Isaiah 54: 3-4—“For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left. And your descendants will possess nations and will resettle the desolate cities. Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; and do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.”

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“On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen….” (Isaiah 62: 6)

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“For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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Isaiah 54: 3-4—“For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left.  And your descendants will possess nations and will resettle the desolate cities.  Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; and do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.”

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“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4: 6)

News Items of Interest:

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Israeli Uncensored News

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“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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Israeli officials accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of looking for excuses not to negotiate, after Abbas said Thursday he would only return to negotiations if Israel declared a complete settlement freeze for a defined period, during which the border issue would be resolved.

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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) report alleging Hizbullah’s involvement in former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination has further tarnished the party’s reputation, even thought the documentary did not budge the polarized stances paralyzing the political scene, a number of analysts told The Daily Star Wednesday.

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The crime occurred at 12:56 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, 2005. Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, was blown up, along with most of his armored convoy, in front of the Hotel St. Georges in Beirut. The bomb had been packed into a white Mitsubishi van that had been moved into position by a suicide driver one minute and 50 seconds earlier; the powerful explosion tore a seven-foot deep crater into the street and killed 23 people.

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That’s how the New York Times titled an article by John F. Burns whose by-line certifies not only the absolute truth of the report but also its importance. (Reuters distributed a dispatch on the same subject on its press service.)

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Casual Iran observers tend to portray the country’s most prominent political division as that between fundamentalist hard-liners and secular moderates. In reality, however, the struggle for Iran’s future is a three-way fight waged by the different branches of conservatives that control the parliament, the presidency, and the theocracy. The Green Movement may have stalled, but the parliamentary opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has only grown stronger and more assertive over the past year — culminating in a recent push to charge the president with abuses of power warranting impeachment.

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Mother Rachel and Yitzchak Rabin are forever linked by adjacent yahrtzeits, hers on Heshvan 11, his on the 12th. They’re linked as well by one of Rabin’s final and finest moments in the Knesset. On Oct. 5, 1995, one day shy of a month before his assassination, Rabin asked the Knesset to ratify Oslo’s cornerstone “Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement,” and what that meant for Rachel’s Tomb.

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You may wonder why a man just shy of his 88th birthday would get up at 5 in the morning to fly to Omaha to give a speech. Frankly, since accepting this kind offer, I’ve wondered myself. Here’s why. Having devoted much of my life to trying to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights come alive in many places in the world, I have become alarmed at how some human rights organizations, including the one I founded, are reporting on human rights in the Middle East.

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Toronto author Tarek Fatah is peddling a radical notion: Muslims and Jews really ought to get along.

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Red Army veteran Shalom Scopas defies his 85 years as he dashes about the mini-museum of World War II memorabilia he has created in the basement of his Holon home. His bright blue eyes sparking with pride, he points out rows of medals, sepia snapshots of himself as a dashing young man in his smart Soviet uniform, and letters of gratitude from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and former president Vladimir Putin.

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For American students such as myself, 1985 was a good year to be in Leningrad. The Soviet Union was in an odd moment of transition. Some people still wouldn’t talk to strangers on the street, while others were desperate to meet foreigners. One encountered Soviet pop musicians who said things like “Do you know David Bowie? I met him last year,” as well as artists who gave raucous parties and intellectuals who served tea in book-lined apartments.

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The moonless desert night is cool and the stars are twinkling above. A grayish cigarette ash falls on the golden sand next to a soldier’s red boots. In a few moments, the quiet will cease and the true nature of the surroundings will appear. The vapor of sweet tea spreading in the tents will give way to clouds of dust as the soldiers’ march towards the target destination will begin. Among the briefings delivered in Hebrew, a few words in Arabic are thrown in here and there; but this does not represent the enemy because Arabic is the mother tongue of most of the men dressed in uniform.

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Jews have historically considered themselves “people of the book” (am hasefer in Hebrew), referring to sacred tomes, but the phrase is turning out to have an equally powerful, if unintended, meaning: scientists are able to read Jewish genomes like a history book. The latest DNA volume weighs in on the controversial, centuries-old (and now revived in a 2008 book) claim that European Jews are all the descendants of Khazars, a Turkic group of the north Caucasus who converted to Judaism in the late eighth and early ninth century. The DNA has spoken: no.

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Next time the White House criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Ne tanyahu’s reluctance to embrace the Palestinian Authority, it might consider the outrageous way those Palestinians are trying to rewrite history.

