http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-regulators-cucumber-syndrome?f=puball Gatestone Institute’s Soren Kern on November 14th had an article, “EU Regulations: ‘Dictatorship of the Bureaucrats’?” about the bewildering plethora of European Union regulatory laws. In preliminary note-taking for this column, I tried to learn how many federal product regulations exist in the U.S. The truth is that no one knows, not Congress, not […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/hhs-dithers-as-avian-flu-looms-larger In 2009, Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the prestigious Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, wrote a sobering book, “Seven Deadly Scenarios.” A chapter titled, “Pandemic,” describes the horrific impact of an influenza pandemic on an unprepared United States, and reminds us that the misnamed “Spanish Flu” of 1918 actually began in China before […]
CYNDY LAUPER, JULIO IGLESIAS, TOM JONES, NANA MOUSKURI, CHARLES AZNAVOUR, IRISH RIVERDANCE, ENGELBERT HUMPERDINK, ALICIA KEYS. LADY GAGA, MADONNA, PAUL MCcARTNEY, CELINE DION, SIR ELTON JOHN, MORGAN FREEMAN…JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE , BEYONCE (SCHEDULED FOR 2014 BUT NOT YET CONFIRMED)PAULA ABDUL
MANDY PATINKIN VISITS ISRAEL BUT ASKS ACTORS TO BOYCOTT “THE SETTLEMENTS.” I GUESS HE DOES NOT KNOW THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH “HOMELAND.”
They all perform in Israel in defiance of boycotts and threats….Bravo and encore!!!
And damn the organization “Boycott from Within”, an Israeli group that urges celebrities to boycott Israel. A pox on those quislings. RSK
www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
A protein that kills bacteria. Tel Aviv University researchers have succeeded in isolating a protein known as Gene 0.4 that kills bacteria. In what is a first step toward developing a substitute for antibiotics, the protein prevents bacteria from dividing, thus destroying them and combating infections. A positive story from Haaretz!
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.557677
Download MDA’s medical app. Hebrew speakers can get medical guidance direct from Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom via their cell phone. After downloading the app, they don’t need Internet access. Call MDA (even from overseas) to receive detailed animations, safety advice, training videos and tips.
http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Health-Scan-MDA-app-brings-help-through-your-smartphone-330451
Have you heard about the EarDoc? The EarDoc from Israel’s Kencap Medical solutions is a non-invasive, non-surgical device that can improve the quality of life for sufferers of earache. It was one of the three previously unreported Israeli innovations featured in the new medical video I distributed last week.
http://www.eardoc.info/products/ent-news/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdqrGaUF5EQ
Israeli innovations in Life Sciences – Part 2. As promised, the second video showing Israeli products previously unreported in this Newsletter. HemaClear for bloodless surgery; RIMED non-invasively measures blood-flow in the brain; FirstCare bone injection gun. More on these in future newsletters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO7EMKUy-28
Intravenous injection in action. (Thanks to NoCamels.com) A video showing the design of the remarkable SAGIV device invented by Hebrew University students that provides 100% accurate insertion of intravenous tubes into a person’s veins. (You still may not want to watch this, however, if you have a fear of needles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ9dJpCdYKs#t=11
Pediatric research with Philadelphia. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has signed a research agreement with Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital and Drexel University to advance pediatric medicine. The event took place during Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s trade mission to Israel.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/280261#.UoHV3yf65pE
Slowing down the immune response. Tel Aviv University researchers have found a way to control overactive eosinophil white blood cells – a disorder that can lead to allergies and autoimmune diseases. In lab tests they have located and regulated the two cell receptors PIR-B and PIR-A that protect or shut down the oesinophils.
http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/TAU-researchers-find-way-to-slow-down-white-blood-cells-331407
Sleep soundly with a SomnuSeal mask. (Thanks to Israel21c) For those suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) Israel’s Discover Medical has developed a less-intrusive CPAP mask to help them breathe at night. It is fitted like a boxer’s mouth guard and also requires less air pressure from the CPAP machine.
