It seems like weeks since the last time I've posted - I've been spending my time recupertaing from a mild bout of the flu, studying for my Series 24 Exam, and preparing for the family trip to Buenos Aires to see my in-laws. In the meantime, I have been able to read some books - Aliya by Liel Leibovitz (very interesting and very pro-Israel) and Straight Into Darkness by Faye Kellerman (I love her stuff) and watch some movies - Trembling Before G-d (not great film, but very emotional), Les Choristes (standard teacher turns class around story, but I liked it). I also watched a DVD of a David Chapelle show which I honestly thought was not funny. And his voice is incredibly grating.

Now onto the news:

Donald Trump is planning to build a skyscraper in the town my uncle grew up in outside of Tel Aviv.

Jimmy Carter will not be happy until the Israelis give up everything for a promise of peace from people who've never been peaceful and demand Israel's destruction.

"For more than a quarter century, Israeli policy has been in conflict with that of the United States and the international community...." As opposed to the Palestinian policy which has been to delibarately target and murde civilians (including schollchildren) and teaching their people to hate Jews.

Strong job growth and low unemployment (despite having a major city and a region the size of England destroyed), tame inflation (despite huge increases in gas prices), rising wages, four years of consistent growth in the GDP. It's not to hard to find some people who think the nation's economy is in bad shape. I guess you can't please all of the people all of the time. Would someone please point me to another industrialized country that's doing so much better that we should be looking to them as an example?

As Jews around the world prepare for the celebration of Purim Monday night, the Toronto Star reminds us that history is repeating itself in Persia/Iran.

Haman: "If it please the king, let a law be written that they (the Jews) be destroyed" (Esther 3:9).
Ahmadnejad: "As the Imam (Ayat Allah Khomeini) said, Israel must be wiped off the map" (Oct. 26, 2005).

Coalition casualties in Iraq for the last three months have been slightly below average for the last three months, and so far March is shaping up to be a good month (fingers crossed).

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calls Daniel Pipes names. Pipes responds with a distrubing report. Meanwhile, Americans have an increasingly negative view of Islam - worse than after 9/11. Could this be the result of the Media's inability to show us any Muslims excpet for those who burn, threaten and kill in their effort to show us how horrible the war in Iraq is? You have to go to right-wing blogs to find information about Muslims in general and Iraqis in particular who are defenders of freedom and "Western" values. It took the New York Times two weekslonger than the blogs to spread the word about Wafa Sultan, a brave woman if ever there was one.