Costco's new line

I accidentally came across this link while searching for furniture on the Costco website...Only in America can you buy your peanut butter and jelly, boombox and pajamas under the same roof as you buy your COFFIN!!!! (you can even order expedited shipping if need it in a hurry!)

http://www.costco.com/Common/Category.aspx?cat=20595&eCat=BC|20595&lang=en-US&whse=BC&topnav=

Shame!

What ever happened to the Israel that can defend Jews around the globe? What happened to the Israel that coordinated the emigration of Ethiopian Jewry, blew up the Iraqi nuclear reactor and rescued the passengers in the raid on Entebbe? Now they can't even protect a Synagogue in their back yard? SHAME!

Barak: Move Synagogue, We Can't Defend It

(IsraelNN.com) Defense Minister Ehud Barak informed MK Rabbi Meir Porush (UTJ) that the IDF cannot protect the Yad Yair Synagogue in Samaria, and told him the synagogue needs to be relocated.

"The congregation which prays at Yad Yair Synagogue in the Binyamin area faces security risks and it is hard to secure it in a permanent and continuous manner," Barak wrote Rabbi Porush. "Therefore, the IDF recommends relocating the synagogue into the Talmonim Bloc, and thus prevent a situation in which human lives are at risk," the Defense Minister added.

Porush had asked Barak for explanations regarding the latest attack on Yad Yair Synagogue in October, in which Torah scrolls, prayer books and other books of Jewish law were completely burnt. In addition, the attackers also defaced the memorial to Yair Mendelson, who was murdered by Arabs at the beginning of the first intifada in the 1980's, after whom the synagogue is named. The synagogue has been burnt down three times in the past two years.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/138768

Only in Israel - Instead of getting a court-martial, they give him a medal!

Israeli Army Chief Who Resigned Over Lebanon Gets Medal -AFP

JERUSALEM (AFP)--Dan Halutz, the Israeli army chief who resigned over perceived failures of last year's Lebanon war, was decorated on Monday for his role in the conflict, the army said.

Halutz received a medal along with all other military leaders in office during the 34-day war with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, as well as the present military brass led by his successor, Gabi Ashkenazi.

A wave of public criticism erupted in Israel following the war, which is widely perceived as a failure here for having failed to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets into the Jewish state and for having failed to retrieve two Israeli servicemen whose capture by the Shiite militia sparked the conflict.

Halutz became the most senior head to roll over the conflict when he resigned in January 2007, without waiting for a report by a government commission established to examine government and military conduct during the war.

In April the commission published an interim report in which it blasted Halutz, along with ex-defence minister Amir Peretz who resigned in the following weeks, for having failed in their duties.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was responsible for "serious failure," it said.

The final report of the Winograd Commission is expected to be issued within months.


http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20071224%5CACQDJON200712241110DOWJONESDJONLINE000161.htm&

Only in Israel...What will they blame us for next?

Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping

by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) A research paper that won a Hebrew University teachers' committee prize finds that the lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose.

The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that "the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals."

The next sentence delineates the particular goals that are realized in this manner: "In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences - just as organized military rape would have done."

The paper further theorizes that Arab women in Judea and Samaria are not raped by IDF soldiers because the women are de-humanized in the soldiers' eyes.

The paper was published by the Hebrew University's Shaine Center, based on the recommendation of a Hebrew University professors' committee headed by Dr. Zali Gurevitch.

"I do not have the entire text in front of me," Gurevitch said, when contacted by Arutz-7, "and I don't think we can jump to conclusions based on partial sentences, but I can say the following: This was a very serious paper that asked two important questions: Is the relative lack of IDF rapes a noteworthy phenomenon, and if so, why is it that there are so few IDF rapes when in similar situations around the world, rape is much more common?"

Observers and Academia
Arutz-7: "Can't it just be that Israeli soldiers come from a culture that very much condemns rape? And why not mention the much-touted 'purity of arms,' i.e., the high moral conduct, of the Israeli Army?"

Gurevitch said that observers do not have the right to demand a particular explanation to a given phenomenon. He said that the researcher had done a serious job, based on interviews with 25 soldiers and other accounts, and that the right-wing should not jump to the conclusion that this was simply another "secular, left-wing" generality.

Makor Rishon editor Amnon Lord, who first publicized the story, wrote that not only did researcher Nitzan not consider Jewish tradition as an explanation, but neither did she "raise the possibility that her initial assumption - namely, that the situation in Judea and Samaria is just like any other situation of conquest - may be wrong."

Demographic Fears
Nitzan's paper did, however, give much space to the explanation that the Israeli soldiers refrained from rape out of demographic considerations. She explained at length how fearful the Jewish population is of the growing Arab population, and how in cases of wartime rape, the baby is generally assumed to be of the mother's nationality.

"It is noteworthy," Lord concludes, "that Palestinian propaganda around the world frequently accuses Israelis of murder and rape. Such that this situation is unique: An army is found blameworthy of rape, and is also blameworthy of not raping."

FBI to collect biometric information on Britons

FBI to collect biometric information on Britons

By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 2:04am GMT 23/12/2007

British visitors to the US will have details of their physical characteristics added to a new billion dollar database under plans drawn up by the FBI.

