3 news stories and into Shevat

Coming into Shevat - Aquarius on Monday phew.

3 news stories.

if i read back in this blog, i see history being written. Now, all Ariel Sharon is is alive. There's a line in Bruce Springsteen's song 'Jungle Land' - " and they wound up wounded, not even dead tonight in Jungle Land.
see e space for wound

Sharon’s Doctors Discuss Long-Term Care http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=97308

Two intensive-care specialists at a long-term care facility met on Wednesday with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s doctors to talk about his future care.

According to a spokeswoman for Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem, Sharon's condition has not changed significantly and he remains comatose.

Dr. Ben-Zion Khromchensky and Leon Sezbon, intensive care specialists from Beit Levenstein Rehabilitation Center, also met with several members of Sharon’s family.

Yael Bossem-Levy, Hadassah spokeswoman, did not indicate whether Sharon would be moved to the facility, a long-term rehabilitation center in Ra’anana. She said, however, that there were no immediate plans to do so. She also declined to say whether Sharon is still receiving medication.

Sharon remains in serious but stable condition after suffering a massive stroke on January 4.
He is unconscious and breathing spontaneously with the assistance of a respirator, and responds to pain stimuli.

Doctors not connected with Sharon’s care have said that the Prime Minister might still return to consciousness, but that the possibility is remote.

Dr. Avraham Lazri commented that based on reports he has seen, Sharon is in a “vegetative state." Lazri is Deputy Hospital Director and head of the Brain Injury Department at Reut, another long-term care facility.

Lazri hastened to add that Sharon’s condition does not completely meet the medical definition of a vegetative state.

A patient in a vegetative state can breathe without the assistance of a respirator and his condition remains stable even without medication.

In a vegetative state the patient seems to be unaware of his surroundings but shows a low level of consciousness in which he may open his eyes, cry or laugh – none of which means he has regained consciousness, according to an intensive-care specialist quoted by Haaretz.R

Responses to pain stimuli, such as those exhibited by the Prime Minister, are the signs that
differentiate a vegetative state from a deep coma.

“The tendency in the world is to wait six months from the time of the stroke to say whether or not someone will fully regain consciousness,” he said.

Nonetheless, said Lazri, the severity of Sharon’s stroke, combined with his age and medical history, is working against him.

.....


sigh .

The following is from the New York Times. The United States of America is in deep doo doo crap. I thought we had this document called the Constitution, and Separation of Church and State, cause didn't we have this thing called the Revolution and that was against England? I think history goes something like that.

Democrats in 2 Southern States Push Bills on Bible Study

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: January 27, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — Democrats in Georgia and Alabama, borrowing an idea usually advanced by conservative Republicans, are promoting Bible classes in the public schools. Their Republican opponents are in turn denouncing them as "pharisees," a favorite term of liberals for politicians who exploit religion

Democrats in both states have introduced bills authorizing school districts to teach courses modeled after a new textbook, "The Bible and Its Influence." It was produced by the nonpartisan, ecumenical Bible Literacy Project and provides an assessment of the Bible's impact on history, literature and art that is academic and detached, if largely laudatory.

The Democrats who introduced the bills said they hoped to compete with Republicans for conservative Christian voters. "Rather than sitting back on our heels and then being knocked in our face, we are going to respond in a thoughtful way," said Kasim Reed, a Georgia state senator from Atlanta and one of the sponsors of the bill. "We are not going to give away the South anymore because we are unwilling to talk about our faith."

..... {Times stories are notoriously long }
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/politics/27religion.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th
the gist is that this is ok.
but it isn't ok. If you teach the Bible in Schools, whether you called literature or religion, then aren't you also bound to teach the other Literary Texts ? Bible is religion guys. Hello.

.....

Dead Sea is in 'Deep' Trouble
The Dead Sea is disappearing, experts told President Moshe Katsav on Wednesday. The water level has fallen some 25 meters in 120 years, leaving the lowest spot in the world even lower.

President Katsav toured the area and was shocked to learn that the Dead Sea is now standing at 417 meters below sea level. At present the water is dropping at the alarming rate of a meter each year.

If immediate steps are not taken to remedy the situation, the mineral-rich water will drop to 440 meters below sea level by 2025, and another 25 meters by 2050, according to a report by the Ministry of National Infrastructures’ chief scientist Professor Michael Byeth.

The reasons for the destruction, he told Katsav, are numerous and complex.

Before the 1960’s, said the report, a drop was due to a lack of rain and a drought in the Dead Sea’s drainage basin.

Since that time, however, the National Water Carrier has redirected water from the Kinneret to the rest of the country, severely reducing the flow to the Dead Sea.

With the creation of Jordan’s Abdullah Canal, the flow to the sea slowed even more.

Syria’s dam on the Jordan River’s main tributary, the Yarmukh River, also contributed to the drop in fresh water supply to the area.

Worse, evaporation and drying procedures by Israeli and Jordanian chemical extraction plants have now essentially turned the southern basin into an artificial evaporation pool for the Dead Sea Works. The southernmost portion of the sea has already been seperated by land from the rest of the sea.

Chemical extractions in the southernmost basin damage the remainder of the sea, as salt has been rapidly accumulating in the nearby resort area.

The salt accumulation at the bottom of the sea bed has been artificially raising the water level there by 20 centimeters per year. This threatens both existing infrastructures and the dozen or so hotels along the southern strip.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

all over the planet something is happening to the water.
Dr. Emoto knows.
I just look at facts, and think about the inter connectedness.
Hey, somebody's got to do it.

Candelighting 5:42 + 6 minutes hooray.
Parashat Vaera, 2nd in the book of Shemot, Exodus.

Shabbat Shalom
.