RUTHFULLY YOURS

If we must speak Gaelic, Amaideas!

All the media hype to the contrary notwithstanding, the referendum on independence for Scotland was very close to a farce. Ironic, too, that such political balderdash should have taken place in the historic home of a half dozen of the world’s most noted political thinkers.

That it was media-driven was made even more apparent in the closing hours after the victory of commonsense took over. CNN, unfortunately that worldwide purveyor of stylish rubbish, set the tone. Amanpour, who never met a cliché she couldn’t misappropriate, led the pack in the little inquest, with talk of “the great democratic process”. That, of course, despite the fact that not a single of the extremely difficult problems which would surface with “independence” from currency to defense had been debated in any real sense. Then there was a spokesman for facebook who nattered on for several minutes on how important the social media had been to “the process” without presenting one solitary fact. And bringing up the rear was a bimbo from a leftwing American thiMk-tank – the Scots didn’t have enough muddlers on their own, apparently – who supposedly advised the Scottish demagogic leader, Alex Salmond, on economic issues. But, as with every major concern in the whole proposed process of leaving the United Kingdom, neither she nor he – an economist and onetime banker – gave a clue as to how a new impoverished mini-state would organize its finances or its currency.

From its origins in 2012 when U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron acquiesced to the referendum, blithely assuming there was no question of the overwhelming strength of “unionist” support, the referendum was treated cavalierly. Cameron had rejected, by the way, Salmond’s offer to put a third option on the ballot, the very one which Cameron and other U.K. leaders of all the major parties have now promised the Scots, that is, an expanded self-government. So much for the political perspicacity of the British Conservative Party leadership which has little if any following among the Scots. [No one even mentions that the name “Cameron”, despite the PM’s very posh background, is of Scottish origin, widespread throughout “the Anglo-Saxon” world and typical of the many indivisible links that bind all the British isles’ peoples.]

As Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas made the claim that his Fatah lost 17 times more members than Hamas in the recent Operation Protective Edge, Fatah praised one of its Gaza rocket commanders in a special video.
A week ago Abbas said in a meeting in Cairo that Hamas only lost 50 terrorists, “while 861 Martyrs fell from Fatah,” emphasizing that “Israel is responsible and it is the one attacking our people in the Gaza Strip,” reports the official PA news agency WAFA as translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).
In a video on the official Fatah Facebook page two weeks ago, Abbas’s faction praised its rocket commander Mohammed ‘Al-Za’anin’ of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. The terrorist of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade was taken out by an IAF airstrike on August 26, “one hour” before the ceasefire agreement “as he was preparing to launch his final rocket barrage” on Israeli civilian centers, according to the video.
The video opens with the Quran quote (Sura 3:169): “And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision.” The Fatah terrorist is described as follows: “he carried a rifle, and bombarded the depths of the (Zionist) entity with rockets. He believed that armed resistance was the only way to liberate Palestine. (He) loved military activity. (He) inflicted pain on the occupation time after time.” Closing the description, the Fatah narrator glorifies the terrorist “martyr,” saying “his pure body gathered up the earth, until his dignified soul rose to its creator. He sacrificed his soul for Palestine.” The video also featured a song with such memorable lines as “fire RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), launch the KN rockets (mid-range rockets)…sow terror among the enemy’s soldiers…launch your rockets, make the sons of Zion tremble and burn.

Robert Spencer on the Fog of Jihad-Denial — on The Glazov Gang
The heavy price we pay for our culture’s delusions on Islam.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/robert-spencer-on-the-fog-of-jihad-denial-on-the-glazov-gang/

Germany has a long history of creating fantastic fairytales. It was the Brothers Grimm, who catalogued such great fairytales as Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and many more.

The elites of Germany have now embarked on the creation of two of the ever-greatest fairytales in history – that (1) Islam is a ‘religion of peace’, and (2) Muhammad was a ‘prophet of peace’.

Schools in Germany will now teach Islam to primary school students starting in the first grade to better integrate Muslims into German society.

