by Rabbi Boruch Leff
Why do we signify Shabbat's entry by lighting up the lights? It is one of the most beautiful sights and experiences within the gamut of Jewish life. The lady of the house walks toward the candelabra with great anticipation, knowing that she is about to touch something otherworldly. She strikes the match, lights the candles, closes her eyes, and makes the blessing. As she finishes the blessing and begins to recite a special prayer, an overwhelming feeling of spirituality permeates her inner core. Shabbat has arrived into her open and welcoming arms.
Why do we signify Shabbat's entry by lighting up the lights?
Imagine yourself going into the kitchen in the darkness of the night looking for a midnight snack The lights are off and you cannot see anything in the room. It's so dark, you can't even find the light switch. You can't see or access that snack you desire, even though it's sitting right there. The food is ready to be eaten, but as far as you are concerned it doesn't exist, because you are steeped in darkness.
What happens when you find the switch and turn on the lights? A brand new room, ...   more »

By Zohar Blumenkrantz
In another step towards opening Israel's skies to competition, Israel and the European Commission on Wednesday signed a preliminary memorandum of understandings towards signing a unified global aviation agreement btween Israel and the states of Europe.
The agreement is expected to fully remove the aviation limitations currently in place between Israel and European Union states. The memorandum has no immediate affect on passengers flying to and from Israel, but if it indeed leads to a global aviation agreement, flight prices are expected to decrease.
"The agreement will upgrade Israel's status in dealing with European states," Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said. "In practice, this is an Israeli agreement to conduct changes in its aviation agreements with the EU, which would allow leading European companies to fly to Israel, in accordance with bilateral arrangements between the states." 
Mofaz, who spoke Tuesday at the international tourism conference in Tel Aviv's Exhibition Grounds, added that the new agreement would bring about a 30 percent reduction in ticket prices for travel between Israel and Europe.
According to Mofaz, the memorandum signed significantly tempers the existing bilateral aviation agreements and would allow multinational airlines and subsidiaries to fly to Israel, increasing competition and ...   more »

It would be impossible to write a book of this sort without addressing the three subjects that inevitably come up when atheists are contending with Christians. Just as atheists anticipate the need to answer for Stalin and Mao, Christians are expected to answer for the Inquisition and the Crusades. And both sides recognize the need to deal with the Hitler question. Like Einstein, the Führer made enough ambiguous statements to leave the matter up for discussion; unlike Einstein, no one is eager to claim Hitler and his National Socialists as members of their intellectual camp. The Unholy Trinity have no choice but to concern themselves with the matter, of course, and they do so largely in the manner that one has come to expect from them. Harris wastes eight pages attempting to tar the Catholic church and Pope Pius XII with guilt by insufficient opposition, then on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, declares that Auschwitz was a logical and inevitable consequence of the Christian faith. Hitchens also complains about the Catholic church and relates a few irrelevant anecdotes about Italian Fascists and Irish Blue Shirts, but then shows genuine insight when he notes that the Hitler regime shows us ...   more »

Security official: 'It's like a return to the Cold War'
By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
JERUSALEM – Syria, aided by Russia and Iran, in recent months has been furiously acquiring rockets and missiles, including projectiles capable of hitting the entire state of Israel, according to Jordanian and Israeli security officials speaking to WND.
A Jordanian security official said one of the main reasons Damascus did not retaliate after Israel carried out its Sept. 6 airstrike inside Syria allegedly targeting a nascent nuclear facility was because Syria's rocket infrastructure was not yet complete.
The official said after the Israeli airstrike, Syria picked up the pace of acquiring rockets and missiles, largely from Russia with Iranian backing, with the goal of completing its missile and rocket arsenal by the end of the year. The Jordanian official said Syria is aiming to possess enough projectiles to fire over 100 rockets into Israel per hour for a sustained period of time.
(Story continues below)
 
"The Syrians have three main goals," explained the Jordanian official. "To maximize their antitank, antiaircraft and ballistic missile and rocket capabilities."
According to Israeli and Jordanian officials, Syria recently quietly struck a deal with Russia that allows Moscow ...   more »

MIKE HUCKABEE
I have had the pleasure of visiting Israel, our staunch ally, our great friend and the most exemplary democracy in the Middle East, a total of nine times. On one of those trips, I took my then 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, to Yad Vashem. As we faced the grimly surreal pictures from Dachau and Auschwitz, she confronted the horrors of the thousands of bodies stacked on top of one another like so much lumber - six million dead. At the end of our visit, Sarah went to the guest book and wrote simple words that I will never forget: "Why didn't somebody do something?"
That is all she wrote, but with those words, I knew that, in her own way, she "got it."
Unfortunately, some in America, even some running for president, don't get it. Those who don't understand that the war in Iraq is a critical part of the war on terror, don't get it. Those who pledge to withdraw our troops according to some politically-motivated rationale before this war is won, don't get it. Iraq must be stable and secure within its borders. It is not just Iraq's security that is at stake, but the security of ...   more »

