The Shabbat before Tisha B'Av, is called Shabbat Chazon - the Shabbat of foretelling - as we read the Haftara portion from the prophecy of Isaiah (1:1-27), as the final of the "three of affliction," readings.Rabbi Mendel Hirsch points out, the prophet does not lament because the Bet HaMikdash (The Temple in Jerusalem) was destroyed; rather he laments over the underlying causes of that destruction. This annual lesson must serve to focus the national mourning of Tisha B'Av not to the past, but to the present. It is not enough to bemoan the great loss suffered by our people with the destruction of our Land, our Holy City, and our Holy Temple. We must use our mourning as a way of initiating an examination of our present-day feelings, thoughts and deeds.What have we done to eliminate the attitudes and practices that thousands of years ago sent our ancestors into exile - not once, but twice?How have we improved our approach to the divine service as a way of life, a life devoted to duty rather that a substitute for it?Are our verbal offerings, like the animal-offerings described by the prophet merely perfunctorily performed rituals, never internalized, never spoken from the ...   more »

Tisha B'Av and the truth of consequences.By Sara Yoheved Rigler-Joan, a once-beautiful, recovering alcoholic, stood up at an AA meeting and told her story:I married Jeff, my high school sweetheart, and we had two kids. I started drinking when our kids were little, but Jeff had no idea. I used to hide the bottles in very clever hiding places, and I drank vodka, so he never smelled it on my breath. But then my drinking got worse. Often I couldn't get up in the morning to get the kids off to school because of a hangover, so Jeff found out. He warned me that if I didn't stop, I'd destroy our family. I thought he was just threatening and I didn't listen to him. My drinking got worse. Jeff told me, over and over again, that he would divorce me if I didn't go on the wagon. But you have to understand that he was crazy about me and always had been, so I knew he'd never do it.Then, in the middle of the night one night, I woke up from a drunken stupor. I must have been out for a long time, maybe the whole previous day. ...   more »

JERUSALEM — The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has revived plans for a unilateral withdrawal from most of the West Bank. Olmert has been discussing options for a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank over the next year as part of an effort to help establish a Palestinian state led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Middle East Newsline reported. The options included the expulsion of an estimated 60,000 Jews from areas that would comprise the new Palestinian state. "Olmert and [Foreign Minister] Tsipi Livni have agreed to formulate a proposal for a mini-Palestinian state that would require a major withdrawal from the West Bank during the remaining term of [U.S.] President Bush," an official said. In 2006, Olmert ran on an election platform that called for Israeli unilateral withdrawal from what officials said comprised more than 90 percent of the West Bank. The plan was shelved in wake of the Hizbullah war in mid-2006. Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon, Olmert's leading ally in the Cabinet, has submitted a plan for a withdrawal from at least 70 percent of the West Bank. Under the plan, the military would expel Jews from about 50 settlements, particularly in the areas ...   more »

The Jerusalem Post reports: “Claiming that Hamas has jumped light years since Israel's disengagement from Gaza, a high-ranking IDF officer said that there was currently a limited window of opportunity for Israel to confront the Hamas threat in the Gaza Strip.
‘There is an opportunity today since the world has not yet become accustomed to the new Hamas entity, and Hamas has not yet fully completed strengthening it's military capabilities,’ the officer said, adding that Israel was on a ‘collision course’ with the Islamist group.
‘The Gaza Strip is a boiling pot, the fire underneath is fueled by [a poor] economy and [an Islamist ideology] and the lid over it is Israel,’ the officer was quoted as saying by Israel Radio. ‘Hamas is currently not acting against Israel because it is not in the group's interests, but one must not mistake this with the organization's ultimate goals,’ he added.
The Egyptians, the Americans and the Europeans, the officer said, could not be counted on by Israel to stop Hamas.
The IDF Southern Command has operational military plans for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and recently conducted several weeks of training for infantry, armor, and engineering units, said the officer. He ...   more »

