I went to see 300 tonight. I can’t put it in words. Uncanny. History truly repeats over and over again.
Are we really the Spartans ? Yes. Absolutely.
The scenario was designed to be familiar.
The movie is very foretelling.
Eloquent.
Xerxes the Great was a Persian Emperor (Shahanshah) (reigned 485 BC–465 BC) of the Achaemenid dynasty. Xérxēs (Ξέρξης) is the Greek form of the Old Persian throne name Xšayāršā, meaning "Ruler of heroes"[2] (in Modern Persian: خشایارشا, Khšāyāršā). The English pronunciation is /'zɝk siːz/.
Political career
Xerxes Gate, The gate of all nations at Persepolis
Xerxes was son of Darius I and Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great. After his accession in October 485 BC he suppressed the revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out in 486 BC and appointed his brother Achaemenes as governor or satrap over Egypt (Old Persian: khshathrapavan), bringing Egypt under very strict rule. His predecessors, especially Darius, had not been successful in their attempts to conciliate the ancient civilizations. This probably was the reason why Xerxes in 484 BC took away from Babylon the golden statue of Bel (Marduk, Merodach), the hands of which the legitimate king of Babylon had to seize on the first day of each year, and killed the priest who tried to hinder him. Therefore Xerxes does not bear the title of King in the Babylonian documents dated from his reign, but King of Persia and Media or simply King of countries (i.e. of the world). This proceeding led to two rebellions, probably in 484 BC and 479 BC.
Invasion of the Greek mainland
Main article: Greco-Persian Wars
Darius left to his son the task of punishing the Athenians, Naxians, and Eretrians for their interference in the Ionian revolt and their defeat of the Persians at Marathon. From 483 BC Xerxes prepared his expedition with great care: A channel was dug through the isthmus of the peninsula of Mount Athos, provisions were stored in the stations on the road through Thrace, two bridges were thrown across the Hellespont. According to Herodotus, Xerxes' first attempt to bridge the Hellespont ended in failure when a storm destroyed the flax and papyrus bridge; Xerxes ordered the Hellespont (the strait itself) whipped three hundred times and had fetters thrown into the water. Xerxes' second attempt to bridge the Hellespont was successful.[3] Xerxes concluded an alliance with Carthage, and thus deprived Greece of the support of the powerful monarchs of Syracuse and Agrigentum. Many smaller Greek states, moreover, took the side of the Persians, especially Thessaly, Thebes, and Argos. Xerxes, with a large fleet and army (Herodotus the Greek historian claimed that there were over 2,000,000 soldiers), set out in the spring of 480 BC from Sardis. Xerxes was victorious during the initial battles. At the Battle of Thermopylae, a small force of warriors, led by King Leonidas, resisted the much larger Persian forces, but were ultimately defeated. After Thermopylae, Athens was conquered, and the Athenians and Spartans were driven back to their last line of defense at the Isthmus of Corinth and in the Saronic Gulf. At Artemisium, the battle was indecisive as large storms had destroyed ships from the Greek side. The battle was also stopped prematurely as the Greeks learned news of the defeat at Thermopylae and retreated. But Xerxes was induced by the message of Themistocles (against the advice of Artemisia of Halicarnassus) to attack the Greek fleet under unfavourable conditions, rather than sending a part of his ships to the Peloponnesus and awaiting the dissolution of the Greek armies. The Battle of Salamis (September 29, 480 BC) was won by the Athenians. Although the loss was a setback it was not a disaster and Xerxes set up a winter camp in Thessaly. Due to unrest in Babylon Xerxes was forced to send his army home to prevent a revolt leaving behind an army in Greece under Mardonius who was defeated the following year at Plataea in 479 BC[4]. The defeat of the Persians at Mycale roused the Greek cities of Asia.
Missing later years
An artist's illustration depicting Xerxes' alleged "punishment" of the Hellespont
Of the later years of Xerxes, little is known. He sent out Sataspes to attempt the circumnavigation of Africa. He left inscriptions at Persepolis, where he added a new palace to that of Darius, at Van, now in present day Turkey, and on Mount Elvend near Ecbatana. In these texts he merely copies the words of his father. In 465 he was murdered by his vizier, Artabanus, who raised Artaxerxes I to the throne.
