So MBD has done it again. Based on the following video, you can clearly see that MBD's song, Daddy Dear, is a rip-off straight from some old black and white film. The tune is exact and the rythm and rhyme are close.

This is not the first time he has done so. His hit song Yidden was exposed as being a straight ripoff from a German group called Ghenghis Khan who sang the original in the Eurovision in 1979. You can see the original here:

compare that with MBD's yidden:

My friend Chaim from LOR even contacted them when the original video was located. He asked them if MBD had ever requested permission to use their song and music and if he had bought it from them. They answered that he had not, but they were not disturbed by it as they were happy people were enjoying their music.

The thing is, that in the recent lawsuit/cherem, MBD is suing Gal Paz. Gal Paz took a bunch of MBD songs and compiled them into a series of albums. MBD is claiming they have no rights to that music and therefore they owe him damages to the tune of 5 million dollars. So, in other words, it is ok for him to steal other people's music and make money off it, but not ok for other people to steal his music (though they claim they have the rights to the music and have not stolen it).

Furthermore, as can be seen by the following video which was a clip on MBD's latest album, MBD has made himself into the "spokesperson" for the frum music world in attacking the public for copying albums and downloading illegaly.

NOTE: I am not supporting illegal or anti-halacha copying of albums. But it is hypocritical for MBD to be making it into a big deal when he himself is guilty of copying people's music, and not giving them credit for it, let alone paying for it.

(HatTip: Gruntig and LOR )

In honor of Yom Yerushalayim this week, I found this short clip for you to enjoy. It is a clip from the news in 1967 with images of the IDF recapturing Yerushalayim, specifically the Kotel and Har Habayit..

The police have been studying the cause of the traffic accidents in Israel, and have not been able to come to a conclusion.

I think I have figured out the cause of the great number of traffic accidents in Israel.

I received a delivery today of something I ordered from a company. The delivery was sent by a taxi driver.

I get stuff from him fairly frequently, so when I saw him last week sitting in the passenger seat of his taxi and someone else driving, I was curious what was going on. I asked him if he is training someone, maybe his son, to get into the business. He told me that he is not, rather his license had been suspended three months for something (which he would not specify) and he had to have a driver drive him around.

So, today I get another delivery from him. As we are dealing with the paperwork, a driver drives by with his hand holding down the horn. We looked up and did not see what they guy had been honking at. The taxi driver muttered, "These crazy drivers. They are the problem."

Here is a guy with a suspended license kvetching that someone honked at some sort of obstruction. He is the type of driver that is the source of the traffic accident problem in Israel

I made my own corned beef for this past shabbos. muse send me an email today that the 18th edition of the Kosher Cooking Carnival is coming up, so I figured I will let you know how to make great corned beef, a.k.a. pickled brisket.

Here is my recipe.

Caveat: My recipes are not exact. I do not follow them to a "t". They are just guidelines. I usually add much more of each ingredient than called for, so caveat emptor. I will add, that it came out amazing.

The only other time I have put up a recipe on this blog, and submitted to KCC, can be seen here. That was my "meat and hummous" recipe. People found it pretty amusing.

So here goes:
ingredients:

• 1 cow/bull
• slaughtering knife/chalaf
• (at least) 1 bag koshering salt
• lots of water
• slotted board/table
• butchering knives
• ziploc bag
• 2 cups koshering salt (in addition to bags above)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup pickling spices
• 2-3 Bay Leaves
• 10 cloves
• 1tbs whole peppercorn
• 1tbs whole Allspice
• a bunch of garlic cloves
• 1 tspn of ground mustard

Instructions:

1. slaughter cow/bull
2. butcher and kasher cow/bull meat or at minimum the brisket (cut from the chest of the cow)
3. take 5 pounds of brisket (or more of you want more corned beef) and trim some of fat
4. take ziploc bag and throw in the pickling ingredients, including, 2c kosher salt, brown sugar, peppercorn, allspice, garlic, bay leaves, cloves, mustard and pickling spices.
5. Mix it up well
6. put brisket into ziploc bag, rubbing the spice mix all over the brisket.
7. squeeze air out of bag and seal
8. store in cool place (back of fridge works for me), preferably with something heavy (like a brick) on top.
9. Store for 1.5 - 2 weeks.
10. every 4 days or so, open bag rotate meat rubbing spices over meat, squeeze out air and reseal.