By Stan Goodenough
Iranian megalomaniac Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew to Syria at the top of a high-level delegation on a visit made necessary by the "extremely sensitive" regional situation, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).His trip came as war drums continued to sound throughout the Middle East, warning of a potential conflagration between Syria and Israel.IRNA quoted the head of the Syrian Foreign Ministry's Strategic Studies Center as saying Monday that "the 'extremely sensitive' regional status" made Ahmadinejad's visit to Damascus "quite necessary."Tehran is bracing for a US or possibly Israeli attack on its nuclear program, and is reported to have entered into a pact with Damascus whereby Syria would hit back at Israel in the event of such a strike.Analysts believe Ahmadinejad will want to, in the very least, create the impression of solidifying relations with Syria in the hope that this will help deter western intervention until it has passed the point of no return on its quest for nuclear weapons.Meanwhile the US ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday there is clear evidence of weapons smuggling across the Syrian border to the Hizb'allah and other terrorist groups in Lebanon.Syria continues to deny the charges, despite ...   more »

By Linda HarveyIs it possible Harry Potter is fostering anti-Christian bigotry in our youth?
Our kids hear every day in public schools about the perils of "intolerance" and "homophobia." They are cautioned frequently to "separate church and state," because not to do so would result in vague, unspecified horrors. And merely raising an eyebrow at evolutionary theory can unleash pent-up fury over Christian beliefs. So, kids know who the establishment thinks are supposed to be the "bad guys" in America: conservative Christians. But then along comes the most popular book series of all time to further undermine Christian theology by glamorizing occult practices – and it doesn't end there. Harry Potter has a not-so-subtle political message as well.
Kids read a story and figure out right off who the heroes are, and who the villains. In the Potter tales, there are several types of villains: the "dark magic" Lord Voldemort and his ilk; the mean teen wizard group at the Hogwart's school; and then there's a group we might call the fools. In Harry's world, they're called "Muggles."
These residents of the conventional "non-magic" world are portrayed as clueless at best, sometimes harmless, but mostly obstacles to progress. Enlightened witches ...   more »

If he were alive today, John Wayne would have just celebrated his 100th birthday. Actually, if he hadn't made the worst movie of his career, "The Conqueror," he might well have made it to the century mark. In that movie, Wayne appeared as Genghis Khan, joining the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Paul Muni, Mickey Rooney, Louise Rainer, Agnes Moorehead, Walter Huston and Alec Guinness on the list of movie greats who should have had second thoughts before agreeing to portray Asians.
In case you're wondering how that dreadful 1956 movie shortened the Duke's life, it was shot downwind from where our government had been conducting A-bomb tests. Among the movie's cast and crew, it's believed that 91 people, including Wayne, director Dick Powell, and co-stars Susan Hayward and Pedro Armendariz, developed radiation-induced cancer.
Although John Wayne was nominated for an Oscar for "Sands of Iwo Jima" and took one home for "True Grit," his acting ability was generally dismissed by the hoity-toity critics. Typically, they complained that he was merely playing himself. Having been a movie critic in those days, it used to drive me nuts when my colleagues made such inane comments. I would point out that Wayne had ...   more »

WASHINGTON, July 19 (RIA Novosti) - The risks of an accidental nuclear war have increased since the Cold War as Russia's early warning capability has deteriorated, a former U.S. defense official said. William J. Perry, who is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-Director of the Preventive Defense Project at Stanford University, said in congressional testimony Wednesday that "the danger of nuclear war occurring by accident" still existed. "Both American and Russian missiles remain in a launch-on-warning mode," Perry, who served as U.S. defense secretary in 1994-97, said. "And the inherent danger of this status is aggravated by the fact that the Russian warning system has deteriorated since the ending of the Cold War." After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Russia has heavily depended on its radars located abroad, particularly the Daryal facility in Azerbaijan and two Dnepr stations in Ukraine, near Sebastopol and Mukachevo. Some reports said the outdated radar facilities that Moscow is renting on the territories of former Soviet republics were in poor conditions, and Russia had developed "holes" in its early-warning missile threat coverage. In the same testimony, Perry blasted the Bush administration for concentrating its efforts on building defenses ...   more »

Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
RAF fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian strategic bombers heading for British airspace yesterday, as the spirit of the Cold War returned to the North Atlantic once again.
The incident, described as rare by the RAF, served as a telling metaphor for the stand-off between London and Moscow over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
While the Kremlin hesitated before responding to Britain’s expulsion of four diplomats, the Russian military engaged in some old-fashioned sabre-rattling.
Two Tu95 “Bear” bombers were dispatched from their base on the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic Circle and headed towards British airspace.
Russian military aircraft based near the northern port city of Murmansk fly patrols off the Norwegian coast regularly, but the RAF said that it was highly unusual for them to stray as far south as Scotland.
Two Tornado fighters, part of the RAF’s Quick Reaction Alert, took off from RAF Leeming, in Yorkshire, to confront the Russian aircraft, after they were shadowed by two F16s from the Royal Norwegian Air Force, The Times has learnt.
“The Russians turned back before they reached British airspace,” an RAF spokesman said.
There was no evidence to suggest that the incident was ...   more »

"Big Brother" plans to automatically hand the police details of the daily journeys of millions of motorists tracked by road pricing cameras across the country were inadvertently disclosed by the Home Office last night.
Leaked Whitehall background papers reveal that Home Office and transport ministers have clashed over plans for legislation this autumn enabling the police to get automatic "real-time" access to the bulk data from the traffic cameras now going into operation. The Home Office says the police need the data from the cameras, which can read and store every passing numberplate, "for all crime fighting purposes".
But transport ministers warn of concerns about privacy and "the potential for adverse publicity relating to plans for local road pricing" also due to be unveiled this autumn. There are already nearly 2,000 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in place and they are due to double as road pricing schemes are expanded across the country.
Douglas Alexander, who was transport secretary until three weeks ago, told the Home Office the bulk transfer of data to the police was out of proportion to the problem and "might be seen as colouring the debate about road charging (that material being collected for traffic ...   more »

MADRID - A parasite common in Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries, says a Spanish scientist who has been studying the phenomenon for years.  
The culprit is a microscopic parasite called nosema ceranae said Mariano Higes, who leads a team of researchers at a government-funded apiculture centre in Guadalajara, the province east of Madrid that is the heartland of Spain's honey industry.
He and his colleagues have analysed thousands of samples from stricken hives in many countries.
"We started in 2000 with the hypothesis that it was pesticides, but soon ruled it out," he told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.
Pesticide traces were present only in a tiny proportion of samples and bee colonies were also dying in areas many miles from cultivated land, he said.
They then ruled out the varroa mite, which is easy to see and which was not present in most of the affected hives.
For a long time Higes and his colleagues thought a parasite called nosema apis, common in wet weather, was killing the bees.
"We saw the spores, but the symptoms were very different and it was ...   more »

America, America, God shed His grace on thee. Why? It wasn't because we were His favorites. Nor because we were the richest. But there was something about America that wasn't found in other Western nations.
Blessed more than Mexico, Canada or any nation in South America that came looking for gold, as you can see at the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, America came looking for God.
Why has God blessed us so richly? Get a glimpse into Western Hemisphere history from a 1789 snapshot:
In 1789, our first president, George Washington, was sworn in. He immediately kissed his Bible and went to the Capitol for a two-hour worship service. While the ACLU has sandblasted for decades, they still can't erase the fact that our nation was dedicated to God, in whom our national motto declares, "we trust."
In 1789, the single richest colony in the world was … Haiti. The sugar-producing French colony was called "the jewel of the Caribbean." Import and export profits of Haiti exceeded those of the entire United States. Then, following a bloody riot, Haiti was dedicated to voodoo.
So America was dedicated to God, and Haiti was dedicated to Satan. Then, rag-tag America conquered the ...   more »

For the first time in history, the United States Senate welcomed a Hindu to give its opening prayer last Thursday. After Rajan Zed sprinkled ritual water from the Ganges River around the Senate rostrum, he proclaimed, "We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of the heaven." Hindus believe not just in a god that is one with the universe and with nature but in many gods, beliefs that are completely inconsistent with a belief in the Creator God of the Holy Scriptures and the Christian faith upon which our nation is founded. Our Founding Fathers knew better – and so should our senators.
On a hot summer day in Philadelphia in 1787, when the members of the Constitutional Convention had reached an impasse in their heated deliberations of nearly five weeks, the eldest statesman in the room rose slowly to his feet. Addressing George Washington, the president of the Convention, Benjamin Franklin asked:
How has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? In the ...   more »