UNBELIEVABLE!!! Modin PALESTINE!!!

All right this one got me really angry. Of course I probabaly brought it on my self. I saw an interesting headline in the Gmail header that said "TIME Pictures of the Week." I'm always interesting in how the secular media prtrays Israel and I KNEW that there would be a picture about Israel relating to the "conflict."
This picture was taken at some protest to Israel's ecurity fence by the Arabs and to keep them from rioting the IDF threw tear gas at them. But that's not the part that got me all riled up. Take a good look at the text for the picture, particulary the last line.

"near Modin, Palestine. "

Since when is Modin Palestine?!!!
What right does Time Magazine have to make this claim. I want someone to PLEASE SHOW AND PROVE TO ME THAT THIS PLACE EXISTS IN ANY RELM OF THE PYSICAL WORLD!!! There was NEVER a country called Palestine. Before the 1948 "Palestinians" were what the JEWS were called! The Arabs did not hold Palestinians ID cards because they held cards from their home countries.
And no matter what some would believe the United Nations STILL does not recognize a state or country by that name!!!

All right I think I'm done ranting now. Oh and if you want to see unbiased pictures of the event listed above click here to see the gallary taken by my friend Yehuda

Update: Car Accident

So today I was out in Catonsville, MD selling some music equipment that I will most likely never use again, and to go to my college to pick up my transcripts.
I may have timed it wrong, and I didn't realize it until it was too late, but the time I was coming back was during rush hour. Lot's of Stop-and-Go traffic.
So there I was in the "Stop" portion of this highway traffic pattern, when a woman behind me, (who was not playing the right rules, forgot to "stop."
My car was forced 180 degrees and I was taking up 2 lanes in traffic, and it's an incredible miracle that I wasn't hit again by and on coming car in that lane (who would have hit me a lot harder than the woman behind me).
So after I checked my barrings, making sure that nothing was broken, and tested that car to see if it would still run, not knowing what condition the car was in, I managed to make my way to the shoulder of the highway.
Baruch Hashem no one was hurt. The driver of the other car was a pregnant woman with her two year old son in the back seat.
I got another dose of reminder of how G-d's hand plays in this world. The front of this woman's car was completely smashed in, with coolant leaking out from unerneath it, and the back of my car had, literally, a two inch long scratch.
We exchanged our information, and she insisted that I could leave, but I was not going to leave a pregnant woman with a two year old by herself on the side of the highway on a 95 degree day. Forger the legal aspects of it, it was just common curtisy. (Never mind the fact that she was being very emotional and I don't think would have been able to cope without someone there.)

So we got to talking, and I kind of had to laugh, because I'm moving to Israel in just over 3 weeks, and here I was on the side of 695 waiting out to see how this whole situation would turn out.

They had been planing to go to Laurel Farms, a farm in Pennsylvania where you can pick your own cherries. I kinda felt bad that I'd ruined their trip. But, as I had to remind myself, this is something that is completly out of our hands. She was frusterated about not being able to take her kid there, and (her being a Christian) I had to remind her of that.

So I'm actually waiting to hear baclk from the Rabbi about whether I have to say Birchas HaGomel or not, but I'm fine (I always wondered if and when my first accident would be) and still charging forward for that July 21st flight!