Mazel tov! You now have a pickled brisket (corned beef) that is completely inedible.
To make it edible: Boil brisket in water on low flame for about 1.5 hours. Repeat this three times, changing water each time.
You now have an edible corned beef.
For extra flavor, mix in separate pot: 2 spoons ketchup, 1 spoon mustard, some vinegar, 1 cup brown sugar. Bring to low boil.
Take a bunch more cloves. Stick them into the meat in various places.
Pour mixture over brisket. Stick brisket in oven and bake for 10 minutes covered and ten minutes uncovered at a normal temperature (whatever temp you normally bake things at - I have no idea what temp that is).
Remove cloves stuck into meat.
Dig in!

I am calling last nights events an adventure, rather than a tour/tiyul. The reason is because it was hardly a tour but very much an adventure.

During the day I found out that the trip to Kever Yosef, located in Shchem, a.k.a. Nablus, was going to be happening (thanks R'CZM).

According to the info, it was going to be happening with or without army permission. The army has not given permission to enter Joseph's Tomb in Nablus in a few years.

This day is considered special and uniquely associated with Yosef. The 41st day of the Omer is called Y'Sod She'b'ysod and somehow that relates to Yosef. Also, the date of his death is unknown but historically has been associated with the 41st day of the Omer. There has always been pilgrimages to pray at his gravesite on this day and until about 3 years ago the army would give permission to go in during the night and pray on this special day. I have been to Joseph's Tomb about 6 or 7 times in the past. I do not know what changed, but about 3 years ago the army stopped giving permission for this trip.

The people, and some politicians, were putting a lot of pressure on the army to give the ishurim for the trip. There were well over a thousand people who registered for the trip which was only announced a number of hours prior to the trip and spread by word of mouth. A thousand registered. Even more came at the last minute, when they heard about it but it was too late to register. As of 8 pm, there was still no final announcement of any ishur and people were making plans how to sneak in.
I have one friend who was planning to go with me who told me he will only go if there was no ishur. If there is an ishur it will be a waste of time, as they will limit it and we will not be able to do anything, but if there is no ishur it would be historic and he would not miss it.

Anyway, so after hearing about it and trying to get as much information as I could, Jameel and I spoke a number of times sharing info and trying to coordinate our plans.

After some miscalculations and delays in my schedule, I finally got to leave home towards Shchem at about 12:30 am. At that point I almost did not go because I had been delayed so much I figured there was no chance I would get in. Jameel told me (from on location outside of Shchem) that they were announcing more buses for 1:30 am or so. So I decided to take the chance and head out.

I went and picked up tnspr569 who had never been there and wanted to try going. We head out and go in the direction of the Shomron. I have never travelled much through the Shomron and not much recently. So there we are, on the dark road, with only less than a quarter tank of gas (I was in a rush when I left so I figured I would fill up later, after kever Yosef), in an area I am not too familiar with, in an area that is considered relatively dangerous.

So we are heading towards Tzomet Tapuach. That was the devlared meeting spot where the buses would pick people up and go into Shchem. Sometimes the trips have been from Itamar which is one of the closest Jewish yishuvim to Nablus, sometimes from Yitzhar, and sometimes from Tzomet Tapuach. This time it started out near Yitzhar at Tzomet Bat Shalosh (that is where Jameel got stuck after his run in with the police at Ariel), but then the staging point was moved back to Tzomet Tapuach.

So we finally make it at about 1:35 am. There were about 500 or so people in the parking lot at Tzomet Tapuach. Nobody knew what was going on and there was nobody in charge. Everyone is waiting to find a way in to Shchem. the sodiers and police were not being nice but were physically pushing people around. Even just to take two steps back for no particular reason. Nobody had anywhere to go, as it was all blocked off, but they would decide everyone had to stand only in a certain area and they would start shoving people around. Then they would let people wander around and then they would do it again.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of our standing there waiting, two buses show up. Right away they get mobbed as everyone swarms around them hoping to be among the select few to get a spot on the buses. Don't forget there are about 500 people and enough seats for 100 (if the buses would even be going into Shchem, at that point noboy knew).

The buses are being mobbed by people, and they have not even opened their doors! They drive around a bit making the people crazy (I wonder if the drivers were just trying to have a good time) as they followed the buses around, not wanting to miss the moment the doors would open to let them on.

