Displaying posts published in

July 2018

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DEAR AMERICA: WHO IS DRIVING THE BUS BY LINDA GOUDSMIT

By on July 8th, 2018

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21361/dear-america-who-driving-the-bus http://goudsmit.pundicity.com
http://lindagoudsmit.com

Dear America: Who’s Driving the Bus? is a philosophy book that offers a universal paradigm for understanding the often confounding and contradictory ways in which people behave.

America is currently embroiled in a second civil war that it is unaware of and that threatens our way of life. The civil war in this country is being fought over the same thing all great wars are fought over: power. But in this war, the adversaries are ourselves. Civil War II is not a race war, an economic war, or a war between states. It is a psychological battle between states of mind that will determine who has the power in our society, who is in control.

The human growth process is twofold; it has a physical component and a psychological component. Chronological age is an uncontested biological accomplishment. Psychological growth is another matter entirely. We struggle with the wish to become powerful, independent adults and the longing to remain powerless, dependent children.

Psychological growth is the universal challenge of childhood. Every society in the world needs its children to grow into physical and psychological adulthood in order to continue the cycle of life. Theoretically, if a society were to remain a society of children that society would necessarily collapse and extinguish itself. The psychological growth process is a difficult struggle, but it always involves a choice. It is impossible to become a responsible adult without choosing to relinquish the irresponsibility of childhood.

Until the 1960s American institutions cooperated in common cause to help American children become responsible adults whose individualism and embrace of the meritocracy produced enormous contributions to society that strengthened the country. The family, the church, and the government including educational curricula were uniformly determined that American children grow into responsible productive psychological adulthood. What happened??

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Independence Day for Sgt. Derrick Miller By Diana West

By on July 8th, 2018

was sentenced yesterday to life in prison with the chance of parole for the murder of an Afghan civilian.
I have wonderful Independence Day News to report from Beverly Perlson of Band of Mothers.

Beverly writes in with a July 3, 2018 update on Sgt. Derrick Miller, whose story readers of this website will be all too familiar with:

Sgt Miller’s mother, Renee Myers, received the phone call she’s been waiting for! Derrick called his mother today and let her know he received a letter from the Army that his sentence is reduced to 20 years (from a life sentence!!!) and he is eligible for parole immediately!

A parole packet must be completed and submitted, but for this brave Soldier, there is FINALLY a light at the end of this dark tunnel and there is no doubt, he is going home! I hope and pray very soon.

To all of you wonderful, caring Patriots out there who wrote letters and made calls on Derrick’s behalf, God Bless Everyone Of You, and THANK YOU! YOU all never let Derrick be forgotten. YOU fought for him, as he fought for us! YOUR efforts made a difference in this Soldier’s life!

Again, my deepest gratitude to Congressman Babin and Congressman Gohmert! In the meetings we had with you, you promised to help Derrick and our Soldiers and YOU kept your promise. In my book, you will forever be regarded as the “Soldier’s Congressmen” and I hope your ears are burning, because this military daughter, sister and mother will never stop singing your praises. I will never be able to thank you enough for your compassion and the hope you instilled in Derrick’s parent’s heart that day we met with you. I honestly knew when we left your offices that something good was FINALLY going to happen for Derrick. THANK YOU BOTH! And Congressmen Babin, please thank your lovely wife!

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The Revolution Was by Diana West

By on July 8th, 2018

http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3758/The-Revolution-Was.aspx

The lovely clenched fist signifying violent revolutionary solidarity with Marxists the world over, is cover art from (a) the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (b) Democratic Socialists of America (c) the Congressional Progressive Caucus d) Sanders for President. Pick one.

Don’t look now but the answer is (c). “The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance” is the explicitly collectivist, anti-capitalist budget of the Democratic Party’s largest caucus in Congress: the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). The CPC includes one US senator (Sanders) and 78 House members. If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins in November as expected, this member of the Democratic Socialists of America from Da Bronx by way of Westchester will not only find political comrade-ship in the CPC, she will blend right in.

That’s right. The 28-year-old, single-payer, ICE-breaking, rich-soaking, subsidizing, dictating, free-riding, 21st-century Westchester Marxist — sorry, Democratic Socialist — will not be riding to town to storm the citadel; as Garet Garrett explained so lucidly and so depressingly 80 years ago, The Revolution Was.

I find his opening irresistable:

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom…

There can be no counter-revolution without considering this “lost” lore, without junking our “court history” and taking off the blinders to study and appreciate the extent to which the USA, especially since its Second Revolution under Franklin Roosevelt, has been ever and ever recreated as a socialistic nation. What Left-wing media bristle at today, I think, is Ocasio-Cortez’s definitional frankess as a “Democratic Socialist.” That’s because this may well alarm and motivate moderate citizens, generally lulled by the familiar party labels, to a point of actually noticing Ocasio-Cortez’s successful demagoguery, her forthright anti-capitalism and matching them to the Democratic Party.