In the Bible
Xerxes is also believed by some scholars to be Ahasuerus, the King in the biblical Book of Esther,[5][6] though some Jewish scholars are skeptical about this. [7]
The Judeo-Roman historian Josephus took the historical existence of Vashti and Esther as fact [8], though the works of Herodotus suggest that Xerxes had a Queen consort named Amestris, daughter to Otanes. This name discrepancy is not necessarily a conflict in accounts, since the word Esther can also be understood to mean "hidden" in Hebrew. Her name is interpreted thus in Midrash (Jewish biblical commentaries), where it is said that Esther hid her nationality and lineage as Mordecai had advised.
Children
By queen Amestris
Amytis, wife of Megabyzus
Artaxerxes I
Darius, the first born, murdered by Artaxerxes and Artabanus.
Hystaspes, murdered by Artaxerxes.
Rodogyne
By unknown wives
Artarius, satrap of Babylon.
Ratashah [9]
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Melamine in pet food was placed there intentionally.
Terrorists are trying to test the food supply chain. They want to know where it's broken and where it might be harder to get by. Hasn't anyone asked why is it that we are getting so much food poisonings? Granted that a lot of our food is coming from 3rd world countries that don't have the stringent food guidelines or sanitation requirements, but we have been getting food from those places for some time. Why is it only now that things are beginning to becoming dangerous?
Answer?
Because they are testing the system.
The war on terror is not restricted to countries or nations or religions. There are no restrictions. The enemy in the ME and the enemies in South America are just enemies. Remember that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is something that is generally practiced in times of conflict. You don't make friends, you make temporary alliances. This is something that can become convoluted.
I believe that this is an act of WAR. It should not be ignored.
It's going to be ignored.
I think this is a broadcast warning. ~~~~ignored. All ignored.
Melamine in pet food may not be accidental
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-04-19-pet-food-usat_N.htm?csp=34
By Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
A nitrogen-rich chemical used to make plastic and sometimes as a fertilizer may have been deliberately added to an ingredient in pet food that has sickened and killed cats and dogs across the country, public and private officials say. A leading theory is that it was added to fake higher protein levels.
Melamine has been found in wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate and, in South Africa, corn gluten, all imported from China, and all meant for use in pet food, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed Thursday.
"It adds to the theory when you see other products that are labeled as protein supplements, in this case rice protein, and in South Africa corn gluten and in the previous case wheat gluten," said Stephen Sundlof, FDA chief veterinarian. "That melamine was found in all three of those, it would certainly lend credibility to the theory that this was intentional."
How the melamine got there is "not something we're going to be able to determine until we actually investigate the plants in China," he said.
The FDA has not yet been able to get letters of invitation from the Chinese government that would allow its inspectors to enter the country, he said.
Terrorists are trying to test the food supply chain. They want to know where it's broken and where it might be harder to get by. Hasn't anyone asked why is it that we are getting so much food poisonings? Granted that a lot of our food is coming from 3rd world countries that don't have the stringent food guidelines or sanitation requirements, but we have been getting food from those places for some time. Why is it only now that things are beginning to becoming dangerous?
Answer?
Because they are testing the system.
The war on terror is not restricted to countries or nations or religions. There are no restrictions. The enemy in the ME and the enemies in South America are just enemies. Remember that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is something that is generally practiced in times of conflict. You don't make friends, you make temporary alliances. This is something that can become convoluted.
I believe that this is an act of WAR. It should not be ignored.
It's going to be ignored.
I think this is a broadcast warning. ~~~~ignored. All ignored.
Melamine in pet food may not be accidental
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-04-19-pet-food-usat_N.htm?csp=34
By Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
A nitrogen-rich chemical used to make plastic and sometimes as a fertilizer may have been deliberately added to an ingredient in pet food that has sickened and killed cats and dogs across the country, public and private officials say. A leading theory is that it was added to fake higher protein levels.