http://israel21c.org/health/new-device-for-sleep-apnea-is-easier-on-the-heart/
THIS MAY BE “BALLSY”, BUT THINK OF THE “REFUSENIKS” WHO STARTED A WHOLE MOVEMENT….IDA NUDEL WHO WAS HARRASSED CONTINUALLY BY THE KGB STOOD HER GROUND AND CONTINUED TO DISPLAY A SIGN READING “KGB GIVE ME MY VISA” FROM HER WINDOW. FOR THAT ACT SHE WAS SENT TO A SIBERIAN GULAG FOR FOUR YEARS. SHE WAS KNOWN AS THE “GUARDIAN ANGEL” OF SOVIET JEWRY. AND THERE ARE SO MANY OTHERS….THEIR SACRIFICE AND COURAGE LED TO THEIR RELEASE AND VOYAGE TO ISRAEL AND THE WEST…..RSK
After man nails scrotum to cobbles in Red Square, why don’t Russian protestors just get real?It was a pointed protest. But instead of nailing his scrotum to Red Square why didn’t he join a Facebook group, or start a new movement? This won’t help democracy in Russia one bit.
There’s got to be a better way. Pyotr Pavlensky’s decision to nail his scrotum to the cobbles in Red Square last week in protest against Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism will no more help the cause of democracy in Russia than have the lewd antics of the now jailed young women from Pussy Riot.
Pavlensky has just been charged with “hooliganism” — a catch all part of the criminal code that was widely used to jail dissidents in the Soviet era.
Except that the dissidents in the Soviet era didn’t nail their private parts to public squares, defile churches or have sex in public to make their point, which is why Pavlensky and Pussy Riot enjoy very little respect among ordinary Russians. Their actions harm the democracy movement in modern Russia by making it easy for the authorities to portray all its opponents as cranks and weirdos.
“…our fixation on our defeats and losses is nailing us to the Kremlin’s cobbles,” Pavlensky said in a statement. No Pyotr. It’s you.
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4364/a_civilisationally_exhausted_west_in_mortal_danger_over_iran
The eager pursuit of Iran by Kerry and others is all too reminiscent of events concerning Nazi Germany, especially the infamous 1938 Munich agreement, now the symbol of inherent appeasement
It is a truth that should be acknowledged by the United States and all democratic countries that a nuclear Iran will mean the destruction of the State of Israel and a threat to the rest of the world. No doubt it is a desirable principle to attempt to reconcile national differences by negotiation. But not all agreements are worth the price paid.
It comes as no small surprise that in the negotiations with Iran in Geneva the United States together with five other countries, the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany, should have persisted in a formula that would have ended in an undesirable compromise unlikely to limit the threat of Iranian aggression.
The formula appeared simple: Iran would freeze its nuclear program in return for the international loosening of sanctions against it. However, this reverses the reality that it is the present sanctions, and possibly future tougher ones, that have made Iran seem more agreeable to halt or dismantle its nuclear facilities and pursuit of a weapons program.
Is it naïve to doubt the intentions of Iran? In spite of the charm offensive in New York of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, the nature of the Iranian regime, with its continuing support of the brutal President Assad in Syria and the terrorist Hezbollah with supplies and advisers do not make it a candidate for the next Nobel Peace Prize.
The draft negotiations were not likely to improve relations between the U.S. and Iran. Nor did they take account of the Iran’s Parchin military base southeast of Tehran at which weapons research continues.
Fortunately, a hasty, undesirable agreement in Geneva was blocked partly by French arguments which insisted as a minimum on restrictions on Iran’s heavy water plant in Arak that can produce plutonium, and partly, perhaps largely, because of Iranian intransigence.
The contemplated deal would have entailed the promise by Iran that it would not enrich its nuclear enrichment capabilities to more than 3.5 per cent as part of an interim agreement. In return, the international economic sanctions against Iran, on its oil operation and its currency, that have had considerable success, would be eased.
Because of the sanctions the Iranian economy was reduced by some 5 per cent last year. Iran’s daily crude oil sales have been reduced by 60 per cent in the last two years.
Who could have imagined it? Secretary of State John Kerry is making his predecessor James Baker seem like Israel’s best friend. Back in 1990, Baker complained that Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was thwarting Bush administration efforts to launch Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations (sound familiar?). He flamboyantly revealed the White House telephone number, instructing the Israeli government: “When you’re serious about peace call us.” The frustrated secretary, advised to consider how his blatant hostility might play out to American Jewry, memorably responded: “Fuck the Jews, they didn’t vote for us anyway.”
