RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-terror-boom-right-under-washingtons-nose-were-a-long-long-way-from-defeating-al-qaeda/?print=1
House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen talks to PJM about al-Qaeda, the Sahara, and heads in the sand.

WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa said if the White House doesn’t address the growing scourge of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists flourishing in North Africa, America will soon see its interests coming under attack from the likes of Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), also past chairwoman of the full committee, said the shortsighted policy stems from President Obama’s “false narrative that al-Qaeda is decimated and on the run.”

“The administration’s foreign policy has ignored this serious and growing threat,” she told PJM. “It’s come from North Africa and it’s become a breeding ground for extremist activities.”

The State Department has conceded AQIM “played a role” in the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Last summer, U.S. Africa Command noted that AQIM was inviting Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab to come train and join forces in a chunk of terrorist-controlled territory the size of Texas. The French pushed al-Qaeda out of some of its Mali territory, but the strength of the allied groups remains. At a December hearing about this unholy alliance, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs Chairman Chris Coons (D-Del.) noted that U.S. policy in the region might not be “forward-leaning enough.”

In late May, members of Congress received the State Department’s country-by-country annual report on international terrorism with warnings about AQIM’s plunge into Mali, Boko Haram’s continued attacks in Nigeria, and Al-Shabaab’s “asymmetric tactics.” That came on the heels of a strategy speech by President Obama that largely advocated a return to pre-9/11 threat thinking, describing the new peril as “more diffuse.”

“While we are vigilant for signs that these groups may pose a transnational threat, most are focused on operating in the countries and regions where they are based,” the president added.

In September, at least 67 were killed when Al-Shabaab launched a brazen, gruesome attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, a location popular with foreigners as well as Kenyans. The mass murder and hostage crisis, captured in chilling detail by Reuters and New York Times combat photographers who lived near the mall, hit home as those in the West realized the horrific scene was possible on any number of similar targets — a world away or in their backyard.

Ros-Lehtinen referenced the recently revealed Al-Shabaab plot against the United Nations compound in Mogadishu and further threats against Kenya — and beyond, as the ambitious terror organization broadens its recruitment and financing sources.

“To fight these attacks the Obama administration has to take its head out of the sand and address the real and growing threat and attack it head on,” she said. “If we don’t admit that there’s a problem and ignore it, we’ll see U.S. interests under attack.”

The congresswoman said the al-Qaeda affiliates’ ability to roam freely through such a large part of Northern Africa — “mostly a lawless region” — allows the groups to set up safe havens and raise funds through kidnapping and arms trafficking.

“This is a largely underemphasized threat to U.S. national security interests,” Ros-Lehtinen said, adding that Washington only seems to pay attention “when a horrific terrorist attack breaks loose.”

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/11/09/obamas-republic-of-lies/

“Access to power,” Plato said in The Republic, “must be confined to men who are not in love with it.” I think that’s pretty good advice, and I wish our masters in Washington were a bit better at following it than they are. It is a curious irony that the burning desire for high office is a disqualifying character trait for the beneficent exercise of high office. But we see corroborative evidence of that irony all around us.

More from Plato: “All goes wrong when, starved for lack of anything good in their own lives, men turn to public affairs hoping to snatch from thence the happiness they hunger for. They set about fighting for power, and this internecine conflict ruins them and their country.” Plato could be pretty obscure, but here he speaks with arresting clarity.

I don’t suppose that President Obama has much occasion to ponder the writings of Plato. That’s probably just as well, since Plato’s fantasy about the abolition of private property and the cultivation of a class of Guardians who ruled through a mixture of coercion and dissimulation might give him ideas—not, I think, that he needs any more than he already has. Pop quiz: Plato or Obama? “If anyone is to practice deception, either on the country’s enemies or on its citizens, it must be the Rulers of the commonwealth, acting for its benefit.”

As it happens, that one is Plato. But it takes a sharp man to tell. I think Obama would find a lot to savor in The Republic. What do you think? “If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period.”