Melamine has been found in wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate and, in South Africa, corn gluten, all imported from China, and all meant for use in pet food, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed Thursday.
"It adds to the theory when you see other products that are labeled as protein supplements, in this case rice protein, and in South Africa corn gluten and in the previous case wheat gluten," said Stephen Sundlof, FDA chief veterinarian. "That melamine was found in all three of those, it would certainly lend credibility to the theory that this was intentional."
How the melamine got there is "not something we're going to be able to determine until we actually investigate the plants in China," he said.
The FDA has not yet been able to get letters of invitation from the Chinese government that would allow its inspectors to enter the country, he said.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Today was odd. But, I guess since these are odd times, then odd is normal. There are parallels that my third eye sees but I'm unable to focus clearly. This causes my vision to be annoyingly obscured. I know that it's obscured, but have not figured out a way to clear it up.
1. Islam is not a religion
2. Islam is being revered as a religion. Hypocrisy
3. Hypocrisy is something that liberals use to use
4. Nothing is against Islam as long as it benefits or furthers it's domination
5. Domination is the superior and Submission is necessary for domination to be. So, the "RELIGION" is that of Domination. We all aspire to be g-d like. If the g-d is "domination", then it is reasonable to infer that submission is only to the G-d. And domination is to be in the image of g-d.
Hypocrisy--------hmmmm.
I submit the following:
Here are 2 articles from the same day that show the hypocrisy of IRAN
Iran condemns Virginia Tech shooting
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152818054&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Iran on Tuesday condemned a gunman's rampage the previous day at Virginia Tech university which left 33 people dead and was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history.
"While condemning this [attack], [Iran] expresses condolences with the nation and the families of those killed," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press.
"Attacking innocent people, irrespective of their race and nationality, is contrary to divine and human values no matter which group or person carries out such an act under any name," the Iranian statement said.
Despite lack of diplomatic relations between the two, Iran has in the past condemned violence and terrorist attacks in the United States, including the September 11, 2001 attacks, the deadliest on US soil.
The US and Iran broke relations in 1979, after Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Teheran and held its occupants hostage for 444 days.
Relations somewhat thawed after reformist former President Mohammad Khatami called for dialogue to bring down the "wall of mistrust," but ties worsened after US President George W. Bush named Iran as part of the "the axis of evil."
The United States and Iran are also at odds over Teheran's controversial nuclear program. Washington accuses Teheran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.
Three cars damaged by stones thrown in West BankBy JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1176152828312
Three Israeli vehicles were damaged by stones thrown by Palestinians in the West Bank on Wednesday night.
Two cars were struck southeast of Kalkilya while the other was hit west of Hebron.
No one was wounded.
Then you have THIS article:
Espionage Galore under a Middle East Nuclear Cloud
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
April 17, 2007, 9:19 PM (GMT+02:00)
It sounded like a contest.
On Tuesday, April 17, the Shin Bet intelligence service reported Iranian intelligence had intensified its efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, targeting former Iranians applying for visas to visit their families. One young man had been snared and paid “expenses” for enlisting a friend in security and collecting information. The Shin Bet detained him on landing home, before he did any harm.
Two hours later, in Cairo, a nuclear engineer Mohammed Gaber, was accused by Prosecutor-General Abdul-Maquid Mahmoud of spying on Egypt’s nuclear program on behalf of the Mossad, which was said to have paid him $17,000. An Irishman and Japanese were sought in connection with the affair. Israel dismissed the charge as another of Cairo’s unfounded spy myths, whose dissemination was not conducive to good relations.
Neither case is isolated. Two days earlier, the Israeli-Arab parliamentarian Azmi Beshara admitted from a safe distance to the Qatar-based al Jazeera TV channel that he was under suspicion of spying for Hizballah during its war with Israel and would not be returning home any time soon.
