apparently it is now illegal to wear headphones while crossing a crosswalk
 

so appratnly as of last month in israel you can get fined 100 NIS for wearing to earphones while crossing the street. they claim that music makes you distracted. this is the most bullshit law i have heard.
im am starting to get really paranoid living here at times. this kind of stff scares the shit out of me.
this is like the town in footloose.

i just know that im going to be caught and ther is not fucking way that im taking a ticket for my basic human right.
how jail time does one get for tearing up a ticket in front of an officer?

Waw, that sucks. The fuck is that this thing is really happening everywhere in the world, we have less and less liberties. In France, you can't stand without moving in a subway station, cause that's illegal. Also when the president came to Lille it was illegal to walk with more than two friends together, or they would think you wanted to begin a riot.

Good. It's about time. If it takes laws to make people less oblivious to their surroundings and other people, so be it.

I would be totally in favor of such laws here in the states. I can't tell you how many times people have almost walked right into me because they're distracted on their fucking cell phones or "deaf" to what's going on around them because they have their earbuds in.

i really hope that you are joking

it happens in downtown houston all the time. people get hit because thy ahev ipod headphones on or cell phone bluetooth opn and they are not paying any fucking attention where they are going.

I want to carry a pellet gun and shoot them in the groin

I don;t know if a law like that is enforcable but in israel you deal with a LOT of insane fucking laws man.

yeah, theres a new one that is trying to be passed where the internet providers automaticly filter your websites, and if you dont want them to, then you have to request that they dont. im guessing all those who dont want internet censorship will be then put on a list and E T C
shits scary. after hearing about those two laws i think i decided that im moving to canada after my degree

You may get your wish - there was talk of enacting similar laws in NYC. I say let Darwin sort em out. No need for the government to be poking more into our lives.

Now talking on the cell phone in a place I can't get away from - that should be illegal. Nothing I hate worse than some yenta sitting next to me on the bus and blabbing away to pass the time. My cell phone calls on the bus are: "I'm on the bus, what's up? - okay cool, meet you @ blah blah blah - call you back in a couple of minutes - bye."

ha! too right. stupid people walking straight out infront of my car when im driving. despite the fact that they are totally obvlivious to reality, coccooned in their own self fulfilled world of ipodness and music, unaware or too lazy to check for motorists who carefully use the roads, they step out and BLAMMO! they are hit, and who is to blame.... the motorist because the pedestrian always has the right of way!!!!!!!

more laws like that please like make it illegal to not hold your childs hand when crossing the road, make it illegal to be fucking stupid around roads full stop!


rant over!

good. some fucking morons walk like in outer space with headphones on. you don't need any more dead israelis do you?

the ones who should be shot in the ass are the ones talking on the phone while driving. fucking morons.

i just cant see the wisdom in legilating against being a moron. people will walk in front of cars no matter what. and if there is anything i need less of its stupid laws that make the civilians seem less and less in control of our daily lives.

Not at all. I'm tired of fucking idiots not watching where they're going or paying attention to their surroundings. It's unsafe and discourteous.

No, I am not kidding at all. If it takes laws to make people behave like they have some common sense in their heads, I'm all for it.

Well, I would agree with you, if I thought that Darwinism-like selection were in my favor in this instance. It's not. They're more a danger to me than themselves. Just like the drunk driver, they usually are unscathed. But they cause accidents that harm others, if not themselves. For example, if I have to suddenly brake in my car because some yo-yo darts out against the light and doesn't know I'm there because he or she is gabbing away on the phone or plugged into their little music world, I might get rear-ended by the car behind me that can't stop in time--or who knows how else mess up the traffic around me.

As I see it, the legislation isn't so much for the protection of that individual who chooses to wear earbuds in the crosswalk. It's for the protection of the people around him. See my other posts.

First off... HA HA!!! A big rep to you, if I could!


Second off... word. Word. Word, fucking word! So true.

lol.


stupid idiotas.

1st of all this law clearly states that it is for the protection of the pedestrian not the driver. and it seems silly to legislate a law to make sure people dont dart in front of cars and to blame it on the music. how much of a problem are these music listeners on our streets? i have yet to see them. im sure that a lot more kids cause accidents by having their ball roll into the street and they dart after it. should playing with balls be illegal, or should people just be taught common sense?

well, as a civilian who occasionally finds himself behind the wheels of a large automobile (sorry, talking heads quote, my car is actually small) i find that i have LESS control of my daily life when some titbrains walks in front of my car without noticing where the fuck he's going. not only will i have to scrape his brains off my windshield but no matter what he'll make my insurance go up, and his idiot family will want me to pay them for life. fuck that shit. get the morons off the road.

just the other day i saw this stupid motherfucking bicyclist riding on a main thoroughfare with a cellphone in his hand. then there was another doing the "look ma, no hands" bit-- then a car turned in front of him. you know, i ride a bike, and fuck if im gonna be stupid enough to let go off my handlebars in traffic.
same thing with idiot drivers wearing their ipods. same thing with idiots who don't get a basic IQ test in oder to drive.

anyway. maybe they shouldn't make it illegal to cross the streets wearing headphones. but then they should pass a law so that if you hit a moron who's wearing headphones his family has to buy you a brand new car and pay you millions of dollars for the rest of your life so that you can cope with your trauma.

that law i agree with :-)

Well, then, it seems even more well-intended. What's wrong with helping citizens protect themselves from themselves? "Hey, stupid, don't do that. You might die." If someone protected me against some death-inviting activity, even if it meant barring me from doing it, I would thank them.

