U.S. Embassy move to Capital of Israel, JERUSALEM

It has been a long time since the United States promised to move it's embassy from Tel Aviv to the capital of Isreal, Jerusalem.

Well, it looks like our president-elect is going to do it, as well he should. It is a long overdue.

How Donald Trump could soon discard a long-standing precedent on Israel

Every four years, presidential candidates routinely signal their support for moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Then, after they’re sworn into office, they balk when faced with the potential ramifications.

Comments from Trump aides and the mayor of Jerusalem, though, suggest that Trump could be poised to discard yet another diplomatic axiom and relocate the embassy “fairly quickly” after he enters the White House. That move would be highly political, effectively meaning that the United States was recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which it has refused to do for decades out of concern about provoking Palestinians who want part of the city to become their own capital.

The question of Jerusalem’s status is the most sensitive and complicated issue in the long-running conflict between ­Israelis and Palestinians. It is fraught with political, religious and nationalist implications that potentially could create an uproar throughout the Middle East and the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims.

Trump will have an opportunity to decide the fate of the U.S. diplomatic mission on June 1, at the expiration of another six-month waiver President Obama signed to the Jerusalem Embassy Act passed by Congress in 1995 mandating that the embassy be moved by 1999.

“It’s hard to argue you could harm an already-comatose peace process, but you don’t want to make matters worse,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who advised Republican and Democratic administrations on the Middle East. “And you do want to maintain the hope and illusion that under some circumstances, a two-state solution is possible. By forcing the issue upfront as an immediate act of the Trump administration, you’re essentially burying that possibility.”

WASHINGTON POST 

(redacted)

Ethiopian Judaism - Second Temple Period

It is living history.

A people whose traditions and culture practiced for nearly two thousand years.
I imagine it really annoys the Haredi and other Orthodox Jews and they wouldn't recognize it.

Ethiopian Judaism nearly identical to that practiced during Second Temple Period

Researcher Dr. Yossi Ziv has researched Ethiopian Judaism and found an amazing discovery: Ethiopian Jews' customs and traditions extremely similar to those described in Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple Era texts.

Dr. Yossi Ziv has been researching the religious rituals of the Ethiopian Jewish population still in Ethiopia and discovered that they maintained the same customs and traditions as the Jews of the Second Temple period for the past two thousand years.

"It’s knowledge which hasn't been written anywhere, and has been preserved in their traditions," the researcher said.

"They have been curating ancient customs that have disappeared from the world. They provide examples of how the leaders of the nation of Israel would have behaved during the time of the Second Temple."

The professor released his findings at a seminar which was held at the Kfar Etzion Field School right before the Jewish-Ethiopian holiday of Sigid.

Ziv said that many Jewish-Ethiopian customs go against modern Jewish practice, but perfectly align with customs and rituals described on scrolls found in the Qumran caves and in books dating back to the Second Temple Period. The Qumran Caves are where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, which include the third oldest Hebrew Bible ever found.

Some of these Second Temple Era customs include not lighting Shabbat candles, adhering to an ancient custom prohibiting the use of fire lit even before Shabbat started. Along with this, no flame is to be passed from one vessel to another on Shabbat, even if it was lit before Shabbat came in.

"They don't even adhere to the famous rule which says that 'Shabbat rules may be disregarded for the purpose of saving a life,'" Ziv said. "For the Ethiopian Jews, the sanctity of Shabbat must be preserved, even at the cost of human life."

Evidence of this stringent observance of Shabbat was also seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Ynet News - FULL TEXT

DON AND HILLARY ELECTION RACE

Trump's Daily rant from 2004 to 2008

This guy, Trump, full of surprises, but somehow nobody should be shocked he engages in the kind of activity most voters hate of politicians. For a self-proclaimed nonpolitician, he sure picked up on the game awful fast. So he is a fast learner, however, I am willing to bet he is not new to the concept of duplicity, misdirection, obfuscation etc. tools most likely aided him in garnering many millions of dollars.

Radio Archive: What Donald Trump Said About Hillary Clinton, Tattoos, Guns, More

By 

MARK MAREMONT

 

AND MICHAEL ROTHFELD

Jul 11, 2016 8:04 pm ET

Donald Trump between 2004 and 2008 recorded a daily 60-second commentary that was aired on several hundred radio stations across the U.S. On the program, named “Trumped!,” the New York businessman gave his thoughts about current events, relationships, women and politics.

In the commentaries, Mr. Trump said Hillary Clinton would “make a good president,”

Buzzfeed, in a story about the radio show published in March, reported some of the transcripts and also included a demo audio file that promoted the show.

The Wall Street Journal tracked down more audio recordings. We also found nearly 200 full and partial transcripts on archived web pages.

In March 2008, Mr. Trump, commenting on the 2008 Democratic primaries, says Hillary Clinton would make a “good president or a good vice president” and a lot of people think pairing her with Barack Obama would be a “dream ticket.”

In May 2008, Mr. Trump opposes a West Virginia move to allow hunting-education classes in schools, saying “the thought of putting guns in the classroom seems like a really bad plan.”

Those are just two examples from the Wall Street Journal Article.

Juno and Jupiter's Moons

This is a nice presentation of the movement of the Moons which circle Jupiter.

