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November 2018

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

A Green Logrolling Classic Offshore wind for 78 cents a kilowatt-hour. On the open market: 3 cents.

By on November 18th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-green-logrolling-classic-1542579487

For a perfect example of green daydreaming gone awry, look to the waters off Virginia Beach, which will soon feature two wind turbines with blades rising as tall as the Washington Monument. It’s impressive engineering, but it makes zero economic sense, according to Virginia’s utilities regulators. They’ve issued a scorching order that . . . approves the project. Yes, the surprise ending is that their factual analysis doesn’t matter under a green fiat from the state Legislature.

Dominion Energy , Virginia’s biggest utility, plans to spend $300 million to build the two turbines 27 miles off the coast. Together they will produce 12 megawatts of power, enough for 3,000 homes. This first pair of turbines is a “demonstration project” to let Dominion gather data and experience. Then, as soon as 2024, it could begin dotting the adjacent waters with hundreds more, enough to generate 2,000 megawatts and light 500,000 homes.

This summer Dominion asked Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, which regulates electric utilities, to deem the plan “prudent.” As reason to act swiftly, it cited pressure to cut carbon emissions. Senate Bill 966, championed by Dominion and signed in March by Gov. Ralph Northam, set a state objective of 5,000 megawatts of solar and wind power by 2028.

The commission’s 20-page order, issued Nov. 2, is a takedown from front to back. “Dominion’s customers will pay the costs of this Project,” it says. The two turbines will generate electricity at 78 cents a kilowatt-hour—compared with 9.4 cents for new onshore wind, 5.6 cents for new solar, and around three cents for energy bought on the open market.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Florida’s Close Election Call Marc Elias is foiled in his attempt to change vote-counting rules.

By on November 18th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-close-election-call-1542579560

The Democratic candidates for Governor and U.S. Senate in Florida finally conceded on the weekend, 11 days or so after the final votes were cast. A machine recount in both races, and then a hand recount in the Senate race, made clear that Andrew Gillum and Senator Bill Nelson lacked a path to victory against Republicans Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott.

This spares the country from what would have been a polarizing fight had either Democrat made up tens of thousands of votes to prevail after Election Day. But that possibility was closer than it should have been as Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias tried to have tens of thousands of ballots counted in violation of normal election rules.

Mr. Elias used the counting follies in Democratic Broward and Palm Beach counties to demand that the legal deadlines be extended for vote counting and for mail-in ballots. Broward elections had to be ordered by courts to disclose how many votes they had left to count and what kind of votes they were. Mail-in ballots are valid if they arrive within 10 days of the election as a concession to voters serving in the U.S. military, but Mr. Elias was hoping to extend the election indefinitely as Democrats hunted for more votes somewhere, anywhere.

Federal Judge Mark Walker was right to enforce regular vote-counting order. In the end Mr. DeSantis won by a little more than 33,000 votes and Mr. Scott led by 10,033 after the manual recount on Sunday.

One lesson is that Florida needs to tighten up on its absentee and provisional ballot rules. Democrats like to say “count every vote,” which they use to suggest that black voters are being disenfranchised. But turnout this year was a record for a midterm election.

The far greater opportunity for cheating, and thus a greater threat to democratic legitimacy, is if politicians can change the election rules after votes have been cast.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

CAROLINE GLICK: A DESPERATE MACRON ATTCKS TRUMP

By on November 18th, 2018

http://carolineglick.com/a-desperate-emmanuel-macron-attacks-donald-trump/

French President Emmanuel Macron has apparently decided that with his approval ratings in the toilet, his best bet for a political resurgence is to attack the United States.

This isn’t a bad move, for a French president. Hatred for America has been a powerful mobilizing force in France since shortly after the American army liberated the French from Nazi German occupation in 1944.

In his speech at the official ceremony marking a hundred years since the U.S. saved France from Germany and ended World War I, Macron took a direct swipe at President Donald Trump and his voters. Macron said that the “ancient demons” that caused World War I and millions of deaths are growing stronger.