My Apple Adventure

Well for all the Apple fanboys out there (that would include me) just want to tell a little story about my adventure with my Macbook Pro.
I got the machine at the end of January, and I must say that this machine is absolutely incredible. All of the headaches I used to have Windows...just gone. No more waiting for the computer to "decide" to start working, I actually have a computer that works on my time.
But that's not what I want to talk about.
Because for the past 2 weeks I havn't had the Mac.
It was the Motzei Shabbos before Shavous, and I went to boot up the computer and was greeted with the nomal Apple signon screen, and grey background with a 2 second introduction clip.
The Apple logo appeared and the little swirly thing that show that is' working (the same thing is on the Ipod in the upper left corner when it's being synced).
Then the thing stopped moving, and the computer appeared to freeze. Not something that happens often with Macs.
So I rebooted the machine and was greeted with stark, straight darkenss. Nothing on the screen, just...black.
So I called Apple Care (ALWAYS buy a servace plan when buying a computer!! That's the only piece of technology I recommend to do this for.) and we deduced that I had a faulty Logic Board, nothing that I did, it was just a faulty model of it so I had to take it to the Apple store to drop off so they could ship it off to, I later found out, Houston.
I had Shavous to work around and wasn't able to drop if off until last Thursday at the store.
I then waited patiently for 3 business days, following the statues of the repair on the Apple Repair website.
And finally got it back yesterday morning.
Now after I got it back I noticed that they had replaced my Logic Board and hard drive. And luckily for an Apple feature that has saved I know more that one person besides me. They have a backup program called Time Machine, and the way it works is that you set it up with an external hard drive, and not only will it completly back up the contents of your entire computer and continually backup aything new that happens in your system automatically, it will save things you've deleted, inculding say text of a document.
Let's say you're working on a project for school, and you realize that you had written something the previous week, that had been edited out. Deleted. Gone.
Activate Time Machine and "go back in time" and open up the document the way it was the week before.
So I plugged in my Time Machine hard drive and waited for it to load. And hour and a half later, the hard drive which had been completly empty when I recieved it, had exactly the same contents that I had had on my comouter before. I had to download a few updates and I was good to go.
The only snag that I ran into was Garageband and Windows on Parallels. I'm a musician and use GB to record all the time. I had to re-insall the program (took about 15 minutes) and I was good to go.
Windows wouldn't load in Parallels when I booted, but I just had to do some tweaking of the settings and I was back on there as well.

All I must say I was happy with the experience. Not that I was happy I had to send my computer in, but if I had been running a Windows Machine, I would have lost so much data and spent a long time re-installing programs, and customizing it to my specification again. Way to go Apple!
As someone told me "Hardware is cheap, data is priceless." And I was able to have the computer backed up to withing 24 hours of when it stopped working and didn't loose anything at all.

Interesting Quote from Al Jazeera

Jurors at the award ceremony on Thursday singled out Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's Gaza correspondent, for particular praise for her bravery in reporting from the occupied territory. (emphasis added)

Gaza's "occupied?" I thought the Arabs ran it. Thank you Al Jazeera for speaking the truth, that the Arabs are occupying Jewish Land!

In Defense of Jerusalem and Israel

A few weeks ago on Yom Yerushalayim Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University was on Al Jazeera's Arabic TV station, being confronted with the normal Arab issues, West Bank, Jerusalem, and I felt Dr. Kedar responded very well.
Of course the one critique I have is related to one line he said regarding the future of the "West Bank" and the creation of a PA state there.
Now I will admit that he did come of very strongly, not the typical apologetic Jew that we see in the media these days (click here for an example). But there still is an idea that the Jews don't belong in YESHA.
I was speaking to someone last year about this issue, and they told me that Israel was violating "international law."
Now I'm not a law student, but I have learned enough that when someone tells me something I'm not aware of to ask what their source is. So I asked them which law they were referring to.
They explained to me that Israel was an occupying entity that came into that land, started colonizing it, and started cleansing the locals from their places of birth. This was the crime they were committing.
I of course wouldn't have it, told them that I found that either they had an incredible bias for ignoring all of atrocities committed against the Jews by Arab countries in the early part of the 1900's, or they were simply ignorant of them and victims of other people who had these biases.
But furthermore, if you go by that rational that if a foreign entity (which the Jews most certainly are not) drives natives of their land and then starts colonizing that land and claiming it as their own, then you have just displaced at least 50 Million people on the East Coast of America, and even more if you branch further out west.
Because America WAS founded on this idea of colonizing the land and driving the natives out, yet I don't think that Left-Wing academics will say that the United States is occuping the natives of America (IE Native Americans), of course they probably will claim their occuping other countries, but it is certainly not for colonization. Israel, albeit with secular motivation which might be a topic for a different post, were not invading they were returning. The fact that the Jews lived previously in the land of Israel, is only in debate by anti-Semites. Anyone with an open mind who is presented with un-biased information, will find archaeological evidence of the Jews previous reign over the land everywhere. One of the reasons the Arabs will not allow archaeological research teams onto the Temple Mount is because it would disprove their claim that the Jewish Temple never existed..

