The hard science behind these questions is still very new. A more practical question to ask might be why these questions are at all significant, and how has it traditionally been looked at:

• The significance of these questions is based primarily on the highly politicized question of whether Jews are a religious group or an ethnic group. More specifically, it rests on the opposing viewpoints of Jewish emancipation vs. assimilation.

This is an important distinction in the Jewish mythology, as the former would imply a strong nationalistic element within the Diaspora, and the yearning for a united Jewish nation. The latter would lend credence to the view that various Jewish populations left their homeland willingly over hundreds of years in search for better prospects, and assimilated into other societies accordingly.

• The question has traditionally been addressed through ever-changing historiographic methods of inquiry.

As mainstream Jewish scholarship emerged after the Enlightenment, historian David Gans made use of historical dissemination in providing:

…householders like myself overburdened with everyday worries, with a tale to lighten their load.

This idea would later give rise to the classic Scholem/Kurzweil debate among modern Jewish scholars regarding whether or not historical veracity should be valued more than the nationalistic connection that may be nurtured by Jewish historiography, regardless of its relative accuracy.

For the most part, people don’t decide to up and create something simply because they need to make money. In fact, if an individual is really strapped for cash, it’s all the more likely that they won’t be starting up a business anytime soon, especially considering the measly 12% success rate for first-time entrepreneurs.

Although generating revenue is rarely the ultimate goal for a young tech entrepreneur, there’s no way to get past the fact that you need capital to grow. The point here isn’t that entrepreneurs must kiss ass in order to succeed, or even that cash is, above all and always, king. The real wisdom here lays in the idea that:

To succeed on your own terms, you must find that balance between your entrepreneurial freedom and the patience of your investors.

“Ashkenazi Jews” is a descriptive term for contemporary Jews who descended from the Jewish population that was extremely prevalent throughout Europe, from the middle ages up until WWII; Ashkenazi literally means German/Germanic. At their peak, this distinct Jewish population made up about 92% of all Jews, while they are now believed to constitute anywhere from 74-85% of Jews. Half of the current Jewish population in Israel is identified as Ashkenazi.

Although they were traditionally defined by their shared religious practices, the Yiddish language, and reproductive isolation, modern day migration patterns have blurred the lines significantly. For the most part, any Jew with ancestral roots in Europe is usually described as an Ashkenazi Jew.

This is where the debate arises: Are Ashkenazi Jews primarily European converts, or an isolated population of Jews who migrated from the Levant?

Although this is science, not politics, it is unrealistic to believe that the two disciplines don’t interact in some way, depending on the individual who wields them. In the world of archaeogenetics, few topics are more politically charged than that of Jewish origin.

There are a few reasons for this:

• Judaism is much more than just a faith-based religion, as its origins are tribal in nature. This means that up until the first century, one could not become a member of the Jewish tribe through faith alone; that ancestral line (traditionally patrilineal) had to be present as well.
• Because of this ancestral connection, it would follow that Jews, primarily identified by their religion, could also be characterized as an ethnic group. However, the characteristics that once would have supported this idea are not as apparent in contemporary times.
• Despite the fact that this ancestral lineage and shared tribal culture has been “watered down” over hundreds of years of Jewish diaspora, it was still the explicit reasoning behind the Zionist movement.
• In response to the Zionist movement, many Jews and non-Jews began the reactionary anti-Zionist movement. Shlomo Sand, professor of history at Tel Aviv University, summed up a few of the logical fallacies, as he sees them, behind Zionism in his book, The Invention of the Jewish People.

With the incredible advancement of genetic studies over the last decade, the science is finally to able back-up, or debunk, some of the long-standing claims about Judaism as an ethnic identity. None-the-less, there’s not a whole lot of room for facts in the political arena, so the debate is likely to continue.

In the grand scheme of things, this was a comedian making a joke. Although it showed insensitivity towards Kanye’s situation and ignorance as far as his past history, we don’t like comedians for their sensitivity; they are social critics first and foremost, which leaves little room for sympathy.