That’s what President Obama said, repeatedly [1] (at least 36 times), when selling ObamaCare to a skeptical public. “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period”

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/11/the_technion_the_engine_of_a_young_nation.html

The modern day state of Israel celebrated its 65th birthday this year. Throughout this period of time, the nation has faced unremitting challenges to its security and existence. Now American President Barack Obama seems to be telling Iran, a nation that considers Israel an illegitimate nation that should be destroyed, and has been advancing its nuclear program with impunity for many years, that if “you like your nuclear weapons program, you get to keep it.”

At the same time, the American Secretary of State John Kerry, unhappy that Israel is not caving to Palestinian demands, is blaming Israel for an impasse in peace talks, and there are threats of a heavy handed American response that will push for adoption of the Palestinian position in the negotiations in the months to come. With “friends” like these now in office in America, the country that has been Israel’s strongest ally for decades, the ability of Israel to defend itself, and grow and prosper is hardly a settled question for all time.

But Israel has found answers before, and it continues to do so today, regardless of the hostility the nation has faced from abroad. One of the major reasons is a university, the Technion, which arguably is more tied to the current success and to the future of the country, than any other single university’s role for any other country in the world.

I am just back from a short trip to Israel as part of a group of individuals from several states who visited the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, where we met with Technion students, faculty, researchers, and administrators, as well as executives of various startup companies and more mature companies in the life sciences field, which have adopted Technion-developed technologies for commercial use. To say that the Technion has been critical to Israel’s enormous success in becoming a member of the developed world of nations and a center for entrepreneurship and advanced technology, would not be doing justice to the extent of the connection.

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/2007/0508/p09s01-coop.html Diplomacy alone won’t stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions. ran’s latest defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency says it all: Further diplomacy has no chance of stopping Iran’s nuclear program. Neither will UN sanctions have any effect. Unless there is a timely defensive first strike at pertinent elements of Iran’s expanding nuclear infrastructures, it will […]

http://www.dayraypress.com/BEch21preview.htmlPreview of Chapter 21
from The Days of the Bitter End

Cliff was zipping along and only those who knew him recognized the absence of enthusiasm in his sketches. He was going through the motions, faking it, phoning it in, according to the show biz slang. The people did not know that they were getting but half a John Kennedy and half a Cliff Harris. As long as he kept up the Kennedyesque patter accompanied by the Kennedy mannerisms and the Kennedy vocal inflections – as long as he did all that they were satisfied; thrilled, actually.

The skit where he’s serenading “Jackie” on her birthday with his rendition of the ditty “Roses are Red” drew wails of laughter. Adopting the Kennedyesque plainsong monotone, Cliff proceeded with, “Roses-are-ah red-ah, violets are-ah blue, sugah is-ah sweet my-ya love, and-ah, show are you. Now let us go fo-wawd and-ah blow out the-ah candles.” That was the show stopper; but then, everything was. “No Bobby (the president’s brother and attorney general who was even younger and younger-looking than Jack and thus the object of raillery about still being so wet behind the ears), you can’t lick-ah icing off the-ah cake.”

The mask, however, would soon be coming off, if all went according to plan, as Cliff was preparing to surprise them by switching to that sick routine, the sick shtick, that had Kennedy trading missiles with Khrushchev, Kennedy almost gladly offering up American cities for annihilation.

Wipe out Philadelphia? Why not? They’re all Negros! San Francisco? Take it Nikita. They’re all queers. Lenny Bruce material – only many perilous steps ahead. In other words he was going to zing them with a grotesque Kennedy and thus, in his view, awaken them from their slumber.

Forget the beatific stuff; here comes the ugly truth. Not necessarily the truth about Kennedy, but the truth about themselves, ourselves, that other America, the Nixon America that was slouching in the wings.

Cliff’s intention – and his intentions were well-meant – was to hold up a mirror that reflected an America with all its blemishes. The roundtable at McSorely’s had actually dis-suaded him from going ahead with the plan, he was fully prepared to drop it, but then he saw them out there and was provoked.

This was the time to reveal himself as Cliff Harris, a Cliff Harris with a message, a Cliff Harris with a prophecy. The prophecy being that given the right moment, the right leader, or rather the wrong moment, the wrong leader, we are all vulnerable to thuggery and bestiality. The line between civility and barbarism was as fragile as the frail gap between Beethoven and Hitler.

(Lest we forget Salem and McCarthyism and what we did to the Indians.)

