Dreams Into Lightning

Following weeks of negotiation with the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi Avi Weiss has made an about face and agreed to not confer the title ‘Rabba’ on graduates of his Yeshivat Mahara”t for women.

The RCA issued a statement Friday afternoon that confirmed a report in the March 5 issue of The Jewish Star.

The story in the print edition quotes an unnamed source who said, “They’re negotiating. The RCA does not want to kick him out and he does not want to be kicked out, but this is an intolerable activity …. He [Weiss] is an impetous fellow, which is okay. Everything is in how he words it. If I had to guess, when Rabbi Weiss retracts, he’s going to say this was the right thing at the wrong time and I regret doing it, and I commit to not doing it for a period of time.”

Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vice president of the RCA, did not return calls for comment but on Friday afternoon the organization released a statement to announce that Rabbi Weiss had backed down.

Rabbi Weiss said as much in a letter addressed to RCA President Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, which was released to the public:

“It is not my intention or the intention of Yeshivat Maharat to confer the title of “Rabba” upon its graduates,” Rabbi Weiss wrote. “Yeshivat Maharat prepares women for positions of religious leadership in the Orthodox community. Each student who completes its course of study in Tanakh, Talmud, Halakha and Jewish Thought, and is deemed fit by her faith, knowledge of our Mesoret, ethical integrity and temperament to assume positions of religious leadership in Orthodox institutions will be confirmed as manhigah hilkhatit, ruhanit, toranit (Maharat).”

“Tznius isn’t a mode of dress. It includes the idea that women are demeaned and not honored when they’re put in the public eye and put on a pedestal. The position he [Weiss] has created violated the concept,” Shafran said. Whether the ordination violates a specific halacha (Torah law), is unimportant, he explained.

“Putting a woman in front of a group of men and women on a regular or ad-hoc basis is violative of tznius. Halacha accomplishes much more than the letter of the law. There is nothing in the Shulchan Aruch about keeping a cat in the aron kodesh. It’s technically permitted but it’s wrong to do.”

If this story from the Times of India is true, the energy picture is about to change.  A lot.

The world of energy and entrepreneurship is crackling with electric anticipation this week after an India-born scientist-CEO provided a sneak peek over the weekend at a clean and efficient model of power generation-in-a-box that could eliminate the traditional grid and challenge monopolies.

Supporters are claiming K.R.Sridhar’s ''Bloom box,'' scheduled for a big-splash unveiling in Silivon Valley on Wednesday, could be the Holy Grail of the world’s energy quest; and even skeptics agree that it is a unique ''power-plant-in-a-box.'' What acres of power grid can generate, Sridhar’s Bloom Box can crank out in a fraction of the footprint -- in a squeaky clean manner too.

It is already being done -- on the campuses of Google and eBay among others....

Labels: energy

Today is not Presidents' Day. The holiday's official title is George Washington's Birthday. It is a day for celebrating the Father of our Country, whose greatness is often forgotten.

Few Americans know that George Washington never received more than elementary-level schooling. But he was a whiz at math, and his sharp mind and appetite for adventure led him to surveying, then to the Army.
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Incredibly, in his first military adventure, the totally untrained soldier led an attack on a French force near the Ohio River, killing a French ambassador. Thus began the French and Indian War. ...

Washington's Birthday is a United States federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday of February. It is also commonly known as Presidents Day (sometimes spelled as Presidents' Day or President's Day). As Washington's Birthday or Presidents Day, it is also the official name of a concurrent state holiday celebrated on the same day in a number of states.

George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731][1][2][3]– December 14, 1799) was the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and the first President of the United States of America (1789–1797).[4] For his central role in the formation of the United States, he is often referred to as "the father of his country".[5][6]

The Continental Congress appointed Washington commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces in 1775. The following year, he forced the British out of Boston, lost New York City, and crossed the Delaware River in New Jersey, defeating the surprised enemy units later that year. As a result of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured the two main British combat armies at Saratoga and Yorktown. Negotiating with Congress, the colonial states, and French allies, he held together a tenuous army and a fragile nation amid the threats of disintegration and failure. Following the end of the war in 1783, King George III asked what Washington would do next and was told of rumors that he'd return to his farm; this prompted the king to state, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." Washington did return to private life and retired to his plantation at Mount Vernon.[7] ...

Washington (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates will unveil the Pentagon's plan to prepare for repealing the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" law regarding gay soldiers at a committee hearing Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman said.

"The Defense Department leadership is actively working on an implementation plan and the secretary will have more to say about this next week," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said on Thursday.

President Obama said in his first State of the Union address Wednesday night that he would work with Congress and the Pentagon this year to repeal the law that prohibits military members from acknowledging openly that they are gay. ...

In a gesture of reconciliation toward the regime, Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi conceded Sunday, Jan. 17, that the Iranian scientist Mehsoud Ali-Mohammadi murdered outside his home last Monday was the victim of Iran's "enemies," namely the US and Israel.

The opposition had previously blamed his death on the "tyrannical regime's" campaign to wipe out the intellectual elite backing the reform movement.

Reversing this position, Mousavi said: "The depressing martyrdom of the renowned physicist and Tehran University academic Mehsoud Ali-Mohammad signifies the harsh reality that enemies of Iran are set to take advantage of today's critical situation to pursue their own interests."

He added: "This criminal action is definitely part of a huge plan that obliges all of us, irrespective of our political tendencies, to give some thought to discover its other aspects."

Evidence is mounting that Hizbullah may have been behind last week's assassination of Professor Ali Mohammadi, a physics professor who was murdered in a booby-trapped motorcycle explosion near his home.