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Following two years of poor economic performance and electoral repudiation, liberalism is casting around for narratives to explain its failure – narratives that don’t involve the admission of inadequacies in liberalism itself.

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It’s a lame-duck session. Time is running out. Unemployment is high, the economy is dangerously weak and, with five weeks to go, no one knows what tax anyone will be paying on everything from income to dividends to death when the current rates expire Jan. 1. And what is the president demanding that Congress pass as “a top priority”? To what did he devote his latestweekly radio address? Ratification of his New START treaty.

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National pride is a good thing – until the water reaches your chin and your nation is still sinking. Mexico is not in that deep yet, but parts of the country are. Seven criminal cartels effectively control most cities and the drug trafficking lanes near the U.S. border, as well as their bases and production centers in the interior.

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Two years ago the United States experienced its worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The crisis began on Wall Street, where misguided bets on risky mortgage loans resulted in enormous losses that few anticipated. More than 4 million jobs were lost in just six months after the peak of the crisis. There is hardly one Main Street in America not still feeling its effects.

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While President Obama was navigating the tides of global commerce this month, I was in a different part of Asia, making the case, one company at a time, for the economic opportunity my small state of Delaware has to offer.

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The sold-out gathering had the earmarks of a typical Silicon Valley event: more than 2,400 hungry entrepreneurs and investors, most young adults, tethered to their mobile devices – sharing, debating and connecting. There was the requisite hip music. Speakers who had “been there” were mixing with kids new to the game, dashing out ideas on white boards and rallying each other to new ventures.

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Not long ago, I visited my freshman daughter at college for Parents’ Weekend. Like many parents of my generation, I was reminded of how lucky I was to have applied to college when admission standards were lower. But my experience resonated on another level as I prepared for another Parents’ Weekend. In addition to feeling responsible for my daughter, I feel responsible for 1,182 other children, those whose parents dropped them off at Haverford College, where I happen to serve as president.

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When the 112th Congress is seated in January, one of the many urgent issues it must address is to update and clarify the legal authority for U.S. military and intelligence agencies to kill and detain terrorists who threaten the United States. For the past decade, executive-branch agencies have relied on a sparely worded statute that Congress passed hastily on Sept. 18, 2001, while the wreckage of the World Trade Center was still smoldering. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) provides insufficient authority for our military and intelligence personnel to conduct counterterrorism operations today and inadequate protections for those targeted or detained, including U.S. citizens.

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A reporter covering the president’s trip to Indiana this week said Mr. Obama was visiting the heartland in part to get out of the presidential bubble. I’m sure this was true. Presidents always get to the point where they want to escape Washington, and their lives, and their jobs. But they never can. Because when you’re president and you go to Indiana, you take the bubble with you. Your bubble meets Indiana; your bubble witnesses Indianans. But you don’t get out of the bubble in Indiana. Once you’re in the bubble—once you’re in the midst of a huge apparatus, once you have the cars and the aides and the security and the staffers—there is no getting out of it.

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Even amoebas learn by trial and error, but some economists and politicians do not. The Obama administration’s budget projections claim that raising taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers, those individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning $250,000 or more, will increase revenues to the U.S. Treasury. The empirical evidence suggests otherwise. None of the personal income tax or capital gains tax increases enacted in the post-World War II period has raised the projected tax revenues.

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Price controls for private premiums shouldn’t cause insurance stocks to rise, so it’s notable that the major insurers all gained on the ObamaCare regulations issued in the last week. The news is that the White House and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are shrinking from the logic of their own reform, at least for a while, in order to minimize the political damage when consumers lose the coverage they have now.

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In the wake of the disastrous showing by Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and the rest of the California Republican Party ticket, the leaders of the Golden State GOP should recalibrate their politics and policies to become relevant once again.

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State lawmakers will head back to Springfield next week for the fall veto session where they will wrestle with whether to commit Illinois consumers to a 30-year electricity contract so a “clean-coal” plant can be built in Taylorville, Ill., by Nebraska-based Tenaska Inc.

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Crises are exploding throughout the world. And the leader of the free world is making things worse.

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If only those Israeli leaders would realize that what they do “impacts” Mick Davis’s social life in London – perhaps they wouldn’t insist so rudely that Israel should continue to exist.

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At last weekend’s Foreign Policy Initiative conference in Washington D.C., I asked Senator John McCain a two-part question. First, I asked if he was concerned about corruption in Iraq’s government.