During the past several weeks, Kerry has repeatedly berated Israel while blithely undermining his own credibility. First, he blamed the Jewish state for stymied negotiations with the Palestinians, now in their fourth month of going nowhere (exactly where they have always gone). Then he dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated warnings that the United States was abandoning its Middle East allies, Arab states and Israel alike, by caving in to Iranian pressure to lift biting financial sanctions that have inhibited its nuclear development. Finally, with the announcement by Israel’s Housing minister that settlement construction would soon resume, quickly rescinded by Netanyahu, Kerry went ballistic.
Kerry’s fundamentally flawed analytical framework is grounded, as criticism of Israel inevitably is, in the distorted perception that Jewish settlements in the biblical homeland of the Jewish people pose the fundamental obstacle to Middle Eastern peace. “We do not believe the settlements are legitimate,” Kerry declared on Israeli television during his recent visit. “We think they are illegitimate. And we believe that the entire peace process would in fact be easier if these settlements were not taking place.” They send the message, to Kerry at least, that “perhaps you’re not really serious.” About any Palestinian obstacles to peace, including their resistance to partition that dates back to 1937, Kerry remained silent.
In the two and four-year institutions of higher learning where I teach, they have “purchased access [so instructors can] attend a live online seminar on “helping Unprepared Students Succeed in the College Classroom.” With “more and more students arriving on campus without the tools they need to succeed,” they invariably drop out or fail their classes. This seminar promises to be a panacea for all these difficulties.
The seminar aims to introduce strategies that will “promote student engagement” in addition to getting “students to buy in to [the] course and its requirements.” Ultimately the instructors will be able to “guide students to sound decision making by giving them choices with well-defined consequences.” And, of course we are enjoined to “make content more relevant for students.”
This culturally relevant teaching was made popular by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings in the early 1990s. Please note that “culturally relevant teaching is a pedagogy” which displays “cultural competence” or “skill at teaching in a cross-cultural or multicultural setting to enable each student to relate course content to his or her cultural context.” Basically it “often deals specifically with instruction of African American students in the United States” but is not limited to this group.
And with these “novel” ideas, instructors will be helped to “respond confidently and effectively to performance issues such as partially or completely unread homework assignments,” students handing in “incomplete homework” and “course assignments that are sloppily completed or completely ignored.”
This is the state of higher education in America today! Of course, this is not about dealing with a student body that has no interest in higher education — either because the love of learning is nonexistent or because the student is simply not capable of doing college level work; rather it is about the bottom line as these “schools have a lot riding on improved retention — reputation, rankings, and financial stability [.]” So Kenneth L. Alford, Ph.D. and Tyler J. Griffin, Ph.D., who have entered into this entrepreneurial gold mine, maintain that they have “three recommendations–1. Increase relevance; 2. Increase relevance; 3. Increase relevance.”
I kid you not. Instructors are now being directed to repeatedly ask students “So What” or “Who cares?” This is to “assist students in order to see the ‘big picture.'” By asking a “so what” question, it will allow “students [to] have control over course decisions and direction [.]” Consequently, this will help “guide a class discussion on why this course should matter to them.” As instructors, we are to “play a devil’s advocate role.”
Furthermore, if we “give unreasonable expectations” it will only “increase students’ unpreparedness and decrease their motivation.” But paradoxically, we are still to “have standards” as ‘mercy should not be allowed to rob justice, or [we] run the risk of losing credibility — contributing to increased unpreparedness.”
After digesting this gobbledygook, I picked up a university school newspaper with the headline “Basic Algebra Remedial Classes Double in Size.” This four-year university has “adopted the math emporium model for its Basic Algebra course, which is being taught using a Smart Board and laptop.” Thus, students are bedazzled by the equipment and increased class size results in fewer adjuncts who need to be hired. But more to the point — why are remedial classes needed in a four-year university?
In a September 23, 2013 Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled “Florida Colleges Make Plans for Students to Opt Out of Remedial Work,” author Katherine Mangan describes how some Florida state lawmakers have decided to make these remedial classes optional for most students. Yet, many “community and state colleges, which all have open admissions, fear that an influx of unprepared students could destabilize introductory courses [.]” Ultimately those who struggle will fail. In fact, “colleges have become ground zero in a national battle highlighting the fact that remedial education is simply not working” — something that even the most ardent supporters of such programs now acknowledge.
