Some 10,000 people from all over Israel traveled to Sderot on Friday to do their Shabbat shopping and show their solidarity for the residents of the beleaguered town.
Hundreds of cars headed to the city from meeting points in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Ra'anana.
Modi'in resident Ilan Cohen, who organized the initiative, told Army Radio of his excitement at seeing so many people head to Sderot.
Numerous organizations participated in the solidarity mission, and several municipalities even provided buses for the journey to the Gaza-belt community.
Among the participants were activists from dozens of social movements, as well as members of student organizations, secular and religious communities and sports clubs.
Ra'anana Mayor Nahum Hofree and former Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball star Doron Jamchee were spotted among the shoppers.
Police and representatives of the IDF Home Front Command briefed the shoppers on emergency procedures in the event of a Kassam attack, and on Friday morning, as the convoy made its way to Sderot, two Kassam rockets fired from Gaza landed in open areas near the city.
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Iranian president explains why his country is developing nuclear project, why he keeps on attacking Israel
Dudi Cohen
If we remain quiet in light of the Zionists' crimes they, we will be unable to do anything tomorrow if they act against us, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday, according to the Iranian news agency Fars.  
Speaking before bereaved families, Ahmadinejad said, "There were those inside and outside the country who asked us why we are defending Palestine and speaking against the Zionists, in the midst of all the attacks on the nuclear plan. I answered them in private meetings that today we can still do it openly.
State official:  
'Act against Tehran before it's too late' / Roni Sofer  
Ynet learns Israel intends to demand UN Security Council assemble to debate third round of sanctions against Islamic Republic after release of IAEA report. ''We hope IAEA is aware of the price the entire world may end up paying for its lenient approach towards Iran,' says top Jerusalem official     
"You saw that when we spoke about the Zionists' ideology, the enemy's ground was undermined, and they who speak about freedom (of speech) began crying out and had ...   more »

Hizbullah head Hassan Nasrallah on Friday said Israel's "disappearance" is an inevitable fact.
"If Israel's attacks Lebanon again, we will wage war without any preconditions," Nasrallah said during a speech in Beirut in honor of Hizbullah arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated last week in Damascus.
"The disappearance of Israel is an inevitable fact. It is an historical process in the region which will come to an end in several years," he said.
Nasrallah said Mughniyeh's death in a car bombing earlier this month in Syria was a "pre-emptive" strike meant to set the stage for the assassination of more of Hizbullah's top leaders.
"We consider Hajj Imad's assassination as a pre-emptive operation, not merely an act of revenge," the Shiite cleric added, using a title of respect for the slain commander reserved for Muslims who complete a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
According to Nasrallah, Hizbullah will not stand quiet following Mughniyeh's assassination.
"There is no possibility that we will not respond to the murder of our loved and dear ones. We will not allow the enemy to continue and murder our commanders and dear ones."
Nasrallah also said that Hizbullah has beat Israel many times in the past, the ...   more »

By Yoav Stern
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Friday that operatives within Lebanon are preparing for a new war with Israel in coming months.
Nasrallah, who made a speech in honor of the "Islamic Resistance Week," maintained that activists from his organization are ready for battle against the Israel Defense Forces and will fight the IDF soldiers "in every wadi" in ways they haven't fought in the past.
The leader of the Lebanon-based guerilla group spoke at a rally in front of thousands who came to honor Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah's deputy secretary general, who was killed in a car bombing in Damascus on February 12. Nasrallah also spoke about the 1992 targeted killing of his predecessor, Abbas Moussawi.  
"No one can protect the entire Israeli home front from our missiles," he said. "If they think of entering the south, to any valley, any hill, I swear you [Israelis] will carry your tanks and soldiers and your entire army will collapse under the feet of Imad Mughniyah," Nasrallah said
"I swear to you Haj Imad, your blood will not go to waste," Nasrallah said.
"We will defend ourselves the way we choose, at the time we choose, in the place ...   more »