A report in NY Times says:

“The classes offered in Hesse State are part of a growing consensus that Germany, after decades of neglect, should do more to acknowledge and serve its Muslim population if it is to foster social harmony, overcome its aging demographics and head off a potential domestic security threat….

By offering young Muslims a basic introduction to Islam as early as first grade, emphasizing its teachings on tolerance and acceptance, the authorities hope to inoculate young people against more extreme religious views while also signaling state acceptance of their faith.”

This article further states that Germany has failed its Muslim population. “I think it’s clear now that for years we made the mistake of alienating people,” said education minister Nicola Beer in Hesse.

It is probably true that Muslims have been a failed community in Germany, but it is not Germany and the Germans, who have failed Germany’s Muslims. Instead, it is Muslims who have refused to accept German democracy and freedom, freedom of speech and the press, equality of citizens, equality of women with men – all of which are central to Germany’s constitutional democracy.

Germany has a fantastic welfare system that ensures a good life from cradle to the grave for its citizenry. But rather then embracing Germany, its language and culture, Muslims seek to create their own parallel society and no-go zones, governed by Sharia Law, and seek to enforce Sharia and Islam on the entire country in a step-by-step process.

It is the Muslim mantra that Muslims must not integrate into Germany. Instead it is the Germans who must integrate into and surrender to Islam.

In light of the above reality with Germany’s Muslim populace, what the German political and intellectual elites doing today is the same old grave mistake they committed by empowering Adolf Hitler and his Nazism.

Islam is a worse a cult than Nazism. German elites are establishing a fairytale sanitized image of Islam for the sake of “tolerance and acceptance” – a civilized ethos for which Islam only has abhorrence and it followers has little regard.

With the United Nations General Assembly’s 69th annual opening about to begin its “High-Level Week” of summits and speeches in New York, the State Department has been pushing out material highlighting the UN’s core role in the Obama administration’s foreign policy. Among the most avid of these endorsements is an article released Sept. 17 by the State Department, on its official Dipnote blog, headlined: “UNGA 69: Why the UN Matters More Than Ever [1].”

Near breathless in its enthusiasm for the”diplomatic marvel” of the UN General Assembly opening, the article begins by reeling off a few facts and figures about this event, including a statement that: “World leaders and representatives from 194 countries will come together to work on an agenda packed with burning issues… .”

Whoa. Let’s replay that tape. Did State really mean to say “194 countries”? There are only 193 countries in the UN. So, what is this 194th country that State was referring to?

Wondering if there might be some story here of a new UN member state that even the UN did not know about, I emailed the State Department to ask what this mysterious 194th country might be.

A State Department official wrote back to say, oops, the article “should have read ’193 countries.’ ” The State official added: “The drafter of the blog put in the wrong number, and we unfortunately did not catch the error before it was posted to the web.”

Well, we all make mistakes. But this mistake is not small. For years now, under the slogan “Palestine 194 [2],” the Palestinian Authority has been campaigning to be admitted to the UN as the 194th member state. Officially, the U.S. is opposed to any such admission, unless and until the Palestinians have kept their promise to negotiate a viable peace with Israel. But within the Obama administration there has been a lot of foot-dragging on this policy, accompanied by attempts to erode it. This has included administration pressure on Congress to waive laws that forbid U.S. funding to any multilateral body (notably, to date, UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) that admits the Palestinians to full membership before they have kept their promise of peace.

When the State Department puts out an article describing the UN General Assembly opening as bringing together “194 countries,” it looks less like a mistake than a sly attempt to rewrite official U.S. policy by referring to the Palestinians as the 194th UN member state. Especially when the State Department, instead of correcting its mistake, blasts out the same article a few days later, including the reference to “194 countries,” in a list of “Highlights of the UN 69th General Assembly High-Level Week [3].”

