Best way to understnad middle east conflicts

This Slate article does the best I've seen at explaining the love/hate relationships the Middle East constituents share. Pretty much everyone hates Israel but there are some surprising conflicts in there I didn't know about.

Oooh and I also found this graphic!

A really modest proposal

Completely unrelated to my last post but completely on the topic of making things better:
How to improve society

My basis is this:
First, bad parents exist. Abusive ones, mean nasty ones. Its a fact.
Second, good parents exist. Nice ones, loving ones who raise up good children. Its a fact.
Third, there exists some difference in quality between good and bad parents.
Fourth, reducing the number of bad parents would increase the proportion of good children.
Fifth, good children have a higher tendency to become good parents.

My proposal is this (given a world where I have control and could propose such a solution):
First, create a completely reversible cheaply-done reliable sterilization procedure.
Second, offer (as a government) a reward to individuals seeking to become sterilized. Lets say $500.
Third, offer the procedure reversing the sterilization at a significantly higher fee. Lets say $2000.
Thats it. Its the solution to many of the worlds problems.

People who just want to get it on and not have kids get a little free money and security.
People who later decide they are ready for the committment to have kids and are able to support them would be able to have the procedure reversed.
People who make rash decisions and want easy money or those unable to save up enough money to have the procedure reversed would not become parents. My assumption (and it is a bold one) is that though some good parents may be lost to sterilization, mostly people who would become bad parents are prevented from conceiving. These people would likely be drug addicts, debt-a-holics and the selfish.

Sound good? Vote for me in the next election for Supreme Dictator.

A modest proposal

Our church is dissolving and it has brought up a lot of thoughts.
Today I pondered teaching and how it is done in church (meaning the Sunday event, rather than the church as a people). Since when has church been a boring place? Why do people show up? Why do pastors encourage us to bring other people? Why does church teaching look so drastically different from other teaching.
I have a few ideas. Pastors try to attract other people by preaching on things that make people feel good, or cater to their societal needs with schmoozing and all the other ends pastors (and church members) perform to reach out to outsiders. Sermons tend to be focused on "you" or people and how to better oneself or society.
First, church is not particularly suited for people who don't like to learn. What if the teaching at church were to be taught like a college course. People interested in the topics would sign up of their own initiative and attend as they pleased for the furthering of their education. People in college choose courses to take and to learn because they enjoy learning, they want to get something out of it. If they show up to courses they aren't suited for they'll get lost, if they don't show up they'll do poorly and if they don't take it seriously they tend to drop out. If in church the intent of the sermon were to attract people who wanted to learn about the topic being taught we would be reaching the people who are really Christians. Those who aren't serious about learning would drop out. But why would anyone show up? Why does anyone show up?
Second, often the focus of the teaching, the path of learning in church is human focused. People shouldn't be in church on Sunday just because it is Sunday and that is just what they do on Sunday. People should be in church because they want to learn. What do they want to learn about? Presumably, since they are Christians, their drive in learning should be about how to love God. Thats it. End of story. Once people show up to church because they know that they want to love God and that is the sole reason they should be there, church will be a useful place of learning. Of course, the responsibility lies on the pastors and leaders to provide teaching along those lines. Most of the time they aren't far off in their obligations excepting that they don't remind the attendees of why they show up. That and the teaching style is all wrong.
Third, often teaching in churches is lowest common denominator teaching. Students in school with disabilities have trouble learning and fall behind, what happens when the slow kids are mixed with the faster crowd? Lowest common denominator teaching. Teach so even the simplest could learn. I argue for middle-advanced teaching. Students can't always be fed milk just so the babies can have their fill. Milk teaching (aka the basics) should be relagated to one-on-one teaching, individual study and focused beginners groups. There is no shame in being a beginner. Sunday should be reserved for the meat. Will some leave hungry? Yes, they may not be able to process the meat (do you follow me?) but if the church is in their right mind they will have a meat eater willing to feed them the milk they are needing. Its called discipleship and its sorely lacking in todays church. Not by age but by spiritual maturity. When a pastor teaches the first thing they should ask should be, "How can I use this textbook (Bible) to help my students love God and know that is the reason they are here?" It really shouldn't be, "How can I improve my flock and spur them to action?" or, "How can I make them not fall asleep?". Sure those are good questions but the first question needs to be answered first followed by the rest.

Does any of this make sense?

All dressed up in Portland.