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On a winter day of pounding rain, quite uncharacteristic for Israel, a convoy of 80 completely electric, battery-powered cars drove from Rosh Ha’ayin on Israel’s eastern border through Tel Aviv. On the outside, the autos are perfectly normal Renault sedans built in Turkey. Yet they don’t require a drop of gasoline pumped by countries that hate the Jewish state. The cars run on an air-cooled 230 kilogram (500 pound) lithium ion battery, an electric motor, and a sophisticated electronic control system. Where Israeli ingenuity comes in: these “Better Place” cars differ from electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt or Nissan...

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Large crowds are gathering in downtown St. Louis to honor Iraq War veterans Saturday during the nation's first big welcome home parade since the last troops left the country in December. Veterans dressed in camouflage lined up alongside military vehicles at the start of the parade, while organizers handed out small American flags to people along the route, many holding signs reading "Welcome Home" and "Thanks to our service men and women."

Two Muslim inmates sued (paid for by US taxpayers) the Ohio prison system for denying them meals prepared according to Islamic law, even though all pork products had been removed fro prison menus. ABNA (H/T Ann L) The state argued that providing the meals, known as halal, could bankrupt the state’s food service system because thousands of inmates have declared themselves Muslim. Death row inmate Abdul Awkal argued in his lawsuit that the prison system’s failure to provide halal meals was a restraint on his religious freedoms.

Every four years or so, when Canadians need a little something extra to make the hair stand up on the back of our necks, we can collectively flip the channel and tune in to the most compelling reality TV show on our planet - the American presidential election. While some treat it like a long-running drama, with its own minor characters, subplots and an exciting season finale, others wish that the excitement of the American spectacle could make its way to Ottawa somehow. Both reactions are understandable, but both are wrong. The proper reaction, especially in 2012, is fear. Why...

I ran into an older, retired Israeli colleague who is a fine scholar in his field. We hadn’t met for 25 years and agreed to have coffee in a nearby Tel Aviv cafe. In the ensuing conversation I learned some key things about why current intellectual and political discussion is such a wreck. The retired professor has read nothing I’ve written. He is on the left-wing politically, in the historic non-Communist sense, but his work has always been first-rate and untouched by any political slant. In addition, he has worked amicably with people of different views. And that’s why I...

Organized crime-related deaths in one Mexican border state during the first nine months of 2011 exceed the number of Afghan civilians killed in roughly the same period in all of war-torn Afghanistan. According to the Mexican government, from January through September 2011 2,276 deaths were recorded in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, which borders Texas and New Mexico. A Nov. 2011 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report states that over nearly the same period – January through October 2011 – 2,177 civilians were killed in Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led war against the Taliban is underway. It did not provide a breakdown...

RonPaul knows even less about the history of our enemies than he does about their proper treatment under the Constitution. He actually interrupted Monday night’s Republican candidates’ debate so he could interject the following: >>>I would like to point out one thing about the Taliban. The Taliban used to be our allies when we were fighting the Russians. So Taliban are people who want — their main goal is to keep foreigners off their land. It’s the al-Qaeda — you can’t mix the two. The al-Qaeda want to come here to kill us. The Taliban just says, “We don’t want...

Mitt Romney has ex-POW John McCain vouching for him. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum highlights his time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich frequently calls himself an "Army brat" who grew up on military bases. While Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are the only GOP candidates to have worn a military uniform, all of the Republican presidential contenders are emphasizing their military ties these days in a state that's home to 413,000 veterans and eight military bases, with thousands of people on active duty. ...Perry, for one, has struck an...

After having exhausted the indignant possibilities of protesting the extinction of whales, pelicans and polar bears, the left has found a new endangered species to be outraged about. Iranian nuclear scientists. It's one thing to hug a polar bear or a tree, but it's another to embrace an Iranian nuclear scientist, who may well be a jolly and colorful fellow with a family and a paint by numbers coloring kit of an atom, but also happens to be a participant in a plot to kill millions of people. The left which has all the moral sense of a squashed peanut...

For Turkey, busy riding an economic boom and preoccupied with soccer scandals and revolutionary shifts across its borders, the race for the U.S. Republican nomination hasn’t exactly been a box office draw. Until Tuesday, that is … Late Monday, Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry said that Turkey was governed by “what many perceive to be Islamic terrorists,” and should be booted out of NATO. The governor’s remarks, made during the Fox News Channel and Wall Street Journal GOP debate in South Carolina, came in response to a question from the moderator over whether Turkey still belonged in...