Eventually one of the buses opened its doors. The people went crazy. There was fighting and pushing and shoving to get onto the bus. The police and soldiers had 3 or 4 reps on the bus at the door letting the next survivor of the mob on. They were also participating in the mob and they were shoving people off and pushing and hitting people. At one point we even saw a policeman grab somebody by the neck, choke him holding him like that for a minute or so while the guy's face tururned red, and then he threw the guy off the bus. tnspr569 was in terrible shock when he saw that! I have been by protests and rallies before where I witnessed police brutality, but I think that was the first time for tnspr569.

We decided not to fight the mob, and after the bus filled up, it drove about 10 feet and stopped. People were still mobbing it, trying to get on. The second bus was still dark and not moving.

After about 15 minutes of watching that bus just sit there and not move, we were pretty confident that our chances of getting into Shchem were dipping well into the negative numbers, so we decided to go home.

I got home about 3:30 am, pretty sure I was driving on fumes most of the way. There are very few gas stations open at that time of night. I found an open gas station near Bet Shemesh, and consider it a miracle that I made it that far. I was sure I would be spending the night on the side of the highway. I filled up the tank with 62 liters of gasoline, for a 65 liter tank! Man that was close!

At least we tried! According to the news, over the course of the night 10 buses were let in. That would be about 700 or so people. A friend of mine told me his brother got in. 700 got in, but probably double that tried to get n but could not.

Ari has a trivia question about Hatzala.. and some old ones as well.

I've got a big event planned tonight. Hopefully it will work out and you will have something exciting to read tomorrow. This will be a doozy, if it works out.

I have spent a lot of my free time today trying to figure out the details. It includes some collaboration with my Arab buddy Jameel - his services might be needed to help infiltrate into an Arab area...

keep your eyes peeled to this page to see what transpired....

Haveil Havalim 116 The Derezzing is up at Yehuda. It is in 5 parts plus an epilogue. enjoy.

I don't know what this is about, but according to the letter from the Beis Din, Mordechai Ben-David (Werdyger) (yes, him. The popular Hassidic singer) is in trouble with Beis Din.

According to the minimal details in the letter (for those of you who do not understand the Hebrew), he has sued in secular court and not in Beis Din, as the halacha requires, and failed to obtain the necessary permission to go to the secular courts.

The letter goes on and says he was called to Beis Din 3 times and has refused to appear before them. He is therefore in cherem and is a rasha and should not be allowed to participate in any holy activity, until he recants and appears before Beis Din and resolves the issues according to halacha.

I do not know what this is about. Any of you readers know?

It seems that there was a divinely inspired finding of an old grave recently.

No, I am not referring to the grave site of King Herod that was recently found.

I am referring to the grave of Chana, the mother of Nabi Samuel, a.k.a Shmuel Ha'Navi.

The only witnesses to the story are a group of men who witnessed the last half of the story. The first half remains uncorroborated and is only based on the two women involved in the story. You can be skeptical or you can accept it.

Two separate women, unknown to each other at the time, each had a dream. In the dream a woman appeared and claimed to be Chana, the mother of Shmuel Ha'Navi. She told these women, each in her dream, that she is also buried in the same grave site as her son, Shmuel. She then gave the women signs of exactly where in the grave site she is buried, indicating certain stones.

The two women, each on her own, each still not knowing about the other, went to the grave site of Shmuel Ha'Navi. They met at the grave as they were searching for the stones from the dream. They met up with each other and were shocked to find that they both had the same exact dream.

There is a group of avreichim who learn in the complex of the grave site who witnessed this meeting of the women. They decided to help search for the grave of Chana looking for the stones indicated in the dreams.

The story goes that they found the exact stones described in the dream, and assume that Chana is buried beneath them.

The women said that Chana, in the dream, said that women who have not been blessed with children should come to daven at her grave and she would (as an intermediary to Hashem) bring them salvation.

Today I am going to take you on a tour of Eretz Yisrael. We will take today's trip into the Lahav Forests and the southern part of the Judean Desert.

We will begin our day with the Lahav Forests. Lahav Forests is a forest reserve a bit north of Beer Sheva. It is outside of a kibbutz called, you guessed correctly, Kibbutz Lahav. Even more significant (not sure why) is that it is just a past a town called Lahavim, which (at least from the road) looks like an absolutely beautiful village.