As for actually seeing this happen, maybe you haven't, but I have. But then I've mostly lived in college towns where there tend to be a lot of kids with earbuds and on phones in busy downtowns, etc. But believe me, I've seen this happen plenty, and I would venture to say, based on what I've seen, that it's a bit of a problem.

honestly, thinking about it, i don't think they're gonna enforce that law, just putting it in the books so that when someone hits a headphone-clad jaywalker (that's the american term for someone wandering randomly in traffic), then it's their fault not the driver's. really they can't be checking everyone's ears-- earbuds in the corpse sounds more like what they're after.

That's probably it.

New pastime in Israel--hit the earbud pedestrian!

& so the law ends up enforcing itself--as soon as word is out that drivers are protected in hitting earbud-wearing pedestrians, pedestrians--at least the smart ones--won't cross the street with earbuds on. Brilliant!

traffic in israel is insane already. everyone drives like a maniac. good times!

That's because over there it's the end of the world as we know it.

i was going to say that.

i normally would think that it's a stupid law but have you seen israelis drive? holy mother of mishka!! have you seen israeli bus drivers drive?

but yeah, i agree with the sentiment expressed by fugazifan, the thing is that governments worldwide are now taking a sort of nanny role, making laws to protect grown adults like if they were little children "you can't do this, is bad for you; it's against the law to do that , it's for your own good". it's retarded.

i wouldn't be surprised if they raised the majority of age to 35 in a few years.

if governments act like the people are half brain dead and treat them as such, the public will begin to believe it and act half brain-dead.

which sucks because a) you start to deal with morons on a daily basis (without them having the ambition to improve themselves) and b) the half brain morons inspire extremist and totalitarian governments to take over.

it should be compulsory for everyone to hold hands while crossing the street.

Why make a law out of it? Why not just emphasize headphones as a ruling factor of fault on the pedestrians part in such crosswalk incidents? Making a law out of every little fucking thing is stupid and abusive.

hell, you cannot even get married in israel without a tribunal determing whether or not you are truly jewish.

in Ottawa spitting on the street is against the law. Nobody reinforces it though. I don't think a law like having headphones on whie crossing the road would be heavily enforced, but it's really based on the area. Where I live, I was caught for drugs and the officer said "Just don't do it again" and didn't even take it away from me.

of all that shit going on in israel today, you are beginning to get scarred of petty inconveniences like that? civil rights violation, yes, important on the scale of human rights violations occurring at the hands of the israeli government.... give me a break. I think your grievance will take the back of the bus on this one.

anyways, this are you familiar with the meaning of the song "dancin in the streets?" take it to heart.

that's because the orthodox camp has a monopoly on the marriage. so it's not just the jewish thing-- it has to be an orthodox ceremony. if you marriage was performed by a conservative rabbi or, worse even, a reform one, your marriage is not valid.

fortunately as a nation they must recognize marriages from other countries so some israelis will take a boat to cyprus and get married there (not sure if this has changed as of late). a friend of mine did that & then had a reform ceremony to square things up religiously.

divorces, by the way, are even worse than that! don't let me get started on that...

I wonder if there is a huge black market for sexy jewish lady porno in Israel?