Add on the US defense secretary Robert Gates’ visits to Jordan, Israel and Egypt this week reportedly to coordinate and oversee preparations connected to a potential military operation against Iran and, in the view of DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, these espionage rumbles denote a far greater upheaval boililng up below ground.
Most can be traced one way or another to the mysterious disappearance of the Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari from Istanbul in February. Tehran’s job description of the missing general – a former deputy defense minister, who also worked with the Lebanese Hizballah in the 1980 - is correct as far as it goes. But the failure to bring it up to date is an attempt to obfuscate the fact that, at the time of his disappearance, he headed Iran’s Middle East spy networks.
The cases disclosed Tuesday may be just the tip of the iceberg, with more spy dramas on the way. But even at this early stage of a potential intelligence earthquake, certain conclusions are indicated.
Firstly, Israeli will soon have no choice but to declare Iran an enemy state and ban Israeli travel to the Islamic Republic for the first time in the 28 years since Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. Surprisingly, Israelis are still legally permitted to visit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
The Shin Bet did not need to publicize Iran’s intense hunt for Israeli spies in order to stop those visits; there are other ways. The espionage case would not have been brought out in the open without the knowledge of the relevant ministers – certainly not a graphic account of how the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, whence Gen. Asgari vanished, doubles as the distribution center for visas to Iran and a recruiting center for spies. Israelis applying for visas are obliged to deposit their Israeli passports there and issued with travel documents which gain them entry to Tehran. This process is drawn out to enable Iranian intelligence agents to make their first pitch to the targeted Israeli. It is followed up after he enters Iran.
The Shin Bet’s sudden outburst of transparency indicates that the scene is being set for a major diplomatic, military or intelligence step in the summer. This time, the Israeli government will not repeat at least one of the mistakes committed in July 2006, when it refused to declare that Israel was at war and the Hizballah an enemy, even after its forces crossed in to northern Israel, kidnapped two soldiers and let loose with a Katyusha barrage.
Israel is now putting the horse before the cart and declaring Iran an enemy country before the event.
It is therefore vital to deter Israeli nationals from visiting Iran in advance of potential Middle East hostilities. If Iran is involved, even through its allies or the Hizballah, Israelis in the Islamic Republic would be in danger of being taken captive or hostage.
Israel’s latest posture and precautions are likely to have the dual effect of raising Middle East tensions and placing Iran’s ancient Jewish community, reduced now to 25,000, in jeopardy. “Israeli spy rings” may soon be “uncovered” by Iranian security agents.
Second, the Middle East has embarked on a nuclear arms race. It is no secret that at last month’s Arab summit in Riyadh, the Saudi ruler strongly urged his fellows to unite their national nuclear programs under a single roof. Though played down, this was the summit’s most important decision – not the so-called Saudi peace plan, although it made the most waves. It was a step intended to produce an Arab nuclear option versus the Iranian weapons program.
Every aspect of the unified Arab nuclear program is therefore extraordinarily sensitive and hemmed in with exceptional security measures. Each has become a prime intelligence target - and not only for Israel. Hence the song and dance the Egyptian prosecutor general made Tuesday of an alleged Israeli spy network said to operate out of Hong Kong, with an Irish and a Japanese agent charged with planting Israeli espionage software in Egyptian nuclear program’s computers, together with an Egyptian engineer. Egyptian intelligence was making sure to warn off any Egyptian tempted to work for Israeli intelligence, just as the Shin Bet was cautioning Israelis to beware of falling into Iranian intelligence traps.
The events of a single day brought Iran and its nuclear threat into sharp relief as the most pressing issues for Israel. Relations with the Palestinians and Syria, on which so many words are poured day by day, pale in comparison.
British journalists' call to boycott Israeli goods is condemned in many quarters - British and international
http://debka.com/headline.php?hid=4071
April 18, 2007, 8:47 PM (GMT+02:00)
Monday, April 16, the British National Union of Journalists voted to boycott Israeli goods as part of a protest against last year’s war in Lebanon. The vote, carried 66 to 54, read: “This ADM calls for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid in South Africa. It also called for sanctions to be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations.