We arrive at the rendezvous point in the forest and meet up with the rest of the group joining us.

The group is split into 4 groups of about 25 or so people in each. They are split among various stations set up in the area, each with a different activity. We will follow Group 1's activities.

This is a fairly popular exercise on tiyulim. It consists of having groups do activities that require teamwork, trust development, and the like.

Group 1 will begin at the station with an "individual" (rather than team) activity. Each person has to put on a harness on his body and walk on some ropes connected between some trees, about 25 feet above the ground. The activity concludes with a zip line going down to the ground.

We will now move on to the next station. Here we have some faith and teamwork building activities, such as falling backwards off a ladder and the rest of the group catches the faller. Another is to let 2 people throw you back and forth while you release control of your body. Another is to make a group circle with crossed arms and figure out how to have one half the circle change positions with the second half, while uncrossing the arms.

This will be a lot of fun trying to figure out the solutions, and an interesting experience, giving up control of your body while learning to rely on your friends.

The next station we move on to will be an Omega line. This is where you sit in a harness attached to a rope connected to a very high tree. Other members of the group pull the rope to raise you to the top of the rope and ten you zip down the rope to the bottom. This should be a bit of a thrill (though not as much as bungee jumping, I hear!).

The last station we will do today consists of some more teamwork activities. The activities include going through different levels of rope, crossing certain areas together as a group, walking on a rope with the team helping you not fall, and more.

Now that we have completed the teamwork portion of the day, we will move on to the more serious part of the tiyul.

We will now travel to Kfar HaNokdim. This is a village just outside of Arad, in the southern part of the Judean Desert. We will get there and eat lunch in a semi-authentic Bedouin tent. I only say semi-authentic because it is owned by Jews as a tourist attraction. The tent, though, is run by Bedouin and everything in the tent is according to Bedouin custom, more or less. The Bedouin are making fresh pitas and lafa bread to eat with hummus and cheeses.

After resting a bit, we will now go out on a jeep tour in the Judean Desert.

Ok, everybody, pile into the jeeps.

We drive out into the vast expanse of brown desert. The vegetation is already dried up, almost completely, despite it being early in the summer season. We drive up to a water cistern dug into the ground. There are similar cisterns all over the area, some fairly new and some dating back thousands of years. These cisterns are how the people living in the area used to store there water from the rainy season to last through the summer.

What is interesting about this cistern is that it gives you a very clear explanation of the story in the Torah of how Yaakov removed the stone from the water cistern for Rachel to water her flock. The cistern we are looking at is basically a hole in the ground. The custom was that the hole would be covered by a large boulder. This boulder could only be moved by two people at a time.

This was done for two reasons. One was so that nobody could just take water without anybody else knowing. The second was to ensure that the pit was taken care of. If one person could remove the stone, maybe he would not clean up after himself, maybe he would not return the boulder to its place, etc. By requiring a second person to be there, everybody took care of it properly, because somebody always knew who else accessed the cistern.

We will now move on. We drive through the dry desert. We pass sheperds with their flock of sheep. If you look out to your right now, you will see a dead camel being eaten by vultures. Very cool.

We will now be passing a mountain with a very sharp peak. This mountain is called Har Ha'Kanaim, or Mount of the Zealots. The reason for the name is that the zealots used to live n this area. We are in the same area as Massada, in which the Jews refused to give themselves up to the Roman conquerers, rather preferred to commit mass suicide. There were many battles between the zealots and the Romans in the area, and that is how this mountain got the name Mount of the Zealots.

Sometimes eagles and falcon can be seen in the area, but it seems like we will not be seeing any.

After driving through the desert, we will head back to the rendezvous point at Kfar HaNokdim. We will change oer to a nother tiul now. We can choose between an actual hike into the desert or a camel/donkey ride into the desert.

We will choose the camel/donkey ride, because we have to wait for the other groups to come back to start the walkign hike, while the camel group is departing right now.

Everybody, hop onto your donkeys and climb onto your camels.

We are now riding through desert on donkey back/camel back. I am not sure how this poor donkey carrys my weight. It is definitely not what he signed up for when he took this job. A number of times it feels like he is collpasing, particularly on declines.
At the midway point of the trip, we swicth between donkeys and camels, so I will now be on a camel. This is like riding an SUV compared to riding the donkey. You are much higher off the ground. The camel behind me has been acting up a bit and is getting some people nervous....

