by Rabbi Yitzchak Berkowitz
The "Slichot" prayers occupy a prime spot in the High Holiday prayers. But what is really behind these puzzling verses?
Beginning the Saturday night before Rosh Hashana, and continuing through Yom Kippur, Jews around the world say "Slichot," a special set of prayers designed to awaken us to the significance of the High Holidays.
After the sin of the Golden Calf, Moses asked God to explain His system for relating with the world. God's answer, known as the "13 Attributes of Mercy," forms the essence of the "Slichot" prayers.
Merciful God, merciful God, powerful God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness and truth. Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations, forgiver of iniquity, willful sin and error, and Who cleanses. (Exodus 34:6-7)
ACTUAL CHANGE
For serious Jews, what counts in life is meaning and substance, not the illogical or the quick-fix, quirky "spiritual" stuff. We're not into playing games. Therefore it's very puzzling that a good part of the liturgy for the High Holiday season includes repeated requests for God to recall our ancestors merits on our behalf, and invoking the "13 Attributes of Mercy" so that He may forgive us.
If ...   more »

By Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party have taken the unique step of releasing a "party platform" in between national elections - in what some see as not only a promotional endeavor, but also a well-timed political ploy.
Named the party's "vision," the paper begins by terming itself a "sincere and genuine effort to present Yisrael Beiteinu's outlook, without using worn out phrases or vague terminology that leave room for misunderstandings."
The paper deals with issues such as the clash between Islam and the West, personal and national security for Israelis, the expulsion and unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Israeli economics, education, the Jewish character of the State, and more.
Released as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is negotiating with Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas the terms of an Israeli withdrawal from nearly all of Judea and Samaria, the paper appears to be an attempt by Yisrael Beiteinu to curb Olmert politically.  However, the party only has two ministers in the Cabinet, and will therefore not be able to vote down Olmert's proposals. 
In addition, Yisrael Beiteinu's 11 Knesset Members are not a critical force in the coalition.  The current Kadima-led coalition has five parties ...   more »

In order to prevent misuse of conversions as means to obtain Israeli citizenship, ministry plan sets stricter conditions for immigration of converts to Israel. As a result, people who were acknowledged as Jews by Chief Rabbinate may not be able to make aliyah
Kobi Nahshoni
The Interior Ministry has drafted new criteria that would place stricter restrictions on immigration of Jewish converts to Israel. While the document aims to prevent the misuse of conversions for purposes of obtaining an Israeli citizenship (such as in the case of foreign workers), it will likely make aliyah difficult for people whose conversion has been approved by the Chief Rabbinate.   
Immigration and Absorption Ministry recommends establishment of new conversion authority in attempt to help olim complete conversion process, encourage an increase in applicants    
Among other things, the ministry draft plan demands that conversion candidates attend classes for nine months and take an active part in their community's life prior to their conversion, and that they continue to play an active role in the community in the nine months following the conversion.  
Rabbi Dr Shaul (Seth) Farber, head of Itim, the Jewish Life Information Center, said it was absurd that the Interior ...   more »

More and more religious high school graduates evade army service; IDF officials, rightist leaders attribute drop to ideological crisis caused by disengagement
Yossi Yehoshua
Draft-dodging among the graduates of national religious high schools has grown by 7% in the last two years, while the number of draft-dodgers among the general public increased by only 4%, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.  
Longer Service?  
Hesder soldiers' service to be extended / Hanan Greenberg  
IDF chief of staff, chief of Personnel and head rabbi meet with hesder yeshivot board to discuss extending their soldiers' service from 16 to 24 months    
According to new data, more and more religious youths chose to continue studying in higher yeshivot, instead of enlisting in the army.  
IDF officials and rightist activists attributed the sharp drop to the deep ideological crisis that followed the disengagement from Gaza in the summer of 2005.  
"These figures are not surprising at all," said Rabbi David Stav, head of a hesder yeshiva in Petach Tikva. "We warned before the disengagement that it would push the religious youths to draft-dodging… we warned that many teens would have to do serious soul-searching, but no one listened to us."   ...   more »