After a show of hands twice failed to give a clear result, the conference room was closed for the final vote. The motion also called for the end of “Israeli aggression in Gaza and other occupied territories.”
DEBKAfile notes that no sanctions were proposed against the Palestinian kidnappers of the British journalists’ BBC colleague Alan Johnston [who claimed two days later to have killed him.] On the contrary; the NUJ’s national executive committee was instructed to support pro-Palestinian organizations.
DEBKAfile also reports a move to remove the Holocaust from the British schools curriculum on the grounds that the subject "offended" some members of the Muslim population, which claims it never occurred.
In 2006, the UK had the highest incidence of fast-rising anti-Semitic violence in the world, followed by France, Canada and Australia.
<>
The figures were released by Tel Aviv University’s Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance for victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
Democrats scramble to court Sharpton
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_el_pr/campaign2008_sharpton
NEW YORK - Democratic presidential contenders are scrambling for support in what's being dubbed the Al Sharpton' name=c1>SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3>Al Sharpton primary. The civil rights leader livened up the 2004 Democratic primary with his pompadour hairdo and sharp, witty oratory. This election, the high-profile Sharpton, fresh from the fight over Don Imus' derogatory remarks, is attracting all the party's major candidates this week for his annual National Action Network convention.
The solid attendance — starting with John Edwards' name=c1>SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3>
John Edwards on Wednesday and continuing with Sens.
Hillary Rodham Clinton' name=c1>SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3>
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) later this week — reflects Sharpton's prominence in the party, concern that he might run again and the Democrats' effort to appeal to the base, particularly black voters.
He is in NO way a reverend.
1. Islam is not a religion
2. Islam is being revered as a religion. Hypocrisy
3. Hypocrisy is something that liberals use to use
4. Nothing is against Islam as long as it benefits or furthers it's domination
5. Domination is the superior and Submission is necessary for domination to be. So, the "RELIGION" is that of Domination. We all aspire to be g-d like. If the g-d is "domination", then it is reasonable to infer that submission is only to the G-d. And domination is to be in the image of g-d.
Hypocrisy--------hmmmm.
I submit the following:
Here are 2 articles from the same day that show the hypocrisy of IRAN
Iran condemns Virginia Tech shooting
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152818054&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Iran on Tuesday condemned a gunman's rampage the previous day at Virginia Tech university which left 33 people dead and was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history.
"While condemning this [attack], [Iran] expresses condolences with the nation and the families of those killed," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press.
"Attacking innocent people, irrespective of their race and nationality, is contrary to divine and human values no matter which group or person carries out such an act under any name," the Iranian statement said.
Despite lack of diplomatic relations between the two, Iran has in the past condemned violence and terrorist attacks in the United States, including the September 11, 2001 attacks, the deadliest on US soil.
The US and Iran broke relations in 1979, after Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Teheran and held its occupants hostage for 444 days.
Relations somewhat thawed after reformist former President Mohammad Khatami called for dialogue to bring down the "wall of mistrust," but ties worsened after US President George W. Bush named Iran as part of the "the axis of evil."
The United States and Iran are also at odds over Teheran's controversial nuclear program. Washington accuses Teheran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.
Three cars damaged by stones thrown in West BankBy JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1176152828312
Three Israeli vehicles were damaged by stones thrown by Palestinians in the West Bank on Wednesday night.
Two cars were struck southeast of Kalkilya while the other was hit west of Hebron.
No one was wounded.
Then you have THIS article:
Espionage Galore under a Middle East Nuclear Cloud
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
April 17, 2007, 9:19 PM (GMT+02:00)
It sounded like a contest.
On Tuesday, April 17, the Shin Bet intelligence service reported Iranian intelligence had intensified its efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, targeting former Iranians applying for visas to visit their families. One young man had been snared and paid “expenses” for enlisting a friend in security and collecting information. The Shin Bet detained him on landing home, before he did any harm.