Cliff did not have to go far to discover the ugliness that was percolating in all of us. He only had to look inside him-self. He did not like what he saw. Since it was true, according to the wisdom of the fathers, that each individual is an entire universe, therefore he, Cliff Harris, was no better and no worse than the rest, and when he was good, that is, when he was Kennedy, he was very good, and when he was bad, that is, when he was himself and raging under the influence of alcohol or perceived injustice, he was very bad.

So it was not much of a philosophical leap for Cliff to jump from the specific to the general as a judgment of human nature.

First to provoke him this afternoon were the cameras he saw out there from the three major networks, their lights and their scampering up and down the aisles distracting him and breaking his rhythm. Time and again he had warned Gloria MacKenzie and Nate Beloff that he’d never go on if the cameras showed up.

But here they were, no doubt because his “Thank You, Mr. President” album had shot to the top of the charts and thus Cliff Harris was no longer merely entertainment; he was news!

He had always been news but never more so than this moment and when the networks came calling, neither Nate or Gloria or a team of elephants could stop them – not TV. There was no stopping TV. TV was the elephant.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Cancer gene can prevent cancer spreading. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered that whilst the c-Kit gene can promote the early-stage growth of colon cancer cells, its presence later on stops the cancer spreading to other parts of the body. Another oncogene c-Myc has the same duality in breast cancer.
http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/the-double-life-of-a-cancer-gene#.UnX_sVMy1pF

Enabling diabetics to sleep soundly. NightSense is an Israeli device worn by diabetics at night (the most dangerous time for diabetics) to detect sudden drops in blood-sugar levels (hypoglycemia). NightSense analyzes subtle changes in the movement of the hand that indicate changes in pulse and heart activity.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000891101&fid=1724

Amazing 3D medical holograms. Israel’s Real View is bringing fantasy to reality with 3-D holograms that doctors can use to save lives. Its advanced 3-D interactive visualization holographic system allows physicians to work with the patients’ true 3-D anatomy appearing as precise volumetric holograms floating in mid-air.
http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-company-brings-iron-man-like-holographs-to-real-life/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIj2xEd_z78

5 children receive transplants. Within 72 hours the staff of Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva successfully transplanted five organs into five small children. They included a 7-year-old girl whose father donated a liver lobe and a 5-year-old boy who received a kidney from his mother.
http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Surgeons-save-lives-of-5-children-via-organ-transplants-at-Schneider-330521

Pushing male fertility to the limit. (Thanks to Israel21c) Dr. Karen Tordjman of Tel Aviv University discovered a new genetic mutation in a sterile Androgen Receptor Insensitivity sufferer. She then used a treatment that theoretically had no hope, but within two years led to him successfully father three children.
http://israel21c.org/health/israeli-doctors-push-the-limits-of-male-fertility/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23808476

More amazing Israeli medical devices. (Thanks to Nevet – http://www.broaderview.org/) This video (part 1 of 2) contains details of three Israeli devices that I hadn’t even heard about before. They are EarDoc, Unfo and Qure I will include details about these devices next week together with Part 2 of the video. Stay tuned!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrz6DHUDyOI

http://cofda.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/u-s-imam-muslims-can-take-the-property-of-christians-and-jews/

Yasir Qadhi (aka Abu Ammaar Yasir Kazi) is an American imam and college professor who is described by a 2011 New York Times Magazine essay as “one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam.”

Born in Houston, Texas, to Pakistani parents, Qadhi spent his formative years in Saudi Arabia, having graduated from high school in Jeddah, after which he returned to the United States to pursue a B. Sc. in chemical engineering from the University of Houston, followed by a doctoral degree in theology at Yale University. Qadhi is presently a faculty member in the Religious Studies Department of Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Qadhi gives regular sermons and lectures, and also appears on a number of Islamic satellite channels in the U.S., U.K., Egypt, and India.

In his sermon/lecture in the YouTube audio below, Qadhi begins by calling Christians “shirk” for being “polythesists” who believe in the Triune God, instead of Islam’s “monotheist” god Allah. Since “there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah wuzza wuzza,” Christians are “by necessity and by definition … the most evil of all evils.” Like all “unbelievers” and “polytheists.” Christians are “filthy.” They are ”najusa” (feces, urine) — “a filthy impure dirty substance.”