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In 2001, when Bill Clinton left the White House, political eyes turned to Hillary Rodham Clinton and her political future. The political book at the time was that she had a good shot at the New York Senate seat she started running for in 2000. But that would likely be the end of the line. Too divisive, too abrasive, too many missteps and all that. No way could she win a national election, though Republicans salivated at the prospect of her attempting to do so.

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President Truman: We will take whatever steps are necessary to meet the military situation, just as we always have.

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Have you ever heard of a group called UNO of Chicago? No, not the deep dish pizza chain; the Left-wing community organizing outfit. How about the Midwest Academy? Does the name James Cone ring a bell? If you’re like most Americans – including many who consider themselves fairly well informed about President Obama’s background and associations – you’re probably drawing a blank on all three questions. That’s why Stanley Kurtz’s new book, Radical-In-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, is so important.

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President Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office in January 2009 during a severe economic downturn led by a meltdown in housing prices — and promptly made things worse.

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As the European economy grapples with yet another bailout of a bankrupt sovereign state, a storyline is emerging that seeks to frame this latest instance of government interventionism along deliberately disingenuous lines. According to this misleading narrative, Ireland’s abysmal fiscal condition did not come as a result of chronic state overspending, but is instead due to the island nation’s comparatively-low corporate income tax rate.

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We’re fast approaching the halfway point in Barack Obama’s term. With Nov. 2 behind him, everything the president does will be calculated to boost, or at least not harm, his chances of re-election in 2012. What’s not clear is whether he fully appreciates how badly the coalition he led to victory in 2008 has frayed in just two years. A look inside his poll numbers suggests that if he cannot turn around some key trends, he’ll be a one-term president.

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“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.”

The Bible introduces the concept of good and evil in Genesis chapter 2.  Genesis 2: 9 says, “Out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Yahweh’s creation changed dramatically when Satan deceived Eve and she and Adam ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil against Yahweh’s explicit command.  Their sin forged a gulf between God and man that remains mankind’s most pressing problem and it was not simply eating forbidden fruit.  They attempted to usurp Yahweh’s sovereignty and impose their own authority over God’s creation.  That is something Yahweh will not permit.  He won’t relinquish sovereignty over His creation to anyone.

I taught at the University of Virginia for 25 years, and today I’m a chaired professor emeritus at UVA.  While I lived in Virginia, I read The Washington Post.  It was delivered to my house every morning at about 4:00, and I read it religiously.  I’ll never forget an article in The Post about a problem in the Fairfax County School System that was causing a great deal of concern among parents of school-age kids.  Homosexuality had become a fad, and school administrators were trying to figure out how to deal with it.  The article said that normal kids were experimenting with the gay lifestyle because it was the “in thing”.  School administrators and parents wanted to stop it.

A few years earlier, I had read an article in The Atlantic that examined the known facts concerning homosexuality.  The author concluded that no scientific evidence exists to support the theory that people are born homosexual.  There is still no conclusive scientific evidence supporting that theory, and it’s not for lack of trying to find it.  Scientists in many disciplines continue to work tirelessly to answer that question, but to no avail.  School administrators and parents in Fairfax County were wise to take the problem seriously.

The lack of evidence hasn’t stopped people from pushing the homosexual agenda.  A few days ago, the American Library Association announced that it was adding “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender” youth literature to its prestigious Youth Media Award.  (See ALA adds GLBT youth literature award to prestigious Youth Media Award announcements.)

The announcement said, “…Authors and illustrators of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) literature for youth will have their fingers crossed in hopes of receiving the coveted Stonewall Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award …. Children’s books regarding the GLBT experience are critical tools in teaching tolerance, acceptance and the importance of diversity …. Our nation is one of diverse cultures and lifestyles and it is important for parents, educators and librarians to have access to quality children’s books that represent a spectrum of cultures …. The demand for quality GLBT children’s books continues to grow as the nation becomes more diverse. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services an estimated 14 million children have a gay or lesbian parent, and the most current U.S. Census data shows that more than 56 percent of same-sex households have at least one child under the age of 18.”

Nothing has changed since the beginning.  People still can’t resist attempting to usurp Yahweh’s sovereignty and trying to impose their own authority over His creation.  Yahweh didn’t allow it in the Garden of Eden, and He won’t allow it now.