Two hours later, in Cairo, a nuclear engineer Mohammed Gaber, was accused by Prosecutor-General Abdul-Maquid Mahmoud of spying on Egypt’s nuclear program on behalf of the Mossad, which was said to have paid him $17,000. An Irishman and Japanese were sought in connection with the affair. Israel dismissed the charge as another of Cairo’s unfounded spy myths, whose dissemination was not conducive to good relations.
Neither case is isolated. Two days earlier, the Israeli-Arab parliamentarian Azmi Beshara admitted from a safe distance to the Qatar-based al Jazeera TV channel that he was under suspicion of spying for Hizballah during its war with Israel and would not be returning home any time soon.
Add on the US defense secretary Robert Gates’ visits to Jordan, Israel and Egypt this week reportedly to coordinate and oversee preparations connected to a potential military operation against Iran and, in the view of DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, these espionage rumbles denote a far greater upheaval boililng up below ground.
Most can be traced one way or another to the mysterious disappearance of the Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari from Istanbul in February. Tehran’s job description of the missing general – a former deputy defense minister, who also worked with the Lebanese Hizballah in the 1980 - is correct as far as it goes. But the failure to bring it up to date is an attempt to obfuscate the fact that, at the time of his disappearance, he headed Iran’s Middle East spy networks.
The cases disclosed Tuesday may be just the tip of the iceberg, with more spy dramas on the way. But even at this early stage of a potential intelligence earthquake, certain conclusions are indicated.
Firstly, Israeli will soon have no choice but to declare Iran an enemy state and ban Israeli travel to the Islamic Republic for the first time in the 28 years since Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. Surprisingly, Israelis are still legally permitted to visit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
The Shin Bet did not need to publicize Iran’s intense hunt for Israeli spies in order to stop those visits; there are other ways. The espionage case would not have been brought out in the open without the knowledge of the relevant ministers – certainly not a graphic account of how the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, whence Gen. Asgari vanished, doubles as the distribution center for visas to Iran and a recruiting center for spies. Israelis applying for visas are obliged to deposit their Israeli passports there and issued with travel documents which gain them entry to Tehran. This process is drawn out to enable Iranian intelligence agents to make their first pitch to the targeted Israeli. It is followed up after he enters Iran.
The Shin Bet’s sudden outburst of transparency indicates that the scene is being set for a major diplomatic, military or intelligence step in the summer. This time, the Israeli government will not repeat at least one of the mistakes committed in July 2006, when it refused to declare that Israel was at war and the Hizballah an enemy, even after its forces crossed in to northern Israel, kidnapped two soldiers and let loose with a Katyusha barrage.
Israel is now putting the horse before the cart and declaring Iran an enemy country before the event.
It is therefore vital to deter Israeli nationals from visiting Iran in advance of potential Middle East hostilities. If Iran is involved, even through its allies or the Hizballah, Israelis in the Islamic Republic would be in danger of being taken captive or hostage.
Israel’s latest posture and precautions are likely to have the dual effect of raising Middle East tensions and placing Iran’s ancient Jewish community, reduced now to 25,000, in jeopardy. “Israeli spy rings” may soon be “uncovered” by Iranian security agents.
Second, the Middle East has embarked on a nuclear arms race. It is no secret that at last month’s Arab summit in Riyadh, the Saudi ruler strongly urged his fellows to unite their national nuclear programs under a single roof. Though played down, this was the summit’s most important decision – not the so-called Saudi peace plan, although it made the most waves. It was a step intended to produce an Arab nuclear option versus the Iranian weapons program.
Every aspect of the unified Arab nuclear program is therefore extraordinarily sensitive and hemmed in with exceptional security measures. Each has become a prime intelligence target - and not only for Israel. Hence the song and dance the Egyptian prosecutor general made Tuesday of an alleged Israeli spy network said to operate out of Hong Kong, with an Irish and a Japanese agent charged with planting Israeli espionage software in Egyptian nuclear program’s computers, together with an Egyptian engineer. Egyptian intelligence was making sure to warn off any Egyptian tempted to work for Israeli intelligence, just as the Shin Bet was cautioning Israelis to beware of falling into Iranian intelligence traps.