Contrary to initial reports, Mohammadi apparently was not a nuclear physicist and had no connection with the development of Iran’s nuclear program, thus ruling out a motive that opposition groups were responsible for killing him.

Labels: iran, nuclear

Nile Gardiner at the Daily Telegraph writes: “The White House should send a search party to track down Hillary Clinton. America’s foreign policy chief has been missing from the world stage for several days, and has become as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel at the height of the French Revolution.”

Come to think of it, we haven’t seen or heard from her since the Flight 253 bombing attack. ...

A friend of mine is angry, saying I'm too tough on President Barack Obama and that nothing he does pleases me. Well, I wish he'd do more that pleases me, and disconcerts America's enemies.

True, he has done three good things lately: his Nobel speech, which sounded like it was actually given by a U.S. president; his remarks on the demonstrations in Iran (better six months late than never), and his tough verbal stance about investigating the mistakes that led to the near disaster (though I worry they're less about dramatic change and more just a show to reassure the public that something will be done). I also pointed out that the administration's relationship with Israel was pretty good overall.

Yet on the single most important Middle East issue, Iran's nuclear program and its aggressive ambitions, hints about his policy are getting worrisome both because of what this administration isn't doing and what it's obviously thinking. The year has now ended with no major public move toward imposing serious sanctions. True, there are a few statements you can dig out indicating a turn in that direction. Yet what should have happened was a major public speech by December 31 about the administration's sanction plans. After all, it set that date as a deadline for action ten months ago yet let it pass with no visible action.

There are other bad signs that the administration still doesn't comprehend the problems it faces. ...

December 29, 2009

Iran Global website has exposed a document that discloses information on Khamenei and various authorities of the regime’s possible escape to Russia.

The document is on the National Security Agency of the Islamic regime’s letterhead addressed from the office of the High Assembly of the Islamic Republic’s National Security official [name is redacted] to an individual [name redacted] in the revolutionary guards. The letter is dated 6th of Dey (December 27th).

It reads:

Re: Response to a letter number [redacted] written on the 5th of Dey (December 26th).

Salam Aleykom

With respect, we would like to inform you of the inspection, check up and preparation of the aircraft, destination Russia, for the purpose of transporting the Supreme Leader ....

The father of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab talked about his son's extremist views with someone from the CIA and a report was prepared, but the report was not circulated outside the agency, a reliable source told CNN's Jeanne Meserve on Tuesday.

Had that information been shared, the 23-year-old Nigerian who is alleged to have bungled an attempt to blow up a jetliner as it was landing in Detroit, Michigan, on Christmas Day might have been denied passage on the Northwest Airlines flight, the source said.

Internet postings purportedly written by a Nigerian charged with trying to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day suggest a fervently religious and lonely young man who fantasized about becoming a Muslim holy warrior.

Throughout more than 300 posts, a user named "Farouk1986" reflects on a growing alienation from his family, his shame over sexual urges and his hopes that a "great jihad" will take place across the world.

While officials haven't verified that the postings were written by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, details from the posts match his personal history. ...

US President Barack Obama has condemned the Iranian government's attempts to quell recent protests, in which eight people have been killed.

He said the "iron fist of brutality" had been used to silence protesters, calling the actions of officials an "unjust suppression".

Barack Obama also urged the government to release detained opposition figures.

Like Saddam Hussein, Ali Abdullah Saleh is an autocrat with a fair amount of blood on his hands, perched atop a decades-old security-oriented regime.

This regime does some things well, such as managing a personality cult, but it’s much less proficient at other tasks, such as running the country’s tribal and regional politics and generating stability.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have stood with Saleh and the US is now getting heavily involved, providing the regime with missiles, sending unmanned drones to bomb areas affected by the Houthi rebellion, and dispatching covert military teams to join Yemen’s Army in pursuing threats to stability, under the rubric of the “war on terror” policy.

And like Saddam, Saleh deals with a large part of his country as if it’s the enemy. Iraq’s Kurds suffered atrocities in the weapons during the Saddam era, while the southerners of Yemen have also been treated horribly by the Saleh regime, and we’ve heard calls for secession from the central government in both countries. ...

As the US has stepped up cooperation with Yemen in targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known terrorists wanted by the US government continue to operate in the open while the Yemeni government looks the other way.

The US has stepped up military and intelligence support with the weak Yemeni government and President Ali Abdullah Saleh over the past several months as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has grown more bold. The terror group has been plotting to target the Yemeni state as well as US and other foreign targets inside and outside Yemen, according to US intelligence officials.

The US deployed special operations forces to Yemen in the fall to work with the country's army and security serves to root out al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The terror group has opened large training camps in Sana'a, Abyan, and Shabwa provinces over the past year.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/yemen_permits_wanted.php#ixzz0b8CtxvPx

The U.S. and Yemen are now looking at fresh targets in Yemen for a potential retaliation strike, two senior U.S. officials told CNN Tuesday, in the aftermath of the botched Christmas Day attack on an airliner that al Qaeda in Yemen claims it organized.

The officials asked not to be not be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. ...

Yemen's emergence as a center for Al Qaeda activity has added another complication to the Obama administration's plan to close the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Yemenis make up the largest bloc of the remaining detainees. This month, six men from that country were sent home, and their lawyers expected that up to 40 more could soon be released from Guantanamo.

Now that an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen has claimed to be behind the attempted bombing of an airline flight bound for Detroit on Christmas Day, however, the lawyers fear the administration will block further releases. ...