RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2012/01/03/dont_die_stupid

A friend of mine hands me what looks like a business card. It says, “Don’t Die Stupid.” As America begins another round of voting to select the next president, or retain the current one, what we need is a stupid test. Flunk it and you shouldn’t vote.

Evidence of the dumbing-down of America is everywhere. Some of it is chronicled in a new book, “Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America” by Daniel J. Flynn.

Flynn contends popular culture has divorced itself from the life of the mind. He has plenty of examples in case television, texting, video games and improper use of English (“she was like and then I was like”) are not enough.

Flynn calls the digital age that has sped up the process by which we receive information “Idiotville,” because it has made us less intelligent.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577136564147813258.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond
2012: A U.S. Referendum on Europe The EU’s crisis is not just fiscal and monetary. It’s also a crisis of vision and character.

“Do the Iowans who will turn out to vote today know all this? I suspect they do. What is happening in Europe is more than an economic crisis: It’s the coming apart of a world view that held together for over a century. For Europeans it will probably mean a decade of economic hardship and political risk. For Americans, it’s a loud pinging signal coming across the Distant Early Warning Line.”

The conventional wisdom about this year’s presidential election is that it’s mostly about domestic issues and barely about foreign policy. That’s wrong. What kicks off today in Iowa is America’s referendum on whether it wants to become an honorary member of the European Union.

GOP-leaning voters generally get this: Warning against the “European social democrat” model is one of Mitt Romney’s better talking points. The problem for Mr. Romney is that he represents something of another European specialty: the dispassionate technocrat, data-driven, post-ideological, lacking in soul. GOP-leaning voters get that, too.

Many on the left also understand American politics as a referendum on Europe, and it wasn’t all that long ago that they were more-or-less prepared to say it. For example:

• “Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works.”

-Paul Krugman, Jan. 10, 2010

• “The European Dream, with its emphasis on collective responsibility and global consciousness. . . . represents humanity’s best aspirations for a better tomorrow.”

-Jeremy Rifkin, “The European Dream,” 2004

• “If we took Europe as a guide, we would do a lot better at capitalism.”

-Thomas Geoghegan, “Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?” 2010

These views have now become a bit embarrassing, intellectually speaking. But it hasn’t done much to change the basic terms of the debate President Obama will have with whoever emerges as his challenger.

http://news.yahoo.com/hackers-disclose-israelis-credit-card-information-103908419.html

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli credit card companies say hackers claiming to be Saudis disclosed credit card information of thousands of Israelis on the Internet.

The companies, however, disputed the hackers’ claims that 400,000 credit-card holders were affected. Isarel’s central bank put the number at 15,000.

Visa CAL company spokeswoman Sagit Ofir says she cannot confirm Saudi hackers were responsible.

The Ynet news website says the hackers called the cyber attack a “gift to the world for the New Year” that they hoped “would hurt the Zionist pocket.”

Ynet says the information was removed from an Israeli sports website shortly after it appeared.

Credit card companies say the compromised cards have been blocked to Internet purchases and will be replaced soon. It’s unclear how the information was compromised.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128584234925996.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
Arab Democracy Is the Best Bet for a Muslim ReformationWhen the state isn’t hostile to religion, Islam isn’t a bankable political issue.

SAME OLD DRIVEL BUT THIS LAST PARAGRAPH IS OUTRAGEOUS!!
“New Arab leaders will have enough headaches of government to occupy them for years. Islam will be just part, hopefully small, of the story of those who undertake democratic reform. Yet this may also be the best chance for another overdue experiment to reconcile Islam with modern politics. No faith that makes strong demands on its practitioners necessarily dooms itself to tyranny. As the former Polish dissident and writer Adam Michnik rather impishly says, “If Judaism can co-exist with democracy, any religion can.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204632204577130570667022372.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

SHADES OF BOB DOLE AND JOHN McCAIN…..AND ALL THE GARBAGE THEY HAVE THROWN AT EACH OTHER IS BEING LAPPED UP BY THE OBAMATHONS…..RSK
Mr. Good Enough
Mitt Romney lost the nomination in 2008 because of his lack of focus and a reputation for shifting his message. He’s learned something this time around.

Voters aren’t convinced by Mitt Romney. They’re not certain of his convictions; they wonder if he is the leader for these times; they’re not sold on his policies or his personality. Yet voters may be about to make the former Massachusetts governor the Republican nominee for the presidency. Mark this down as the triumph of strategy over inspiration.