Fingerprints, iris scans and even details of the way people walk, their scars and the size and shape of their ear lobes will be collected.

British intelligence agencies and police will also be able to access the information – giving them potentially more biometric data on British citizens than the Government collects at home.

Under the plans, revealed by the Washington Post, the FBI database will include details on everyone who applies for a visa to enter the US.

Fingerprint information on British tourists is already collected and held by the US Department of Homeland Security.


But the FBI database will also include iris identification, which is being slowly introduced at some ports of entry.

Researchers at West Virginia University are working on technology for the FBI that will let them capture images of people's irises at distances of up to 15 feet, and of faces from as far away as 200 yards, without them even knowing.

The database will allow the FBI to check all entrants to the US against the faces, fingerprints, palm prints and irises of known terrorists and wanted criminals.

More than 900,000 American police and law enforcement officials will be able to access the data.

A contract to develop the database will be awarded next month. Critics say that peoples’ bodies will effectively become their international identity card – with the downside that if criminals steal your identity and were able to, for example, mimic your iris with a contact lens, you can’t just go and get a new eyeball like you would a new credit card.

Civil liberties campaigners criticised the plans. Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union said: "It's enabling the always-on surveillance society."

Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=VMEA40Q0XNRXZQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/22/wfbi122.xml

Technion releases first ever nano-Bible

Technion releases first ever nano-Bible
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

This is not an attempt to make the holy book more portable, but an exercise meant to arouse public interest in nanotechnology. It was part of an educational program developed at the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at Haifa's Technion-Israel Institute of Technology aimed especially at young people.

The idea to inscribe the whole biblical text using a focussed-ion device was that of Prof. Uri Sivan, director of the Berrie Institute, and the project was carried out by Ohad Zohar, the center's physics education adviser, along with Dr. Alex Lahav, formerly lab director of the Wolfson Center for Microelectronics.

The device shoots gallium ions toward a solid object, causing atoms to erode and thus creating an inscription, the way holes are formed in the ground when a rubber hose splashes water on it with great force.

When the ions are shot at the surface, gold ions are removed from a 20-nanometer-wide spot to expose the darker silicon substrate underneath. A nanometer is equal to one billionth of meter or one millionth of a millimeter. The resulting letters can be observed only with a scanning electron microscope.

The nano-Bible was produced at the Technion with a special computer program that can create any text on a tiny surface.

The question of "How small can the Bible be?" is really about the larger question of how to store data in a very small space. In the future, nanotechnology experts hope to inscribe data on DNA or other bio-molecules.

The fact that the Bible contains a large amount of text - about 10 million bits - was a major factor in choosing to store it at high density on silicon, the researchers said. "The nano-Bible project was aimed at displaying the miniaturization ability we have," said Sivan.

The nano-Bible will be photographed and expanded 10,000 times, and still be able to fit into a seven-by-seven-meter frame, to be hung in the Technion's physics faculty. The photograph will make it possible to read the entire Bible with the naked eye, and the height of each letter will be three millimeters.

Zohar said the original nano-Bible, the size of a crystal of sugar, would be displayed next to the photograph.

Beware the Jerusalem Syndrome

Police Ready for Christians With 'Jerusalem Syndrome'

(IsraelNN.com) With an increase in the number of tourists arriving for the Christian holiday season, a special unit of the Israeli police department is gearing up to deal with the small number of visitors who will develop 'Jerusalem Syndrome.' The mental affliction causes certain people to believe that they are or have seen the Messiah, or are characters from the Bible. The unit was established in 1986, and says there are spikes during Christmas and Passover.

Around 30 to 40 visitors are hospitalized every year with symptoms of Jerusalem Syndrome, though 'true' Jerusalem Syndrome can only be diagnosed in people with no pre-existing psychiatric problems, according to Dr. Gregory Katz, head of the emergency unit at Givat Shaul Mental Health Center in Jerualem. The doctor said the phenomenon usually occurs on the person's first trip to Israel, and is diagnosed in middle-aged patients with strong religious foundations, hailing from small towns in the United States or Scandinavia. In an article published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2000, Katz said the syndrome may progress from agitation and an urge to visit Jerusalem alone, and inevitably ends with the patient needing to dress in robes and deliver a sermon at a holy site. The episode lasts a few days, after which the person usually does not remember what happened, Katz said.

Jerusalem Syndrome has been dated as far back as the Middle Ages.

The new Facebook/Myspace?

A couple of facts...

1) Facebook makes over $8 million a MONTH from advertising alone.
2) Myspace makes almost $25 million.

WE, the users, don't get any of this, even though WE are the ones making the pages, writing the blogs and uploading the pictures!

There's a brand new social networking site called Yuwie, which actually pays it's members just to use it!

The site has all of the features of facebook, but here's the best bit, the more you use it, the more you get paid!

You think Facebook has everything you need - That's fine! I love facebook, and only use Yuwie to make money. Simply join Yuwie with this link,

http://r.yuwie.com/jwander

and then you can do the same!

The Big Wazowski=The Big Lebowski+Monsters Inc.

Yalla Ya Nasrallah

Dr. Avraham Schwartzbaum Z"L

In memory of Dr. Avraham Schwartzbaum Z"L.

His amazing wit and humor will always be remembered!

Boruch Dayan Emet.