The Good Rabbi's Blog

As Michael Caine said so eloquently in the latest Austin Powers flick, "There are two types of people I can't stand - those that are intolerant of each others cultures, and the Dutch." Maybe this is one reason why...

This article comes from Reuters. Frankly, I think it's an interesting idea. Takes the whole timeshare thing to a new level.

If you've ever dreamed of living the simple life on a tropical island, a new online eco-tourism venture could turn that fantasy into reality for just a few hundred dollars.

Tribewanted.com -- a new spin on the concept of timeshare vacations -- is the brainchild of two British entrepreneurs who are seeking 5,000 people to join an online community to oversee the sustainable development of a 200-acre (81-hectare) Pacific island.

For a fee ranging from $220 to $660, members can join the "tribe" for one to three years and buy the right to visit the island of Vorovoro in Fiji for between one and three weeks.

The three-year project will be filmed for a documentary and weekly videos will be available online, but organizers say a key principle is: "This is not reality TV -- it's real life."

"Unlike reality television, this isn't about the game," co-founder Ben Keene said Tuesday. "There is no winner, there's no voting people off."

"This is about real people coming together with a real purpose, to work in partnership with a real tribal community," he told Reuters in New York during a recruitment trip.

Around 500 people have signed up so far, ranging in age from 18 to 67. "We've got people from about 18 different countries already, so this idea of creating a United Nations tribe is really coming together," Keene said.

The ecological aspect is fundamental to the project, which has a budget of 1 million pounds ($1.9 million).

'VERY SIMPLE SUSTAINABLE VILLAGE'

"It may not sound like a lot, but we're looking at a very simple sustainable village, not big concrete structures," Keene said. "As much as this is an adventure for everyone involved, we're also trying to raise awareness about ecological living."

Tribe members will design the infrastructure of the island, from solar power systems to nonpolluting toilet facilities.
Experts will work with the local tribal chief, Tui Mali, to make key decisions along with the tribe members who will vote online for what they want.

"At any one time you've got the 4,900 people in the online community and 100 on the island," Keene said.

Keene, who has been running an alternative travel Web site, said co-founder Mark James proposed the idea as a way to use online communities for something tangible in the real world.

"Instead of just sharing music or chatting or whatever, we can say we've got a purpose, we want to create a sustainable, ecological village that we can then go visit," Keene said.

"We went online and we went island hunting, posing as millionaire businessmen to all these brokers around the world," Keene said, adding that they considered islands from Central America to the Philippines before settling on Fiji.

Vorovoro currently has four inhabitants -- Tui Mali and his brother and their wives, all from the neighboring island of Mali. "It's the head chief's privilege to live on Vorovoro," Keene said. "He wants to open up this space to bring money into the community, to support education and the local fishermen."

Tribewanted.com has a three-year lease, after which it will revert to the local community.

Transportation to Fiji is not included in the membership fee.

When members visit, starting in September, they can choose to help build facilities, go fishing or just read a book on the beach. Carpenters and others with useful skills are encouraged to join, but Keene said anyone with a sense of adventure was welcome.

"We're looking for people who have ideas for how they'd like to pass on their skills, whether they're yoga instructors or sports teachers or maybe artists," he said.

As a sort of side gig while I'm trying to find a job, I've recently started writing for a few food blogs that are based out of the DC area (or at least read here). I thought I'd post a recent entry (I will probably cross-post my articles on my personal weblog, so more people can benefit from them, learn new things, or otherwise be amused). This article is actually my second posting. For the first one, there's a link in the article below...

According to a recent news report, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was heard by U.S. Special Forces to murmur something before he died on the gurney. Being the irreverent people that they are, the folks over at FARK have submitted it as a contest. for what the best answer would be. Personally, I like "and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!".

I actually have no words for what you're about to see. It's basically how Connie Chung thought to end the show she's been doing with her husband Maury Povich. Frankly, I don't see how some people are calling this a damning indictment of mainstream media. This is more suitable for Tom Cruise these days. Besides, Connie Chung has no one but herself to blame for the tanking of her career.

After a few days of unbelievable amounts of rain in the D.C. area, we're starting to dig out and get back to normal again. We've basically received (in three days) approximately five times as much rain as we normally get for June and July combined. Amazingly enough, the basement seems to have held up well. In digging through some items that I need to get through, I found this story, which has amazingly gotten very little press. Apparently, there is a vast left-wing conspiracy, at least in the blogosphere.

Well, I have now read the single dumbest idea (accordingly, it was awarded a patent by the United States Patent & Trademark Office). The basic idea for this invention is to password-protect bullets, so that in order to fire them in a gun, a password must be entered on a keypad attached to the gun that would match a password in the cartridge itself. You can read about the invention here, and you can see the patent awarded here.