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Unwavering support for Israeli policy has eroded dramatically both on American college campuses and within the United States as a whole, according to a group of American university professors who on Sunday concluded an academic exchange program here, sponsored by the Yitzhak Rabin Center. "The project had been planned for eight months and this is the first group of political science professors to arrive here from America," said Dalia Rabin, daughter of the late prime minister and director of the Rabin Center. "The goal, which I think we accomplished, was to show them the complexities of the issues facing Israel,...

The Baltic Dry Index, which measures the freight rates for dry cargo traveling by ship, hit an all time high of 11,793 on May 5, 2008. Then it plunged to 663 on December 5, a decline of 94.4 percent. It was as if trade was coming to a standstill. However, freight rates soon started to recover … Since its December low, the index is up to approximately 4,000 for a whopping gain of some 500 percent! And the “green shoot” crowd is pointing to this surge as proof of the revival in world trade, even though the index is still...

Russia not as willing to work with the Iranian Space Agency this time around Despite working with the growing Iranian space program in the past, a senior Russian space official said the country won't help Iran launch another satellite into orbit any time soon.The Russian space program helped Iran launch its Sina-1 spy satellite into orbit in 2005, which helped kick start the Iranian space program. The country had been interested in space research development for several years prior to the 2005 launch, but didn't have the necessary technology to launch its own hardware.

What would happen?

Wal-Mart buys protection by selling out its competitors. Corporate America's cheerleading for more government involvement in health care now includes Wal-Mart, that liberal paragon of social irresponsibility. The discount giant's ex-critics probably ought to be more skeptical, given that this seems to be anticompetitive special pleading in progressive drag. This week the nation's largest employer blessed an employer mandate, aka "pay or play." This would require businesses that do not offer "meaningful coverage" -- i.e., government-approved -- to pay some percentage of their payroll to a federal insurance plan. This mandate is one of the more controversial policies in the...

"It's seriously bugged is what it is," posted Jeremy in a July 1 post on hothardware.com." "My Firefox load time went from a heartbeat or two to 50-60 seconds. First time, second time, didn't matter if it was pre-fetched or not. Numerous other people having the same issue as well judging from their forum. "I've seen the same issue on both on my Vista x64 machine and my XP machine at work," added Jeremy."I downgraded both and am back to happy browsing. Hopefully Firefox 3.5.1 hits soon and resolves whatever the issue is." TGDaily.com is reporting that Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1...

The upcoming 4th of July celebration made me start thinking about the Declaration of Independence. It seems nowadays, that people are getting more and more upset with the way others behave, especially when this behavior is considered offensive or out of the norm. I’m wondering how that first line of the 2nd para…” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” , is to be interpreted? Where is the line drawn, and by...

Algeria has created its first official Jewish association, which will be headed by a prominent Algerian Jewish lawyer. The establishment of the association is in accordance with a 2006 law on non-Muslim religions, which mandated that all non-Muslim religions should have representation from accredited associations. Mohamed Fellahi, the Algerian minister for Religious Affairs, appointed Roger Saïd, a lawyer from the Bilda region, to act as the representative of the Jewish community in a religious and cultural capacity. In Algeria, Jews are scarce and difficult to account for. There are no official records on the number of Jews living in the...

This is a follow up to my post from yesterday. I have asked the question "What the government doesn't want you to know?". I have to question why we are in such a headlong rush to enact the Cap and trade legislation?

The 1994 discovery of the Wollemi pine growing in a remote gorge in New South Wales, Australia, caused a sensation, because it had previously only been known from fossils said to be millions of years old (as we have previously reported—see, e.g., Sensational Australian tree … like “finding a live dinosaur”). While keeping the exact location a secret, the authorities offered up a single licence to propagate the “living fossil” tree, which was won in 1998 by a government department of the neighbouring state of Queensland. Expecting that people worldwide would jump at the chance to purchase their own “dinosaur...

