Earlier today President Bush issued a proclamation on the anniversary of our national motto, "In God We Trust."  Here is what he said:

        On the 50th anniversary of our national motto, "In God We Trust," 
        we reflect on these words that guide millions of Americans, 
        recognize the blessings of the Creator, and offer our thanks for 
        His great gift of liberty.  From its earliest days, the United States
        has been a nation of faith. During the War of 1812, as the morning 
        light revealed that the battle-torn American flag still flew above Fort 
        McHenry, Francis Scott Key penned, "And this be our motto: 'In God 
        is our trust!'" His poem became our National Anthem, reminding 
        generations of Americans to "Praise the Power that hath made and 
        preserved us a nation." On July 30, 1956, President Dwight 
        Eisenhower signed the law officially establishing "In God We Trust" 
        as our national motto. Today, our country stands strong as a beacon 
        of religious freedom. Our citizens, whatever their faith or background,
         worship freely and millions answer the universal call to love their 
        neighbor and serve a cause greater than self. As we commemorate 
        the 50th anniversary of our national motto and remember with thanks-
        giving God's mercies throughout our history, we recognize a divine plan 
        that stands above all human plans and continue to seek His will.

If you thought the previous article by Daniel Pipes was interesting, wait until you read this one by Youssef M. Ibrahim!  This would represent a significant turnaround on the part of more modern Arab nations.  We can only pray that he is right - that the silent Arab majority will in fact at last find a voice, and speak out against those who would impose Islamic sharia law on not only their own people, but the rest of the world as well.

The Arab majority may not stay silent

By Youssef M. Ibrahim
The New York Sun
Published July 19, 2006

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

 This article by Daniel Pipes provides an excellent perspective on how the "traditional" Arab nations are responding to what is happening in Israel now.  It would seem the fear of Iranian power is not limited to Americans and Israelis. 


Arabs Disavow Hizbullah

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
July 26, 2006

The current round of hostilities between Israel and its enemies differs from prior ones in that it's not an Arab-Israeli war, but one that pits Iran and its Islamist proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah, against Israel.

This points, first, to the increasing power of radical Islam. When Israeli forces last confronted, on this scale, a terrorist group in Lebanon in 1982, they fought the Palestine Liberation Organization, a nationalist-leftist organization backed by the Soviet Union and the Arab states. Now, Hizbullah seeks to apply Islamic law and to eliminate Israel through jihad, with the Islamic Republic of Iran looming in the background, feverishly building nuclear weapons.

Non-Islamist Arabs and Muslims find themselves sidelined. Fear of Islamist advances – whether subversion in their own countries or aggression from Tehran – finds them facing roughly the same demons as does Israel. As a result, their reflexive anti-Zionist response has been held in check. However fleetingly, what The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh calls "an anti-Hizbullah coalition," one implicitly favorable to Israel, has come into existence.

It began on July 13 with a startling Saudi statement condemning "rash adventures" that created "a gravely dangerous situation." Revealingly, Riyadh complained about Arab countries being exposed to destruction "with those countries having no say." The kingdom concluded that "these elements alone bear the full responsibility of these irresponsible acts and should alone shoulder the burden of ending the crisis they have created." George W. Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, a day later described the president as "pleased" by the statement.

On July 15, the Saudis and several other Arab states at an emergency Arab League meeting condemned Hizbullah by name for its "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts." On July 17, Jordan's King Abdullah warned against "adventures that do not serve Arab interests."

A number of commentators began to take up the same argument, most notably Ahmed Al-Jarallah, editor-in-chief of Kuwait's Arab Times, author of one of the most remarkable sentences ever published in an Arab newspaper: "The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community." Interviewed on Dream2 television, Khaled Salah, an Egyptian journalist, condemned Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbullah: "Arab blood and the blood of Lebanese children is much more precious than raising [Hizbullah's] yellow flags and pictures of [Iran's Supreme Leader] Khamene'i."

A leading Wahhabi figure in Saudi Arabia even declared it unlawful for Sunni Muslims to support, supplicate for, or join Hizbullah. No major Arab oil-exporting state appears to have any intention of withholding its oil or gas exports out of solidarity with Hizbullah.

Many Lebanese expressed satisfaction that the arrogant and reckless Hizbullah organization was under assault. One Lebanese politician privately confided to Michael Young of Beirut's Daily Star that "Israel must not stop now … for things to get better in Lebanon, Nasrallah must be weakened further." The prime minister, Fuad Saniora, was quoted complaining about Hizbullah having become "a state within a state." A BBC report quoted a resident of the Lebanese Christian town of Bikfaya estimating that 95 percent of the town's population was furious at Hizbullah.

