by Paul Johnson
The sound of the explosion was so loud, so prolonged and so unusual that I knew at once I was listening to a historic singularity.  Indeed, it may not have been an explosion: more a catastrophic global event.  Was it the end of the world?  As the initial noise fell in volume, though it did not cease, a pentecostal wind swept over my house in Notting Hill.  It faces north into the street, and the air current came from the south, as I could see from the trees bending over in our south-facing garden.  I was sitting in my library, in my habitual chair near the French windows, and was astonished to see fallen leaves plastered on to them and held there by the fierce wind.  Then I felt movement.  It was not like an earthquake, which I had experienced in South America.  In such tremors parts of the earth's crust crack and move in relation to each other, to produce disorientation and dizziness.  It was, rather, as if the entire earth moved, as a unit, but out of its regular axis.
Despite the feeling of movement, I went to the bottom of the stairs and began ...   more »

By Richard Booker
    Americans remember 1492 as the year that Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered the new world. This was a discovery that would change the course of all human history. What is less well know is the true identity of Christopher Columbus and the role Jews played in the discovery of the new world.
Many of us would be shocked to learn that America was discovered by a Jew named Chris Colon, better known as Christopher Columbus. It wasn’t safe to call yourself a Jew in the 14th and 15th centuries. As a result, Chris Colon was known as Christopher Columbus, a practicing Roman Catholic Christian. However, he was descended from a Jewish family that had fled Spain during anti-Jewish riots in 1391. The family settled among other Jews in Genoa, Italy. By the time Chris was born, the family accepted Christianity but secretly preserved their Jewish traditions.
Chris’ father was a weaver, which was one of the few trades open to Jews of that period. His family was from the North East region of Spain which was heavily populated by Jews. Chris did not speak or write Italian, but Castilian, a language spoken by Jewish ...   more »

Israel should be very concerned by North Korea's nuclear test," Uzi Eilam, former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
According to Eilam, "The cause for concern is three-fold. First, as a world democracy, it should be concerned by the threat a North Korean nuclear capability poses to the entire world. Second, It is certainly possible that Pyongyang would share its nuclear know-how with Iran, in return for a sizeable financial reward. North Korea's nuclear program is far more advanced than Iran's. While Iran has only started to produce fissile material, North Korea has done so at least five years ago."
"Third, Syria, which is also under heavy international pressure, could look at the North Korean example and decide to actively push for its own nuclear capability, taking into account that it would be a great deterrent to alleviate the pressure and get the international community off its back," Eilam said.
"Today's experiment means that the North Koreans have successfully produced a device whose core is the heart of a nuclear bomb. In order to reach that level, it must be integrated in a weapons system, whether a bomb or a missile warhead. Since ...   more »

By Robert Spencer
In this era of violent intimidation, it is crucial for the continued life of our free society that we speak out, and do so fearlessly.
Evidence of the urgency of this multiplies daily. Pope Benedict XVI called upon Muslims (and Christians) to forsake religious violence, but in the course of doing so quoted a statement by a fourteenth-century Byzantine emperor that offended some Muslims. In response, in Pakistan a thousand Islamic clerics and scholars have demanded that the Pope be “removed from his position immediately for encouraging war and fanning hostility between various faiths" and "making insulting remarks" against Islam. Just to make sure that we all understand that Islam is a religion of peace, they added: “If the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences."  
Meanwhile, a new Palestinian jihad group announced: “Every place relevant to Christians will be a target until the cursed infidel – the Vatican – apologizes to Muslims.” Muslims in Gaza burned and vandalized seven Christian sites, including a 1,400-year-old church. Meanwhile, a nun in Somalia and two other Christians in Iraq were killed, and others threatened worldwide -- including, of course, the Pope himself....   more »