Hurricane Rita decided that the best place to come in from a nice swim in the Gulf was right over Beaumont, but, of course, she had to fake a trip to Houston first. So, Lindsey and I put up Robert (her dad), Toby (her brother), and Nick (a friend) from Houston, in addition to Richard (my brother), Delanea (his wife), Mel and Macy (their two cats) from Beaumont. The Houstonians got in at 1:30 in the morning on the Friday before the storm hit after driving for about 10 hours and left at 1:00 AM the following Sunday morning (to miss some traffic going back to Houston).

Richard and Delanea have not had such luck, unfortunately. It took them about 19 hours to get here from Beaumont. Now Beaumont is without power and other necessities (even more than a week after the storm hit), and the government is not letting just anyone back in yet. My dad was able to get in after a few days (he works for ClearChanel and has a press pass), and he reported to my brother that a tree limb fell in Richard's back yard, ripping the power off the back of the house and damaging the Toyota that they left in the driveway. Since Richard's company has an office here in Austin, they decided to stay for a few weeks and wait until everything gets back to some form of normalcy.

After staying with us for a week, Richard accepted an offer for them to stay in a garage apartment that someone at work had available for a few weeks. The only problem with that setup is that the apartment has no internet connection, so my brother's blog is currently down. He mentioned that he might move the server to his office, so it might be back up this week.

My dad and Carol seem to have endured the storm fine. The house I grew up in apparently had a bunch of windows blown out, but is probably not damaged otherwise. It has endured at least 12 hurricanes since it was built, so I'm not concerned about it falling apart. (You can see the hurricane tracks here; search by the zip code 77630.)

My mom is in Mineola, Texas, which is West of Longview. I have not actually talked to her yet, but she left a message for us today saying that she is okay and is staying with a friend of a friend.

That's about all on the hurricane front. I hope you are all safe!

Labels: Personal

David at Of Guns and the Law posts a link to a very cool article in the Detroit News on the aftermath of Katrina in relation to our Second Amendment rights.

Order can deteriorate in this country to the point where nothing stands between the law-abiding citizen and the marauding mob except blue steel. It happened in New Orleans. It can happen anywhere else in America at anytime.

It will be harder now for the anti-gun lobby to convince Americans to dismantle even more of the Second Amendment.

Of course, they'll try to spin this to say that were there no guns to begin with, the looters wouldn't have been armed and dangerous. But thieves, murderers and the rest of the rabble have always been more ingenious at procuring weapons than law-abiding citizens.

No amount of gun control laws will keep the dark side of this society from arming itself for evil purposes.

Read it all.

Labels: Politics

In Hebrew class tonight, my teacher mentioned in passing that the Hebrew word ‏תּוֹרָה‎ (Torah) comes from the root word ‏יָרָה‎ (yara). I had never thought of this before, but something occurred to me that you might find interesting. ‏יָרָה‎ (Strong's #H3384) is commonly translated as “shoot” or “throw”. One Hebrew dictionary says that this word has a “strong sense of control by the subject.”

The definition “shoot,” is used in reference to arrows, and is what yara is most translated as. This imagery is very interesting to me because an oft-misinterpreted passage in the Torat Hashlichim makes an allusion to yara’s other meaning, Torah.

For Moshiach is the goal of the Torah for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Romans 10:4

The word I translate as “goal” is the Greek word τέλος (telos). It is most often translated “end” with translators and commentators saying that the Torah has been ended/finished/usurped by Moshiach. However, that does not mesh with what Sha’ul says in the rest of the book of Romans. Even if you look at the first three verses in this chapter, the context becomes clear and “goal” makes more sense.

What is neat here, though, can be seen when you combine the two thoughts. Sha’ul would have been well aware of the root of the word Torah, and I think he is drawing on that understanding. The Torah is an arrow that G-d shot into existence at creation. Its goal (where it points, what it travels toward) is the Moshiach. The Torah is not done away with as a result of this flight. As a matter of fact, it is still flying, hopefully pulling us along on its journey. When will that journey end? Yeshua says that it will continue “until heaven and earth pass away” (Matthew 5:17-21).

May we be blessed to follow the Torah on its path toward Moshiach.