As Iowans head to their caucuses Tuesday, Mr. Romney has come from behind to lead in the polls. A victory here—where he was once written off—followed by a coup in New Hampshire could well knit up the nomination. That outcome would be the result of a lot of luck, mistakes by his rivals, and a shrewd—and ruthless—campaign by Mr. Romney himself.

If there has been one threat to the governor, it has been the gaping opening for a candidate to his right. Mr. Romney is hardly an easy fit with the GOP base—from his past flip-flops on issues like abortion, to his weak tax proposals, to his concoction and defense of RomneyCare, the Massachusetts health plan that was the model for ObamaCare. The threat of President Obama and his determination to create an entitlement state, combined with the dismal economy, have voters eager for a bold conservative leader.

http://times247.com/ France introduces citizenship laws to defend culture Los Angeles Times Monday, January 2, 2012 News France has made it harder for foreigners to obtain French citizenship by forcing them to take a tough new language test and swear allegiance to “French values.” Read more… Read more at: http://times247.com/   Woman sues after being hit by […]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8988205/Muslims-clash-with-Chinese-police-who-destroyed-mosque.html
Muslims clash with Chinese police who destroyed mosque
Hundreds of Muslims fought with armed police who demolished a mosque in north China, local police and a human rights group said on Monday, with several people injured in the “riot”.

The violence between local Muslims and roughly 1,000 armed police began after police declared illegal a newly renovated mosque in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and moved to destroy it, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, in Hong Kong, said.

The Hui are one of several Muslim minority groups in China.

Two people were killed and 50 injured after police fired tear gas and used knives and batons to beat back ethnic Hui Muslim protesters in Taoshan village, Hexi township, the rights group said, citing villagers.

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2012/01/is-israeli-society-unraveling.php
On balance, Israeli society is extremely healthy.
Unemployment is at record lows. At a time of global recession, the Israeli economy is growing steadily.

Israeli Jewish women have the highest fertility rate in the Western world with an average of three children per woman. Education levels have risen dramatically across the board over the past decade with dozens of private colleges opening their doors to more and more sectors of the population.

Israel’s diverse Jewish population is becoming more integrated. Sephardic and Ashkenazi intermarriage has long been a norm. Secular Jews are becoming more religious. A new educational trend that received significant media attention in recent months involves secular parents who send their children to national religious schools to ensure that they receive strong educational grounding in Judaism.

And as secular Jews become more religious, both the national religious and ultra-Orthodox sectors are becoming increasingly integrated in nonreligious neighborhoods and institutions. Ultra-Orthodox conscription rates have increased seven-fold in the past four years. In 2010, 50 percent of ultra-Orthodox male high school graduates were conscripted.

The IDF assesses that by 2015, the rate of conscription will rise to 65%.

While this is still below the general conscription rate of 75% among male 18-year-olds, the rapid rise in ultra-Orthodox military service is a revolutionary development for the sector.

With military service comes entrée to the job market. The trail towards employment integration was blazed by ultra-Orthodox women. Over the past decade, ultra-Orthodox women have matriculated en masse in vocational schools that have trained them in hi-tech and other marketable professions and so enabled them to raise their families out of poverty.

These ultra-Orthodox women, who are now being followed by their IDF veteran husbands, are part of a general trend that has seen women fully integrated in almost every sector of society and the economy. The fact that women make up the senior leadership echelons in both business and government is not a fluke. Rather it is a product of the largely egalitarian nature of Israeli society.

The Coming Collapse of the European Union

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2722/european-union-collapse

How could so many clever people get it so wrong? The question was recently asked by the British politician Daniel Hannan in an article on the collapse of the euro; in the coming months, the same question will be asked more and more often about Europe itself.

Europe as it has been built may appear at best a huge error, and at worst a crime against the spirit of liberty that was supposed to be the initial source of inspiration for the whole edifice.

The idea that it is possible to build a society based on abstract principles — without considering historical, social and economic realities, as if its members were infinitely malleable – has often led to disaster; this time is no different.

The formation of this error began in the aftermath of World War II. Looking at the ruins left by Nazism and Fascism, politicians from various European countries fabricated a project meant to erase all past mistakes committed on the continent. They only repeated the mistakes.

OBAMA’S PAEAN TO HIMSELF (WITH APOLOGIES TO COLE PORTER’ BRILLIANT LYRICS) http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/de-lovely/yourethetop.htm At words poetic, I’m so pathetic That I always have found it best, Instead of getting ’em off my chest, To let ’em rest unexpressed, I hate parading my serenading As I’ll probably miss a bar, But if this ditty is not so […]