By Avi Issacharoff 
A moment before beginning his supper, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met. They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates.
It takes a few seconds to digest this sight: The son of a Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. "I'm now called Joseph," he says at the outset.
Masab knows that he has little hope of returning to visit the Holy Land in this lifetime. 
"I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God." 
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By Jonathan Tobin
Latest push for pressure to sustain futile peace process has little to do with reality
In the wake of Barack Obama's trip to Israel, Republicans and Democrats wasted no time tilting over the meaning of every word uttered by the man whom Democrats will nominate for president this year.
But amid all of the partisan debate, one prominent analyst thought both sides of that argument had it all wrong.
According to Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times op-ed columnist, the problem wasn't whether or not Obama was supportive of Israel. Notwithstanding the differences he might have with Republican John McCain, it was Obama's recitation of many of the time-honored clichés of pro-Israel rhetoric that was, in Kristof's view, unfortunate.
In his July 24 column "Tough Love for Israel?," which echoed "The Two Israels," an earlier piece published on June 22, the Times' resident human-rights advocate opined again that what Israel needs from the United States is the sort of intervention that friends and family of an alcoholic would employ: It must be stopped from destroying itself.
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Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON – After a series of meetings with top US officials in Washington, Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared optimistic as to the improvement of Israel's anti-missile defense systems.
After some lobbying on Barak's part, the American officials pledged Israel would be connected to the global US system, capable of detecting an impending attack while the missile's engine is just heating up. Israel is primarily intent on obtaining logistical support from the US, which would allow the IDF to launch a solo operation if need be. 
Iranian Threat 
Barak to Gates: Keep military option on table with Iran / Yitzhak Benhorin 
Defense minister meets with American counterpart in Washington, warns Tehran's plans threaten regional stability. Gates, who opposes US action against Iran, urged to tighten sanction against Tehran while keeping all options open
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THE JERUSALEM POST
The Knesset passed the first reading of a bill Tuesday night which would pardon those against whom criminal cases have been opened for anti-disengagement activity.
Prior to the vote, a fierce war of words broke out between MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) and right-wing MKs, after the Meretz MK said that "for years Israel has ignored the crimes of the Right."
She added that Israel must learn from the lessons of the collapsed Weimar Republic (the democratic and republican period of Germany from 1919 to 1933). "May I remand you that democracy in Germany collapsed because it allowed its enemies on the extreme Right to exploit it," she said.
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Yaakov Lappin , THE JERUSALEM POST
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's announcement on Wednesday in which he said he will step down from office in two months will have no bearing on the police investigations into the premier, a National Fraud Unit spokeswoman said.
"The investigation continues as normal. Detectives will question Olmert on Friday at his residence irrespective [of his announcement]," the spokeswoman added.
Morris Talansky, the Long Island businessman suspected of unlawfully giving Olmert hundreds of thousands of dollars, said he had "no comment" over the news of Olmert's resignation.
The Justice Ministry also refused to respond.
Olmert is expected to be questioned again on Friday over the Olmertours affair, in which he is suspected of double-billing several charities and a government ministry for the same flights, and using the excess to fund personal family flights. Beyond the Olmertours and Talansky investigations, Olmert faces another three police investigations.
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Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to hand his resignation letter to President Shimon Peres the day after the September 17 Kadima primary and ask him to entrust the new party leader with forming a new government, Olmert's associates said Wednesday night.
They spoke soon after the prime minister had made a somber speech at his official residence in Jerusalem in which he announced that he would not seek to retain the leadership.
By law, Olmert will remain prime minister until a new government is formed. If the new Kadima leader forms a government soon after the primary, Olmert will then leave office. But if no new government is established, Olmert, despite having formally tendered his resignation, could remain prime minister until after a general election that would likely be held in spring 2009.
Olmert decided 10 days ago to announce his imminent departure on Wednesday - to coincide with the last day of the Knesset's winter session and the Kadima election committee's formal decision to set the September 17 date for the primary.
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By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
A brief course offered by the Chabad Hassidim about the Temple endangers the Aksa Mosque, Islamic Movement spokesman Zahi Nujidat said Tuesday.
A view of the Temple Mount.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
The three-part seminar, which is being held this week and next week at some 200 Chabad Houses throughout the country, comes less than two weeks before Tisha Be'av, which marks the destruction of the Temple.
"We view this as a serious and drastic move toward the fruition of extremist organizations to establish a temple in place of al-Aksa Mosque," Zahi Nujidat said. "This represents a real danger to al-Aksa."
A similar condemnation was issued in Arabic this week by the Aksa Foundation.
The Aksa Foundation was cynically pointing to the courses, which are held in three sessions, as proof that the Israeli establishment wants to damage the mosque, Chabad spokesman Rabbi Menachem Brod said.
"This is a pure provocation by an organization that is exploiting any opportunity to incite the Arab public to violence against Israel," he said. "Every time they are looking for some other excuse to incite, and now they found it in the course."
The courses, which are being attended by "tens of ...   more »

Plan would create huge expansion of government surveillance
Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
LONDON -- Britain's MI5 intelligence service has persuaded the Home Office to get government approval for a massive increase in surveillance in Britain, already the most-watched nation in the West, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
In London, every citizen already is captured on camera an average of 400 times a day. An increasing number of the cameras are directly linked to MI5's state-of-the-art computers in the basement of headquarters overlooking the Thames. Billions of images are already stored there.
But now secret plans by the Security Service and Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist command want to detail every phone call, e-mail, text message and online purchase to aid the fight against terrorism. Four billion e-mails are sent every day in the UK. Last year 67 billion text messages were transmitted.
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World renowned UFO researcher Timothy Good tells BBC WM about the UFO sightings wave gripping Britain, the government's secret liaisons with extraterrestrials and why a real 'Star Wars' might be coming.