The Palestinian Legislative Council expressed its dismay at these muted Arab reactions, while a women's group burned flags of Arab countries on Gaza's streets. Nasrallah complained that "Some Arabs encouraged Israel to continue fighting" and blamed them for extending the war's duration.

Surveying this opinion, Youssef Ibrahim wrote in his New York Sun column of an "intifada" against the "little turbaned, bearded men" and a resounding "no" to Hizbullah's effort to start an all-out war with Israel. He concluded that "Israel is finding, to its surprise, that a vast, not-so-silent majority of Arabs agrees that enough is enough."

One hopes that Ibrahim is right, but I am cautious. First, Hizbullah still enjoys wide support. Second, these criticisms could well be abandoned as popular anger at Israel mounts or the crisis passes. Finally, as Michael Rubin notes in the Wall Street Journal, coolness toward Hizbullah does not imply acceptance of Israel: "There is no change of heart in Riyadh, Cairo or Kuwait." Specifically, Saudi princes still fund Islamist terrorism.

Arab disavowal of Hizbullah represents not a platform on which to build, only a welcome wisp of reality in an era of irrationality.

 Yesterday Andrea Yates was found not guilty yesterday of murdering her five children.  This is such a difficult case - not at all as cut-and-dry as many (on both sides) would like us to think. 

I've heard people say, "Well, I have mental illness and I wouldn't kill my children."  When probed further, though, it turns out their mental illness is usually major depression, sometimes bipolar disorder, but never with psychotic features.

The problem I see with that comparison is that while major depression clearly makes life very difficult, it doesn't have the potential for explosion that a psychosis has. Unless your depression has psychotic features, you are FAR less likely to murder your children than Andrea Yates was. She DID have "a secret, scary life." She heard voices in her head telling her God wanted her to murder her children. She apparently literally believed she was saving her kids from hell by sending them to heaven. This is a very serious level of mental illness.  It is amazing, and sad, to me that her doctor felt she didn't need the medication any longer. Her children might still be alive if the doctor had continued to treat her correctly.

For some time we attended a large church in our city in which a similar situation had happened - the wife had killed two children due to post-partum psychosis. While we were there, she was allowed to come home - perhaps 10 or 15 years after the crime. She was grieving and repentant over what she had done; at the time she had believed it was what God was calling her to do, but now she understands that she was mentally ill. Her husband has been through tremendous heartache and grief, and losing his wife to a mental institution for years was part of that grief. We had very mixed feelings at the time, and continue to wonder about it, but postpartum psychosis is a strange thing, and recovery IS possible.

Even the argument that "she knew it was wrong" is questionable in a case like this.  The trouble lies in the definition of "wrong."  In a psychotic disorder, everything becomes twisted, including right and wrong.  Does she know society says it's wrong?  Certainly.  Does she know it's morally wrong?  Probably.  Does she think it's the right thing for her to do even if it is morally wrong?  Perhaps.  Does she feel compelled - really compelled, even against her own wishes - to do it regardless of whether it's right or wrong?  That's where the big question comes in.  Her mind was so confused at this point that it's difficult to know what she was thinking or feeling.

I'm not absolving Andrea Yates of guilt - I agree with those who have said the verdict should have been "guilty, but insane," but there is little doubt in my mind that she was a very sick woman and desperately needed help. Can she be held responsible for what she did, believing God was telling her to do it? I don't know - it's a VERY difficult situation and I think something that must be dealt with individually based on a close knowledge of the situation, not by making blanket statements.

Yoni's blog today reproduces this article, I believe from the Jerusalem Post, on the number of rockets Hezbollah has launched into Israel and the number of casualties.  Since the war started 15 days ago, Israel has been hit by 1,402 rockets - that's almost 100 per day!  And large numbers of innocent civilians have been injured by these rocket attacks:  19 civilians have been killed and 1,262 wounded!

The news media eagerly trumpets the news of civilian casualties inflicted by Israel - casualties caused primarily by the fact that Hezbollah deliberately hides its weapons and its soldiers in civilian areas.  But where have you heard the numbers of innocent Israelis injured or killed?  Do they somehow not count?  In many Israeli cities, people have been holed up in shelters ever since the war began.