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is the betrayal of patriotism,” Macron pronounced, as Trump and other world leaders looked on.

He added, “In saying ‘Our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values.”

Macron’s speech on Sunday was his second rhetorical assault against America in under a week. In a radio interview last Tuesday, Macron called for Europe to raise “a true European army,” to defend against the U.S., Russia and China.

In Macron’s words, “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

With 2000 missing ballots, Brenda Snipes is either incompetent or crooked, so she blames racism By Thomas Lifson

By on November 18th, 2018

The continuing vote counting clown show in Broward County, as 2000 ballots now are declared missing, is an outright embarrassment to the vote fraud deniers in the media and politics. Elections supervisor Brenda Snipes has screwed up so many things so often that the charitable interpretation is that she is utterly incompetent. The less forgiving explanation would be that she is crooked. Either way, the gates are open to those who would want to fix elections when ballot security, keeping provisional ballots separate, and other fundamental issues of security are absent.
Sarah Chakales @sechakales

As of 1:30pm we still haven’t seen or heard from Dr. Snipes. The Canvassing Board gave her until 1pm to present her findings regarding 2040 missing ballots. At noon, the #Broward SOE asserted the missing ballots are in the building. But again, she has yet to reappear. #FLRecount

Naturally, she is playing victim. The Guardian reports:

A top elections official in Florida who endured national humiliation after missing a midterms recount deadline by two minutes has told the Guardian that racism is “probably” a factor in the backlash against her.

The banner under which Snipes told the media about the missing ballots tells a story of its own:

Screen grab via Twitter

If that isn’t self-promotion, what is it? Her name is in type multiple times the size of that indicating her office.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Brexit Crisis

By on November 18th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/theresa-may-brexit-deal-negotiations-crisis/

After what seem like years of a phony war, British and European Union negotiators finally agreed on the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU earlier this week, and Theresa May announced it in the House of Commons. The deal covers more than 500 pages of legal and bureaucratic prose, and few but the negotiators have read it in full. But those who have say that it confirms the earlier leaks: After leaving, Britain will continue to be subject to EU rules and regulations more or less indefinitely but, as a non-EU-member state after March, the country will have no say or vote in designing them.

It doesn’t sound like a very attractive package, but May argues that this deal fully achieves the Brexit that the voters chose two years ago. It’s hard to square this claim with the “red lines” she vowed a year ago to never cross:

Red Line: Britain will leave the single market and its regulations.

Deal: Britain will sign on to a “common rulebook” of regulations that will in fact be the EU single-market rulebook.

Red Line: Britain will leave the Customs Union in order to sign free-trade deals with non-EU countries such as the U.S.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinian Settler-Colonialism By Dr. Alex Joffe (2017)

By on November 18th, 2018

Thanks to Janet Levy for sending this column….rsk

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/palestinians-settlers-colonialism/

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The concept of “settler colonialism” has been applied with almost unique vehemence against Israel. But the fact that Jews are the indigenous population of the Southern Levant can be proved with ease. In contrast, historical and genealogical evidence shows Palestinians descend primarily from three primary groups: Muslim invaders, Arab immigrants, and local converts to Islam. The Muslim conquest of Byzantine Palestine in the 7th century CE is a textbook example of settler-colonialism, as is subsequent immigration, particularly during the 19th and 20th centuries under the Ottoman and British Empires. The application of the concept to Jews and Zionism by Palestinians is both ironic and unhelpful.

One of the mainstays of the modern university is the idea of settler-colonialism. This argues that certain societies are birthed by settlers implanted in a foreign territory, either directly by or with the consent of an imperial power. These colonists then dominate and eradicate the indigenous population. They develop bellicose cultures that eliminate the natives from historical, literary, and other narratives. Primary examples often cited are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and Rhodesia, and Israel.