By Carolynne Wheeler in Cairo
He is handsome and charismatic, and his velvety voice makes young women swoon. But his young female fans mostly wear headscarves, and while his gatherings look more fitting for a rockstar, they involve lessons from the Koran.
Moez Masoud, a 29-year-old Egyptian party-goer-turned-preacher, is sweeping the Middle East with his moderate Islamic message to love not just Allah but also others - and to play a full part in the modern world.    
Mr Masoud provokes debate over contemporary issues
His views are controversial among more conservative imams both in Egypt, where he is based, and further afield.
But his television shows have garnered an audience of millions across the Middle East, his website attracts thousands of hits, and he fills hotel ballrooms and lecture theatres whenever he appears in public.
“I’m just about everyday things, you know? It’s about keeping it real,” said the young televangelist, as he prepared for an event at a Cairo hotel where he was to discuss how romantic love and marriage relate to Islam.
His message carries weight among his mostly educated and middle-class young fans, because - perhaps like many of them - he too has previously ...   more »

RFID is serving as the network for the RFID Ecosystem Project, a social networking experiment at the University of Washington in Seattle that is exploring the intersection of the value of tracking systems and the loss of privacy that they can cause.
Faculty, staff, and students are voluntarily being tracked within the university's Paul Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering, a research facility without classrooms that has been outfitted with approximately 30 RFID readers and 150 antennas. Volunteers carry Gen2 ID tags and can also apply tags to personal possessions. Ten people have been tracking themselves for a year, and project organizers are now recruiting 50 volunteers to expand the data collected and to test new applications.
The readers are networked to a database that participants can access from computers in the facility. Participants use the location data to see where colleagues are in the building, to locate misplaced personal items such as cell phones, PDAs, books, and backpacks, and to improve their personal time management by reviewing how and where they spent their time during the day. The project is completely voluntary and participants can block anyone from accessing their data.
"We are exploring the relationship of privacy ...   more »

Event calls on evangelicals to seek return to respect for God's authority
David Kupelian
David Kupelian, the managing editor for WorldNetDaily.com, is joining an all-star list of speakers at this weekend's Restore America Conference at Rolling Hills Community Church in Tualatin, Ore.
Kupelian, who authored the best-selling, "Marketing of Evil," will be addressing the conference of the subject of the media.
The focus of the event is just what its title suggests: Restoring America to its original acknowledgment of being "under God."
The goals are to call all voter eligible evangelical Christians in America to register to vote and then to vote, call Bible-believing pastors and Christian leaders to encourage their congregations to participate in the political process, and "call all Christians to vote for those who acknowledge our Christian heritage and respect God's authority…"
"Our destruction if it comes at all, will be from … the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence," the conference quotes Daniel Webster saying. 
"I urge you, by all that is clear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred, not only that ye pray but that ye act,!" exhorted John Hancock.
The conference ...   more »

It seems like every time we read what is happening in our world today, there is a lot of bad news. I think we all could use some good news in a bad world, don't you?
The Old Testament talks about a dark time in Israel's history when good news was in short supply as well. They had fallen on hard times because of their disobedience to God. A famine had swept the land. Things were so bad and food was so scarce that people had resorted to eating things like donkeys' heads and bird dung. Some had even turned to cannibalism.
What brought Israel to this all-time low? These dire circumstances were a direct result of their constant idolatry. Though God had warned them again and again not to turn to other gods, they continued to worship false idols, live immorally, and break God's commandments left and right.
God had told the prophet Isaiah, "I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols" (Isaiah 42:8). We might read that and think, Well, God is just a little insecure, isn't he? What's his problem? Why is he so ...   more »

By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
Barack Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which he has attended since 1991, has some very unique and disturbing ideas and beliefs. It is a self-proclaimed Africentric Christian church, which means its members embrace their connection with Africa, and its teachings are centered on all things African and African culture. This is the church where Obama converted to the Christian faith, and it has now grown to over 5,000 members. The mainstream media have ignored discussing this important influence on the presumptive Democratic nominee. It needs a full examination.
Africentric beliefs place an emphasis on identifying African presence in the Bible. The church offers classes in Swahili, and it has youth programs for young men and women, Intonjane and Isuthu, Swahili words for entering manhood and womanhood. Kwanzaa, the African-focused holiday created in the 1960s is observed by congregants along with a Thanksgiving Day service called Umoja Karamu. This special service tells the story of the black family starting from its West African origins to present day using drums, storytelling and dancing.
Trinity emphasizes the African roots of Christianity in its Bible classes. One example they like to use is the ...   more »