Why is it that the American media and American liberals are saying nothing while Hezbollah intentionally involves both Lebanese and Israeli citizens in this conflict?  It would seem they lack the courage to stand up for what is truly right; instead, American liberalism prefers to attack the victims of aggression.

 It always amazes me to read about the well-known people who have been homeschooled.  Here is a partial list:

Presidents
George Washington
James Madison
John Quincy Adams
Woodrow Wilson
William Henry Harrison
Abraham Lincoln
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Statesmen
Benjamin Franklin
Patrick Henry
William Penn
Winston Churchill

Explorers
Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark)
William Clark

Soldiers and Generals
Robert E. Lee
Douglas MacArthur
George C. Patton

Inventors
Leonardo da Vinci
George Washington Carver
Alexander Graham Bell
Cyrus McCormick
Thomas Edison
Andrew Carnegie
Orville and Wilbur Wright
Charlie Chaplin
Pierre Curie
Albert Einstein

Artists, Musicians, Authors
Johann Sebastian Bach
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Irving Berlin
Hans Christian Andersen
Charles Dickens
George Bernard Shaw
Noel Coward
Claude Monet
Andrew Wyeth

Women
Eleanor Roosevelt
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Agatha Christie
Helen Keller
Florence Nightingale
Pearl S. Buck

It's an inspiration to me to realize how many of our most well-known people have been homeschooled.  Homeschoolers are far over-represented among the "best and brightest."

Michael Medved's latest Townhall article gives a great explanation of why Israel has the right to claim her land, and why the Palestinians don't.  He compares Israel's claim to the land to America's claim, and makes it irrefutable that this land has historically belonged to Israel.

The fact that so much of the world has fought so hard against Israel's right to exist, both historically and in modern times, demonstrates the spiritual opposition she faces as God's chosen people.  No other nation on earth has faced this kind of determination to wipe her off the map.

Israel, in spite of her imperfections, deserves our respect and our prayers.

Reading Yoni's blog about what is going on in Israel today is enough to break your heart.  It seems very clear that Israel's current government is not in this conflict to win, but only to break even.  Given previous battles Israel has fought and the public relations disasters they always turn into for the Israelis, it's not surprising that the liberal government of Israel is making those choices; still it is very unfortunate that Israeli soldiers are dying for something that is not going to last.

I could be wrong, but based on my observation it appears the government of Israel today believes the same things Hugh Hewitt quotes Tom Hayden as saying:  that the anger of the Palestinians toward Israel is all Israel's fault; that if Israel will completely abandon the "occupied territories" somehow the Palestinians will like them again.  Both Olmert's government and today's liberals fail to understand the ultimate object of the Palestinians:  to wipe Israel off the map.  They also don't grasp the mentality of the Islamic radicals, who consider themselves to have won if they persuade civilized countries to simply talk rather than fight. 

If the Israeli government yields to international pressure and fails to wipe out Hezbollah, at least in Lebanon and preferably in Syria too (maybe even in Iran), their problems will return very soon.  I don't see how they can settle for a cease-fire with Hezbollah still firing 90 missiles into Israel last night, but perhaps they will - and Hezbollah will have won a significant victory.

Israel needs to fight - they need to fight hard, and they need to be relentless in their pursuit of the Hezbollah terrorists.  They need to shed their fear of injuring civilians and hunt down the terrorists wherever they are; the sooner they do this, the better.  And America needs to support them 100%, no-holds-barred.  This is a battle America must support if we don't want to end up fighting these terrorists on our own soil or in Iraq or both - and our President has the responsibility to lead this nation to fight!

The Headmistress at The Common Room has an interesting post featuring a newspaper clipping from her grandfather's scrapbook, dated 1938.  It relates to a conversation between two people opposed to the developing war in Asia.  Most of the clipping is interesting from a historical perspective but not all that relevant to us.  But my attention was arrested by the next-to-last sentence, which reads as follows:

        Every loyal citizen know that, once war is declared, he must do all 
        in his power to support the nation's effort to win the war.

Would that all American citizens still held this attitude today!  We might have won the war in Iraq in a few months if our enemies had thought we would all be unified this way.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D- CA) is at it again.  Back in 2004, an AP article by Mark Sherman quoted a report from Rep. Waxman accusing federally funded abstinence education programs of teaching "false and misleading information about contraception, abortion, and s-xually transmitted diseases."  In the same article, the Deputy Assistant Health and Human Services Secretary for Population Affairs "said the Waxman report took statements out of context to present the programs in the worst possible light."