The events of a single day brought Iran and its nuclear threat into sharp relief as the most pressing issues for Israel. Relations with the Palestinians and Syria, on which so many words are poured day by day, pale in comparison.
British journalists' call to boycott Israeli goods is condemned in many quarters - British and international
http://debka.com/headline.php?hid=4071
April 18, 2007, 8:47 PM (GMT+02:00)
Monday, April 16, the British National Union of Journalists voted to boycott Israeli goods as part of a protest against last year’s war in Lebanon. The vote, carried 66 to 54, read: “This ADM calls for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid in South Africa. It also called for sanctions to be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations.
After a show of hands twice failed to give a clear result, the conference room was closed for the final vote. The motion also called for the end of “Israeli aggression in Gaza and other occupied territories.”
DEBKAfile notes that no sanctions were proposed against the Palestinian kidnappers of the British journalists’ BBC colleague Alan Johnston [who claimed two days later to have killed him.] On the contrary; the NUJ’s national executive committee was instructed to support pro-Palestinian organizations.
DEBKAfile also reports a move to remove the Holocaust from the British schools curriculum on the grounds that the subject "offended" some members of the Muslim population, which claims it never occurred.
In 2006, the UK had the highest incidence of fast-rising anti-Semitic violence in the world, followed by France, Canada and Australia.
<>
The figures were released by Tel Aviv University’s Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance for victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
Democrats scramble to court Sharpton
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_el_pr/campaign2008_sharpton
NEW YORK - Democratic presidential contenders are scrambling for support in what's being dubbed the Al Sharpton' name=c1>SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3>Al Sharpton primary. The civil rights leader livened up the 2004 Democratic primary with his pompadour hairdo and sharp, witty oratory. This election, the high-profile Sharpton, fresh from the fight over Don Imus' derogatory remarks, is attracting all the party's major candidates this week for his annual National Action Network convention.
The solid attendance — starting with John Edwards' name=c1>SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3>
John Edwards on Wednesday and continuing with Sens.
Hillary Rodham Clinton' name=c1>SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3>
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) later this week — reflects Sharpton's prominence in the party, concern that he might run again and the Democrats' effort to appeal to the base, particularly black voters.
He is in NO way a reverend.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Words of the Mourner's Kaddish
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152812105&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Just in case the story of this sacrifice goes away in to oblivian, I am posting the entire Jpost article here
As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 76-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 33 dead and over two dozen wounded.
Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.
Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.
"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."
Librescu was respected in his field, his son said.
"His work was his life, in a sense," said Joe. "That was a good place for him to practice his research."
The couple immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978. They then moved to Virginia in 1986 for his sabbatical and had stayed since then, Joe told Army Radio.
The gunman was later identified on Tuesday afternoon as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a South Korean citizen who was studying legally in the United States as an English major at Virginia Tech.
Earlier, Virginia Tech's president said the gunman in the second of two campus attacks was a student at the university. He also defended the school's delay in warning students about what became the deadliest shooting rampage in US history.
Though university president Charles Steger did not explicitly say the student, who he identified as an Asian male, was also the gunman in the first shooting, he said he did not believe there was another shooter. The gunman struck down two people at a dormitory Monday before killing 30 more people in a campus building and finally killing himself with a shot to his head.
"We do know that he was an Asian male - this is the second incident - an Asian man who was a resident in one of our dormitories," said Steger in an interview with CNN, confirming for the first time that the killer was a student.
Some students said their first warning came more than two hours after the first shooting, in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m. By then the second shooting had begun.
"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory where the shooting began and two people died.
Steger said the university was trying to notify students who were already on-campus, not those who were commuting in.
"We warned the students that we thought were immediately impacted," he told CNN. "We felt that confining them to the classroom was how to keep them safest."
He said investigators did not know there was a shooter loose on campus in the interval between the two shootings because the first could have been a murder-suicide.
Two students told NBC television's "Today" show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they reported to a German class where the gunman later opened fire.
Derek O'Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired away in "eerily silence" with "no specific target - just taking out anybody he could."
