The Tenth of Tevet is a Jewish fast day marking Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem 2,500 years ago. What’s the message for us today?
The 10th of Tevet, a fast day which commemorates when the Babylonians first laid siege to Jerusalem, takes place this year on Wednesday, December 19th.
10th of Tevet
In Jewish consciousness, a fast day is a time of reckoning, a time to correct a previous mistake. What happened on the Tenth of Tevet that we have to correct?
On the Tenth of Tevet, 2,500 years ago, Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Jerusalem. Actually, there was little damage on that first day and no Jews were killed. So why is this day so tragic? Because the siege was a message, to get the Jewish people to wake up and fix their problems. They failed, and the siege led to the destruction of the King Solomon's Temple.
Today we are also under siege. Much of the Jewish world is ignorant of our precious heritage. Children whose Jewish education ended at age 13 now carry that perception through adulthood. The results are catastrophic: assimilation in the diaspora, and a blurring of our national goals in Israel.
So what's the message ...   more »

Slam Hamas terror group's Temple Mount broadcast as 'fostering bloodshed, war'
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – A group of prominent rabbinic elders and the leaders of Israel's major Temple Mount activist groups issued a joint statement today calling on "all nations who believe in the word of God to" rebuke the Israeli government for reportedly failing to halt the Hamas terror group from broadcasting live today from the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site.
"We call upon all nations who cherish freedom and who believe in the word of God as manifest in the Torah of Israel and its prophets to rebuke the government of Israel for its disgraceful treatment of all that is holy to the Jewish people before the eyes of the entire world," said a statement by the New Jewish Congress, the Sanhedrin and the Holy Temple and Temple Mount movements.
The Congress is a group of religious Zionist leaders here while the Sanhedrin consists of prominent rabbinic leaders who in 2004 reformed the ancient group of Jewish judges that previously constituted the legislative body of Israel. The reformed Sanhedrin has been a subject of debate within some Jewish communities.
Continued the statement: "The contemptible and vile consent ...   more »

Washington has grown tired of Syria's meddling in Lebanese affairs, US President Bush warns on Thursday. Meanwhile from Damascus, Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem slams American involvement in regional affairs
US President George W. Bush said on Thursday his patience with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had run out long ago. 
Syrian president talks to Austrian newspaper, says Syria passed on opportunity to have nuclear weapons, achieving actual progress in the Middle East peace process in 2008 unlikely      
"Syria needs to stay out of Lebanon," Bush told a White House news conference when asked whether he would be willing talk to Assad about stabilizing Lebanon, which is caught up in a political crisis. 
The Bush administration has tried to isolate Damascus diplomatically, though Syria sent representatives to the US-hosted Annapolis peace conference.  
"My patience ran out on President Assad a long time ago," Bush said. "The reason why is because he houses Hamas, he facilitates Hizbullah, suiciders go from his country into Iraq and he destabilizes Lebanon," Bush said.  
Syria has denied US allegations that it is interfering in neighboring Lebanon and trying to undermine its Western-backed government. Damascus withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2005 after a 29-year ...   more »

Israeli scientists yesterday said they had created the world's smallest Hebrew Bible, fitting the book on to a gold-coated silicon chip smaller than a pinhead.   
The scientists were able to pack the 308,428 words onto a surface smaller than a pinhead 
Scientists at Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, were able to pack the 308,428 words of what Christians refer to as the Old Testament on to a 0.5mm square of silicon by etching its surface with particle beams.
"The Guinness Book of World Records has a Bible 50 times bigger," said Ohad Zohar, who directed the project. He said he now wanted to take pictures of the nano-Bible and blow it up to a seven-by-seven metre poster, which will make it "possible to read the entire bible with the naked eye".
The tiny Bible was developed as part of an educational drive to increase interest in nanoscience among teenagers.
 Original Source

   more »

 Christianity, Israel  
Israel's identity as a Jewish state discriminates against non-Jews, the Holy Land's top Roman Catholic clergyman said in a pre-Christmas address on Wednesday.
"If there's a state of one religion, other religions are naturally discriminated against," Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah told reporters at the annual press conference he holds in Jerusalem before the Christianholiday.
In his address, which he read in Arabic and English, Sabbah said Israel should abandon its Jewish character in favor of a political, normal state for Christians, Muslims and Jews.
"This land cannot be exclusive for anyone," he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said Israel provides full religious freedom to people of all faiths.
"We reject his claim that other religions are not enjoying equal rights in Israel," Mekel said.
With his statements Wednesday, Sabbah, a longtime advocate of the Palestinian cause, waded into a debate that has marred the fledgling peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
He said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had unleashed "forces of evil" across the Middle East and it was up to Israel to relaunch the peace process.
"I hope we are entering into a new phase with Annapolis," Sabbah saud. "The one who will decide is Israel. If ...   more »