Yesterday, the AP released a new article, this one by Kevin Freking, quoting "a report issued Monday by Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee," led by Rep. Waxman, this time going after pregnancy resource centers.  And if anything, this report appears to have even less basis than the previous one.

The congressional aides called 25 pregnancy centers, pretending to be pregnant 17-year-olds.  Two could not be reached.  The others explained the risks associated with abortion, as those pregnancy centers understood them.  Among the most significant risks mentioned were breast cancer, infertility,  and emotional stress.  At first glance these risks seem almost unavoidable; however, Rep. Waxman and the rest of the Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee (HGRC) apparently believe they do not exist.

The risk of breast cancer is one of the most highly publicized - and one of the most controversial - risks associated with abortion.  Some studies clearly find a relationship; others do not.  But Rep. Waxman and his fellow Democrats apparently believe that a single workshop by the National Cancer Institute represents the entire truth of the matter.  Meanwhile, a Reuters article yesterday says that "the Institute of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute have discounted any link between abortion and breast cancer, although the Institute briefly carried a statement on its Web site making such a link -- a statement that was taken down after a public clamor by scientists and doctors."  In other words, at least one of these organizations DID believe there was a possible relationship between abortion and breast cancer, but protest by those who support abortion-on-demand forced them to pretend that relationship didn't exist.  Of course the Congressman didn't see fit to acknowledge that potential disagreement.

The relationship between abortion and infertility seems so self-evident it doesn't even need to be discussed; nevertheless the Democrats on the HGRC appear to need a lesson.  Any time a woman's reproductive organs are interfered with, the risk of infection and of scarring increases.  Even a minor amount of scar tissue can move the Fallopian tubes out of their correct place and make conception impossible.  Thus abdominal surgery, pregnancy, and abortion all increase a woman's risk of infertility, because they increase the risk of infection or scarring of her reproductive organs. 

As for the emotional stress associated with abortion, this has been well documented.  Pregnancy centers, of all places, ought to be able to speak to the prevalence of significant mental health issues associated with abortion.  It may be true that the American Psychological Association has issued a statement that "severe negative reactions are rare."  But the statement of the 13 centers that "told the caller that the psychological effects of abortion are severe, long-lasting, and common" are not necessarily contradictory; what a woman considers severe may not be the APA's dictionary definition.

As usual, Rep. Waxman and his fellow Democrats are out to get any faith-based organization trying to state clearly that abortion hurts women.  It is ironic that in their insistence on making abortion legal at any point, for any reason, to every woman, they ignore or blithely pass over the painful truth of what happens to those women who have one.

 We all know what happened to the Native Americans when the Europeans arrived, don't we? The Europeans brought smallpox with them, and the majority of the Native American population, whether in North, Central, or South America was wiped out. Isn't that what you learned in school?

Well, a recent article in Discover Magazine Online says it "ain't so."

Turns out researcher Rodolfo Acuna-Soto has uncovered pretty reliable data indicating the Native Americans were wiped out by something resembling hemorrhagic fever. Take a few minutes to follow the links and read the article - it is excellent, not too difficult to read, and absolutely fascinating.

Among the interesting paragraphs are these:

There seemed little reason to debate the nature of the plague: Even the Spanish admitted that European smallpox was the disease that devastated the conquered Aztec empire. Case closed.Then, four centuries later, Acuña-Soto improbably decided to reopen the investigation. Some key pieces of information—details that had been sitting, ignored, in the archives—just didn't add up. His studies of ancient documents revealed that the Aztecs were familiar with smallpox, perhaps even before Cortés arrived. They called it zahuatl. Spanish colonists wrote at the time that outbreaks of zahuatl occurred in 1520 and 1531 and, typical of smallpox, lasted about a year. As many as 8 million people died from those outbreaks. But the epidemic that appeared in 1545, followed by another in 1576, seemed to be another disease altogether. The Aztecs called those outbreaks by a separate name, cocolitzli. "For them, cocolitzli was something completely different and far more virulent," Acuña-Soto says. "Cocolitzli brought incomparable devastation that passed readily from one region to the next and killed quickly."

