Hi folks. I left for vacation today to celebrate my fortieth birthday. I'll blog more about it when I have a chance. In the meantime, I have a request.

I haven't been following the threads today, but I still have had to field concerns and complaints via iPhone, which suggests that hostilities are still flaring at dagblog.

As a favor, or perhaps a birthday gift, I would like to ask you all to chill out. Please tone down your responses to one another and try to avoid the urge to lash out, no matter how much you think someone deserves a lashing.

It took me half an hour to find the Internet Working Group at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in downtown Manhattan. The protesters have been here 24-hours a day for three weeks to denounce corporate greed and economic inequality. They sleep on the ground under blue tarps, which I discovered after almost stepping on one.

I wasn't sure what the Internet Working Group was, but it sounded intriguing. The www.occupywallst.org website promised a meeting at 5 p.m, so I took the subway downtown and plunged into the ragged mass of thousands packed into an unremarkable urban plaza of less than an acre. The organizers have been calling the park by its original name, Liberty Plaza, though they've refashioned it Liberty Square, which sounds more like an iconic protest setting and less like a suburban shopping mall.

For once, the stars aligned to favor an unlucky people. Defying the odds, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council agreed to admit a country of refugees still struggling to build a permanent state. The Security Council's recognition did not change the "facts on the ground." The refugees still had to fight for sovereignty and security. But the international recognition offered them a symbol of dignity that they had never experienced. They were not just a people. They were a nation.

That nation was Israel. The year was 1949.

The Palestinians now seek to emulate Israel's example. President Mahmoud Abbas has defied the United States, the Arab League, and even Hamas by seeking full U.N. member status, which requires Security Council approval.

Slightly late and exceedingly risky but why the heck not.