Board member tells 'gay' agenda opponents: Now go away
By Bob Unruh
The Montgomery County school board includes Nancy Navarro, Ben Moskowitz, Shirley Brandman, Jerry D. Weast, Stephen Abrams, Christopher S. Barclay, Sharon W. Cox, Judy Docca and Patricia O'Neill
A member of the school board in Montgomery County, Md., which has been working for years to overcome obstacles to its program that teaches students homosexuality is innate, has told members of a group objecting to the lessons to go away.
"To the other side, I say get out of town, shut up, quit costing Montgomery County taxpayers money for litigation, and we're right and parents believe we're right," board member Pat O'Neill said in a report in the Portland, Ore., Examiner.
Her demands followed a ruling from Maryland Circuit Court Judge William J. Rowan III that it is permissible for the district to teach students in Montgomery County how to use condoms during anal and oral sex, as well as that homosexuality is inborn, even though just a year ago Maryland's highest appellate court found there is no scientific basis for such a conclusion.
Lawyers with the the Thomas More Law Center, whose work is funded by donations, represented ...   more »

Governor wants to generate money for state budget crisis
By Jerome R. Corsi
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, is proposing a variation of the "public-private partnerships," being implemented in other parts of the country and according to critics a danger to the sovereignty of the U.S., as a solution for the state's expected $3 billion budget deficit, the biggest after California and New York.
Under the typical PPP structure that has been supported by the Bush administration, through the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration, projects such as the Trans-Texas Corridor highway, are under way. That new highway project is planned to be four football fields wide and run through Texas parallel to Interstate 35 from Laredo to the Oklahoma border.
It is being leased by foreign investors including Cintra, an infrastructure investment consortium in Spain that has made large payment to operate the highway and collect tolls on contracts written to last as long as a half century.
Critics' comments about such plans were typified by an attendee at a conference at which a Colorado "public-private partnership" plan was discussed.
"Under P3, the USA is up for sale," a conference attendee said. "Whatever the public now ...   more »

New Life Church said Tuesday that former pastor Ted Haggard has prematurely ended a "spiritual restoration" process begun when he was fired for sexual misconduct.
Haggard was fired from New Life Church and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals in November 2006 after a former male prostitute alleged they had a cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine.
Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and said he bought meth but didn't use it.
New Life said in a written statement that "the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete and (New Life) maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry."
Haggard and his family moved to Phoenix last year. As part of a severance package that paid Haggard through 2007, he agreed to leave Colorado Springs and not talk about the scandal publicly. But Haggard made public an e-mail asking for financial support, drawing a rebuke from the restoration team.
Haggard couldn't be reached.
He had agreed shortly after his dismissal to the restoration process, which was expected to include counseling and prayer and last five years or longer. New Life officials made it clear that restoration would not ...   more »

By Cal Thomas
In human relationships, there is the flirtation stage, followed by what my grandparents called "courting" and, if that works out, marriage. For those who are cohabiting, that was once the order of things, before disorderly social conduct took over.
In presidential politics, the analogy also works. We have passed the flirtation stage with Barack Obama and now it is time for a serious background check before too many of us follow our hearts instead of our heads and enter into a bad "marriage."
That MoveOn.org and Sen. Edward Kennedy have endorsed Mr. Obama ought to be enough for any conservative — even moderate — to pause before heading toward the electoral altar. But Mr. Obama has offered more cause for alarm by heralding his left-wing economic philosophy in a recent interview with the New York Times.
Mr. Obama told the newspaper the top priority of the next president should be creation of a more lasting and equitable prosperity than achieved under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Mr. Obama apparently missed the class that teaches government doesn't create prosperity; people do.
During last Thursday's debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama said he would pay for his ...   more »

The Al Qaeda terror network continues to succeed in recruiting terrorists from the West — possibly the United States.
U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday told FOX News Al Qaeda has succeeded in strengthening its position in Pakistani tribal regions and is recruiting Western operatives who are better able to help carry out attacks on the United States.
The information comes a day after Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell expressed concerns to the Senate Intelligence Committee about Al Qaeda's continued efforts in Iraq and Pakistan, and the resurgence of Afghanistan's Taliban — the ousted regime that gave refuge to Usama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terror network.
"Al Qaeda remains the pre-eminent threat against the United States," he said.
McConnell said Al Qaeda — while being suppressed to a large extent in Iraq — is moving to other regions, including Pakistan, where it continues to try to launch attacks against the United States.
The tribal regions of Pakistan, while within the country's borders, are lawless and beyond the control of the Pakistani government.
And the next attack on the United states likely would be launched by Al Qaeda from those regions, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said in ...   more »

by Janet Levy,
The cultural traditions and values of American society originate from the Judeo-Christian heritage of our Founding Fathers. They pledged allegiance to 'one nation under God,' with the Creator as the source of our inalienable civil rights and liberties. In that spirit, Congressional invocations by clergy are a time-honored ritual from the birth of the American republic to the present. Public recognition and celebrations of the role of religion in helping establish our precious freedoms have also long been part of American public life. But now, those traditions are under attack from militant Islamists who have, under the guise of political and religious acceptance, steadily advanced their own messages with the goal of undermining our status as a nation of free individuals and the intent of the Founders to insure liberty and justice for all.
Iowa
Last week, Mohammed Khan, the imam of the Islamic Center of Des Moines, led the opening prayer in the Iowa legislature at the request of Iowa State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad, a former Iowa school board member who has worked as a counselor in the Iowa prison system, and has questionable associations with Islamic extremists.
In his four-minute prayer before the Iowa legislative ...   more »