JUNO - Juppin Jupiter

I always love it when we send probes to faraway places which look like stars in the sky.  As a child, it  was the first star with a simple telescope I looked at. Seeing the moons really excited me.

'Welcome to Jupiter!' NASA's Juno space probe arrives at giant planet

Jet Propulsion Lab, California (CNN)NASA says it has received a signal from 540 million miles across the solar system, confirming its Juno spacecraft has successfully started orbiting Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

"Welcome to Jupiter!" flashed on screens at mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California.

The Juno team cheered and hugged.

"This is phenomenal," said Geoff Yoder, acting administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

The probe had to conduct a tricky maneuver to slow down enough to allow it to be pulled into orbit: It fired its main engine for 35 minutes, effectively hitting the brakes to slow the spacecraft by about 1,212 miles per hour (542 meters per second).

"NASA did it again," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator.

On board NASA's flying lab

"We're there, we're in orbit. We conquered Jupiter."

"Through tones Juno sang to us and it was a song of perfection," said Rick Nybakken, Juno Project Manager, referring to the audio signal the probe sent to indicate it was in orbit.

The probe had to conduct a tricky maneuver to slow down enough to allow it to be pulled into orbit: It fired its main engine for 35 minutes, effectively hitting the brakes to slow the spacecraft by about 1,212 miles per hour (542 meters per second).

"NASA did it again," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator.

On board NASA's flying lab

"We're there, we're in orbit. We conquered Jupiter."

"Through tones Juno sang to us and it was a song of perfection," said Rick Nybakken, Juno Project Manager, referring to the audio signal the probe sent to indicate it was in orbit.

CNN

ROBBERS OF HISTORY

Who owns the past?

Well, we all do.

 I have not the problem with people who go out for a profit find articles of antiquity. But really, it should be shared. How that is to be done is the question for all of us. I believe that the average person  would want it to be displayed for everybody to share in.

Jewish archaeologist gumshoes rush to dig at Cave of Skulls before looters take everything

NAHAL TZE'ELEM, Israel --- Amir Ganor is an Israeli cop, but not the kind who chases car thieves or bank robbers. Ganor is a Jewish Indiana Jones, an archaeologist gumshoe, but instead of a coiled bullwhip at his side, he shoves a pistol into his pants and manhandles jeeps through seemingly impassable goat trails.

The investigator's beat is the antiquities bazaars of the Holy Land and the remote caves of the Judean Desert, where hinky Israeli dealers, Palestinian tomb raiders and Bedouin guides conspire to traffic in the world's oldest merchandise, especially the loot unearthed from the time of Roman legions and Jewish rebels and Jesus of Nazareth.

Today the target of Ganor's investigation is a remarkable cavern located high in the pitiless mountains above the Dead Sea, a frying pan of extreme heat and dryness, rich in artifacts from the deep prehistory of humankind.

"Why did we come here? We came to stop the looters from taking it all," said Ganor, who sported blue-tinted sunglasses and seemed relaxed and loose in the broiling air. "They led us here in a way. They destroy much, but they find things, too. Clever. Always watching. They are very destructive, but sometimes they know where to look."

After busting a crew of tomb robbers armed with shovels and metal detectors digging at the site two years ago, Ganor and a team of archaeologists from Hebrew University in Jerusalem launched an "emergency excavation" last month to sift the powdery dust and bat guano before looters made off with everything.

The three-week dig, now completed, was the largest, most complex and most intensive Israeli excavation in the desert in 60 years.

Archaeologists call the site the Cave of Skulls, for the seven craniums found buried deep inside in 1953.

The cave has yielded artifacts from the Neolithic Period to the Copper Age. The cavern may also have been a redoubt for rebels with the Bar Kochba Revolt against the Romans in the years 132 to 136.

Jewish World Review - -READ THE REST HERE

Boy Allowed in Girls Lockerroom

How far does it have to go, I mean the sexual revolution where there is no decency at all? 

Really. The federal government mandating a perv boy be allowed to shower in a girls high school locker room.

Who woulda thunk.

Chicago school allows transgender teen to use girls' locker room, despite parents' protest: 'God does not make mistakes'

A transgender Chicago high school student won the right to change in the girls’ locker room, despite protests from hundreds of parents who claimed the teenage girl was “a man."

The school board for Township High School District 211 in Palatine, Illinois, voted 5-2 Thursday to provide the unnamed student, who was born male but identifies as female, with a changing area equipped with a privacy curtain inside the girls’ room, a month after federal officials ruled the district had discriminated against the girl.

IDENTIFIES AS FEMALE

DAILY NEWS

I suppose this is why we send so much money to the federal government, so they can tell us what to do.

Government orders Chicago school district to grant transgender student full access to female facilities

The U.S. government on Monday found that a Chicago suburban high school district discriminated against a transgender student and gave the school a month to provide full access to girls’ locker rooms or lose federal funding.

The student, who has not been named, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought a complaint on her behalf, applauded the findings, while the school district called them “serious overreach.”

After an investigation stemming from a 2013 complaint by the ACLU, and months of negotiations, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found Township High School District 211 was violating federal non-discrimination rules.

The district says transgender students may use their gender-identified locker room if they change and shower privately. The government said a separate changing place was discriminatory because it subjected the student to stigma and different treatment.

DAILY NEWS

Treated different because HE is different.

Sounds to me like that boy needs some serious couch time.