(H-T: Bagel blogger, who sez': I'll be looking closely to see if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad adds this CD to his Amazon account...)

Too cool for words. But, don't try this at home, kids - you might suddenly vanish and end up in next week, or something...

In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they've gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light. Confused? You're not alone.

Read the astonishing rest here.

Really, slowing light down to plain ole' walking speed is so "old skool." Here's a great short story about what doing it does to society.

(H-T: Craftwork of a Jewitch)

"Borat" is many things: a sidesplitting triumph of slapstick and scatology, a runaway moneymaker and budding franchise, the worst thing to happen to Kazakhstan since the Mongol hordes, and, as columnist David Brooks astutely points out, a supreme display of elite snobbery reveling in the humiliation of the hoaxed hillbilly.

But it is one thing more, something Brooks alluded to in passing but that requires at least one elaboration: an unintentionally revealing demonstration of the unfortunate attitude many have toward working-class American Christians, especially evangelicals.

My thoughts exactly, Mr. Krauthammer. Where were you when I posted this on Nov. 13th: Noo Yawkah gives Borat knuckle sandwich - My knuckles are feeling the love

Jerusalem blogger Brian Blum takes a look at celebrating Thanksgiving in Israel. I partook at a festive meal here many years ago, but - it just didn't feel right, and gave up on celebrating the holiday, for the "local customs," like, y'know, Shabbat:

Every year, just about this time of the month, I get a flurry of emails from friends and colleagues all with pretty much the same message. It goes something like this:

“Happy Thanksgiving, that is if you celebrate it over there…er, do you?”

So, what do immigrants from the U.S. to Israel do on the fourth Thursday of November? Well, for many years, we kept up the traditions of the old country. Together with a group of friends, we got together for a feast of turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce (if we could find it in the stores…difficult but not impossible), and pumpkin pie.

As a slight twist, we made it an adult only dinner party, to contrast it from the weekly meal with guests that we already celebrated once a week with the whole family…you know, the one called Shabbat…

Read the rest.

More about lighting Shabbat candles.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Former Secretary of State James Baker has been saying that, when it comes to diplomacy, you don't "restrict your conversations to your friends"--shorthand for the view that the U.S. should engage Syria and Iran to find solutions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. But yesterday's murder of Lebanese Minister Pierre Gemayel might remind even Mr. Baker and his Iraq Study Group what some of those non-friends are all about.

"The hand of Syria is all over" Gemayel's assassination, said Saad Hariri, the leader of the parliamentary bloc that helped evict the Syrian army in the spring of 2005. Mr. Hariri knows whereof he speaks: His father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was blown up with 22 others in February 2005, and the preliminary U.N. investigation offered a trail of evidence pointing to Damascus as the culprit.

Meanwhile, in the Lebanese blogosphere, Beirut Spring charges that, "When it comes to covering Lebanon, Aljazeera is scandalously biased."

More details at The Daily Star.