Then Qadhi declares that the prophet Mohammad — and by extension all Muslims — “has been commanded to do jihad.”

What is jihad?

Jihad “is a means to establish monotheism on the land.” The prophet had said, “I have been commanded to fight the people until they” convert to Islam. But “if they don’t [convert to Islam,] their life and property are halal [free for the taking] for the Muslims.”

On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a series of riots against the Jews in Germany and Austria. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed. For the first time, tens of thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps simply because they were Jewish. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (“Night of the Broken Glass”) for the shattered store windowpanes that carpeted German streets. Kristallnacht was an essential turning point in Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews, and a significant event in Holocaust history.

Please read: both posted here.

Probing the Propaganda By Tabitha Korol

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/korol

TOM WILSON: EUROPE’S FRIGHTENED JEWS
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4341/plight_of_europe_s_jews_revealed_in_new_survey

http://pjmedia.com/blog/islamic-thugismo-at-work/

Recently a close friend received a notice of libel for an article he had written detailing the unsavory ties between a notable Islamic organization and the Muslim Brotherhood. Although most of the evidence adduced in the piece was conclusive, there was a degree of reasonable interpretation based on a number of obscure passages on the organization’s website, which my friend did not hesitate to point out. Some of his language was perhaps intemperate, but not appreciably different from what has been posted and printed in innumerable blogs, websites and political volumes, certainly since 9/11. (See, for example, Miroslav Marinov’s devastating takedown of CAIR-CAN, rebadged as the National Council of Canadian Muslims, on Blog Wrath [1].) The article contained a minor glissando, in which the organization in question was conflated with another radical semblable, since the two groups had worked together on numerous occasions and shared the same notorious board member — a man who had declared his greatest hero to be Hassan al-Banna [2], the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who regarded Hitler as a role model for Muslims. The acronymic error — one site’s alphabetical moniker mixed up with the other’s — was understandable in the circumstances and easily rectified.

Moreover the Islamic website my friend had consulted was under construction, doubtlessly in order for the organization to distance itself from its previous somewhat rancid embodiment. None of this prevented the offended group from retaining a prominent law firm to sue a private citizen of limited means on the shaky grounds of defamation. Within the terms of Canadian defamation law, which massively favor the complainant, a leftist judge would likely find my friend guilty — and leftist judges abound in the country, consciously or unconsciously working in tandem with disputatious Muslim councils and associations. These latter use the laws of our country to make non-Muslims less free, and leftist lawyers and judges enable them to do so. A decision [3] by Canada’s Supreme Court rendered on February 27, 2013, stated that in certain cases truth is no defense in the framework of causing offense to designated minority groups.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/healthcare-plans-and-lying

“O” lie? Depends upon the meaning of “good plan”….

What lies at the root of Team Obama’s defense of “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it. Period.”? In essence, Team Obama channels Bill Clinton’s famous line (0:05) during l’affaire Monica, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is.” Yet one estimate is that up to 129 million Americans may lose existing coverage. Many will wind up paying more money for less in benefits.

Comparing TV exchanges involving voters losing their policy versus the argument of ObamaCare architect Ezekiel Emanuel, one sees two sharply conflicting definitions of what a “good” insurance plan is: Voters view the question solely from a personal criterion: what they consider a good plan for themselves and their families; Team Obama applies a social criterion, that of paying a surcharge to cover what they consider to be the needs of others.

Team Obama further argues that such mandated subsidies are often repaid later when voters fall ill. In response to questioning by host Chris Wallace, Emanuel said on Fox News Sunday that while a 59-year old may pay for someone else’s maternity care that she herself does not need, she may get cancer or a stroke later, and in such event her financial costs will be largely subsidized by others

Team Obama’s key device for stripping away existing insurance coverage was theObamaCare “grandfather” rule establishing stringent criteria for qualifying plans–any more than $5 co-pay increase made plans ineligible–under ObamaCare (one of which is coverage for pre-existing conditions, an economic loser for all firms unless subsidized or reimbursed); these criteria Team Obama knew most plans would not meet.

Betsy McCaughey, co-slayer of HillaryCare (see links below), explains the deception and also how unions were exempted from the onerous grandfather rules: