers and debtors;

WHEREAS the Constitution recognized and accepted the institution of slavery;

WHEREAS slavery was not abolished in this country until after 11 states had seceded from the Union and our nation's second-greatest president had led a civil war against the secessionist states;

WHEREAS former secessionist states enacted "Jim Crow" laws and erected other barriers to equality of former slaves and their descendants;

WHEREAS this nation continued to espouse segregation in its armed forces through World War II;

WHEREAS uneducated forces within this nation continue to oppose our progressive efforts to spread the wealth around a little;

WHEREAS the economic conditions caused by the former administration have impeded our ability to create or save millions of jobs;

WHEREAS reactionary elements in this nation intend to use the July 4 holiday to protest the forward-looking changes effected by this administration;

WHEREAS waterboarding is clearly a form of torture, except when it is used on reactionary elements in this nation;

WHEREAS Israeli settlements are an obstacle to my cap-and-trade legislation;

WHEREAS the Secretary of State needs to be under constant watch;

WHEREAS the First Lady's arms are a sight to behold and very much better in person, especially when she places her hand tightly around one's neck;

WHEREAS Winnie the Pooh's real name is Edward;

WHEREAS we should not be forced to make a false choice between Mary Ann and Ginger;

WHEREAS it is puzzling how sugar cubes can retain their shape of a cube when sugar is granular;

WHEREAS colorless green ideas sleep furiously;

WHEREAS, if my telepromter doesn't stop adding stupid whereases to this proclamation in order embarrass me, I'm going to replace it promptly;

WHEREAS traditional July 4 celebrations include outdoor barbecues, which cause unhealthy charring of meat as well as increased carbon emissions;

WHEREAS hot dogs should be served with a spicy mustard or something like that, or a Dijon mustard, something like that;

WHEREAS the American beer consumed at July 4 barbecues has an excessively watery taste and an unnecessarily high caloric level;

WHEREAS the fireworks that are widespread on or about July 4 have led to the unnecessary prescription of Valium to small dogs and will be strictly regulated under my new health-care plan, although your dog will not be forced to switch his health insurance if he's happy with what he has;

I, BARACK H. OBAMA, Messiah and 1st President of the United States of the Era of Redemption, hereby proclaim that July 4 shall be the day following July 3 in the calendar.

I mean, July 4, what's the big deal about independence from Britain? It's just one colonial-imperialist power telling another colonial-imperialist power to take a hike. What kind of power could England have been, anyway, if you can't even play American DVDs there? Or so I'm told.

I'm a student of history, so I know that when Queen Elizabeth II said, "We are not amused," it spoke volumes about the British people. Perhaps they'd be more amused and smile more if they got their teeth fixed. And have you seen the ears on that doofus prince they have there? They're twice the size of mine. This is the guy who's in line to be king, mind you, the veritable Joe Biden of the British monarchy.

I know it's traditional on July 4 to thank our military men and women for their sacrifices, but they don't understand sacrifice if they haven't been savaged by Fox News on a daily basis. Besides, I'm doing my best to bring as many of them home as possible from our losing battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just the other day, Jim Jones was saying to me that the colonels in Afghanistan are asking for more troops, not fewer. And I was, like, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?" And then suddenly it occurred to me: I don't even know WTF "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" means. Which is why I always do my best to stay far away from military matters.

So I think this day should be a time of reflection. A time to reflect upon the flaws in our nation's history, our repeated illegal and immoral interventions in the affairs of other nations, our mistreatment of our minority citizens and our poor. I urge all Americans to use this day to find some of the 6 billion or so non-Americans in this world and tell them how sorry you are. SRSLY, try it. Look for the meanest, most murderous, eyeball-popping hate merchant you can find and tell him, "Dude, I'm sorry about what my country did to you, but we inherited that stuff from the Bush Administration." And then, give him a hug.

Barack H. Obama

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