Old Stupid Joke:
A guy goes to a doctor and says he sees spots.
The doctor says "�nteresting."
The fellow continues, "I hear a ringing in my ears."
The doctor nods.
"�nd I have a tingling feeling in my fingers !" says the patient.
"Have you had this before?" asks the doctor.
"Yes" says the patient.
"Well" says the doctor, "you've got it again."
Today's Golden Oldie is from 1992.
Twenty years ago this month!
A rare single-panel Dry Bones cartoon. It was a pessimistic view of the future. Unfortunately, it turned out that I was right.
Go to the index page for: The Revelation of Y'shua HaMoshiach
Video Version:
We pray to HaShem, the Holy One of Israel, to fill our hearts with wisdom and understanding as we continue this study into the Revelation of our chief rabbi, Navi Y'shua haMoshiach.
We aren't going to offer an exhaustive look at the Beit HaMikdash here. We plan to do that in a future series. For our present purposes we are looking at the courtyard of the Beit HaMikdash and the statement that it will remain unmeassured and "trodden under the feet of the Gentiles."
Revelation 11:1 A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, "Rise, and measure God's temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it.This is a direct reference to a prophetic teaching of our Rebbe:
11:2 Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don't measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.Luke 21:24 And they [i.e. the Jews] shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
The Rise of Imam Madhi
The US Presidential Debate 1.26.2012
Corporate supporters of Senate 968 (PIPA) and HR 3261 (SOPA) demand the ability to take down any web site (including craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) that hurts their profits -- without prior judicial oversight or due process -- in the name of combating "online piracy."
PIPA and SOPA authors and supporters insist they'd only go after foreign piracy sites, but Internet Engineers understand this is an attempt to impose "Big Brother" controls on our Internet, complete with DNS hijacking and censoring search results. Incredibly, many Congress Members favor this idea.
Tell Congress you OPPOSE Senate 968 "Protect IP Act" (PIPA) and H.R. 3261 "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA):
Supporters of PIPA and SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corp, TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Rupert Murdoch, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)
Opponents of PIPA and SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)
Where does your Member of Congress stand on PIPA and SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)
PIPA and SOPA Are Too Dangerous To Revise, They Must Be Killed Entirely
Congress needs to hear from you, or these dangerous bills will pass - they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from corporations experts say are attempting to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet -- recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora's jar of "chilling effects" and other unintended (or perhaps intended?) consequences.
Don't believe it? Monster Cable has labeled craigslist a "rogue site," earmarked for blacklisting and full-takedown under PIPA -- resale of stereo cables by CL users reduces Monster 's new cable sales. (reddit).
There is still time to be heard. Congress is starting to backpedal on this job-killing, anti-American nonsense, and the Obama administration has weighed in against these bills as drafted, but SOPA/PIPA cannot be fixed or revised -- they must be killed altogether.
Sen Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR) are championing an alternative to SOPA/PIPA called Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) that addresses foreign sites dedicated to piracy, without disrupting basic Internet protocols, or threatening mainstream US sites like craigslist.
Tim O'Reilly, a publisher who is himself subject to piracy, asks whether piracy is even a problem, and whether there is even a legitimate need for any of these bills.
Learn more about SOPA, Protect IP (PIPA), and Internet Blacklisting:
Chanukah -- the eight-day festival of light that begins on the eve of the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev -- celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over materiality.
More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel. Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G-d.
When they sought to light the Temple's menorah (the seven branched candelabrum), they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.
To commemorate and publicize these miracles, the sages instituted the festival of Chanukah. At the heart of the festival is the nightly menorah (candelabrum) lighting: a single flame on the first night, two on the second evening, and so on till the eighth night of Chanukah, when all eight lights are kindled.
On Chanukah we also add the Hallel and Al HaNissim in our daily prayers to offer praise and thanksgiving to G-d for "delivering the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few... the wicked into the hands of the righteous."
Chanukah customs include eating foods fried in oil -- latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiot (doughnuts); playing with the dreidel (a spinning top on which are inscribed the Hebrew letters nun, gimmel, hei and shin, an acronym for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham, "a great miracle happened there"); and the giving of Chanukah gelt, gifts of money, to children.
Click here for the complete story of Chanukah, and here for a comprehensive "How To" guide for the observances and customs of Chanukah.
Go to the index page for: The Revelation of Y'shua HaMoshiach
Video Version:
We pray to HaShem, the Holy One of Israel, to fill our hearts with wisdom and understanding as we continue this study into the Revelation of our chief rabbi, Navi Y'shua haMoshiach.
Revelation 7:4 I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every house of the children of Israel:
U.S. Pagans (and all other non-Muslims) beware! Islam is making major inroads within the USA!
Source: ABC News
A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing "witchcraft and sorcery," according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least the second such execution for sorcery this year.
The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in the northern Saudi province of al-Jawf on Monday.
A source close to the Saudi religious police told Arab newspaper al Hayat that authorities who searched Nassar's home found a book about witchcraft, 35 veils and glass bottles full of "an unknown liquid used for sorcery" among her possessions. According to reports, authorities said Nassar claimed to be a healer and would sell a veil and three bottles for 1500 riyals, or about $400.
According to the ministry, Nassar's death sentence was upheld by an appeals court and the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council.
Philip Luther, the interim direct of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program, condemned Nassar's killing, calling it "deeply shocking."
"The charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery' are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia and to use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling," Luther said.
Luther said that a charge of sorcery is often used by the Saudi government as a smokescreen under which they punish people for exercising freedom of speech.
Nassar was not the first person to be executed for alleged witchcraft by the Saudi government this year. In September, a Sudanese man was publicly decapitated with a sword in the city of Medina after he was found guilty of the same crime.
According to Amnesty International, at least 79 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia so far in 2011, more than three times as many as in 2010. The human rights group condemned the kingdom's reliance on capital punishment.
"Where the death penalty is used, under international law it should only be applied to the most serious crimes," Luther said.
The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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