by Rabbi Avi Shafran
Would it really have been enough?
Much of our Seder-night message to our children, mediated by the Haggadah, is forthright and clear. Some of it, though, is subtle and stealthy.
Dayeinu, for example.
On the surface, it is a simple song -- a recitation of events of Divine kindness over the course of Jewish history, from the Egyptian exodus until the Jewish arrival in the Holy Land -- with the refrain "Dayeinu": "It would have been enough for us." It is a puzzling chorus, and everyone who has ever thought about Dayeinu has asked the obvious question.
Would it really have "been enough for us" had God not, say, split the Red Sea, trapping our ancestors between the water and the Egyptian army? Some take the approach that another miracle could have taken place, but that certainly would weaken the import of the refrain. And then there are the other lines: "Had God not sustained us in the desert" -- enough for us? "Had He not given us the Torah." Enough? What are we saying?
Contending that we don't really mean "Dayeinu" when we say it, that we only intend to declare how undeserving of all ...   more »

Bill Salus
The epicenter, as author Joel Rosenberg calls it, in the Middle East continues to shake, quake, and bake the International Community. Daily news headlines emanate from the world’s most problematic region, like magnitude 6.0 aftershocks on the "Richter Scale"! The seismic activity of the Arab – Israeli conflict threatens to push humanity over the fault’s edge, and has it wondering if the hourglass has made its final turn.
Are the sands of time nearing their end in the Middle East? One thing is for certain the accelerating volatility in that region has the Bush administration pushing the "Roadmap Plan" to the top rung of the political ladder. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made the Middle East her favorite back yard, while President Bush frequents the round table playing "high stakes" poker with Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the "Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" better known as the "Roadmap Plan", you can read the U.S. Department of State press statement prepared April 30, 2003 online at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/20062.htm (accessed 3/1/08).
To date this plan stands out as humanities best effort to provide a comprehensive solution ...   more »

Former US President Carter defied US and Israeli warnings and met twice this weekend with the exiled leader of Hamas and his deputy, two men the US government has labeled terrorists and Israel accuses of masterminding attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians.
Carter met Mashaal and his deputy, Moussa Abu Marzouk, again for about an hour Saturday morning, after more than four hours of talks the night before.
"Several subjects were discussed, including [Israeli-Palestinian] crossing points, [captured Israeli soldier Gilad] Schalit, the siege on the Palestinians and a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel," Abu Marzouk said Saturday.
Another senior Hamas official in Damascus, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to represent the group publicly, described the meetings as "warm."
However, he said Carter did not receive a response to either of the two requests the former president made in the session: that Hamas halt its rocket attacks against Israel, and agree to a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai to discuss a prisoner exchange.
Nazzal said Gaza-based Hamas leaders would travel to Syria on Saturday to confer with Mashaal, and that Carter "will be informed of Hamas' response in the coming days."
However, underscoring ...   more »

Rep. Myrick calls on Rice to clip wings over Hamas-meeting flap
A Republican congressional leader called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to revoke former President Jimmy Carter's passport in response to his traveling to Syria and Egypt to meet with delegations from the terrorist group Hamas.
Since 1995, the Palestinian organization has officially been designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
"Former President Carter has acted in contradiction of international agreements to isolate Hamas," said Rep. Sue Myrick, deputy Republican whip in the House. "He has acted in defiance of both United States policy and international policy."
After Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, Washington, along with the United Nations, the European Union and Russia called on Hamas to renounce terror, recognize Israel and recognize the previous agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel as they seek an agreement to make peace. Hamas has categorically rejected these three conditions for more than two years.
Carter met Thursday with Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas leader with control over militants in the Gaza Strip, after meeting Tuesday with a high-ranked Hamas politician. Carter reportedly hugged and kissed another Hamas leader Tuesday in the West Bank town of ...   more »

By Bob Unruh
The state of Minnesota has advanced a plan to own the DNA of newborns, preserving it in a warehouse for use in genetic research, experimentation, manipulation, and profiling, according to an advocacy organization seeking to protect the privacy of that individual information.
"Citizen DNA is citizen property. The government should be required to ask, not allowed to take," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care, a Minnesota-based organization familiar with the progress in that state.
"If this bill becomes law, each year 73,000 newborn citizens will not be protected by the state genetic privacy law. The [state] will take their DNA and unless the parents figure it out, the government will keep it," she said.
"Children grow up. Eventually, every citizen will have their DNA owned by state government and available for government to engage in genetic research, experimentation, manipulation, and profiling," she warned. "What good is the state genetic privacy law if government warehousing and analysis of every child's DNA from birth is exempt from its informed consent protections?"
In Minnesota, the state's genetic privacy law was challenged by the Health Department, which lost a court battle over the issue. But now ...   more »