Labels: Messianic Judaism

I have been using Bloglines for a few weeks now, and I have noticed some quirks in the frequency of its refresh rate on some blogs. All I am looking for is a blog reader that I can use at work and at home but that will stay synchronized at both. After trying for a while to find another option, I decided today to try out Pluck. It works in Firefox, which is a definite plus, and it synchronizes like I want it to. It also allows web access to your account, which you can use if you out of town or something.

After installing the extension I imported my blogs and tried to use Pluck. The problem is that it is interminably slow. I ended up waiting for 5 minutes or more to get one page of blog summaries to load, and I finally gave up. Regardless of the reason for the horrible speed, I am not happy with the service at all. That is not what I expected when I signed up for a new service.

Does anyone know of a good blog reader that does what I want it to?

Labels: Technology

I have uploaded two new movies to Chaya's website:

• Helping with the Dishes [7.9MB], a movie from September 11, 2005 (10¾ months old), in which our heroine gets an early start on her chores.
• Helping with the Laundry [7.6MB], a movie from September 12, 2005 (10¾ months old), in which our heroine bravely fights off the evil washing machine and saves the helpless diapers from certain destruction.

Enjoy!

Labels: Chaya

My friend Barry (who is also one of my co-workers) is now, in his own words, "a part of the 21st century." He has a blog! Anecdotes from a hick should prove to be a very interesting and funny read because Barry is an interesting and funny guy. Welcome to the blogosphere, Barry!

Labels: Personal

I have been following this story myself for a while, but this is my first time to post about it. The ATF has targeted out multiple gun shows in Virginia and confiscated weapons purchased legally, in addition to going to gun buyers' families and neighbors and asking them if they knew that the buyer was at a gun show and was buying a gun. This is a major invasion of privacy and a total disrespect for the rights of law-abiding citizens. I hope the gun show owner and participants do sue, and I hope they win big. Not money, necessarily, but I hope that the court confirms that these actions are not in keeping with the rights of American citizens. Innocent until proven guilty, bud.

Why was the ATF focusing on this anyway, when it could have been focusing on the multitude of real offenses guns are being used for?

Labels: Politics

This story shows the utter idiocy of the political systems in Europe. A former Israeli Army officer only avoided being arrested and tried in Britain for alleged war crimes against the "Palestinians" by staying on his airplane until it took off again from Heathrow Airport.

The "Palestinians" have a lot of power in Europe--more than they should, in my opinion. When was the last time a PLO official was arrested in Europe (or anywhere, for that matter) for the more than 100 breaches of the Oslo Accords? Or for the hundreds of attacks before that?

Labels: Israel

LGF pointed to a great article in Commentary Magazine today dealing with the facts behind the alleged Israeli shooting of a child in 2000 at the beginning of the current "intifada." The article goes into extensive detail on the events of that day and shows how the media has covered up and ignored the facts. I was becoming very aware of the problems confronting Israel at that time, and I am incensed that this issue, which was discussed at length at the time and never refuted in the media, is still having the impact that it does in Palestinian "culture."

Early on, for example, it was pointed out that the 55-second video did not show any of the normal signs consistent with wounds from high-power bullets. There was no blood on the victims’ clothes, on the wall, or on the ground. Their postures appeared wholly voluntary, with no sign of shock or trauma. As for Abu Rahmeh’s claim of a 45-minute free-for-all, experts in ballistics concurred that automatic rifles fired uninterruptedly for that length of time would reduce their victims to shreds, and the concrete block wall behind them to rubble. Nor did such behavior accord with what one knew about the ethics, discipline, and skill of IDF soldiers....

The Reuters, AP, and France-2 outtakes that I viewed show two totally different and easily identifiable types of activity at Netzarim junction: real, intifada-style attacks, and crudely falsified battle scenes. Both the real and the fake scenes are played out against a background of normal civilian activity at a busy crossroads. In the “reality” zone, excited children and angry young men hurl rocks and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli outpost while shababs (“youths”) standing on the roof of the Twins throw burning tires down onto the caged lookout; this goes on seemingly for hours, without provoking the slightest military reaction from Israeli soldiers.