A group of five Muslim men handed out a leaflet that called for homosexuals to be "punished" and given the death sentence, Derby Crown Court heard on Tuesday. The pamphlet, called 'The Death Penalty?' showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose, the court was told. The document said buggery was a great sin leading to hell, that it used to be punished by hanging and that people practising and allowing homosexuality would suffer. Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, are alleged to have handed out the document...

....[Gov. Rick] Perry's comments put him at odds with Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who said the images could damage the war effort. "The Marine Corps prides itself that we don't lower ourselves to the level of the enemy," McCain said when asked about Perry's position. "So it makes me sad more than anything else, because ... I can't tell you how wonderful these people (Marines) are. And it hurts their reputation and their image." No one has been charged in the case, but officials in the U.S. and abroad have called for...

ISLAMIC HEZBOLLAH AND PROSTITUTION - PIMPING FOR JIHADTerrorist and organized crime groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America A Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the United States GovernmentAuthor: Rex Hudson Project manager: Glenn Curtis July 2003 [Homepage: http://loc.gov/rr/frd/] TERRORIST AND ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS IN THE. TRI-BORDER AREA ( TBA) OF SOUTH AMERICA. Hizballah. Islamic terrorist groups have used the TBA for fund-raising, drug .... TBA for illicit activities such as smuggling, money laundering, and product piracy. ..... Ciudad del Este is an oasis for informants and spies; peddlers...

(CNN) – Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Sunday that Marines videotaped urinating on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan made a "dumb" mistake, but should not face criminal prosecution. In an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," the Republican presidential candidate said the Obama administration over-reacted to the incident by talking about possible criminal charges and speaking with what he called "disdain" about the U.S. military. According to Perry, famous military figures including U.S. Gen. George Patton acted similarly in a war environment. "When you're 18 or 19, you do dumb things. These kids made a mistake, there's not...

Apparently not content by merely insulting Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by suggesting that the Palestinians be given territory as it was before 1967, President Obama and hapless Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have given Israel several private warnings telling them not to take military action against Iran and the 'Madman of Tehran' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At a time where Obama should be giving unconditional support to our allies in the Middle East, he again chooses to rebuke them and snub his nose at them.

When one chooses to waste his valuable time on God's green (and not to mention cooling) earth by speaking to a Paultard, without fail, the following words will be spoken or typed: "Only Ron Paul....." "Ron Paul is the only....." The above lines are usually followed with an absurd claim, like "Only Ron Paul understands the Constitution!" or "Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who can break Wayne Gretzky's scoring records while teaching Gordon Ramsay how to cook!". (Some of the more hardcore cultists would never take their political savior's name in vain and only refer to the old...

"A Lebanese suspect from the Hezbollah group has been taken into custody by Thai officials and police are investigating further," Chalerm Yoobamrung told Reuters. "Following concern raised by the Israeli embassy about a possible attack by a group of Lebanese terrorists in Bangkok, Thai police officials had been coordinating with Israeli officials since before the New Year."

It’s no secret that Republican candidate Ron Paul is a favorite among liberal talk show hosts, but tonight Bill Maher vigorously defended the libertarian’s foreign policy positions and admitted they were more aligned with his own rather than President Obama. Maher fought with not just the panelists, but his own audience on this issue, dismissing most of them as “brainwashed liberals” unwilling to give Paul credit for taking a more progressive position on foreign issues than the president. Maher admitted that Paul is the only Republican candidate who can get him to “rise out of my chair and applaud.” And...

On January 8, a Russian aircraft carrier group led by the Admiral Kuznetsov made a short visit to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Russia has maintained a small naval supply base since the Cold War. The Kuznetsov had sailed from Severomorsk, near Murmansk, on the Barents Sea on December 6, together with the frigate Admiral Chabanenko, emergency sea tug Nikolai Chiker and three small tankers. In the Mediterranean Sea the carrier group was joined by one more tanker, the corvette Yaroslav Mudri from the Baltic Fleet and the corvette Ladni from the Black Sea Fleet. In Tartus, the Russian...

Paul Weston’s latest essay concerns the apparent indifference of the British media and political establishment to racially motivated crime — unless, of course, that crime is committed by white people against non-whites... The mainstream media (MSM) have devoted a great deal of space to the Stephen Lawrence case of late. Many journalists have commented that whilst Britain was a racist country in the recent past, the Britain of today is a much more tolerant place. This may well be the case with regard to white-on-non-white racial crime, but what about the violent crime committed by non-whites on whites, and what...