Bassi Gruen
Somehow, while I slept (and did laundry and washed dishes and made dentist appointments), my kids began to grow up. The changes were so subtle that they were lost on me as the days slid by one another like dominos dropping in a row. No child is that different from one day to the next, so the changes since last year, or even last month, often went undetected as I only compared today with yesterday.
But there is only so long one can remain oblivious to the fact that her little chicks are fast growing wings and attempting to fly on their own. And that process is not so simple for the protective mother bird used to life the way it was, when her chicks simply sat in the nest and awaited her care.
My eight-year-old Shoshana started a cooking class a few months back. Unlike the baking class she took two years ago, this wasn’t about being handed a lump of dough, rolling it into cookies while eating half the dough, and then bringing the finished product home to a grateful family. This course was meant to give the girls the ability to cook on their own. ...   more »

Etgar Lefkovits
Israel has no better friends in the world than Christian Zionists, Likud opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
"This is a friendship of the heart, a friendship of common roots, and a friendship of common civilization," Netanyahu told a conference of American Evangelicals in Jerusalem.
The event, which was organized by the San Antonio, Texas-based Christians United for Israel, drew 1,000 Israel supporters led by the conservative evangelical Pastor John Hagee, who has been a stalwart supporter of Israel for the past three decades.
Hagee on Sunday announced donations of $6 million to a number of Israeli causes and declared that Israel must remain in control of all of Jerusalem.
"Turning part or all of Jerusalem over to the Palestinians would be tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban," Hagee said.
Among the 16 causes Hagee supported with the contributions he announced were Magen David Adom and a conference center in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.
Hagee has united evangelical Christian supporters of Israel in the US under one umbrella organization, dubbed the Christian Aipac, which focuses solely on support for Israel and does not work to convert Jews to Christianity.
Netanyahu's remarks come just ...   more »

Harsh warning as region
under general war alert
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer (Courtesy Haaretz)
JERUSALEM – Israel will "destroy" Iran if Tehran decided to launch a war against the Jewish state, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said today.
The unusually harsh warning from Ben-Eliezer, a former defense minister, was delivered as the official visited his ministry's war room, which took part today in a massive, nationwide, weeklong drill that is set to include simulated chemical missile attacks on central Israel.
"The Iranians won't rush to attack Israel, because they understand the significance such action would have and are well aware of our strength," Ben-Eliezer told reporters. "However, Iran continues to aggravate the situation by supplying arms to Syria and Hezbollah, and we must deal with this."
The minister said this week's war drill "is not a meaningless spectacle or a fictional scenario. The future reality is likely to be a number of times harsher than that which we recognize now. We are confronted with a situation where the home front becomes the front line."
"In a future war, it will be much safer to live in (the northern towns of) Nahariya and Shlomi instead of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, since I expect ...   more »

In another sign that renewed armed conflict between Israel and Hizballah may be on the horizon, a major Arab satellite network reported Sunday that the Lebanese army had begun pulling the civilian population back from the Israeli border.
Later in the day, a military correspondent with Israel's Channel Two News said that Syria and Lebanon are on heightened alert because they know that Hizballah is about to attack Israel or an overseas Israeli asset.
Hizballah blames Israel for the February assassination of its operational commander Imad Mughniyah, and has vowed to strike back.
Israeli government sources confirmed to The Jerusalem Post that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Damascus will be held directly responsible for any Hizballah attack on Israel.
According to defense officials, Syria is readying itself to hit Israel following the Jewish state's initial response to the imminent Hizballah attack.
Original Source
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The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, announced on April Fool's Day that the Bush administration would waive all federal environmental and land management laws that open-border activists had vowed to use to hold up construction of the congressionally mandated fence on the border with Mexico. Seemingly good news – however there is more to the story.
Congress passed the Secure Fence Act two years ago requiring nearly 800 miles of double fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Congress further appropriated (on a bi-partisan vote) the money to build it. Benchmarks in the Act required 670 miles of the double fence to be completed by now. To date, less than 10 miles of the double fence have been built.
Another smuggler's tunnel was discovered this week at the San Diego-Tijuana border, the busiest legal and illegal border crossing in the world. A dozen such tunnels have been discovered since 2000 along this particular stretch of the border. The double fence (thank you Duncan Hunter) is in place there and is working to deter illegal border crossers.
These tunnels are witness to the effectiveness of the fence – they are elaborate and expensive smuggler construction projects. The smugglers have to ...   more »

by Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com) The State of Israel is under attack from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza according to the practice exercise starting Sunday.
The IDF Home Front Command, in cooperation with the recently-established National Emergency Authority, called "Rachel" for its Hebrew acronym, local authorities, different governmental offices, security and rescue teams and the educational system will participate in a comprehensive national training exercise which will take place across the country beginning Sunday.
Israelis awoke to radio announcers describing the scenario being practiced for: It is the fourth day of the war. Israel is under missile attack from the Hizbullah in Lebanon and from Syria. Kassam rockets and Grad-type Katyusha missiles are being launched at Netivot and Ashkelon from Gaza.
The IDF dispatched a statement assuring citizens that the drill has been planned "as part of the IDF 2008 work plan," and emphasizing: The exercise was not planned in relation to any current events.
Syria and Lebanon are reportedly on high alert, nonetheless. Army Radio reported that while the practice exercizes are being held, Hizbullah terrorists and Syria will be deployed and readied for an all-out confrontation - something Syria is claiming is a result of the fear that Israel will ...   more »

by Hana Levi Julian
(IsraelNN.com) The Tourism Ministry will invest NIS 90 million (US $25 million) in tourism projects around the capital, announced Director General Sha'ul Tzemach on Monday.
“The Ministry of Tourism will continue to work to provide an answer for the shortage of hotel rooms in sought-after tourism and commercial areas,” he said.
The ministry’s Investments Committee approved funding for 11 projects, including support for construction of new hotel rooms. Money also will be earmarked for hotels in Ashdod and in the Galilee. 
While the Tourism Ministry is working on beefing up facilities to accommodate the flood of tourists visiting the capital, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has quietly been working on ways to reduce the bottom line. 
Livni’s Bottom Line - 'Red Lines' for Jerusalem
In her recent talks with Palestinian Authority negotiators, Livni has reportedly drawn the line only at three major points. The status of Jerusalem itself has not been discussed definitely.
The discussions are apparently focusing on the issue of retaining control over holy sites, maintaining security and refusing to allow immigration to Jerusalem by Arabs who fled during the 1948 War and millions of other foreign Arabs who claim to be their descendants under ...   more »

While politicians draw up plans to divide Israel’s capital city, archaeologists are busily digging up Jerusalem’s celebrated past. By Stephen Flurry  
Given the media exposure Jerusalem archaeology is beginning to receive, it is possible that this city’s past could spark more than just archaeological fervor.
In the Arab village of Silwan, archaeologists are hard at work excavating the original Jerusalem—the City of David. An Associated Press story on February 10 outlined how Silwan is “hard-wired into the politics of modern-day Arab-Israeli strife” and that new digs are cutting to the heart of who owns the Holy City today. “Palestinians and Israelis are trying again to negotiate a peace deal, one which must include an agreement to share Jerusalem,” the report said. “The collision in this neighborhood—between Silwan and the City of David—encapsulates the complexities ahead.”
AP explained that in recent years, the Elad Foundation, an organization associated with the religious settlement movement, has funded archaeological digs in the City of David, which is just outside the walled Old City. The area has expanded to become one of Jerusalem’s most popular tourist attractions, drawing 350,000 visitors a year, most of them Israelis. The archaeological park hosts numerous ongoing excavations both ...   more »

 and T RexDawkins's worst nightmare takes his literalist Biblical message on a tour of the UK
James Randerson, science correspondent
The Guardian, Saturday April 5 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday April 05 2008 on p15 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:03 on April 05 2008. Creationist preacher Ken Ham is used to the problems that arise from combining what he reads in the Old Testament and what scientists tell him. He has no difficulty squaring six days of creation and 6,000 years of Earth history with evidence from fossils and geological dating - for him, scientists who think the world is millions of years old are simply wrong.
Ham, a US-based Australian, has been on a tour of the UK, and listening to him explain this week that most of the fossils on the Earth were left during Noah's flood, and that dragon legends are ancient memories of dinosaurs, it would be easy to dismiss him as a crank.
Scientific evidence suggests the Earth is around 4.5bn years old, the universe is around 14bn years old and dinosaurs died out 65m years ago, long before anything resembling ...   more »

Dr. Todd Ditmire directs the Texas Petawatt project.
The Texas Petawatt laser reached greater than one petawatt of laser power on Monday morning, March 31, making it the highest powered laser in the world, Todd Ditmire, a physicist at The University of Texas at Austin, said.
The Texas Petawatt is the only operating petawatt laser in the United States.
Ditmire says that when the laser is turned on, it has the power output of more than 2,000 times the output of all power plants in the United States. (A petawatt is one quadrillion watts.) The laser is brighter than sunlight on the surface of the sun, but it only lasts for an instant, a 10th of a trillionth of a second (0.0000000000001 second).
Ditmire and his colleagues at the Texas Center for High-Intensity Laser Science will use the laser to create and study matter at some of the most extreme conditions in the universe, including gases at temperatures greater than those in the sun and solids at pressures of many billions of atmospheres.
This will allow them to explore many astronomical phenomena in miniature. They will create mini-supernovas, tabletop stars and very high-density plasmas that mimic exotic stellar objects known ...   more »

Mark Henderson, Science Editor
The 40-year hunt for the holy grail of physics – the elusive “God particle” that is supposed to give matter its mass – is almost over, according to the leading scientist who first came up with the theory.
Peter Higgs, whose work gave his name to the elusive Higgs boson particle, said that he was more than 90 per cent certain it would be found within the next few years.
The Higgs boson was the professor’s elegant 1964 solution to one of the great problems with the standard model of physics – how matter has mass and thus exists in a form that allows it to make stars, planets and people. He proposed that the universe is pervaded by an invisible field of bosons that consist of mass but little else.
As particles move through this field, bosons effectively stick to some of them, making them more massive, while leaving others to pass unhindered. Photons, light particles that have no mass, are not affected by the Higgs field at all.
The mysterious boson postulated by Professor Higgs, of the University of Edinburgh, has become so fundamental to physics that it is often nicknamed the “God particle”. ...   more »

Asia is hit badly by the current recession in the United States. Investors are shying away, stock markets are down, thousands are losing jobs.
In this scenario, there is once again talk of evolving a common currency for Asia for safeguarding its financial stability. But there are many hurdles on its way.
One is the `hegemony' of stronger states. Smaller Southeast Asian states feel threatened by China's growing economic power and Japan's isolationist economic policy. They also question whether the currencies of Australia and New Zealand should be included with India. Japan is not too comfortable with China's emergence and the fact that the yen may be overshadowed by the yuan. India too has been so far cool to the proposal for a common ASEAN currency, holding that it would require more coordinated efforts on the parts of all the participants and removal of many political and technical obstacles.
Some argue that it is impossible to replicate the euro experience because Europe had sorted out the question of hegemony long before the question of a single currency was mooted. The ideal preconditions that existed in Europe prior to the introduction of the euro either don't exist in Asia or are ...   more »

SAN DIEGO – Amelia Earhart's niece performed the christening honors Sunday night at General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard for a Navy cargo ship named for the pioneer aviator.
Associated Press
Fireworks detonate as the Military Sealift Command dry cargo/ammunition ship USNS Amelia Earhart (T-AKE-6) is launched during a nighttime christening ceremony Sunday at General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego.
According to a release from the U.S. Department of Defense, the night event was timed to coincide with San Diego Bay tides deep enough to launch the 25,000-ton, 689-foot USNS Amelia Earhart.
Amy Kleppner, Earhart's niece broke the traditional bottle of champagne over the ship's bow.
Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932. Five years later, her plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while she was trying to fly around the world.
The ship will deliver ammunition, food, fuel and other dry cargo to U.S. ships at sea and will have a crew of 124.
One previous ship was named for Earhart, the Defense Department said, a Liberty cargo ship built in the U.S. during World War II.
Original Source
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By Kevin -
Tags: healing, Lark News, spoof
This is from Lark News, which could be best described as The Onion of mainstream Christianity:
AUSTIN — Ginny McCallum, 43, who has been confined to a wheelchair for much of her adult life, came to hear presidential candidate Barack Obama speak at the University of Texas. Afterward she found herself in a wheelchair access breezeway as Obama and his entourage exited the arena. The candidate spotted her, came over, grabbed her hand and pulled her up. She found herself standing for the first time in eleven years.
    "He smiled at me and said, ‘Yes, you can,’" she says. "I was so stunned I didn’t know what to do."
    McCallum is among hundreds of people who say they have been healed by the Democratic candidate, in one of the most surprising and little-acknowledged aspects of his campaign. Reporters have shied away from the story, chalking it up to "Obama-mania" and people’s feelings of elation.
    "We don’t talk about it a lot, but yeah, it does happen," says one staffer who says he has seen multiple people healed on a rope line. "We don’t know exactly how or why it’s ...   more »