At the same time, in the “theatrical” zone, Palestinian stringers sporting prestigious logos on their vests and cameras are seen filming battle scenes staged behind the abandoned factory, well out of range of Israeli gunfire. The “wounded” sail through the air like modern dancers and then suddenly collapse. Cameramen jockey with hysterical youths who pounce on the “casualties,” pushing and shoving, howling Allahu akhbar!, clumsily grabbing the “injured,” pushing away the rare ambulance attendant in a pale green polyester jacket in order to shove, twist, haul, and dump the “victims” into UN and Red Crescent ambulances that pull up on a second’s notice and career back down the road again, sirens screaming....

I also viewed a copy of the satellite feed transmitted by Abu Rahmeh late in the afternoon of September 30. In addition to the 55 seconds aired that evening, it includes a final image of the boy who would be described afterward as “killed instantly by a shot to the stomach”: in it he is seen shifting position, propping himself up on his elbow, shading his eyes with his hand, rolling over on his stomach, covering his eyes....

I encourage you to read the whole thing.

Labels: Israel

I just updated the gallery on Chaya's website and added a new movie of her. Take a look if you are so inclined.

Labels: Chaya

I am very happy when I find free software, but sometimes there is free stuff out there that is much more valuable than the normal fare. Last week I caught two such offers, one for Opera, a browser that quite a few people like, and one for Linspire, a Linux distribution that is supposed to be a lot like Windows. The Opera giveaway is over, but the Linspire giveaway is good until September 6. I went ahead and downloaded both, even though I am not sure I will need them anytime soon.

Labels: Technology

Jim at PaleoJudaica posted a reference to an article (in The Forward, no less) on the use of the term "phylacteries" and the dating of tefillin. Very good stuff. The author's conclusion is very encouraging:

By all means, let Jews use the word "tefillin" rather than "phylacteries," and let them encourage non-Jews to do so, too — but let them not take offense when "phylacteries" is encountered. It is not in itself a disparaging word. Matthew, after all, was not attacking the wearing of tefillin per se (how could he when he knew Jesus wore them?), but rather what he took to be the wearing of ostentatiously large ones for the purpose of making an impression. We needn't be scared off by him.

Labels: Judaism

I have moved the hosting for this site to a new server at Host Gator. I was getting more and more annoyed with the "service" I was getting from eDataRack. The site was mind-numbingly slow to load and the service went down twice in the middle of the day. On Thursday it went down again, and this time I thought for a while that I had lost eveything that I had on the server (no problem for the website, for which my master copy is on my computer, but I would have lost eveything on my blog, which was not backed up).

So, eDataRack is trash, and HostGator rocks. I can host an unlimited number of websites with no extra charges, sharing 50GB of bandwith and 5 GB of disk space for only $10 per month. That is just amazing. I have built/am building about 5 other web sites for various people, and hosting them off of this server will allow me to save lots of money. I have also contacted their online tech support chat twice and received quick, easy responses to my questions. That is the service I am looking for.

If you notice a speed difference, that is the reason why. If you find any problems with the site, please let me know. If you are interesed in trying out HostGator, they have a 30-day money-back guarantee and there are one-month-free coupons on the web if you search for them.

Labels: Technology

The blogosphere is alive with commentary and information on the disaster that affected Louisiana and Mississippi last week, and I don't know that I have much more to say than has already been said. I will state unequivocally that I think the local and state governments are to blame for quite a bit of the after-effects since they left hundreds of busses sitting there without using them to get the poor, sick, and elderly out of New Orleans. The real culprit here, though, is the nature of our government at all levels. We have a bloated structure that cannot handle the most basic tasks, like getting aid to victims and taking control of crowds that are becoming animalistic. I don't think that the founding fathers had the current system in mind when they designed our government.

Anyway, if you have not seen The Interdictor's blog, I encourage you to check it out. He is an employee at a web hosting/colocation company in downtown New Orleans who has been blogging since the beginning of this disaster. Very good reading

Our hearts go out to the victims of that storm, and I pray that Hashem will bring them the help they need quickly. If you are looking for a place to donate or help in Austin, check out Kesher Talk.

Labels: Personal