Here's the Al Jazeera interview with Dr. Mordechai Kedar (in Arabic with subtitles):

Bikin' in the USA

Recently I pulled my bike out, fixed it up, and started to use it...heavily. I pretty much stopped using my car when ever I get a chance, and when I have to go to areas in the neighborhood I'll pull the bike out.
Now I admit I'm not as hardcore as some bike riders out there (the car keys will get pulled out when it starts to rain), but part of it may just be that I need to build my strength up again and feel more comfortable traversing city streets in my renewable energy source.
I have 3 main areas of interest outside of Torah & Judaism stuff, and one of them happens to be the environment/nature. Going back as far a I can remember my idea of a good time was going on a hike and getting lost in the woods.
Of course now I'm older and and don't have as much free time as I used to, so these trips have become less and less (although I'm hoping that they start picking up again after I get to Israel)

So today I decided to bike up one of the country roads that start in our area.

I say "country" road because for the most part it is. There is a small stretch of it that runs through the Greenspring area of Baltimore, but the majority of it is winding country road (for those of you in Baltimore the road is Greenspring).

Anyways, I biked about 15 miles up Greenspring. The terrain is pretty hilly, with good long stretches where you're straining your muscles biking up and finally getting to the top for a short sprint down the hill before you have to start climbing again.

The landscape goes back and forth from woods to corn fields to small rural areas.

At one point in the trip I stopped to take a few pictures. It was hard to imagine that I was only 6 miles from my house and everything that's been bothering me for the past few days seemed so far away.

I also thought that it was kind of sad that the average person who lives in the Greenspring (the area) had no idea that Greenspring (the road) led to some incredibly serene places. It really gave me a chance to at least see part of rural America before I left it.

I passed by a few farm houses and I imagined what it would be like to live there, out in this quite are, away from city noise a hustle, your profession enabling you to work out side in quite beautiful areas...

I have just over a month to go and I have a confession to make...I'm going to miss America.
Yes I really am.
Because even though this country is not home, it is still an incredible country with incredible people, and I have to give it to them for being great supporters of Israel.

Speaking of Israel, I have to throw in this last story that happened on my trip. You see Greenspring Road crosses over the Beltway (I-695) and that's usually how for the people of my neck of the woods (suburbs) have ever traveled on it. Once you get past the beltway you hit a really good stretch of woods, followed by corn fields, followed by some more woods.
It was in these woods I ran into a guy who's car had broken down on the Beltway and he was in search of a gas station. Needless to say he was going in the wrong direction for that. So I told him to turn around and head back in the following direction.
On my way back I ran into him again. I had been thinking that if I ran into him on the way back and he still needed help I would bike home and then come back with the car to pick him up.
We got to chatting at a stop light and I made my offer, but he insisted that all he wanted to do was call the tow truck and a cab.
Thank G-d I was blessed with an absolutely gorgeous day, nice an sunny in the mid 80's with no humidity, so as strangers with noting in common we shared something we had in common...the weather.
So as I do, I mentioned that net month I'm going to be biking in some much hotter climates. The conversation went like this:
Him: "Yeah were are you headed?"
Me: "Israel."
Him: "Oh, are you going to be doing some Missionary work there?"

I of course was wearing a helmet and had my Tzitit tucked in my back pocket, so there was no obvious sign that I was Jewish.

Me: "No I'm moving there, I'm an Orthodox Jew, do you need some water?"

He looked at me with shock and nodded, so I gave him my extra water bottle and a huge smile. I asked if he needed any more help and he said he was OK, we wished each other well and I went to bike down a very nice hill.