Nice Jewish girls and boysJews accounted for most of the leading male performers as well as a sizeable number of female stars in porn movies of the 1970s and 80s. The doyen of the Hebrew studs is Ron Jeremy. Known in the trade as 'the Hedgehog' Jeremy is one of America's biggest porn stars. The 51-year-old Jeremy was raised in an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Flushing, Queens, and has since appeared in more than 1,600 adult movies, as well as directing over 100. Jeremy has achieved iconic status in America, a hero to males of all ages, Jewish and gentile alike - he's the nebbischy, fat, hairy, ugly guy who gets to bed dozens of beautiful women. He presents an image of a modern-day King David, a Jewish superstud who supersedes the traditional heroes of Jewish lore. No sallow Talmud scholar he. His stature was recently cemented with the release of a pornomentary about his life, Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy. As probably the most famous Jewish male porn star, Jeremy has done wonders for the psyche of Jewish men in America. Jeremy has also just released a compilation CD, Bang-A-Long-With Ron Jeremy. For 9.99 (including delivery), the lucky listener gets to enjoy Jeremy's hand-picked favourite porno grooves along with narration by 'the legend' himself. As the publicity blurb gushes, 'Out of the brown paper wrappings and into the mainstream.'
Seymore Butts, aka Adam Glasser, is everything that Jeremy is not: young, handsome and toned. Glasser, a 39-year-old New York Jew, opened a gym in 1991 in Los Angeles. When no one joined, he borrowed a video camera for 24 hours, went to a nearby strip club, recruited a woman, then headed back to his gym and started shooting. Although the movie stank, with a bit of chutzpah and a few business cards he wangled a deal with a manufacturer and started cranking out films. Within a few years, 'Seymore Butts,' his nom de porn which is simultaneously his sales pitch, became one of the largest franchises in the adult-film business. As the king of the gonzo genre (marked by handheld cameras, the illusion of spontaneity and a low-tech aesthetic meant to suggest reality), he is today probably the most famous Jewish porn mogul. Seymore Inc., his production company, releases about 36 films annually, most of them shot for less than $15,000, each of them grossing more than 10 times that sum. Glasser employs 12 people, including his mother and cousin Stevie as respectively genial company accountant (and matchmaker for her single son) and lovable but roguish general gopher. Glasser currently even has his own reality TV show (also broadcast on Channel 4), a ten-episode docu-soap called Family Business, whose opening credits show Glasser's barmitzvah photo.
In search of a buckJews became involved in the porn industry for much the same reasons that their co-religionists became involved in Hollywood. They were attracted to an industry primarily because it admitted them. Its newness meant that restrictive barriers had not yet been erected, as they had in so many other areas of American life. In porn, there was no discrimination against Jews. During the early part of the twentieth century, an entrepreneur did not require large sums of money to make a start in the film business; cinema was considered a passing fad. In the porn business, it was similarly straightforward to get going. To show 'stag.' movies or loops, as they were known, all one needed was a projector, screen and a few chairs. Not tied up with the status quo and with nothing to lose by innovation, Jews were open to new ways of doing business. Gertzman explains that

"Jews, when they found themselves excluded from a field of endeavour, turned to a profession in which they sensed they could eventually thrive by cooperating with colleagues in a community of effort . . . Jews have for a very long time cultivated the temperament and talents of middlemen, and they are proud of these abilities".

The adult entertainment business required something that Jews possessed in abundance: chutzpah. Early Jewish pornographers were marketing geniuses and ambitious entrepreneurs whose toughness, intelligence and boundless self-confidence were responsible for their successes.
Of course, the large number of Jews in porn were mainly motivated by the desire to make profits. Just as their counterparts in Hollywood provided a dream factory for Americans, a blank screen upon which the Jewish moguls.' visions of America could be created and projected, so the porn-moguls displayed a talent for understanding public tastes. What better way to provide the stuff of dreams and fantasies than through the adult-entertainment industry? Performers did porn for the money. As ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman commented, 'Those Jews who enter the pornography industry have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream..'
Secular sexLike their mainstream counterparts, Jews who enter porn do not usually do so as representatives of their religious group. Most of the performers and pornographers are Jewish culturally but not religiously. Many are entirely secular, Jews in name only. Sturman, however, identified as a Jew - he was a generous donator to Jewish charities - and performer Richard Pacheco once interviewed to be a rabbinical student.
Very few, if any, porn films have overtly Jewish themes, although Jeremy once tried to get several Jewish porn stars together to make a kosher porn film. The exception is Debbie Duz Dishes, in which Nina Hartley plays a sexually insatiable Jewish housewife who enjoys sex with anyone who rings the doorbell. It has sold very well, spawned a couple of sequels and is currently very hard to buy - perhaps indicating a new niche to exploit. Indeed, according to an editorial on the World Union of Jewish Students website,

"there are thousands of people searching for Jewish porn. After things like Jewish calendar, Jewish singles, Jewish dating, and Jewish festivals comes 'Jewish porn.' in the list of top search keywords that GoTo.com provide".

man you8 gots all the good info!

andande. [sometimes]

They already do, we already do, the damage is done. Therefore, we need laws like this. It's too late, in other words, for anything better.

Include grabbing asses, and I'm there!

you are so predictable.
i am not an idiot
i am aware of basic hman rights being violated on a larger scale
i actually live here and dont get all of my facts from the media, but from day to day experiance
ibut i still have a right to feel that my rights are being violated
yes aravs die
yes jews in sderot die
does that mean that there are no other problems?
i was talking to my brother about this and we agreed that most israelis have lost all personal ideals, you talk to them about one thing and they say "how can you care about that when blah blah blah is going on" thats why its so easy for the governments to pull this shit, cause people are to apathic or worried about other shit to care. does that mean that i care less about other things, no. but why cant it also be a problem.
you seem to have such a great handle on how day to day life goes in israel, especially from cozy LA 10,000 miles away or so.

well the drivers that drive with headphones are fined 250 NIS
but that doesnt really count...