by Beverly Eakman
Somehow I missed this news item, and maybe you did, too. Then again, perhaps the mainstream media took pains to keep this one quiet, hoping the fire wouldn’t hit the fan.
It seems that in 2003 an honor student in Arizona at Safford Middle School named Savana Redding, an eighth-grader with no disciplinary record, was strip-searched — and I mean really strip-searched, down to the crotch of her panties — in pursuit of nonprescription ibuprofen tablets. [See the end of this article for links to news stories.] Ibuprofen is the equivalent of the pain-relieving ingredient in Advil, Motrin, etc…, and never known to provide a “high” or to be addictive. Two such pills (the typical dosage) supposedly equal “prescription strength” — providing school authorities just enough wiggle room to go to extremes.
Today, under the absurd “no tolerance” drug policies in schools, no type of medication, from aspirin to Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol, is allowed unless it is given to the school nurse by a parent, and then dispensed by the nurse to the student. In other words, it is easier for a child to secure an abortion referral from a K-12 educational facility than it is to ...   more »

How would you feel if your local airport was leased and operated by foreign companies?
I know – you think there's enough to worry about.
But that's because you're being distracted from a growing movement to sell the country right out from under you.  You probably never heard about it.
That's what makes this more insidious.
Even worse, it's all under the radar because of the presidential campaigning and political news. coverage. But when one story dominates headlines to the virtual exclusion of everything else, you should get nervous.
OK, get ready! Get nervous!
Would you want your interstate or toll road sold to a foreign company? How about your water company – or electric or gas company? How would you feel if your bridges or tunnels or parks – even national parks – were owned by or leased and operated by foreign firms? How about parking lots or meters or trash collections or the state lottery or anything else?
It's happening. The Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road have been leased, the deals coordinated by the Macquarie Group, an Australian investment consortium heavily invested in leasing U.S. infrastructure to foreign investment firms. It's big bucks. The Skyway toll ...   more »

"The budget should be balanced. Public spending should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt."
– Marcus Tulius Cicero 45 B.C.
Not long after making the prophetic proclamation above, Marcus Tulius Cicero, a Roman senator, was assassinated.
It's not always easy telling the hard truths.
It's not always safe.
It's not always profitable.
But tell them we must.
They say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I believe the U.S. is slouching toward Rome – and a Cicero is nowhere to be found.
Where are we today compared to the empire that lasted 500 years?
National debt: $10 trillion
U.S. federal budget over $3 trillion. That's 50 percent higher than it was in 2000.
Trade deficit: $58 billion
No meaningful borders, with record immigration levels and no chance for assimilation
Total breakdown of education system
No common faith or unifying moral principles that bind the nation together
Even age-old institutions like marriage and parenthood are being redefined
In a time of relative peace, our military forces are stationed in more than 100 foreign nations
And now America finds itself in an ...   more »

By John W. Schoen
As millions of Americans figure out how they’re going to spend their tax rebate checks, some readers are wondering: Just where is this money coming from? Is it true we’re borrowing it from China?
I‘ve been told that the special rebate the IRS is sending out this year is funded by borrowed money, money that has been borrowed from two or three countries, including China.  Do you know where this money is being obtained?
— Kay R. Concordia, Kan.
These days, digital money flows around the world with the speed of electrons. Or at least it’s supposed to; lately, the credit crunch has slowed things down a little.
But tracing the flow of individual dollars gets complicated pretty fast. Nowhere is that more true than the money that flows into and out of the nearly $3 trillion U.S. budget. So while it’s possible that one of the dollars in your rebate check came from China, the rebate isn’t being paid directly from loans from foreign countries. Here’s where it came from:
The money spent by the federal government comes from two main sources: revenues (mainly taxes) and borrowing (mostly Treasury debt sold to the public.) The ...   more »

CLEVELAND -- There are 40 cases of cancer among people who work in the same building at NASA Glenn Research Center.
Dozens of the employees fear that their cancer was triggered by years of working in the developmental engineering building, NewsChannel5 reported.
The union that represents hundreds of scientists and other workers said nearly half of the 100 employees on the third floor of the building have been diagnosed with various forms of cancer in the past three to four years.
"What we've seen in the way of cancer here has just been astronomical on this third floor alone and we're just a little scared," said Dennis Pehotsky, of the Lewis Engineers and Scientists Association.
In a written statement, the head of safety at NASA Glenn said an employee survey shows cancer rates among workers are within the normal range, saying "Glenn management has no evidence of the number of cases that the union is reporting."
Union officials said they believe many employees feared reprisal for answering the survey honestly.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich represents NASA Glenn's district and his office is looking into the matter.
"We're concerned about workplace safety. We want to make sure that the conditions that people ...   more »

