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Just that, mysticism, esoteric commentary on Torah. Usuitable for new or weak believers as it assumes a strong knowledge of Torah and in many cases the rest of the Tenakh. Hermetic Kabbalah (usually spelled with a 'C' or 'Q') is not what I am referring to.

Sweet, check it out here

That is completely untrue. What is popular amongst celebrities is not true Kabbalah, it is witchcraft. There is so much rampant misunderstanding of Kabbalah it is riduculous.

That is sick. I live amongst this kinda stuff, the idea that anyone would openly encourage it and go so far as to publish a magazine galmorizing it is sickening. This is a destructive lifestyle and it is claiming a very large number of American youth via AIDS, drug addiction and violence. Absolutely appalling, words cannot convey the anger I am feeling right now at these people. I see these kids every day on my street peddling their sickness. I have helped them only to have them pull weapons on me to take what they could when it was opportune. I have seen them get AIDS, lose all hope and commit suicide. I've seen very, very young children, I'm talkin like 7-8 years old being not only brought up around this junk but encouraged to participate, acting as lookouts, going along on drug deals to theoretically endure the safety of their parent, even selling drugs themselves.... it is a SERIOUS problem. I have had nights when I could not get into my apartment because the front door was taped up, the sidewalk out front a murder scene! Read "The Corner : A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood" it available on Amazon for like $5, excellent book and it gives a very real and disturbing picture of what is going on in inner city neighborhoods. I really don't think most Americans grasp this fully yet, but you will when it is your corner. Not to bash anyone personally here, I just really don't think this is clear to most Americans.

Um...much of the Jews "taking over businesses" had to do with the fact that anti-semites had made it illegal for the Jews to take up any other profession, effectively forcing them to create monopolies in certain markets. Amazing that anti semites today use the actions of anti semites of yesterday to validate their hateful propaganda.

I think that Arthur Green's stuff is pretty good (I'm not 100% that I have read that particular book). He is well reconized and respected by the majority of Jews and I tend to like his writing style very much. The books I reccomended to you are less Kabbalah and more general Jewish thinking though some Kabbalah it present as it is pretty crucial to a Jewish understanding of God.

Fiosh, and excellent book to read if you really want a good understanding of Judaism is Moses Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. If you'd like something that was written a bit more recently and thus reads a bit easier Aryeh Kaplan's "The Handbook of Jewish Thought" is excellent. Yomo You asked what Kabbalah is. The short answer is that it is Jewish Mysticism and is not at all something should should be taken lightly. Effectively in its simplist form it is a method of interpreting Torah that is supposed to give on a greatwr insight into the nature of God. The chief texts of Kabbalah are: the Zohar, an esoteric mystical Aramaic commentary on Torah, and the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation). The Bahir and Sefer Raziel HaMalakh are also pretty important texts in Kabbalah. All of these (like nearly al other Jewish mystical writings) are written in such a way as to seem nonsensical to one who does not have a strong understanding of the Tenakh (Old Testament). It is similar in nature to the 14th Christian theologian Gregory Palamas idea that God in unknowable in His essence but knowable in His energies. Essence being His true nature and energy being the way in which He interacts with His creation. These energies in Palamas' mind were not separate from God, they were God. He was also careful to distinguish between this idea and the idea of Trinity.

There are some halfway decent Kabbalah books available on bookshelves, though 95% are utter nonsense. It soundsl iek you were reading some of that "practical Kabbalah" stuff. I must say though that Kabbalah isn't really something you should be studying unless you have a very firm foundation in scripture. I cannot stress that very enough, it can be dangerous stuff.

Well, it is good that she has chosen to place her faith where it a should be placed. As for fictionalized accounts of things that happened in the life of Messiah ~2000 ago and as far as anyone knows weren't recorded at all....leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I did a quick edit, cropped thei mage n circled the Hebrew. The middle row looks vaguly Hebrew, I'm not sure as the writing is kinda sloppy. http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y63/cyber...er/Pc220047.jpg

TT, you've gotta understand the priesthood and the sacrificial system to really get a good grasp on just what the Messiah did and how it atoned for all of us. Understanding Torah is key to understand the NT. The Temple, the feasts, all of it. It is difficult to understand exactly how a man (not to deny His divine nature here) being nailed to a cross and then resurrecting makes atonement without a good understanding of those things.