The Temple Institute in Jerusalem has issued a statement strongly urging Bible-believing Christians to petition their governments and the government of Israel to put an end to Muslim destruction of important Jewish artifacts atop the Temple Mount.
The Islamic authorities in charge at the Temple Mount have been carrying out unauthorized excavations and renovations they say are necessary to replace aging electrical cables. Footage taken on a cellphone camera and broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 News last week showed a trench that had been dug into the floor of the complex as part of the work. Deep within the trench an ancient decorated wall was visible, a wall experts say was part of the outer courts of the ancient Jewish temple.
If the wall is part of the ancient temple courtyards, it would be the most significant Israelite Temple find in history. But experts may never have a chance to verify the find if the Muslims are allowed to continue destroying it and every other piece of Jewish history at the site.
In a desperate effort to halt Islamic plans to erase Jewish history, the Temple Institute called on Christians everywhere to “rise up and stand with their brethren in ...   more »

Syrian minister: 'Israel can't survive without aggression'
Yaakov Katz
"Israel in fact does not want peace. It cannot survive without aggression, treachery and military messages," Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said Thursday, a day after IAF aircraft allegedly violated Syrian airspace in an overnight operation.
Bilal said the government was "seriously studying the nature of the response," but refused to indicate in an interview with Al-Jazeera whether the reaction would be on the military or diplomatic level. He would not give any more details about the incident, but said it proved Israel's policies are based on hostility.
He said recent US aid of $30 billion over 10 years to Israel encouraged its government to "such arrogance that it delivered this morning message."
Syrian officials reported that four or five IAF aircraft broke the sound barrier and dropped fuel tanks over deserted areas of northern Syria, along its border with Turkey. Witnesses said the incident occurred in the Abyad area.
A Syrian military spokesman said that Syrian air defenses opened fire on the IAF aircraft. "The Israeli enemy aircraft infiltrated into the Arab Syrian territory through the northern border, coming from the Mediterranean heading toward the eastern region, breaking the sound ...   more »

ROME (AFP) — Israeli President Shimon Peres arrived in Rome Wednesday for talks with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI, airport officials said.
It is the Israeli president's first visit abroad since being elected on June 13.
He will begin by meeting Prodi, who has held a series of discussions with leaders from the region. Prodi was in Jordan last weekend and had talks on Tuesday night in Rome with Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
His foreign minister, Massimo d'Alema, is currently on a tour of Israel and Egypt, part of a flurry of diplomatic activity to prepare for the US-proposed international conference to relaunch the Middle East peace process this autumn.
Peres said before leaving Israeli that the radical Islamist movement Hamas had to choose between feeding children on the Gaza strip and firing rockets into southern Israel.
Peres is due to have an audience with the pontiff on Thursday at his summer residence outside Rome.
He met the pope in April last year in his capacity as a former prime minister.
Original Source

 

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Air France to trial biometric boarding cards     
French airline Air France said Wednesday it planned to trial biometric boarding passes that would allow passengers to be fast-tracked through airport checks using a scan of their fingerprint.
Passengers who volunteer to take part in the pilot scheme, from end 2007, will be asked to load a digital record of their index print onto an individual chip card, Air France officials told a press conference.
Using scanners and dedicated check-in lanes, biometric card holders will be able to print out their own boarding pass and board the plane via an electronic gate that checks the match between their fingerprint and the one on the card.
The scheme will initially be trialled for two months among 1,000 Air France staff on the Paris-Amsterdam service, to be extended to 2,000 frequent flyers on the same route.
If the tests are successful, the biometric cards will be offered to between 10 and 15 percent of Air France customers, either as a frequent flyer perk or a paying premium which could also be used to control access to rental cars or hotel rooms.
Original Source

 

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New Program Creates Patient-Friendly Pricing and Monthly Recurring Revenue Stream for Company
VeriChip Corporation, a provider of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems for healthcare and patient-related needs, announced today the launch of its new "PATIENT FIRST" program. Under this new program, patients receive the VeriMed(TM) microchip with no up-front cost with a subscription to the VeriMed Patient Registry at a fee of $9.95 per month. The Company will initially launch PATIENT FIRST in the geographies it has an established presence of protocol-adopted hospitals, including South Florida, northern New Jersey, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Atlanta. Protocol-adopted hospitals are trained on using the VeriMed reader and database and have adopted the VeriMed Patient Identification System as standard protocol in their emergency rooms in the event a patient presents unconscious or non-communicative.
The PATIENT FIRST model enables all patients to access the VeriMed Patient Identification System for no cost up-front and a nominal monthly subscription. The VeriMed Patient Identification System, which utilizes an implantable RFID microchip in combination with a handheld RFID scanner and a secure patient database, provides immediate access to important health information for patients who arrive at an emergency department unable to communicate. This program will enhance the ...   more »