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After the gunman left the room, students could hear him shooting other people down the hall. O'Dell said he and other students barricaded the door so the shooter couldn't get back in - though he later tried.
"After he couldn't get the door open he tried shooting it open... but the gunshots were blunted by the door," O'Dell said.
President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush were planning to attend a 2 p.m. (1800 GMT) convocation Tuesday, and people sought comfort Monday night at a church servide.
"For Ryan and Emily and for those whose names we do not know," one woman pleaded in a church service Monday night.
Another mourner added: "For parents near and far who wonder at a time like this, 'Is my child safe?"'
That question promises to haunt Blacksburg long after Monday's attacks. Investigators offered no motive, and the gunman's name was not immediately released.
The shooting began about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of the dorm.
Police were still investigating around 9:15 a.m., when a gunman wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus.
At least 15 people were hurt in the second attack, some seriously. Many found themselves trapped after someone, apparently the shooter, chained and locked Norris Hall doors from the inside.
Students jumped from windows, and students and faculty carried away some of the wounded without waiting for ambulances to arrive.
Police commandos swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.
Inside Norris, the attack began with a thunderous sound from Room 206 - "what sounded like an enormous hammer," said Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior who was in a solid mechanics lecture in a classroom next door.
Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks to make hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.
"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last," said Calhoun. He landed in a bush and ran.
Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at his professor, who had stayed behind, apparently to prevent the gunman from opening the door.
The instructor was killed, Calhoun said.Erin Sheehan, who was in the German class next door to Calhoun's class, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that she was one of only four of about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.
She said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."
The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the class, another student, Trey Perkins, told The Washington Post. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face," he said.
"Everyone hit the floor at that moment," said Perkins, a second year student studying mechanical engineering. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."
At an evening news conference, Police Chief Wendell Flinchum refused to dismiss the possibility that a co-conspirator or second shooter was involved. He said police had interviewed a male who was a "person of interest" in the dorm shooting and who knew one of the victims, but he declined to give details.
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Steger said authorities believed the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.
Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.
He said that before the e-mail was sent, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.
"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.
The 9:26 e-mail had few details:"A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.
Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern US history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colorado. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in US history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.
Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in southwestern Virginia, about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.
Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but that they had not determined whether they were linked to the shootings.
It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of gunfire.
Last August, the opening day of classes was canceled when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy was killed just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.
As well as Librescu, among the dead were Kevin Granata, said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.
In his memory, I pray....
Words of the Mourner's Kaddish in English and in Hebrew
English
Magnified and sanctified be God's great name in the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom soon, in our lifetime. Let us say: Amen. May His great name be praised to all eternity.
Hallowed and honored, extolled and exalted, adored and acclaimed be the name of the Holy One, though He is above all the praises, hymns, and songs of adoration which men can utter. Let us say: Amen.
May God grant abundant peace and life to us and to all Israel. Let us say: Amen.
May He who ordains harmony in the universe grant peace to us and to all Israel. Let us say: Amen.
Hebrew Phonetic
Yit-gadal v'yit-kadash sh'mey raba, b'alma di v'ra hirutey, vyam-lih mal-hutey b'ha-yey-hon uv'yomey-hon uv'ha-yey d'hol beyt yisrael ba-agala u-vizman kariv, v'imru amen. (Congregation and Mourners:) Y'hey sh'mey raba m'varah l'alam ul'almey alma-ya. (Mourners:)
Yit-barah v'yish-tabah v'yit-pa-ar v'yit-romam v'yit-na-sey v'yit-hadar v'yit-aleh v'yit-halal sh'mey d'kud-sha, b'rih hu, leyla* min kol bir-hata v'shi-rata tush-b'hata v'ne-hemata da-amiran b'alma, v imru amen.
Y'hey sh'lama raba min sh'ma-ya, v'ha-yim aleynu v'al kol yisrael, vimru amen.
Oseh shalom bim-romav, hu ya-aseh shalom aleynu v'al kol yisrael, v'imru amen.
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