Websites capture wave of transcendent fervor
By Jerome R. Corsi 
"Is this a messianic movement? A cult of personality? Or just good ol' fashioned politics?" Those are the questions an Internet blog called "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" began with one year ago.
By simply highlighting media reports since then – including WND's account of an Obama rally in Seattle – the website has captured the wave of euphoria that has followed the Democratic senator's remarkable rise to the brink of the party's presidential nomination.
The site, laced with photos and magazine covers illustrating the theme, is topped by a Obama quote strategically ripped from a Jan. 7 speech at Dartmouth College just before the New Hampshire Primary in which he told students, "… a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote" for Obama.
The blog prominently displays the July 11 cover of the German magazine Der Spiegel, which has a photo of Obama under the title, "The Messiah Factor, Barack Obama and the Yearning for a New America."
Slate.com's Timothy Noah introduced ...   more »

Book specifically instructs teacher to "avoid" discussing the idea that homosexual inclinations can be changed
By Hillary White
US, February 21, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At the same time that news has come out that the Toronto Catholic School board has refused to participate in pro-homosexual activities, homosexual activists are making significant inroads in US schools, as a booklet titled, "Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth," is set to be distributed to all 16,000 school districts in the country.
The 24-page booklet by the National Education Association and American Psychological Association, tells students that homosexuality is a "normal expression of human sexuality".
"What's so scary and dogmatic about this report is that it communicates that religious-based viewpoints are harmful, and even dangerous," said Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family Action.
The booklet particularly targets the idea that homosexuality is a condition that can be changed. It instructs educators, "Schools should be careful to avoid discussions of transformational ministry in their curriculum."
Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said that the talk of "inclusivity" in schools by homosexual groups is a veiled threat.
"What they're trying to do is create a fear factor ...   more »

Campaign encourages display of national motto
The Carson City council chambers, with the national motto displayed
There have been battles waged in the United States by special interest groups in recent years in their attempts to remove "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and to have the Christian cross at the Mt. Soledad veterans memorial torn down. There's also been, more or less, a constant barrage of attacks on the national motto, "In God We Trust."
But there's also been a group of volunteers working quietly and efficiently to promote recognition of the motto, and their success is evidenced by the several dozen municipalities that already have adopted formal and permanent acknowledgments of that motto.
"Just today I received a message from a veteran back in Indianapolis, delighted with what we're doing, and wanting to be the key person [for this program] in his part of the country," Jacquie Sullivan, chief of the In God We Trust-America campaign, said.
It already has resulted in a long list of California municipalities specifically adopting the national motto as their own, and proudly posting it in their city council chambers. 
"The United States of America has much to celebrate," a letter distributed ...   more »

One of America's most influential businessmen, legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens, says the nation's wealth is being plundered by oil exporters and the U.S. faces a potential financial disaster if our energy policy is not reformed.
Pickens, who correctly predicted that oil would top $100 a barrel, also says he expects oil prices to drop sharply in the near term.
Appearing on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Thursday morning, Pickens pointed out that the U.S. is currently sending half a trillion dollars out of the country each year to buy oil, in some cases from people who "are our enemies."
Said Pickens, "You take 10 years and you've got $5 trillion ... That's more than $1 billion a day.
"We can't stand that. Wealth is moving out of the country...
"Not one presidential candidate has addressed this … The candidates have to get up to speed on what energy cost is doing to our country." Pickens even turned on his own industry, oil, and called for an increase in alternative energy sources.
"If we do not get on the alternative energy bandwagon and if we don't have a global recession, we could be sitting on $150 oil in two years," he told ...   more »