By Michael Freund      In recent weeks, US foreign policy has undergone a sharp turnaround, as Washington increasingly has abandoned its principled stances of the past seven years on just about every major foreign policy issue, and has begun to mimic the previous administration.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Will the real George W. please stand up?
After seven years of fearlessly confronting evil, both rhetorically and militarily, the Bush administration in Washington seems to have faded away, replaced instead by a meek shadow of its former self.
Firm resolve has given way to disappointing frailty, as the shape and direction of US foreign policy increasingly resembles something taken straight out of Bill Clinton's playbook.
Across the board, on nearly every major issue of the day, from Iran to Syria to North Korea, the Bush administration is in retreat, abandoning the principled stands of yesteryear and replacing them with the unscrupulous and inexplicable policies now being pursued by the Department of State.
The turnabout is breathtaking in its scope, rivaled only perhaps by Britney Spears' rapid descent from pop superstar to tabloid curiosity. But unlike the blonde starlet's fate, this is something that actually matters.
Take, for example, the donor conference held in Paris ...   more »

CFR, Bilderbergers, Trilateral Commission insiders usually run for, win White House, shows new book
WASHINGTON – It started in 1952.
Nearly every person elected as president of the United States since then – and nearly every opponent – has belonged to a secretive, globalism-oriented organization known as the Council on Foreign Relations.
Some presidents and their challengers have belonged to additional clubs of internationalists – the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. Running mates, too, more often than not have had ties to the groups.
That the groups exert enormous influence on public policy is indisputable. What is disputed is whether such groups are, as adherents and members argue, just discussion forums for movers and shakers, or, as critics have long alleged, secret societies shaping a new world order from behind the scenes. On that last point at least, no one could challenge the critics: All these groups operate in considerable secrecy, away from the scrutiny of the American public.  
Regardless of how one characterizes them, the fact that virtually all presidents belong to the same secret clubs prompts the author of a new book to wonder if the 2008 election will also be a contest between globalist insiders. ...   more »

Ruth Gledhill
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, dismissed the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men yesterday as nothing but "legend."
There was scant evidence for the Magi, and none at all that there were three of them, or that they were kings, he said. All the evidence that existed was in Matthew’s Gospel. The Archbishop said: "Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t tell us there were three of them, doesn’t tell us they were kings, doesn’t tell us where they came from. It says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that’s all we’re really told." Anything else was legend. "It works quite well as legend," the Archbishop said.
Further, there was no evidence that there were any oxen or asses in the stable. The chances of any snow falling around the stable in Bethlehem were "very unlikely." And as for the star rising and then standing still: the Archbishop pointed out that stars just don’t behave like that.
Although he believed in it himself, he advised that new Christians need not fear that they had to leap over the "hurdle" of belief in the Virgin Birth before they could be "signed up." For good ...   more »

Atlantic-Pacific route would allow cross-continental goods deliveries
By Jerome R. Corsi 
Canada has announced a plan to extend the NAFTA Superhighway network north in a way that would finish a continental grid designed to accommodate an anticipated tsunami of containers from China and the Far East.
The Canadian Intelligent Super Corridor, or CISCOR, is a national transportation route designed to reach from the West Coast ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert to Montreal and Halifax.
As WND has documented, recent articles published in The Nation and Newsweek magazines have attempted to characterize the NAFTA Superhighway as a "conspiracy theory."
Yet, the CISCOR case study provides strong evidence that the continent's ports, highways and rail lines are being reconfigured into an inter-modal system emphasizing technological logistics and "inland smart ports" designed to meet the demands of world trade, largely driven by the relocation of North American manufacturing to China.  
Inter-modal is a transportation economics reference to containers that can be transported on several different modes of transportation, including container ships, trucks and trains, without having to be unloaded or repacked.
According to the CISCOR website, the Saskatchewan-based CISCOR Inland Port Network of the cities of Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw ...   more »