 by Tim Stevens
While the U.S. military remains mired in the ground conflict in Iraq, the Chinese military seems to be practicing for a war of the future. Earlier this year, reports surfaced about the Communist nation's testing of anti-satellite weapon technology. Now, reports are coming in that say the country has been implicated in a June hacking of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' work computer. This has spurred Pentagon IT folks to actually disable agency's network for more than a week while a fix can be determined.
An unnamed U.S. official has stated with a "very high level of confidence" that it was the People's Liberation Army (a.k.a. the Chinese military) behind the attack. For its part, the Chinese foreign ministry has said the government forbids "any criminal acts undermining computer systems, including hacking," and that "hacking is a global issue and China is frequently a victim."
Who is telling the truth? In the long run, it doesn't matter, because between this and the recent accusations of a Kremlin-funded cyber attack on Estonia, it's looking more and more like the next world war may very well take place over the Internet.
Original Source

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By: Hal Turner
Three weeks ago, I published a brief snippet on the front page of my web site reporting the governments of the US Canada and Mexico are conspiring in secret to merge the three nations into a new entity called the North American Union.
There has been much talk of this on various internet blogs for over a year. Most of those blogs have been smeared as "conspiracy theorists" and have been largely ignored by the main stream.
What prompted my interest in the issue was money: I was sent professional images of actual AMERO coins by someone in the US Treasury! The person included a note saying they like my radio show and are frightened by what's been going on in secret within our government.
This Treasury Department person was outraged that our country was beginning to coin money as part of a merger that would do away with our country, via a merger the American public knew nothing about!
When I got the professional images of the AMERO coin, I was finally intrigued enough to make mention of it on my web site. My site has gotten over 20 Million visits in the last couple years ...   more »

 All stateside Air Force fighter, bomber flights to be halted September 14
Plane was moving missiles whose warheads were supposed to be removed
Nuclear warheads were accidentally left on the missiles, military officials say
Public was never in danger; nukes could not have detonated, spokesman says
From Barbara Starr
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Six nuclear warheads on cruise missiles were mistakenly carried on a flight from North Dakota to Louisiana last week, prompting a major investigation, military officials have confirmed.
The plane took the cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base for decommissioning Thursday, the Air Force said.
"This is a major gaffe, and it's going to cause some heads to roll down the line," said Don Shepperd, a retired Air Force major general and military analyst for CNN.
Shepperd said the United States had agreed in a Cold War-era treaty not to fly nuclear weapons. "It appears that what happened was this treaty agreement was violated," he said.
The warheads should have been removed from the missiles before they were attached to the B-52 bomber, according to military officials. Watch the report on the military's investigation »
The crew was unaware that the plane was ...   more »

By Lou Dobbs
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon Sunday demanded the United States surrender its sovereignty, abandon the rule of law and accede to Mexico's inherent supremacy.
Lou Dobbs says Mexican President Felipe Calderon is showing "blatant hypocrisy" on immigration.
 In his state of the union address to the Mexican nation, Calderon established his imperialistic imperatives: "I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico. And, for this reason, the government action on behalf of our countrymen is guided by principles, for the defense and protection of their rights."
Calderon protested the U.S. government's increased raids on illegal employers of illegal alien employees and work site enforcement. In what is little more than a faint nod to the Bush administration's responsibility to enforce U.S. immigration law, the Department of Homeland Security had planned to send out notices to employers from the Social Security Administration informing them of non-matching records between an employee's name and Social Security number. These employers would then be forced to resolve any discrepancy within 90 days or be required to dismiss the employee or face up to $10,000 in fines for knowingly ...   more »

Logo intended to standardize documentation across continent
By Jerome R. Corsi
New security logo on the reverse of North Carolina's driver's licenses
The first "North American Union" driver's license, complete with a hologram of the continent on the reverse, has been created in North Carolina.
"The North Carolina driver's license is 'North American Union' ready," charges William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration.
Gheen provided WND with a photo of an actual North Carolina license which clearly shows the hologram of the North American continent embedded on the reverse.
"The hologram looks exactly [like] the map of North America that is used as the background for the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America logo on the SPP website," Gheen told WND. "I object to the loss of sovereignty that is proceeding under the agreements being made by these unelected government bureaucrats who think we should be North American instead of the United States of America.
Security and Prosperity Partnership logo
"To protest, I don't plan on applying for a North Carolina driver's license," Gheen told WND, "even though I am a resident of the state. I don't see how a Division of Motor Vehicles authorized in a Department ...   more »