Although ‘Ye probably overreacted, it was not at all surprising given his history, and is actually pretty understandable. This is a man whose admitted arrogance has led him to be lambasted by the media for having a “god complex”, and made him the target of every talentless journalist (read: hack blogger), who continues to refer to him as a psuedo-intellectual.

Kanye’s passionate personality often fuels these fires, and not all the criticism he receives is unfair, but Kimmel should have known that poking fun of a man in a vulnerable state would result in this exact situation.

Below: One of the many deleted tweets from the now infamous KW vs. JK twitter rant.

Just to set the record straight, true “laissez-faire” capitalism has never existed in the industrialized world. The U.S. government has a long history of state capitalism, as defined by “a regime of highly concentrated private ownership, subsidized and protected by government.”

This high concentration of wealth allows corporations to privatize profits, while socializing the losses. In fact, this phenomenon of “socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor” was first pointed out in the early 1960’s. Today it rings true more than ever.

This was literally the shining moment in American free enterprise, where a whole new “class” of citizens arose to carry the U.S. into prosperity. From 1940-1968, corporate profits had doubled, from $43 billion to $86 billion (pg. 459).

Things where good, but the three pillars upon which post-war U.S. capital accumulation was built, were in fact deteriorating, although Powell grossly overstates the perceived causes:

1. By 1970, Asian and European systems had finally been rebuilt. The U.S. simply lost their monopoly on the capitalist system.
2. After nearly 70 years of oppression and exploitation by the U.S. military/corporate tag-team, South America finally stood up for itself. The loss of cheap labor and resources meant higher costs for U.S. production.
3. Where Powell chooses to focus his attention, is the socially turbulent times of the 1960s, with anti-war, civil rights, and environmental marches taking place. This prompted the government to institute wider regulations over previously untouched industry.

Lew adds a footnote here:

Variously called: the “free enterprise system,” “capitalism,” and the “profit system.” The American political system of democracy under the rule of law is also under attack, often by the same individuals and organizations who seek to undermine the enterprise system.

Talk about spooky…In reality, the U.S. was just coming off a 20 year economic boom, from 1950-1970. During this “Golden Age” of capitalism:

• The U.S. economy grew at an average annual rate of nearly 4%.
• The annual unemployment rate only exceeded 6% twice in the 25 years between 1949 and 1973.
• The annual inflation rate, too, only topped 6% twice, and was actually under 2% for 14 of the 25 years in this period.
• The real average hourly earnings of production workers increased at an average rate of over 2% per year.

Warning Shots?

Probably not…but there are a few interesting contextual items to point out here:

When he’s not droppin' the hottest Hip Hop references in the venture capitalist game, Horowitz has been one of the key drivers in Silicon Valley, where it seems like every start-up he’s touched has turned to gold. Now, fast forward a few years (and billions of dollars) later to October 2012, when Horowitz and his VC partner saw it fit to bless the Rap Genius Triumvirate, to the tune of $15 million.

Ever since that investment, people have been asking, “how/when will Rap Genius start generating revenue?” As Ben explains in this post, this is a delicate decision, and there’s no clear cut formula. Last we heard, Horowitz had offered up his connections in the business/government enterprise sectors to help get the premium “Enterprise Genius” service up and rolling onto the path towards ballerdom.

We haven’t heard much about this plan since then, which isn’t unusual. However RG co-founder Ilan Zechory did have some fun deflecting questions about generating revenue in a recent interview with CNBC’s Power Pitch panel. While Horowitz probably wasn’t thinking about RG when he wrote this, there is some obvious crossover as far as this entrepreneurial wisdom goes.

Again, this shouldn’t take away from the main point here, which is U.S. support of Syrian rebels is a stupid idea, but clearly Bachmann is playing politics.

The fact is, every President, from Obama on back, has either sat by and watched, or else directly supported, both foreign and domestic terrorism over the years. As former NSA director (under Reagan) William Odom pointed out years ago:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.