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

12,000 doctors watch live innovative Israeli brain surgery. (Thanks to United With Israel) A cutting-edge brain catheterization procedure was performed at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem while being broadcast live to 12,000 US doctors attending the world’s largest cardiovascular conference.
http://unitedwithisrael.org/innovative-israeli-brain-procedure-broadcast-live-to-12000-american-doctors/

Uncovering the secrets of rabies. (Thanks to Israel21c) A research team led by Eran Perlson of Tel Aviv University has discovered that the rabies virus hi-jacks the body’s nerve cell transport system to move quickly from an infected bite to the brain. The knowledge could lead to new therapies to deal with the deadly virus.
http://www.israel21c.org/headlines/how-rabies-goes-from-bite-site-to-brain/

Winter babies crawl 5 weeks earlier. Researchers led by Dr. Osnat Atun-Einy of the University of Haifa, have documented that babies born in winter or spring start crawling at 30 weeks on average. Those born in summer or autumn/fall begin crawling at around 35 weeks.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/winter-born-babies-crawl-5-weeks-earlier-study-finds/

A cocktail to make stem cells. Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a cocktail of genes that is highly effective at reprogramming adult cells to become quality stem cells that can be used in transplant therapy. These stem cells can then transform themselves into previously damaged tissue or organs.
http://new.huji.ac.il/en/article/23183

New antibodies for fighting flu virus. Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Yotam Bar-On has developed antibodies that enhance the body’s immune system to attack the flu virus. These antibodies interfere with the protein neuraminidase (NA) – used by the flu virus to evade the immune system’s natural killer (NK) cells.
http://new.huji.ac.il/en/article/22806

Why Israelis live longer. (Thanks to Israel21c) A new video reveals some (but not all) on the reasons why Israel’s life expectancy is the 4th highest in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GerkHEiHQbM

NFL to use Israeli brain scanner. The US National Football League in the NCAA will use the brain scanner developed by Israel’s ElmindA to diagnose players who receive a concussion injury during the game.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/nfl-concussions-treated-with-israeli-brain-scan/

ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL

Israel is the world’s 4th most educated country. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranks Israel 4th in the world with 46.4% having a tertiary (college) education. Only Russia, Canada and Japan were higher. The USA was 5th with 43.1%.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/185103#.VBaYXleM3B8

Michael Gove is the Conservative Chief Whip and MP for Surrey Heath
“Because we know that the jihadist terrorists responsible for horrific violence across the Middle East are targeting not just Jews and Israelis but all of us in the West.They hate Israel, and they wish to wipe out the Jewish people’s home, not because of what Israel does but because of what Israel is – free, democratic, liberal and Western. We need to remind ourselves that defending Israel’s right to exist is defending our common humanity. Now more than ever.And we are all in this together in another way.Our duty to the past, our promise for the future.”

I grew up in the Church of Scotland, learning the story of the Jewish people as one of the most inspiring, moving, tragic and yet life-affirming stories of all mankind. I also learned in the Church of Scotland that every sermon needs a piece of scripture – every address needs a text – every speech needs a theme.

And my text is that rallying cry from American politics – Now More Than Ever.

We need the Holocaust Educational Trust – now more than ever.

We need to remember the unique, unspeakable evil of that crime – now more than ever.

We need to stand together against prejudice, against hate, against the resurgent, mutating, lethal virus of antisemitism, now more than ever.

A cause born in hope

The Holocaust Educational Trust was established a quarter of a century ago by men and women who knew that unless future generations were taught about the Holocaust – inoculated against the virus of antisemitism – then prejudice could recur.

They feared that the full hideousness, the full horror of the attempt to eliminate the Jewish people would – over time – as events swirled and new crimes were committed – gradually be effaced. And that would mean the erosion of one of our society’s moral defences.

President Obama’s failed policies in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and the West Bank do not bode well for the success of the President’s current plans to end the threat to world peace posed by the meteoric rise of both the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL) and the Al-Nusrah Front (ANF). That threat was articulated by UN Security Council Resolution 2701 – passed on 15 August – which expressed:

“its gravest concern that territory in parts of Iraq and Syria is under the control of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al Nusrah Front (ANF)“

Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council strongly condemned:

“the indiscriminate killing and deliberate targeting of civilians, numerous atrocities, mass executions and extrajudicial killings, including of soldiers, persecution of individuals and entire communities on the basis of their religion or belief, kidnapping of civilians, forced displacement of members of minority groups, killing and maiming of children, recruitment and use of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary detention, attacks on schools and hospitals, destruction of cultural and religious sites and obstructing the exercise of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to education, especially in the Syrian governorates of Ar-Raqqah, Deir ez-Zor, Aleppo and Idlib, in northern Iraq, especially in Tamim, Salaheddine and Niniveh Provinces;”

America has subsequently acted as though Resolution 2701 had never been passed. In his speech to the American nation on 11 September Obama declared:

‘Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state… It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates.’