Read: Black Country DeLorean >
Timothy Good
Timothy Good is considered one of the world's leading experts on the UFO phenomenon.
For more than 40 years he has studied the controversial subject, having interviewed thousands of witnesses worldwide, many from military, governmental and scientific backgrounds.
Timothy has written numerous best-selling books on UFOs and aliens - which he calls 'the most highly classified subject on earth' - and has acted as a consultant to several US Congress investigations into the phenomenon.
An international lecturer, in January 1989 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Timothy became the first UFO researcher from the west to be interviewed on Russian television.
UFO over house
With UFO fever sweeping Britain, Timothy Good spoke live to BBC WM on Wednesday 9th July 2008.
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By Davide Castelvecch
Simulating the complexity of quantum physics would quickly overwhelm even the most advanced of today’s computers.If The Matrix really existed, it would probably have to be a quantum simulator. The fictional computer in that story can create virtual worlds indistinguishable from the real one and project them into people’s minds. But the real world includes quantum phenomena, something ordinary computers can’t fully simulate.
Now physicists have created a rudimentary prototype of a machine that simulates quantum phenomena using quantum physics, rather than using data kept in a classical computer. While the new device can't make people fly like the Matrix does, it demonstrates a technique that could enable physicists to create, in the virtual world, materials that don't yet exist in nature and perhaps figure out how to build, in the real world, superconductors that work at room temperature, for example.
Tobias Schätz of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany and his collaborators built a model of the smallest solid object imaginable — one made of two atoms — by suspending two ions in a vacuum. The researchers used laser light to vary the electrical repulsion of the ions in order to simulate ...   more »

Biometric scans to verify students taking GMATs
By JOHN HECHINGER
In a sign of increasing concern about cheating, the nation's top business schools will soon require a high-tech identity check for standardized admissions tests.
Aspiring corporate executives taking the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, will have to undergo a "palm vein" scan, which takes an infrared picture of the blood coursing through their hands. The image — which resembles a highway interchange in a major city — is unique to every individual. The scans are used widely in Japan among users of automated teller machines but only recently have appeared in the United States.
Palm-vein scanning on GMAT test takers will begin next month in Korea and India, with U.S. centers starting as early as this fall and a worldwide rollout by May.
The technology targets "proxy" test taking, a fraud in which applicants hire high-scoring impostors to take exams in their place. Five years ago, federal authorities broke up a ring of six people who took more than 590 exams, including GMATs, for customers who paid at least $3,000.
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 By Jim Kouri
In 2006, Denys Ray Hughes, 59, of Phoenix, AZ, was found guilty of Attempted Production of a Biological Toxin for Use as a Weapon, Possession of an Unregistered Destructive Device and Possession of an Unregistered Silencer, by a federal jury.
The evidence at his trial showed that Hughes grew castor bean plants and cultivated thousands of their seeds, which contain the toxin called ricin. Hughes further possessed the necessary precursor materials, as well as written instructions for extracting the toxin.
The government also proved at trial that Hughes possessed a destructive device, specifically, a pipe bomb, and multiple silencers.
Hughes’ conviction for Attempted Production of a Biological Toxin for Use as a Weapon carried a penalty of life imprisonment, and a $250,000 fine
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    A pint of beer may be an official "Icon of England", but sales have sunk to the lowest level in Britain since the Great Depression of the 1930s, according to figures released on Monday.
Total beer sales have dropped by 4.5 percent compared with the same quarter last year, while beer sales in pubs have plunged 10.6 percent, the British Beer and Pub Association said in its UK Quarterly Beer Barometer.
Some 107 million fewer pints were sold between April and June this year compared with the same three months in 2007 -- a drop of 1.2 million pints per day, said the BBPA, which represents the brewing and pub sector.
And in pubs, bars and restaurants, the fall was 144 million pints, down 1.6 million pints per day.
The BBPA blamed the drop on tax increases. The average price of a pint of lager this year is 2.65 pounds, according to the Campaign for Real Ale group.
Sales from supermarkets and shops continued to increase, up 3.8 percent on the same quarter this year, which the BBPA said confirmed a long-term trend towards drinking at home.
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By Chuck Baldwin
Yesterday, the Politico quoted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as saying, "I'm
trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet." She was
responding, of course, to pressure that she and her fellow Democrats are
experiencing to suspend a congressional ban on offshore oil drilling in the
face of skyrocketing energy prices. It would be really wonderful, however,
if the liberal congresswoman could get as energized about saving our once
great republic.
Herein lies another problem: the vast majority of our politicos (from both
major parties) do not even seem to know what kind of country the United
States was designed to be. Virtually every reference made to the United
States by our civil magistrates is that we are a "democracy." That's odd;
someone should have told our Founding Fathers, because they emphatically
rejected the concept of creating a "democracy" in favor of creating a
constitutional republic.
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Governor Says Damage On Wall Street 'Infecting' State
NEW YORK (CBS) ― New York Governor David Paterson says the New York state budget deficit has gone up $1.4 billion in the last 90 days. The governor delivered the troubling economic news during a live broadcast message shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday.
"Our state now faces increasingly harsh economic times. When I travel across the state, I see communities suffering. Everywhere I go I see people losing their jobs and their homes," he said. "My message to the Legislature is that next year's budget process starts now.
Paterson also said the budget deficit is estimated to grow 22 percent over the next three years and called for a special legislative session on Aug. 19.
"The damage on Wall Street is infecting all of our communities and its effects on New York state's finances are devastating," he said."It is time for New York and other government to cut up our credit cards. The era of buy now and pay later and later is over. The faster we address this crisis, the faster and stronger we will emerge from it."
In June, the governor stated under the current $122 billion budget there would ...   more »