Nothing original here, necessarily; I just want to reiterate that Ariel Sharon is still alive, and to speak of him in the past tense (his "passing"..?) is, in my humble estimation, kind of a sin. To the author: Your apparent left wing bias, which for the record I more or less share, is quite blatant. It's cruel to speak of someone who is dying as having already died, regardless of whether you share his/her political leanings or not.

If the idea was to speak of Sharon's "passing" simply in the sense of a passing of his political and public career, in plain English: You blew it.

"His past sins were all but forgiven". Obviously, not by you. Your article reads more and more like an obituary, and you've simply no right.

Shalom Aleichem, and G-d bless Sharon, his family, Olmert (probably the next in line, as it were), and while He's at it, all the inhabitants of Israel and Palestine.

It disturbs me to see as prolific and intelligent a writer as Ms. Goldberg soft-pedal, to a certain extent, some of the points she brings up about Walt and Mearsheimer's paper. When she says that she finds it "odd" that they dont back up a claim against Israel's morality, for example. Or when she is "amazed" that they dont mention Fatah, Black September, Munich, etc. And that their "haphazardness" is..."weird".

Ms. Goldberg, is it so hard for you to accept the fact that intelligence (genius, even) and Anti-Semitism are not mutually exclusive constructs? And that Anti-Semitism can come from many different guises, many different colors and stripes, from so many different arena's? Now, am I saying that this paper (which I'll admit I haven't read) is Anti-Semitic, and further, that these two academics are Anti-Semites? Well, guess what: It sure as hell looks like that's a real possibility.

As far as whose interests are best served by a more even-handed approach from the US in it's dealings with Israel, let me me come out and state something that I've yet to really see fleshed out in print. It is in ISRAEL'S best interest, ladies and gentlemen, to have the US begin to lessen it's ties/re-think it's aid packages/etc to Israel. As a Jew, I find it incredibly sad to continue to realize just how much a puppet of the USA Israel has been, and continues to be. Yeah, I know all my lefty friends and relatives would tell me to wake up and smell the reality of the situation; that doesn't make it any easier, when you have a connection and a sense of love for your heritage and history.

In a perfect world, Israel and Palestine would live side by side, as the cousins that we are, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, and with little or no financial reliance on the USA or the West. But as is so blatantly obvious, we live in a far from perfect world.

And finally, as a parting shot of sorts, for those who would blanch and cry foul over my suggestion that perhaps Walt and Mearsheimer might actually be Anti-Semites: You, and them, and Juan Cole for that matter, can kiss my Jewish ass.

A "schmata" is not a person; it's an article of clothing. An unappealing article of clothing, generally. There's your Yiddush lesson for today.

First of all, let me admit that I haven't read all of the comments that have been made. Someone may have already noted what I'm about to say here.

There's ar review on cnn.com that gets it right about this movie: It starts off OK, the premise is decent, but at some point it goes off the rails and becomes just a stupid summer "blockbuster". Where I disagree with the CNN reviewer is just exactly when this point in the movie occurs; the review talks about the last 30 minutes or so. I think it happens the minute Will Smith lays eyes on Charlize Theron.

Stephanie makes a big mistake when she says that we "start to learn more about Hancock..who he is..where he comes from...how he gets his superpowers" etc. Without giving away the plot (which frankly sucks, and could have been written by teenagers), we learn NEXT TO NOTHING about his background. Some bullet points are given, and that's about it. It's plain that the story is aimed at younger audiences, and/or people who could care less about even a pretense of a backstory. Or, in superhero parlance, an "origin" story.

The trend I'm referring to...well, it just seems that it's becoming more and more OK to leave holes in scripts, leave your audiences "guessing", etc etc. And it smacks of laziness or perhaps lack of talent on the screenwriters part, not some artistic choice that was made or whatever.