Acuña-Soto sent the text of the original Latin manuscript to a friend, a
physician working with the Centers for Disease Control in Washington, D.C., who was also a Greek and Latin scholar. The new translation he got back described cocolitzli in terms that did not match any Old World disease:

The fevers were contagious, burning, and continuous, all of them pestilential, in most part lethal. The tongue was dry and black. Enormous thirst. Urine of the colors of sea-green, vegetal green, and black, sometimes passing from the greenish color to the pale. Pulse was frequent, fast, small, and weak—sometimes even null. The eyes and the whole body were yellow. This stage was followed by delirium and
seizures. Then, hard and painful nodules appeared behind one or both ears along with heartache, chest pain, abdominal pain, tremor, great anxiety, and dysentery. The blood that flowed when cutting a vein had a green color or was very pale, dry, and without serosity. . . . Blood flowed from the ears and in many cases blood truly gushed from the nose. . . . This epidemic attacked mainly young people and seldom the elder ones.

"This was certainly not smallpox," Acuña-Soto says. "If they described something real, then it appeared to be a hemorrhagic fever."

Hemorrhagic fevers are viral diseases with names that evoke justifiable dread—Ebola, Marburg, Lassa. They strike with sudden intensity,
rarely respond to treatment, kill at high rates, then vanish as mysteriously as they came. They are called hemorrhagic because victims bleed, hemorrhaging in their capillaries, beneath the skin, often from the mouth, nose, and ears. The bleeding doesn't kill, but the breakdown of the nervous system does. At first there is fever, fatigue, and dizziness, but within a few days the person falls into delirium and finally a coma.

If cocolitzli had been caused by a hemorrhagic virus, Acuña-Soto realized, the Spanish could not have brought it with them. Such diseases do not readily pass from one person to another, so the virus must have been native.

This article was published as a Discover Magazine featured article in February 2006. It would seem to be a very significant discovery, with rather broad-ranging implications. Wonder why we have heard nothing about it from the national news media?

(HT: The Common Room)

After I posted my blog entry late last week called "What Is Education?", one of my favorite people posted this entry on the liberal purpose in education.

        We talk a lot about the sorry state of education in the US.  We
        talk about how kids aren't learning much, at least, not much worth 
        learning.  We talk about the fact that the goals most parents have 
        for their kids' education are not the same as the goals of the 
        education establishment.   

        What I can't figure out is what they are trying to accomplish by all 
        this.  

        I have read enough to know that, originally, the purpose of public 
        education was to have a willing workforce, a bunch of people 
        educated enough to do their work well, but compliant enough to 
        do what they are told.  OK, great.  We pretty much had that, 
        through the '40s, '50s, and at least the early '60s, right?   People 
        got up in the morning and went to work. They worked long hours, 
        loyally staying with even difficult jobs. They pretty much did what 
        was expected of them, without asking questions.   

        If this is the point of current education, then there is no reason to 
        have changed what was taught in the first 1/2 of the century.

        I've also read enough to know that social re-engineering is a huge 
        thing the NEA and other education bureaucrats are trying to 
        accomplish.  But I can't figure out how not being able to read makes 
        someone more likely to adopt their social perspectives.  How does 
        not being able to add and subtract make someone more likely to 
        accept h-m-s-xuality?   I can understand not teaching logic.  I can 
        understand changing the types of literature studied.  I can 
        understand historical revisionism, even, if your goal is to produce a 
        certain type of attitude.

        In addition, one could argue that the liberal mind-set needs people 
        who are dependent on government help, who will vote for you 
        because you give them more help for their dependence.  

        But if a child can't read, they can't even read your propaganda.  I 
        find it hard to believe that the NEA appreciates not being given 
        proper change at their conferences.   Even the most dependent-
        minded person still will have some need for basic reading and math, 
        right?   Even if you want everyone to depend on you, to ensure 
        your importance, you still want them to be able to DO something for 
        you, don't you?  Wouldn't it be better to have well-educated people 
        who support your viewpoint?   Isn't a doctor who says you are 
        right more "valuable" to your movement than a homeless person 
        who agrees with you?

        Some of it I can see, but I do not understand how the type of 
        "education" being promoted by the NEA really helps them achieve 
        any goal at all.  Or if it does, I can't figure out what that goal might
        be.

This is an excellent question, and one which probably has almost as many answers as there are liberals to answer it.  But it seems to me at least part of the explanation is this:  while the education system has accomplished much of what it was designed to do, creating great little employees, getting to that point has had unintended consequences.  Certainly no one wants to have people coming out of the schools who can't read or write or cipher.  But in the process of instilling "groupthink," creating good little worker-bees, developing a dependent class, and so on, they ran into a problem:  many kids couldn't learn all this stuff - especially with their parents working against it at home - and still learn to read and write and do math. 