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International Community Ignores Genocide of Christians in Nigeria by Raymond Ibrahim

By on July 8th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12645/christians-genocide-nigeria

This brings the death toll of Christians to more than 6,000 since the start of 2018.
“The Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology. The object of course, is to supplant the Constitution with Sharia as the source of legislation.” — National Christian Elders Forum, a wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria.
The Nigerian government and the international community, however, have from the start done little to address the situation. This lack of participation is not surprising: they cannot even acknowledge its roots, namely, the intolerant ideology of jihad.

In what the Christian Association of Nigeria is calling a “pure genocide,” 238 more Christians were killed and churches desecrated by Muslims last week in the west African nation. This brings the death toll of Christians to more than 6,000 since the start of 2018.

According to a joint statement by the Christian Association, an umbrella group of various Christian denominations, “There is no doubt that the sole purpose of these attacks is aimed at ethnic cleansing, land grabbing and forceful ejection of the Christian natives from their ancestral land and heritage.”

The statement condemned the recent attacks, “where over 200 persons were brutally killed and our churches destroyed without any intervention from security agencies in spite of several distress calls made to them.”

The statement adds that the majority of those 6,000 Christians massacred this year were “mostly children, women and the aged… What is happening in … Nigeria is pure genocide and must be stopped immediately.”

The details of the murder of these thousands, though seldom reported, are often grisly; many were either hacked to death or beheaded with machetes; others were burned alive (including inside locked churches or homes); and women are often sexually assaulted or raped before being slaughtered.

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Iran: The Ayatollah’s Promised Paradise by Amir Taheri

By on July 8th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12660/iran-khuzestan-paradise

At the time no one could imagine that the dreams we all had for our beloved Khuzestan would become a nightmare. But it has, thanks to four decades of misrule, incompetence, corruption and sheer brutality by the Khomeinist regime.

When he seized power, Khomeini said in a notorious speech that the Shah had offered Iranians paradise in this world to deprive them of paradise in the next world, boasting that his Islamic Republic will provide both.

Naturally, we don’t know about the next world; but in this world the ayatollah turned a corner of paradise that was Khuzestan into a veritable hell.

In the late 1960s when the concept of “development” and “economic take-off” was all the rage in academic and media circles, many experts insisted that the so-called “developing nations” needed to showcase at least part of their territory as a model for progress and an inspiration for modernization.

Being one of those so-called “developing nations” Iran, under the Shah, chose its southwestern province Khuzestan as that showcase.

The choice wasn’t difficult. For, Khuzestan was a resource-rich province and already dotted with some of the modern infrastructures that other provinces had to wait a decade or more to acquire. Thanks to the oil industry, Khuzestan was the first province to have a modern electricity generating system and piped water in most of its cities, at least 20 years before the capital Tehran did. The province was also the hub of Iran’s sole railway network, the famous Trans-Iranian which connected it to the Caspian Sea via Tehran.

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BOOKS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Both Sides Now: A Review of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor By Brian Stewart see note please

By on July 8th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/book-review-letters-to-my-palestinian-neighbor/
“The book is another pacifist delusion. The last big “reconciliation” was Oslo, which in the reviewer’s words “brought forth an unremitting campaign of suicide-murder from the holy warriors of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, leaving thousands of Israelis dead and maimed. The indiscriminate terror unleashed in these “martyrdom operations” came to a halt only with the construction of the security barrier.” And,” Israel cannot leave the West Bank only for it to collapse into chaos, or for Hamas to impose theocratic control there as it did after Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.” rsk

The Palestinian national movement denies Israel’s legitimacy, and Israel in turn denies the Palestinians’ national sovereignty. A new book insists on accommodating both.

Last year during a long excursion in Israel and the Palestinian territories, this innocent abroad paid a visit to a new hotel in Bethlehem that boasts “the worst view in the world.” The “Walled Off Hotel,” opened by the avant-garde British artist Banksy, lies in the shadow — literally and figuratively — of the 26-foot concrete separation barrier that has become one of the defining symbols of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Guests are treated to far more than a room, for Banksy’s project includes a gallery, museum, and bookstore. They combine to form a veritable one-stop shop of unreconstructed Palestinian nationalism born in the heady days of pan-Arabism.

Perusing the shelves of the bookstore, I couldn’t help but notice that they groaned under the weight of chronicles of Israeli savagery and Palestinian woe. Here the “resistance” oeuvre was on full display: works by the likes of Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Ghassan Kanafani, Tariq Ali, and, seldom out of sight in this infamous company, Noam Chomsky. Only The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — the preferred reading material of Hamas, the Palestinian faction ruling Gaza — was missing. A visitor could spend the better part of an afternoon here, as I did, and not brush up against any Palestinian voices dissenting from their state’s rampant corruption and autocracy (or the symbiotic bond between them), much less testifying to any legitimate interests of the so-called Zionist Entity.