On Monday, Russia announced it was sending 80 tons of uranium fuel to Iran to help that Islamist dictatorship build a "peaceful" nuclear reactor in Bushehr. Russia has an interest in building the power plant: It stands to gain $1 billion, since the plant is to be constructed by the Russian state-owned Atomstroyexport. Iran also has an interest in building a power plant: pursuit of nuclear weaponry. Meanwhile, the Bush administration stands by and does nothing.
Russia says it will insist Iran return all processed uranium that could be used to create nuclear bombs. "All fuel that will be delivered will be under the control and guarantees of the International Atomic Energy Agency for the whole time it stays on Iranian territory," explained Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow. "All our processed fuel is to be returned, gram by gram. … It can't be used for weapons under any circumstances. This is a fact of life." Russia says it believes Iran has no nuclear ambitions. "For us, the old information we got was that they didn't have a military program," said Karaganov. "Now it has been confirmed by the U.S. intelligence. Thank God, ...   more »

Have you ever walked through a nursing home and seen elderly patients slumped over, with their heads hanging low? My heart aches to see so many of our golden generation just passing time in a haze before they pass on.
When I discovered that many of these silver-haired saints are being drugged into a stupor, my heartache turned to anger.
The heinous reality is, if nursing homes keep their patients drugged, they stand to reap benefits – perhaps even profits! By keeping the elderly in a permanent stupor, they minimize their need for nursing staff, allowing them to save money on salaries and employee benefits. It is believed that the nursing homes even charge Medicare for the drugs used to place the elderly under their care into the stupor.
Today, taxpayers spend $7 billion a year on antipsychotic drugs under the Medicaid program alone – more than spent on any other medicine – even high-blood-pressure pills! And yet, only a tiny fraction of the population has a condition that would warrant an antipsychotic drug.
Something is badly awry. With only 1 percent of the population having schizophrenia and just another 2 percent suffering from bipolar disorders, why on earth are ...   more »

By Amy Burkholder,CNN
(Dec. 19) - A high school varsity athlete, a sturdy guy with a health history blissfully free of blips, 18-year-old Joseph Spencer had little reason to think anything was seriously wrong when he got sick last April.
The vomiting, chills, fever -- "It must be the flu," he thought.
Within hours, Spencer's fever was 104 degrees. Within days, he was in the intensive care unit at Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon with full-blown pneumonia. Spencer's doctor was afraid this sturdy teenage boy was going to die.
"His lungs had filled up with water, it was hard to get oxygen into him," explains Dr. David Gilbert, an infectious disease expert and Spencer's physician at Providence. "Things got so bad, I thought we were at risk of losing him."
But as perplexing as what would make a hardy young man so sick -- so quickly -- was his diagnosis: adenovirus, the virus that usually causes nothing worse than a nasty cold.
"In the past, we considered adenovirus a 98-pound weakling," says Dr. Dean Erdman, leader of the respiratory diagnostic program at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. "But adenovirus is causing severe disease and, in some cases, ...   more »

I will admit it.
Six months ago, I would have told you Barack Hussein Obama didn't stand a chance to get the Democratic Party's nomination as presidential candidate, let alone win the White House.
Now, after an implosion of Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign, beginning with a fumble of a question on the driver's licenses for illegals and continuing with harsh ad hominem attacks on her main rival, Obama is emerging as the front-runner.
He's ahead in Iowa. He's ahead in New Hampshire. He's ahead in South Carolina, for the first three contests. He is also getting closer in all the national polls.
Why was I so skeptical of Obama's chances in the first place? Was it because of his race?
Absolutely not. I am one of those pundits who believes it is an absolute advantage in national politics to be black or a woman. The deck is no longer stacked against someone breaking the color barrier or the gender barrier. If the candidate has certain ingredients, the deck is stacked in his or her favor.
For instance, would Hillary Clinton ever have been taken seriously had she been a man?
It's almost inconceivable, of course, to try to imagine it. ...   more »

Ordered mom to enroll children in public school or lose custody
By Bob Unruh
A threat by a Utah judge to take away a homeschooling mom's children if she failed to enroll them in public school, and make sure they were in attendance every day, has been escalated to the level of the state Legislature, according to a homeschooling leader.
"I can tell you there are several legislators working on this, including one on the judicial retention committee," John Yarrington, president of the Utah Home Education Association, said. "There's no excuse for this kind of bias and prejudice."
Scott Johansen
At issue are the threats issued by Judge Scott Johansen, who serves in the juvenile division of the state's 7th Judicial District
He said in a court hearing for the homeschooling mom, Denise Mafi, that he would order the removal of her children from her custody if she failed to enroll her children in the public school district and keep them in class every day, unless they had a physician's note excusing them.
Mafi, who has homeschooled for nine years, told WND that she already had enrolled the children, for fear the judge would carry out his threat.
WND earlier ...   more »