Herein lies the dilemma of the liberals today:  they know parents will no longer accept schools that don't teach their children the basics.  (Yesterday in the Denver Post there was an article about Denver's middle schools, which are losing attendance in a hurry.)  At the same time, if they are going to accomplish their purposes, liberals can't afford to do the things that actually bring academic success.  So they continue to make their purposes most important, and to continue making minor changes trying to find a "new method" which will get kids to learn the basics.  Those minor changes won't work; it will take a major overhaul of their methods to really educate kids; but that kind of overhaul will destroy their purposes in the process, and I don't believe it will ever happen.  When "developing self-esteem" is more important than really learning to read; when "appreciating other cultures" takes priority over addition and subtraction, kids are not going to learn to read or to add and subtract.

That's my take, anyway

President Bush was talking to Tony Blair yesterday, unaware that he was near a microphone.  Here's what he said (HT: Hugh Hewitt):

        "I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go 
        pretty soon," Bush said.

        Blair replied: "Right, that's all that matters, it will take some time to 
        get that together." Rice said on Sunday she was thinking of going to 
        the Middle East if it would help.

        Blair said Rice has "got to succeed" if she goes to the region.  Bush 
        replied: "What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to 
        stop doing this sh--."

It sounds like, regardless of how clueless some in the media and in the Democratic Party may be, the President understands at least one important factor in the equation - and he is pretty upset about it.  It would appear all the major players are aware of what's going on; the question is what to do about it.

I've never hated anyone before as far as I can remember.  Oh, I've been really angry sometimes; but I don't remember ever actually feeling hatred, especially not toward someone I didn't even know.  But what I experienced today came perilously close to that, and as I look back at the experience I find myself trying to see it from the outside.

Shopping with my family at a large home-improvement warehouse this afternoon, I caught a glimpse of a young man, perhaps around 25.  It was a hot day, and he was dressed as many other shoppers today, in a T-shirt and shorts.  I probably wouldn't have even looked twice at him, except for what was on the T-shirt he was wearing.  It said in bold letters, "Free Palestine," and had a large Palestinian flag emblazoned on the front.  I looked once at the T-shirt, then again, and then I found myself getting furiously angry.  Here is Israel, just trying to defend itself against the vicious attacks of its terrorist neighbors; Israel, who has in the last few years vacated both Lebanon and Gaza and was planning to leave almost all of Judea and Samaria in the next few months; Israel, who has watched the terrorists take over the areas it has unilaterally vacated, and has put up with repeated rocket attacks with virtually no response; Israel, who has lived with almost daily terrorist attacks from Palestinians despite its best efforts to maintain peace - and this guy has the NERVE to talk about freeing PALESTINE?!!

I literally wanted to walk up to the guy and slug him. 

Of course I didn't.  I sat there, watching him, for perhaps five or ten minutes, wondering if there was anything I could say to him to just make him THINK for a minute about what he was doing.  I didn't succeed, and he ended up going somewhere else in the store; I did not see him again.  Meanwhile here I am at 10 pm still wondering - could I have said something?  Could I have done something?  And what can I do or say to help keep others from ending up drawing the same conclusions as this guy did?  It is amazing how deep hatred of Israel really runs - and how deep love for Israel can also run.

Israel, my prayers are with you!

 On Powerline, Minneapolis attorney Andrew Jacobson offers a concise view of what's going on in the Middle East at the moment.  His summary at the end offers a brief, insightful perspective on possible motivations behind the events of the last few days:

        So here is my observation/theory — Iran has orchestrated 
        much (if not all) of the current unrest and violence in order to: 
        (i) distract attention from its nuclear weapons program, 
        (ii) tie down Israel militarily in order to reduce the chances 
        that Israel could unilaterally (or in combination with the 
        U.S.) launch a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, 
        (iii) scare the American public (and politicians) into rejecting 
        any unilateral military option against Iran for fear of further 
        inflaming the Mideast (e.g., "Geez, we've already got huge 
        issues in North Korea, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, 
        we can't possibly afford any further foreign entanglements" 
        or "We better not do anything to Iran, we might further inflame 
        the Mideast, threaten our oil supply and the U.S. economy" 
        (Lord knows we don't want to pay $%/gallon for our SUV's)), 
        and (iv) create world furor against Israel (and indirectly the U.S.), 
        to further raise the stakes and international opposition to any 
        unilateral military strikes.

Meantime, the New York Times takes its usual perspective on anything Israel does to defend itself.