In House speech suggests pontiff trying to bolster church membership
Rep. Tom Tancredo – who vied for the Republican presidential nomination to make illegal immigration a priority issue – suggested in a House speech yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI is encouraging Latin Americans to come to the U.S. to bolster flagging membership in the Catholic Church.
The pontiff, asked by reporters on his flight to the U.S. Tuesday if he would address Hispanic immigration, said the U.S. must do "everything possible to fight ... all forms of violence so that immigrants may lead dignified lives."
Tancredo, a former Catholic, told House colleagues, "I would like to know what part of our lax immigration policy is considered 'violent.' I fail to see how accepting more refugees than any other nation while providing free health care, free education, free housing and free social service benefits to millions of illegal aliens in this country is any way 'degrading' to them or 'undignified.'"
See Tancredo's speech
About 40 percent of the 70 million Catholics in the U.S. are Hispanic.
Tancredo also took exception to the pope telling U.S. bishops Wednesday in Washington, "I want to encourage you and your communities to continue to welcome ...   more »

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's hard-line president declared that crude oil prices, now above $115 a barrel, are too low, state media reported Saturday.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an oil and gas exhibition in Tehran on Friday that he thought the commodity still had to "discover its real value," according to the Web site of Iran's state-run television.
Oil prices have hit all-time highs above $115 a barrel in recent weeks, amid reports that oil and gasoline reserves in the United States were lower than expected and as the dollar sinks to record lows.
"The oil price of $115 a barrel in today's global markets is a deceiving figure. Oil is a strategic commodity that needs to discover its real value," the Web site quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Crude oil futures surged to a new trading record of $117 a barrel Friday following an attack on a key pipeline in Nigeria. The increase capped a week of record highs fueled by supply woes and the dollar's weakness relative to other major currencies.
Ahmadinejad said despite high oil prices, the true value of crude oil, adjusted for inflation, is currently less than what it was in 1980....   more »

WASHINGTON — A U.S. report projects a concerted effort by Saudi Arabia to match Iran's nuclear weapons program.
The report, submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took note of a U.S. assessment that Teheran's nuclear program frightens the Saudi royal family "to their core."  
"The future Middle East landscape may include a number of nuclear armed or nuclear weapons-capable states vying for influence in a notoriously unstable region," the report, released in early April 2008, said.
The report, ordered by ranking Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, was authored by staff member Bradley Bowman. The assessment on Saudi nuclear plans was based on discussions with senior U.S. diplomats in Riyad.   
Saudi Arabia would be followed by other Middle East states bent on producing or acquiring nuclear weapons, the report said. The report, based on interviewing hundreds of analysts, diplomats in Washington and the Middle East in the last half of 2007, cited Turkey.
In contrast, Egypt would not develop a nuclear weapons program, the report said. Bowman said such a program would encounter strong opposition from Israel and the United States.
The report warned Congress that U.S. credibility in the region was being eroded amid Iran's nuclear program. Bowman ...   more »

Met Chief Sir Ian Blair could be among 31,000 officers to receive the new electronic tracking device
Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.
According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.
The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.
But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" - controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.
According to service providers Telent, the new technology 'will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer' at any time they are on duty - whether overground or underground.
Although police chiefs say the new technology is about 'improving officer safety' and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system ...   more »

'They cause doubt. If one of their members is caught, who will be named?'
Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
FBI chief Robert Mueller, III
LONDON – The high level of frustration expressed by British intelligence officials over their government's failure so far to win parliamentary support to extend the time terrorists can be held without charges from 28 to 42 days could be solved, according to America's top counter-terrorist officer, says a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
At a closed conference in London last week FBI chief Robert Mueller III warned that Britain's detention laws had created "a dark hole of intelligence" which was having a global effect. The solution, he said, was "plea-bargaining -- offering a deal in exchange for a sentence cut."
Mueller said the frustration of MI5 and MI6 due to the restrictions on how they can obtain "vital information" from suspects was seriously hampering the war on terror.
The conference was attended by ...   more »