I notice that among the three Arabs leading our group through the desert, two are wearing sandals and one is wearing Crocs. Who would have thought that they would have made inroads even into this market, deep in the desert!! The Arab tells me, that the Crocs have the benefit of being so light you hardly feel them. But in general, he says, sandals are better. With the Crocs, every rock and thorn goes right through them into the foot. The sandals are more durable and hardy.

We head back to the village. On a steep incline, the crazy camel behnid me loses his footing and falls down on his front legs (actually arms). The rider gets pretty nervous. After some promptig from the Arabs, the camel gets back up and continues on his way.

We get back to the village and it is time for drinks and rest until dinner. There is an archery station to pass the time, along with backgammon boards for playing and matresses to lay down on.

It seems like I am not very good at archery. I would blame the lopsided set of arrows and partially broken bows, but some other people seem to be shooting pretty well, so my poor aim is probably my fault.

Mincha services are followed by dinner in the Bedouin tent. Dinner is catered by a caterer brought down from Beer Sheva. Dinner begins with a detauiled description of Bedoouin life by the head Bedouin of the Bedouin Tent. The Bedouin life seems very interesting. I especially like sitting at the low table on a low couch.

We will now head back to home. To save some time we will drive back through the Southern Hebron Hills. I would describe them for you but it is already dark outside so i cannot see anything out the window... and I am falling asleep...zzzzzzzzz

Thanks for joining me no this edition of Touring Eretz Yisrael. Hopefully I will be able to take you on more tours of other parts of Eretz Yisrael...

Today was company tiyul day. That is why I was n ot able to post at all. I just got home (very late).

Post to follow, probably tomorrow when I can keep my eyes open....

I was in shul tonight and saw this sign hanging on the wall...

This blurb is on the Breaking News of Haaretz:
20:09
Peretz: Incident of soldiers beating left-wing activists will be investigated (Haaretz)

It seems some left-wing protestors were trying to block roads near Hebron and disturb checkpoints. The soldiers tried to break things up and clear the area and things got violent, as they often do in these situations. Some left-wingers must have gotten their heads busted.

So Amir Peretz announces he has to investigate the incident.

Funny, but I do not remember him, or any other minister, saying any such thing such as a need for an investigation any of the multiple times right wing activists or settlers get beaten by soldiers or police. I do not remember hearing any such statement from either Peretz or Dichter (Minister of Internal Security) when the students got (and are still getting) their heads beaten in during their protests this past week.

Only left-wing protests cause an uproar when they get violent? What is different about left-wing protests than right-wing protests?

Things that make you go "hmmmmm...."

President Bush has been host to Queen Elizabeth of England the past couple of days. It seems yesterday he had foot in mouth disease and reminded the queen of the colonial rebellion against the UK that led to statehood for the US in 1776, even saying she was there. It is pretty funny. Hail to the Chief!!

I saw this article (more or less) in the newspaper this morning on the way to work. The article I saw actually said the guy was suing, while the link says he is considering suing.

Anyway, the story goes that this guy in England was diagnosed with serious pancreatic cancer. It was decided that he was terminal and he was told he would not live out the year.

The guy decided to live his life as if every day would be his last, as he had good reason to believe it would be. He dipped into and spent all his savings, figuring he would not need them for much longer anyway. As he spent his last pennies, he realized he has already outlived expectations. Turns out he does not have cancer after all and the "tumor" was just an inflammation.

Oops. Sorry, sir. We misdiagnosed you. You will live after all.

What would you do? A sigh of relief would probably be in order. Maybe even a whoop of joy.

This guy, John, decided to sue the hospital if he cannot come to an agreement first.

Considering he spent all his money and has nothing to live with based on their error and misdiagnosis, he figures they should be responsible for the fact that he spent all his money, and they should cough up some dough.

He probably does not deserve anything. How he chooses to live out his days and spend his kids inheritance is his own problem. Maybe he should have been more responsible. Maybe look for treatment by other methods or other doctors. It is nothing new that doctors are sometimes wrong. Maybe he should have considered saving some just in case.

The doctors should settle with him and offer to kill him since that is what he was hoping for anyway... :-) He seems kind of upset and disappointed that he is going to live.

I have since seen this discussed by A Bisele Babka and DaBoysof905.