The exhibit leaves the impression that the most chauvinistic and militant positions against the Jewish state were the authentic and noble representatives of Palestinian opinion. It was an emotionally jarring and intellectually stultifying affair. As I took my leave, a companion sensing my discomfort pointedly inquired which book I would choose to smuggle into the Banksy bookstore. I can’t remember quite what I answered then — was it Ajami’s The Dream Palace of the Arabs? — but I know what I would say now.

Yossi Klein Halevi is the author of the new book Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor. In it, he offers a heartfelt “invitation to a conversation” to a Palestinian neighbor whom he doesn’t yet know but must come to befriend. The alternative, in this conflict perpetuated by routine failures of leadership, is to remain mired in a “cycle of denial” whereby each side bitterly denies the legitimacy of the other. Halevi seems convinced that breaking the cycle may ultimately depend on the multiplication of such meager efforts. He therefore proposes to host his nameless Palestinian neighbor “in my spiritual home, in the hope that one day we will be able to welcome each other into our physical homes.”

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on July 8th, 2018

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Mapping the immune system. Israel’s Technion scientists have built a tool to help treat patients with immune system diseases. “ImmuneXpresso” scans millions of scientific publications to construct a computerized model of the immune system, showing the interactions between immune cells and the human body, across thousands of diseases. https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2018/06/the-immune-system-cracking-open-the-black-box/

Automatic analysis of chest X-rays. (TY Atid-EDI) I’ve reported (see here) on the artificial intelligent (AI) image analysis systems developed by Israel’s Zebra Medical. Now Zebra’s technology extends to chest X-rays with “Textray”, that can identify 40 different common clinical findings. Zebra also raised $30 million of funds.
https://zebramedblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/06/textray-mining-clinical-reports-to-gain-a-broad-understanding-of-chest-x-rays/

Europe and Canada approve Israeli bone regeneration. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Datum Dental has developed OSSIX Bone – an innovative solution for bone and tissue regeneration for dentistry. It has just received the CE Mark in Europe and Health Canada approval. OSSIX Bone already has FDA clearance.
http://www.ossixdental.com/news-and-events/news/item/79-ce-mark-health-canada-regulatory-approvals-for-ossix-bone-following-fda-clearance https://www.youtube.com/embed/gf3XmCESeHo?rel=0

US approval for knee cartilage repair system. (TY Atid-EDI) Meniscus (knee cartilage) tears are common for athletes, those engaged in daily sport activities, the elderly, and anyone with cartilage problems. Israel’s Arcuro Medical has developed the SuperBall™ meniscus repair system and has just received FDA clearance.
http://trendlines.com/portfolio/arcuro-medical/ https://www.youtube.com/embed/ny3AGHM7uJo?rel=0
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arcuro-medical-receives-fda-regulatory-clearance-300667605.html

Go-ahead for bio-ink. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s CollPlant (see here) is developing a proprietary rhCollagen-based formulations intended for use as bio-ink for the 3D printing of tissues and life savings organs. It has now received grant approval (up to $1.2 million) of additional finance from the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA).
https://ir.collplant.com/press-releases/detail/49/collplant-receives-research-and-development-project

Israeli algae antioxidant protects the skin. I’ve reported previously (see here) on AstaPure – Israel-based Algatech’s algae-derived Astaxanthin, produced at Kibbutz Ketura. A new clinical trial in Japan provides evidence of Astaxanthin’s protective role against skin deterioration caused by ultraviolet (UV) light.
https://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Article/2018/06/27/Astaxanthin-the-perfect-summer-supplement-Study-shows-skin-protection-effects http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/10/7/817/htm

Advanced security and medical training. Israel’s Advanced Security Training Institute (ASTI) has just completed its latest course, providing 30 US first responders with practical security and medical training. Since 2003, these skills have been passed on to more than 7,000 emergency personnel in the USA.
https://www.jns.org/training-from-the-ground-up-us-first-responders-study-methodology-in-israel/

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Michael Danby a great stalwart champion of Israel, Member of the House of Representatives in Australia is Retiring

By on July 8th, 2018

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2018/07/thank-you-best-wishes-michael-danby.html

Gregg Sheridan- Foreign Editor of The Australian- ” A Labor lion has decided to roar no more in Parliament.”

Danby’s words:

“My love of the Australian Jewish community emerges from having a similar background to many families in the community who endured the Holocaust…writes Michael Danby.

I think my obituary for the much-loved Rabbi of the holocaust survivors, Rabbi Chaim Gutnick (of blessed memory), reflects that https://bit.ly/2MQ4xSC. Even before the murder of the Jewish school children by a Jihadist at the Jewish school in Toulouse, I insisted that the Australian government see Jewish Students all over the country were protected. Security funding to fortify Jewish schools all over Australia has seen that every parent and grandparent can be assured that all our children can freely attend to their education in the best safety the Australian government can provide.