The New York-based Conference Board raised its forecast of future economic activity this week, reversing five months of decline, the AP reported.
The index is designed to forecast economic activity in the next three to six months based on 10 economic components, including stock prices, building permits and initial claims for unemployment benefits.
By any logical standard, this should be good news.
Maybe not the kind of news where everybody puts on silly hats and marches down Main Street, but it is good news. I think. I suppose it could be argued that it isn't good, or good enough, or stupendous news, but I think it ought to be difficult to argue that an economic uptick is bad news.
In what has become the AP's "new" style of mixing facts with opinion and presenting what emerges as "news," the reverse in America's economic slide is actually not good news at all.
The AP report stressed consumer confidence and how important consumer confidence was to the health of the overall economy. The AP's report about the economic upturn was headlined, "Economy Sends Signals of More Weakness to Come."
The American economy is backed only by the confidence of those who invest ...   more »

Are you having a hard time paying your bills, making your mortgage payments or putting your kids through college? You need to know how much of your hard-earned income the government is skimming off and diverting into handouts to immigrants and illegal immigrants.
You can read the depressing details in the new 70-page document called "The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration" by Edwin S. Rubenstein. A Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow with a mile-long scholarly resume, he has been doing financial analysis ever since he directed the studies of government waste for the Grace Commission of 1984.
The bottom line, which you need to know for your own bottom line, is that U.S. taxpayers are giving more than $9,000 a year in cash or benefits to each immigrant, a third of whom are in the country illegally. That's $36,000 for each immigrant household of four.
Because the U.S. has 37 million immigrants, legal and illegal, the national cost was more than $346 billion last year, which was twice our fiscal deficit. The cost of immigrants is so high because, as Rubenstein writes, "Immigrants are poorer, pay less tax and are more likely to receive public benefits than natives."
Big Brother ...   more »

'This isn't conjecture, it's happening now'
By Bob Unruh
A doctor at the renowned Children's Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body, according to a report today in the Boston Globe.
Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, 64, says he started the Gender Management Service Clinic because he found himself encountering 20-somethings who were "transgendered" and in good shape socially, "but they were having trouble getting their physique to conform to their identity.
"I knew the 20-somethings could have better chances of passing if they were treated earlier," he said.
"We don't think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this," said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. "It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things."
WND has reported previously on some of the controversies prompted by the belief that a man can be born in a woman's body, or vice versa, including in Montgomery County, Md., where county officials have adopted a law that precludes those who provide public accommodations from discriminating based on that "gender identity."
Voters there have petitioned ...   more »

By J. Matt Barber
Can you imagine officials at a middle school, junior high or high school setting aside a day to promote "tolerance" for heavy smoking and drinking among children? How about a day where teachers encourage kids to "embrace who they are," pick up that crack pipe and give it a stiff toke?
Neither can I. The public would go ballistic, and for good reason.
But that hasn't stopped officials in thousands of schools across the country from promoting other politically correct and socially "in-vogue" behaviors that – both statistically and manifestly – are every bit as dangerous as the aforementioned frowned-upon behaviors.
That's exactly what the homosexual activist "Day of Silence" is all about – advancing, through clever, feel-good propaganda and full acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle among children.
Just the facts, Ma'am
By recently admitting that "HIV is a gay disease," Matt Foreman, outgoing executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, acknowledged what the medical community has known for decades: The homosexual lifestyle is extremely high risk and often leads to disease and even death.
In fact, multiple studies have established that homosexual conduct, especially among males, is considerably more hazardous to one's ...   more »

 VIENNA, April 20 (Reuters) - Global food price rises are leading to "silent mass murder" and commodities markets have brought "horror" to the world, the United Nations' food envoy told an Austrian newspaper on Sunday. Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told Kurier am Sonntag that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets and European Union export subsidies mean the West is responsible for mass starvation in poorer countries. Ziegler said he was bound to highlight the "madness" of people who think that hunger is down to fate. "Hunger has not been down to fate for a long time -- just as (Karl) Marx thought. It is rather that a murder is behind every victim. This is silent mass murder," he said in an interview. Ziegler blamed globalisation for "monopolising the riches of the earth" and said multinationals were responsible for a type of "structural violence". "And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror. We have to put a stop to this," he said. Ziegler said he believed that one day starving people could rise up against their persecutors. "It's ...   more »