In Isaiah 5: 20 we’re told, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness.”  We would do well to take those words to heart.  Yahweh hasn’t changed one iota, and He never will.  We need to recognize evil and call it what it is.

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Take on The TimesTM

IN Haiti, there’s a worker called a bayakou. The bayakou comes in the middle of the night to clean latrines, which generally get shoveled out only once every year or so.

Take: Good piece.

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The Irish story began with a genuine economic miracle. But eventually this gave way to a speculative frenzy driven by runaway banks and real estate developers, all in a cozy relationship with leading politicians. The frenzy was financed with huge borrowing on the part of Irish banks, largely from banks in other European nations.

Take: It’s interesting to me that LPs (liberal progressives) pardon individuals for any and all kinds of irresponsible behavior, and Paul Krugman is definitely an LP.  I’m not exonerating bankers, but in a democracy the people have a say.  Ireland isn’t feudal England.  It’s a modern nation.  Its legislators made decisions with consequences, and now it’s time to pay the piper.  Grow up Krugman and display some of that genius for which you have been recognized – by some.

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But when he sat down to write his great novels, his dreams of saving mankind were bleached out by the vividness of the reality he saw around him. Readers often comment that the worlds created in those books are more vivid than the real world around them. With Olympian detachment and piercing directness, Tolstoy could describe a particular tablecloth, a particular moment in a particular battle, and the particular feeling in a girl’s heart before a ball.

Take: Good information on Tolstoy.

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The National Rifle Association keeps coming up with clever new ways to undermine public safety.

Take: Reading this piece reminds me about one of the reasons I choose to live in the South as opposed to New York or Massachusetts – FREEDOM.  I love the climate in Massachusetts – in the summer, but the brand of government they practice leaves me colder than a dreary January day in Boston.  And New York, well, it’s the financial capital of the world, and it’s a hotbed of perversity.  In New York, they will tolerate just about anything.  For the enlightenment of my readers, robbers and murderers don’t have any trouble getting guns of all kinds.  The only people affected significantly by attempts to restrict gun possession are law-abiding citizens who need them for self-defense.  Full Disclosure: I have owned weapons since before I was 10, and I know how to use them.  That said, I think NYC has a mystique all its own, and I enjoy visiting: New York, New York.

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“We don’t need more leaders. We need more followers. Wherever & however you can enter public life is ok.”  That tweet by Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, is a radical provocation in our age of the non-expert. The nation is gripped by the fantasy that the least-qualified, least-experienced among us make ideal leaders. Dissatisfaction — no, real anger — with the status quo, as opposed to informed ideas or policy experience, seems to define qualifications for public service.

Take: President Obama is a perfect example.  It’s too bad Arieff didn’t mention him.  Still, this is a good thought piece.

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I don’t doubt the patriotism of the Americans involved in keeping the country safe, nor do I discount the threat, but I am sure of this: The unfettered growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the T.S.A. represent a greater long-term threat to the prosperity, character and wellbeing of the United States than a few madmen in the valleys of Waziristan or the voids of Yemen.

Take: Cohen may be on to something here, but I think the most significant threats we face as a nation are the unwillingness of our leaders to indentify our enemies and call what they are and attempts by our leaders to strip Yahweh from our collective consciousness.  That said, government attempts to control us have a way of mushrooming into something we don’t want and can’t abide.

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Natural Healthcare Store, Live the Natural Life!TM

If you haven’t been there already, you should take the opportunity to visit Natural Healthcare Store.  Each product selected for sale at Natural Healthcare Store undergoes rigorous research to make sure that it is the highest quality at an affordable price.

Natural Healthcare Store carries skin care, hair care, and oral care products.  Be sure to check out the Dead Sea products imported from Israel and support the Israeli economy with your purchases.  Natural Healthcare Store carries makeup, deodorant, and detoxification products.  It also carries supplements, weight loss products, and loose leaf tea.  Rounding out its product mix, Natural Healthcare Store carries natural household cleaning products.

Katie and I believe strongly in healthy living, and we use the products.  We’re proud to say that our daughter Melanie owns the store.

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His Name is Yahweh:

There is a wealth of material available for free download on www.hisnameisyahweh.org including the book His Name is Yahweh.  His Name is Yahweh is also available at Amazon on Kindle for just $5.  If you haven’t read His Name is Yahweh, you should.  The importance of Yahweh’s Name is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

Available on Amazon Kindle and it can be downloaded at www.hisnameisyahweh.org

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