The long-awaited surge by the American military is a welcome attempt to try an inflict a decisive defeat against the Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. This is, of course, something British forces have been struggling to achieve since they were first deployed to Helmand three years ago. But despite sustaining heavy British casualties, the Taliban remain a significant threat, both to Nato forces and the local Afghans. British commanders were hoping that they would be able to defeat the Taliban if only the government would have agreed to send an extra 2,000 troops. But Downing Street refused...

Statement to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by William Happer, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University, made on February 25, 2009. Madam Chairman and members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee on Environment and Public Works to testify on Climate Change. My name is William Happer, and I am the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University. I am not a climatologist, but I don't think any of the other witnesses are either. I do work in the related field of atomic, molecular and optical physics. I have spent...

The recovery seemed so certain just a month ago. The American economy would be out of the recession before the end of the year. A number of arrows have pointed in that direction. The May unemployment figures were tame despite the ongoing human toll of rising job losses. Housing prices are not plunging at the same rate that they were earlier in the year. The revisions of the numbing GDP drop of the first quarter have improved the number slightly. The assumptions for deteriorating second quarter GDP is that it will be so much better than the first quarter that...

Syria's First Lady has exclusively told Sky News she would welcome the Obamas to Damascus. Asma al Assad's comments are the latest in a series of signs US Syrian relations are improving after years of tension. "The fact is President Obama is young," she said, "and President Assad is also very young as well, so maybe it is time for these young leaders to make a difference in the world". And she gladly envisioned welcoming Michelle Obama and her husband in a presidential palace in Damascus in the near future. "I can see myself hosting them in Damascus in the...

The contrast between liberal and conservative ideologies could be no more obvious than in tough economic times. With states struggling to deal with huge deficits there are stark and apparently irreconcilable differences between leaders on how to bridge the gap. In general Democrats want to raise taxes to cover deficits and Republicans want to shrink the bloated size of government to offset the differences. It seems that common sense should be the rule of the day. As individuals we too are faced with the same conundrum but have only one choice; we have to reign in our spending and cut...

ANN ARBOR, MI – Yesterday, seven Texas-area Muslim organizations filed an appeal of the unanimous ruling of the Texas Second Court of Appeals at Forth Worth, which protected the free speech rights of internet journalists and at the same time dealt a blow to the legal jihad being waged by radical Muslim groups throughout the United States. The Court ruling authored by Justice Terrie Livingston, dismissed the libel lawsuit filed against internet reporter Joe Kaufman by the seven Muslim organizations. The lawsuit against Kaufman was funded by the Muslim Legal Fund for America. The head of that organization, Khalil Meek,...

Citing a backlash from customers who complained that they were finding Indian accents hard to understand, Delta Air Lines has dropped the use of Indian call centers to handle sales and reservations. Delta is retaining its call centers in Jamaica and South Africa, which generate far fewer complaints. Under criticism from angry Florida lawmakers, JP Morgan has also announced that it will no longer route food stamp recipient calls to Indian call centers. The company services Florida’s Electronic Benefit Transfer program. The company directed overflow calls from EBT card holders to two Indian call centers. Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, said,...

It's not easy living in the DC area. The place is a 60 square mile enclave bordered by reality, where the phrase "I voted for George Bush" gets you looked at like you have two heads, while being a gay vegan is considered perfectly normal. No, really! You can imagine how irritating it gets when out trying to enjoy a beer and one of Al Gore's cult followers begins proselytizing to the cause of Global Warming. But I've discovered that like the followers of any other religion, debating someone's belief system is pointless. Pointing out how Climate Change is based...

Goldman Sachs (GS) recently said that media reports that its employees would make huge sums based on the firm’s 2009 earnings were not true. It turns out that they probably are. In an article in The Wall Street Journal, the paper says Goldman “is on track to pay out as much as $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee.” Goldman is just asking for trouble. Somewhere along the line, large banks which plan to pay their employees richly this year and, in some cases, offer tremendous compensation packages to retain top talent must have missed the Congressional and...