Yeh this is a great example of why the patent system here in the US needs to be reworked.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...ene_patent.html Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News October 13, 2005 A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities. The study, which is reported this week in the journal Science, is the first time that a detailed map has been created to match patents to specific physical locations on the human genome. Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs. "It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent system human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products," said Fiona Murray, a business and science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and a co-author of the study. "An isolated DNA sequence can be patented in the same manner that a new medicine, purified from a plant, could be patented if an inventor identifies a [new] application." continued at link

Just out of curiosity, which city might that be? I was under the impression that Catalhoyuk in Turkey was the oldest known city.

Why do we need to explain it away?

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5890424.html By John Borland, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: October 6, 2005, 2:15 PM PT Since early Wednesday, Phil Bradham, the network engineer at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, has been cut off from the parts of the Internet he needs the most. He can't reach his Web hosting company to update his site. Critical e-mails aren't going through, and some aren't reaching him. He can't get to some important sites on the Net, such as the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia. The source of Bradham's difficulties is a feud between two big backbone Internet companies--the long-haul networks that most consumers and even most businesses ordinarily have little to do with. One of these companies, Level 3 Communications, has cut off direct communications with rival Cogent Communications, causing many of each company's customers to lose access to potentially significant swatches of the Net. "We've been working with both (companies), but neither one will do anything until the other one budges," said Bradham. "It's very frustrating that two top companies would try to resolve this with a standoff like this." In theory, this kind of blackout is precisely the kind of problem the Internet was designed to withstand. The complicated, interlocking nature of networks means that data traffic is supposed to be able to find an alternate route to its destination, even if a critical link is broken. In practice, obscure contract disputes between the big network companies can make all these redundancies moot. At issue is a type of network connection called "peering." Most of the biggest network companies, such as AT&T, Sprint and MCI, as well as companies including Cogent and Level 3, strike "peering agreements" in which they agree to establish direct connections between their networks. That means that when a Cogent customer wants to visit a Web site hosted by Level 3, the data can take a short, fast path, instead of winding its way around the broader Internet. Typically, peering agreements are made without any money changing hands, since each company expects to hand off a roughly comparable amount of traffic. Smaller network companies buy what are called "transit" agreements with larger companies, in order to hand off their customers' traffic to the big networks. Peering gone wrong These collegial peering relationships among big companies allow traffic to flow efficiently across the Net without most customers knowing anything about the under-the-hood relationships. But when these relationships go sour, the feuding parties' lack of flexibility can result in blackouts like the one that occurred this week. In this case, Level 3 says that it believes it is substantially larger than its rival, and told Cogent as long as 90 days ago that it was planning to sever the direct connection between the two networks. The connection could be re-established if Cogent were to pay Level 3 access fees for use of its network, the company says. For its part, Cogent contends that it is similar in size to Level 3, and that it makes no sense to pay for the kind of peering relationship that it maintains with many other companies. Cogent is offering any Level 3 user who can't get to Cogent sites free Internet service for a year, in an attempt to attract its rival's customers. "Our goal is to have this problem go away, whether through Level 3 reconsidering, or their customers coming to us," said Dave Schaeffer, chief executive officer of Cogent. As of mid-Tuesday, both sides said they were committed to their position, showing no willingness to budge, despite complaints from customers on both sides around the Net that they can't reach Web sites or can't send e-mail to some addresses or receive it from others. This means that there is no immediate fix ahead, unless customers (or their ISPs) find an alternative or auxiliary network provider. The scale of the problem It's impossible to say precisely how many people are affected. Many customers of the two companies, and customers of the ISPs that use one of the networks, buy connections from several providers simultaneously to avoid outages of this kind. However, many businesses, individuals and even some ISPs have so-called single-homed network connections, which means they depend on a single provider to reach the Internet. (Think of this as a town with a single road leading in and out, instead of several different highways.) These single-connection customers are the ones hardest hit by Level 3's decision. Because Level 3 and Cogent each uses direct connections to other networks to exchange traffic--rather than paying a third party to provide redundant or backup transmission service--there is no alternate route for data from one network to reach the other. The result: blackouts such as those Bradham and other customers are seeing. According to Cogent, between 5 percent and 10 percent of its customers were affected. Level 3 did not provide an estimate. Because some of those customers could be ISPs with thousands or hundreds of thousands of their own customers, the number of people affected could range into the millions. CNET News.com readers have reported problems with businesses and home connections, however. William Steele, a senior network engineer for Syncro Services, said his company noticed one such problem Wednesday morning. "There are some people I can't send an e-mail to," Steele said. "At home I have Road Runner as an ISP, and wasn't even able to remotely connect in order to manage our servers." A spokesman for Time Warner Cable confirmed that many of the company's Road Runner cable modem customers would be affected. "That means some sites they might normally visit are not available to them right now," the company said in a statement. "We are working to find alternate pathways so our customers can be reconnected with these Web sites as soon as possible." In the past, network outages stemming from this kind of private contract dispute have prompted some to call for regulatory oversight, or at least legal action. In 2001, a similar contract dispute led Cable & Wireless to cut off its connection to PSINet, one of the oldest Net backbone companies. After outcries by customers, the connection was restored several days later, however. Even Cogent says it prefers to handle this kind of problem without government getting involved. "We don't think there should be any involvement in terms of regulatory oversight," Cogent spokesman Jeff Henriksen said. "These are individual contracts based on specific needs of individual providers." As the outage stretches on, however, it highlights fragility in what seems like a deeply interconnected Net. Many people remain unaware of the problem, and it can be expensive for users to address it. "I have been pushing for years to have a redundant ISP for our traffic," Bradham said. "But we're a nonprofit. We don't have the money available to do that."