The President is wrong on both counts.

The science is settled, as the climate change supporters like to say. Only this time, science confirms the safety of hydraulic fracturing. According to a new study published by the National Academy of Sciences, fracking is safe. End of discussion.

Funded by the National Science Foundation and Duke University, a team of scientists at Ohio State and other universities conducted extensive research into the purported link between groundwater pollution and fracking. (The full title of the report, available online, is “Noble Gases Identify the Mechanisms of Fugitive Gas Contamination in Drinking-Water Wells Overlying the Marcellus and Barnett Shales.”) In an examination of 130 wells, the researchers found that, when properly conducted, no groundwater or aquifer pollution resulted from the practice of fracking itself.

Among the 130 wells studied, the researchers found only a subset of cases, including seven in Pennsylvania and one in Texas, in which faulty well construction or cementing was to blame for the seepage of gases into groundwater. According to Professor Avner Bengosh of Duke University, “[t]hese results appear to rule out the migration of methane up into drinking water aquifers from depth because of horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing.” That is to say, in the rare cases where it occurs, gases are entering the water supply from outside the borehead as a result of faulty well construction or poor cementing, both of which are manageable problems.

In their research, the scientists subjected the fracked well sites to a newly developed process of “geochemical forensics” using noble gases to determine whether pollution in proximity to a drilling site is naturally occurring or associated with drilling. The process was also able to determine whether the release of gases resulted from fracking itself or from seepage around well casings – an uncommon and correctable problem. As Thomas Darrah, the lead scientist in the study, stated, “most of the issues we have identified can potentially be avoided by future improvements in well integrity.”

While the new report answers the most important question, proving beyond doubt that fracking itself does not cause gas to seep into the water supply, it does not address several other important questions. One of these is the frequency of contamination of water supplies by naturally occurring petroleum, methane, and other gases.

WASHINGTON—The Army’s highest-ranking officer on Friday said the rapid spread of threats around the world and growing demands on the U.S. military should prompt a review of deep cuts scheduled in the size of America’s ground forces.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said he had “grave concern about the size of the military,” particularly in light of a wave of new international problems, including Russian aggression in Europe, the rise of militancy in Iraq and the Ebola threat in Africa.

“Threats are increasing—they aren’t decreasing—and we have to make sure we are making the right decisions,” Gen. Odierno said.

Defense officials earlier this year made plans to shrink the U.S. Army to its smallest size since World War II, incorporating deep spending cuts that resulted from a bitter budget standoff between the administration and Congress.

The active-duty Army still has 510,000 service members. But the Army is due to shrink to 490,000 by the end of next year. Pentagon leaders are planning to cut the Army further, to 450,000 by the end of 2017 and potentially to 420,000 by the end of the decade.

“We have to look when enough is enough, and it is time to have that debate,” Gen. Odierno said.

In response to recent crises, the Army has been asked to send headquarters units to Europe and to deploy soldiers to Iraq and Liberia.

Gen. Odierno’s position is backed by many lawmakers and military advocates who consider the planned cuts untenable. But defense officials said that no reconsideration of the reduction currently is under way. Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Pentagon is not now planning a review of its decisions on reducing the size of the Army.

“There is no intent right now to reconsider the manpower and end-strength requirements we laid before the Congress when we submitted the ’15 budget,” Adm. Kirby said.

Thomas Donnelly, a defense analyst at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said it could be a good time to review the decisions to cut the Army. Gen. Odierno’s arguments that demands on the Army were remaining high were “irrefutable,” Mr. Donnelly said. He added that political climate may be shifting enough to allow Congress to repeal the across-the-board spending cuts.