By ALEX WILLIAMS
THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.
It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs's new book, "Wealth, War and Wisdom," he says people should "assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure."
"Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food," Mr. Biggs writes. "It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down."
Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.
Faced with a confluence of diverse threats - a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices - people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.
They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic ...   more »

by: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OKLAHOMA CITY -- The federal government is investigating whether the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety violated the civil rights of Iranian immigrants by refusing to provide them with driver's license tests in their native Farsi language.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched the investigation in March after a complaint filed on behalf of two Iranian nationals living in Bartlesville accused the state agency of unlawful discrimination based on their national origin, according to a letter from the NHTSA to Public Safety Commissioner Kevin Ward.
Public safety officials said Tuesday that offering state driver's license tests in Farsi could force the state to offer tests and other state documents in a host of other languages, creating new costs and administrative burdens. The written portion of Oklahoma's test is currently provided only in English and Spanish.
"The enormity of the situation is overwhelming," said Oklahoma Highway Patrol Capt. Chris West. Driver's license tests in multiple languages would create huge composition and printing costs and translators would have to be hired to grade the tests in each language, West said.
"It could be a huge financial burden. And very labor intensive," West said.
The complaint was filed on ...   more »

 The Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.
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The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button” day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to ...   more »

Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government’s ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent American citizens.
Though some opponents claimed that the only controversial part of this legislation was its grant of immunity to telecommunications companies, there is much more to be wary of in the bill. In the House version, Title II, Section 801, extends immunity from prosecution of civil legal action to people and companies including any provider of an electronic communication service, any provider of a remote computing service, “any other communication service provider who has access to wire or electronic communications,” any “parent, subsidiary, affiliate, successor, or assignee” of such company, any “officer, employee, or agent” of any such company, and any “landlord, custodian, or other person who may be authorized or required to furnish assistance.” The Senate version goes even further by granting retroactive immunity to such entities that may have broken the law in the past.
The new FISA bill allows the federal government to compel many more types of companies and individuals to grant the government access to our communications ...   more »

Board approves sexual gifts for students at dance
By Bob Unruh
A school board in Arizona has decided condoms are among the items that should be given to students attending this year's prom.
The school board in the Bisbee District voted 4-1 at a recent meeting to include the condoms in a "prom bag.".
A spokeswoman in the office of Supt. Paul McDonald confirmed the condoms would be handed out to the event celebrants, along with other items.
"The governing board approved [this]," she told WND. "They are to have what they call prom bags, which include picture frames and balloons and candy and other items. They requested from the health department if they could put a condom in the bag also."
She said Bisbee High Principal Jim Gordon could provide additional details, but Gordon declined to respond to a message left by WND.
WND previously reported a seminar speaker in Boulder, Colo., told high school students to "have sex, do drugs," and the outrage that erupted among parents.
WND also has reported a court's conclusion that a law requires children to be taught how to use condoms.
But handing out condoms in association with a traditional high school dance ...   more »

"Sharia finance" does exactly what it promises, financing the spread of sharia — and terror.
By Alex Alexiev
If you’ve seen Geert Wilders’s film Fitna, you may not have noticed a single headline amongst all the bombings, beheadings, and earnest expressions of Islam’s eventual world domination: Halal-fund: investments for Muslims. But the investment vehicles referenced are an essential part of radical Islam’s efforts to insinuate itself into Western societies in order to destroy them from within. And Wall Street, barely out of the woods from its disastrous run-in with sub-prime mortgages — and having lost one of its historic investment houses, Bear Stearns, in the process — is now chasing the very kind of “sharia finance” against which Wilders's movie warns, a business line that may eventually wind up being even more calamitous than the subprime-mortgage fiasco.
For the growing army of its acolytes, who salivate at the prospect of tens of billions of dollars in transaction fees from the burgeoning industry, sharia-compliant finance is seen as little more than a cuddly Islamic version of socially conscious investment — with ethical strictures forbidding usury and sin industries, and emphasizing charity. Indeed, a conference on the subject last Fall co-sponsored by ...   more »