Saturday, July 18, 2009

Chilul Shabbos emails from jwire # 2

In response to the Aussie Echo blog post re AJN Watch (reproduced here:
http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/2009/06/aussie-echo-post.html ),
the editor of J-wire wrote:
"There is an alternative source [to the AJN] which does cover ALL communites [will be at the Yeshiva next week for the G-G's visit]... http://www.jwire.com.au/ "

AJN Watch's comment:
Yes, we are subscribers. And while you do not publish - as far as we know - biased anti-frum material, we are quite disappointed that your site is Mechalel Shabbos bifresiyeh by sending your daily email at 3.00 pm on Saturday afternoons. Why not show some respect for Shabbos and Shabbos-observers by waiting a few hours until after dark? http://tinyurl.com/n4nlrn

The above post has received the following comment:

Milhouse said...
If, as you say, this is a daily mailing that goes out every day on the dot of 3 o'clock, then it's obvious even to blind Freddie's dog that it's an automatic job. No human sends out a message at exactly 3:00:00 every single day. Nor is it in the nature of a news site for someone to type up a single "daily update"; such messages are always an aggregation of whatever stories have been entered in the last 24 hours. If you don't realise this then you have no business commenting on anything that goes on on the net. For you to use this as the basis of an accusation of chilul shabbos is outrageous. You need to substantiate that charge, or withdraw it and apologise. Hotzo'as shem ra is also an aveira.

OK, so now Motzoei Shabbos we checked today's email from JWire.

From: noreply+feedproxy@google.com On Behalf Of J-Wire
Sent: 2009-07-18 15:04
Subject: {Disarmed} J-Wire

J-Wire
________________________________________
• Melbourne Film Festival ignores activists
• No to Toben
• Gold for Roy

Melbourne Film Festival ignores activists
Posted: 17 Jul 2009 10:01 PM PDT
The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has rejected calls by Palestinian activists not to accept “blood money” from the Israel Government. MIFF chief executive Richard Moore said that films for the festival, which begins next week, are not...

For more on this story and other breaking news click on the story title to visit J-Wire

No to Toben
Posted: 17 Jul 2009 09:45 PM PDT
Holocaust-denier Dr Fredrick Toben has been barred from visiting a Courage to Care exhibition in country Victoria.Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko responded positively to an application made by Jeremy Jones, a former president of the Executive...

For more on this story and other breaking news click on the story title to visit J-Wire

Gold for Roy
Posted: 17 Jul 2009 09:22 PM PDT
Roy Vandersluis has finally won a Gold Medal at his own record-breaking ninth Maccabiah. The Australian team won Gold in the Seniors Golf tournament with Vandersluis taking Silver as well for second best personal score. The 62-yr-old golfer from...

For more on this story and other breaking news click on the story title to visit J-Wire
****

At first glance it looks like the posts were added at around 10.00 pm Friday night. However upon rechecking we noticed the tag 'PDT' which obviously refers to the blogs origin on the USA west coast - Pacific Daylight Time. Then we went to Time Zone Converter to confirm what 10.00 pm PDT on the 17th July was in Australian time. Here's the result for you:

The World Clock – Time Zone Converter
At the specified time, local time in Melbourne was 17 hours ahead of Los Angeles

Location LA (USA) Local time Friday 17 July 2009 at 10:00:PM PDT
Melbourne (Australia) Saturday, 18 July 2009 at 3:00PM

4 comments:

  1. Rather than convert from PDT, you could just link to the stories themselves at jwire, which are datelined Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 3:01 pm, Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 2:45 pm, and Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 2:22 pm. That, rather than the 3pm email, is indeed evidence of chilul shabbos. It could still be that the site's clock is off, or that the posts were made from some time zone where it wasn't Shabbos, or by someone who isn't halachically Jewish, but that goes into "dan lechaf zechus" territory; my earlier complaint didn't even go there, since a daily email is no evidence at all of chilul shabbos.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is getting too complicated for me. Milhouse, just tell us, would you drink non-mevushal wine offered by Mr JWire?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Presumably AJN Watch wanted to dot all the 'i's etc etc. Can't blame them when seeing how nitpicky you are, both here and in aussie echo,
    in trying to prove how obvious chilul shabbos - isn't.

    Is it such a great mitzva to cover for shabbos desecrators?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Moshe, on the contrary AJN watch did not dot or cross anything, and indeed offered weaker evidence than was available. The 3 pm daily e-mail is far from "obvious chilul shabbos"; on the contrary, it is very obviously not chilul shabbos, and anyone who would accuse someone on that basis is a motzi shem ra. Now the evidence from the datelines of the individual stories is disturbing, and does at least indicate a probability that there is chilul shabbos going on, though J-wire should be given a chance to explain it. But that was not the evidence that AJN watch originally presented.

    Is it such a great mitzvah to accuse people of averos? Do you know what it means to beg the question?

    ReplyDelete

Comments will be moderated for language and content.
Please use your name/nickname - rather than 'anonymous'.