Before I was elected to Parliament in 1998, there hadn’t been a single MP visit Israel for more than a decade. Thanks to the support of philanthropists Sol Lew and David Goldberger, I took the first mission of Australian Labor MPs to Jerusalem (led by the then opposition leader Simon Crean). Since then, the atmosphere has totally improved in Parliament, with many Members and Senators having visited Israel, the Australia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group having one of the largest memberships in Parliament, we having regular speakers and functions thanks to the ECAJ, AIJAC and the Israeli Embassy. Words cannot speak highly enough of my regard for our long-standing Labor stalwart Senator Glenn Sterle. He works with love and passion to continue my work with the Australia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group. The same applies to my dear Liberal friend, the chairman of the Australia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group and the chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (which I used to chair), Senator David Fawcett. Israel visits have generally benefitted Australian national security. The visits to Israel have had an important transformative effect on our national politics. You don’t have to explain to MPs and Senators Iran, Jihadism, counter terrorism, the extremism of Erdogan, of Hezbollah and Hamas’ role as terrorist organisations and threat, once parliamentarians have visited there.

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The left’s personal destruction machine turns its focus on Jim Jordan By Thomas Lifson

By on July 8th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/the_lefts_personal_destruction_machine_turns_its_focus_on_jim_jordan.html

Jim Jordan has been one of the most effective investigators in pursuing the cabal that weaponized the FBI and intelligence agencies to fight the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump. Rather than answer him with facts and documents, the left is out to destroy him, which tells anyone paying attention that he is on to something.

This campaign began to tar him with scandal, no matter how far-fetched. George Rasley explains at Conservative HQ:

NBC News published an article on Tuesday, quoting Mike DiSabato and Dunyasha Yetts, two former Ohio State University wrestlers, claiming that when Jim Jordan worked as assistant wrestling coach at OSU, he ignored sexual abuse carried out by a university physician named Richard Strauss. …

Jordan, a two-time NCAA wrestling champion, denied back in April that he knew about Strauss’s alleged activities. But Yetts told NBC News that Jordan was either a “liar” or taking part in a cover-up of the abuse. DiSabato called Jordan a “coward.”

Jordan, a leading House conservative and candidate for Speaker, has vehemently denied the allegations, saying that he was never told of sexual abuse against athletes during his stint at OSU, which stretched from 1986 to 1994. He said he would have taken action had he known about any abuse by Strauss, who killed himself in 2005. …

And interestingly enough, looking through the articles about the allegations you can’t find any mention of head coach Russ Hellickson’s name, who would have been the logical person to whom allegations of abuse should have been reported, if they occurred.

Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller checked out the bona fides of the two accusers and found ample reason to doubt their integrity:

One accuser, Mike DiSabato, is also being accused of bullying the widow of a Marine over a memorial fund set up in her husband’s name.
DiSabato is also facing a defamation lawsuit.
The other accuser, Dunyasha Yetts, served prison time for a $1.8-million fraud scheme

Further tainting the charges is the involvement of Perkins Coie, which, as Paul Mirengoff of Powerline points out, is:

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez alters her campaign bio to fudge ‘girl from the Bronx’ misrepresentation By Thomas Lifson

By on July 8th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/alexandria_ocasiocortez_alters_her_campaign_bio_fudge_girl_from_the_bronx_misrepresentation.html

Now that she’s the “it girl” of the Democrats, who “represents the future of our party,” according to the party chair Tom Perez, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s biographical claims have come under scrutiny, and cannot withstand the sunshine. Most notoriously (for now!) her claim that she commuted 40 minutes from her home in the Bronx to school in Westchester doesn’t pass the smell test. Mark Lungariello, of her actual home town (not the Bronx) Rockland/Westchester Journal News, writes:

U.S. congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s online bio was tweaked days after she faced scrutiny over where she grew up. (snip)

Her bio was called into question by some conservatives after the victory because she lived and went to school in Westchester County, New York, which some critics charged contradicted her Bronx girl campaign narrative.

The bio previously stated, “She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40-minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx.”

That sentence in the bio has since been changed, though it still doesn’t explicitly state that she moved out of the Bronx to Yorktown when she was 5 years old.

“She ended up attending public school in Yorktown, 40 minutes north of her birthplace,” it now states. “As a result, much of her early life was spent in transit between her tight-knit extended family in the Bronx & her daily student life.”

Face it: she lied. And she still is fudging the truth. “Tight-knit extended family” is a deceptive term meant to imply she lived in the Bronx when in fact she lived in upscale Westchester.

Would you buy a used biography from this woman?

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