My point was that Bush is definitely no opponent to abuse of eminent domain, despite his pretty words to the contrary.

Actually our president has repeatedly failed to oppose use of eminent domain. In fact, while he was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers he conspired to use the government's power of eminent domain in order to seize property and build a new stadium.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051006-120902-5838r.htm By Tim Lemke THE WASHINGTON TIMES October 6, 2005 The District will begin using eminent domain to acquire parcels of land at the site of the Washington Nationals' ballpark by the end of this month, after unsuccessful negotiations with nearly half of the landowners. City officials said they expect to file court documents to take over at least some of the 21-acre site in the coming weeks and have $97 million set aside to buy the properties and help landowners relocate. The city made offers to all 23 landowners on the site last month but received no response from 10. "We think there are some that we'll have good-faith negotiations with," said Steve Green, director of development in the office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. "There are some we haven't heard from at all." Many property owners on the site said the city's offers are inadequate. Others are suing the city on the grounds that it has no right to use eminent domain to acquire land at the site, despite a Supreme Court ruling affirming the right of municipal governments to take private property for the purpose of economic development. In April, the city notified property owners on the site that they would be required to move out by Dec. 31. City officials said the District is on target to have title on all of the land by that date, but they don't expect to have full possession of the site until early next year, with construction on the $535 million stadium to begin in March. That would give the construction team, led by Clark Construction Group of Bethesda, about two years to build the ballpark in time for Opening Day of 2008. Officials said that timetable remains realistic. Clark built the 80,000-seat FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins, in less time. "Twenty-four months is not bad," Mr. Green said. "There's always the possibility of doing it in 22 or 23 months." Meanwhile, the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission has been sparring with the new Anacostia Waterfront Corp. (AWC) on the location of ballpark parking. The AWC, which the city created to promote development along the Anacostia River waterfront, said it prefers an underground parking garage beneath 600,000 to 800,000 square feet of office and retail development. The commission said that would run up too many costs and take too long to build. Article continues at link.

You've gotta wonder, eh?

And one proves that the signal does not originate from an unknown nonterrestrial natural source how? I dunno, I only know how to do it using mathematics. My comment regarding base10 was in direct response to your comment regarding primes and atomic weights. If not communicated in base10, binary, or some other system understood by us humans, how would they be recognized? WSB's post further elaborates upon this point.

WSB I think you're on to somethin, the aliens are all Mac users, thats why noone can understand what they're sayin.

Considering how wrapped up in mathematics we are, I dunno whether or not we can honestly determine that.

How does one determine if the source is natural or not? And supposing they don't use a base 10 system? Supposing they have no concept of mathematics whatsoever? Just food for thought.

Very good video, check it out http://seconddraft.org/streaming/pallywood.wmv