I'll admit I'm not sure exactly what happened there, but I think (hope) he was thinking more positively about Jews after that experience.

So all in all a very nice enjoyable bike trip.

Apple and Israel

I've been doing a lot of research of Apple in Israel (in case I happened to discover an issue with the computer that had to be fixed) and decided that I would share what I've found out in case anyone else is in my situation.

Israel does have an Apple distribution center called iDigital and it's located in Tel Aviv. You can buy, from what I can tell, all Apple products from Mac to iPod. Can't buy the iPhone yet because it's not supported in Israel but you can get pretty much everything else.
Now this is only a distribution center, and not an official Apple technician shop. After speaking with the Apple technician on the phone I learned that I can not get my Mac (or iPod) fixed at this place under the current Apple warranty that I have. I'll check it out when I get there and see if they offer their own type of service for stuff they sell, because it doesn't make sense that they would sell Apple products and then sell the Apple warranty that doesn't offer support in Israel.
UPDATE 8/15/09: I had to get some work done on the computer at iDigital in Tel Aviv so here' the deal: They will honor an Apple warranty on an Apple product purchased outside of Israel, but there is a minimum of 21 business days before they are able to do any work on the product because they need some kind approval from Apple.

One of the resons that there isn't an Apple store in Israel probably has to do with OS X and iPod softwares's lack of Hebrew support. It's interesting that Apple doesn't support Hebrew, especially considering that Apple has started using Intel chips in all of their Macs and all Intel chips these days are made in the Intel R&D headquarters in Haifa.

The closest Apple stores to Israel (that I'm aware of) is in Turkey and Italy. So it might be worth it to just take a vacation for a few days and fly there to get the computer fixed (the flights are relatively cheap).

There is someone who is connected to the Yeshiva that I'm going to who has a Mac, so I'm going to ask him if he's ever had a problem with it and needed to get it serviced. He has a Mac Pro, the "tower," so it's not like he can just put it in a bag and fly to the states to get it fixed. If something happens to my Macbook Pro (laptop), it will relatively easy to get it fixed, albeit there will be issues that I'll have to coordinate, like finding someone who's going to the States who would be willing to take it and either take it an Apple store themselves.

There are some independent computer workers that will fix a Mac for you, but they won't do it on the Apple warranty, something that ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY when buying a Mac or any computer. I spent about $250 for the protection plan and I'm covered for any issues I have for 3 years after I bought it. I learned that if I had the issue that I had without the protection plan it would have cost me $1200, enough to buy a new machine.

So if anyone has any question of Apple in Israel I'll be happy to answer the questions if I am able. I still feel that you can't go wrong with getting an Apple product, especially if you live in a country where you can get full service/coverage on your product (hmmm, I wonder what it would take to open an official Apple store in Israel...would there be any money in it?)

Obama...

I;m actually going to go off topic from my normal rantings about things related to Israel.
It was announced that (unofficially) Barack Obama will be the Democratic Candidate in the Presidential Election.
Regardless of his politics, some of which I agree with, some I don't, just like McCain, I have to say that I am proud that a black man is running for president. Regardless of the individual candidate, I feel that America has finally reached a point where the numbers would even support a black president says a lot about how the country has changed.
I've recently become very interested in early American history, and looking back at the founding of the country and going all the way to the 1950's, America has been about freedom.
Who's freedom is another question.
Going back to the time when Black People were taken from Africa against their will to come to America to work as slaves, the American ideals have in reality only been fully available to the ruling elite and the wealthy.
The Black community has unfortunately never really graduated from this slave mentality, and this has been helped along by other people's animosity towards them.
Now however, there are enough people in America who have moved past those stereotypes enough so that they are willing to vote for a black candidate, and I have to so that I'm very proud.
This is not an endorsement of Obama in any way, this is just a post on the fact that America has moved past the negative stereotypes that have plauged it since its founding.
Now of course the question is, are people just going to replace their animosity towards Blacks to another group. Say...Jews.
But that's a topic for another post.