But with “less than half of the students who took the SAT in 2013 ready to succeed in postsecondary education” it is clear that something very fundamental is lacking. Victor Davis Hanson asserts that “[c]ollege acceptance was supposed to be a reward for hard work and proven excellence in high school, not a guaranteed entitlement of open admission. Yet, more than half of incoming first-year students require remediation in math and English during, rather than before attending, college. That may explain why… hundreds of million dollars later, about the same number never graduate.” Increasing failure is becoming the norm and it is robbing young people of a hopeful future.
Not everyone belongs in college, yet, attending college is an incessant mantra being forced by “agenda-driven politicians, partisan ideologues and careerist technocrats.” Sadly, this generation is being saddled with false dreams, financial nightmares, and neither practical nor humanistic knowledge.
Some of my more astute students will share that they appreciate my being “tough” on them because they maintain that too many instructors just let them pass and do not demand coherent writing. A widespread lack of academic rigor is too often the norm. But far too many students have not yet absorbed the idea that “constructive, even painful feedback” is necessary for growth. Instead, as instructors, we are supposed to “tease knowledge out of students, rather than pound it into their heads. Projects and collaborative learning are applauded [whereas] traditional methods like lecturing and memorization are [often] derided as ‘drill and kill'” even though these latter methods do work well.
http://www.independentsentinel.com/obamas-two-worst-whoppers-coming-in-january/THE FOLKS WHO BASH TED CRUZ AND MIKE LEE SHOULD READ THIS…..THEY WERE RIGHT AND THOSE WHO FOLDED WERE WRONG….RSK
The following lie was bad enough but it’s nothing compared to what is coming in January with the unleashing of Section 1311:
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your current health insurance plan you can keep it.”
At a January 29, 2010 conference, President Obama stated the following, which is not true:
“..If you look at the package that we’ve presented — and there’s some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your — if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, thatyou’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge and so we were in the process of scrubbing this and making sure it was tight.” [emphasis is mine]
‘You’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making’ is the worst lie, worse than not keeping your doctors and your hospitals.
Government will get between you and your doctor. In fact, government will control all insured, even privately insured. No one is safe. Mr. Obama knew it in 2010 when he admitted ‘some provisions violate the pledge’ and he knows it now. He has said it but he will not explain it.
The people will soon find out because, next year, Section 1311 of The Affordable Care Act kicks in and, with it, complete government control over everyone’s healthcare.
Upon the 40th anniversary of Prime Minister Ben Gurion’s death, Israeli and American policy-makers should study the 1948 legacy of Israel’s Founding Father: Defiance of disproportionate US pressure forged Israel into a national security producer rather than a national security consumer, catapulted the Jewish state into the most productive US strategic ally, enhanced the long-term US-Israel mutually-beneficial ties (following short-term tension), and advanced the national security of both the US and Israel.
On May 29, 1949, toward the end of Israel’s War of Independence, which consumed 6,000 Israeli lives (1% of the population!), the US Ambassador to Israel, James McDonald, delivered a scolding message from President Truman to Prime Minister Ben Gurion. According to McDonald, Truman “interpreted Israel’s attitude [rejecting the land-for-peace principle; annexing West Jerusalem; refusing to absorb Arab refugees; pro-actively soliciting a massive Jewish ingathering] as dangerous to peace and as indicating disregard of the UN General Assembly resolutions of November 29, 1947 [the partition plan] and December 11, 1948 [refugees and internationalization of Jerusalem], reaffirming insistence that territorial compensation should be made [by Israel] for territory taken in excess of November 29 [40% beyond the partition plan!], and that tangible refugee concessions should be made [by Israel] now as essential, preliminary to any prospect for general settlement. The operative part of the note was the implied threat that the US would reconsider its attitude toward Israel (My Mission in Israel 1948-1951, James McDonald, Simon and Schuster, 1951, p 181).”
Ben Gurion’s response – with a population of 650,000 Jews, a $1 billion GDP and a slim military force in 1949, compared with 6.3 million Jews, a $260 billion GDP and one of the world’s finest military forces in 2013 – was resolute: “[Truman’s] note was unrealistic and unjust. It ignored the facts that the partition resolution was no longer applicable since its basic conditions had been destroyed by Arab aggression which the Jews successfully resisted…. To whom should we turn if Israel were again attacked? Would the US send arms or troops? The United States is a powerful country; Israel is a small and a weak one. We can be crushed, but we will not commit suicide (ibid, p. 182).”