The settler-colonial argument against Israel posits that Zionism was an imperial tool of Britain (or, alternatively, that Zionism manipulated the British Empire); that Jews represent an alien population implanted into Palestine to usurp the land and displace the people; and that Israel has subjected Palestinians to “genocide,” real, figurative, and cultural.

According to this argument, Israel’s “settler colonialism” is a “structure, not an event,” and is accompanied by a “legacy of foundational violence” that extends back to the First Zionist Congress in 1897 or even before. With Zionism thus imbued with two forms of ineradicable original sin, violent opposition to Israel is legitimized and any forms of compromise, even negotiation, are “misguided and disingenuous because ‘dialogue’ does not tackle the asymmetrical status quo.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Blaming the Victim in the Digital Age by Linda Goudsmit

By on November 18th, 2018

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com
http://lindagoudsmit.com
http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21799/blaming-the-victim-in-the-digital-age

Consider the following scenario:

A murder investigation is underway to determine the identity of the shooter. The detective questioning the suspect accuses him of shooting the woman he robbed. The suspect indignantly retorts, “BUT SHE WOULDN’T GIVE ME HER PURSE!!”

WHAT? The robber is blaming the victim because she refused to give him what he wanted! The victimizer is rationalizing his behavior and misrepresents himself as the victim.

The facts of this case are not in dispute – the suspect admits he shot the woman he was robbing. It is the interpretation of those facts that are being disputed – WHO is to blame – victim or victimizer?

In a sane society the shooter is blamed for the murder and is held criminally responsible. In today’s upside down world of Leftist Democrat identity politics, society accepts the shooter’s interpretation and the victim is being blamed for not surrendering to the demands of the victimizer. The perpetrator has been allowed to frame the argument.

The escalating anti-semitism in Europe and America illustrates the same operating principle of blaming the victim where the perpetrators are being allowed to frame the argument. This is how it works.

Tabitha Korol’s recent article, “Paradise Long-lost,” documents the blatant falsehoods and misrepresentations in Randa Siniora’s October 25, 2018 anti-semitic address to the UN Security Council. So, let’s investigate Ms. Siniora’s odious “blame the victim” presentation.

Ms. Siniora begins her address with a lofty self-aggrandizing introduction to frame the argument:

“Mr. President, Excellencies, Civil Society colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning. Today, I speak in my capacity as the General Director of the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC). I also speak on behalf of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. I speak to you as a peace leader and as a human rights defender who has witnessed, documented, and spoken out about violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for three decades.”

The body of Siniora’s 1500 word speech typifies the deliberate worldwide effort to demonize Israel. The incessant repetition of lies, distortions, and blaming Jews for Arab violence defines the current echo chamber that is propagandizing adults on the Internet and indoctrinating children in schools worldwide.

It is Hitler’s old tried and true political strategy – if you tell a lie big enough and long enough it will be believed as the truth.

Propaganda is a far more powerful tool than bullets in Western societies. Ever since oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia the greedy West has allowed itself to be propagandized by the anti-semitic Jew hatred of the Arab world. Politicians were bribed, university chairs were bought, Internet behemoths began curating/censoring content, and pro-Arab policies became normative resulting in sharia compliant anti-semites serving in public office.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on November 18th, 2018

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Implants made from patient’s own cells. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed the first fully personalized tissue implant, made from of a patient’s own fat cells. It means that eventually there will be no risk of an immune response to any organ implant, whether heart tissue, brain tissue or spinal cord.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-team-makes-implants-using-patients-own-stomach-cells-biomaterials/

ALS treatment gets FDA boost. The US FDA has just given Orphan status to the ALS treatment being developed by Israel’s Kadimastem (see here). The designation qualifies the company for various development incentives and less rigorous bureaucracy. Kadimastem expects results of its Israeli clinical trials in mid-2019.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3749031,00.html

Bio-artificial pancreas to fight diabetes. Israel’s Kadimastem is also partnering with France’s Defymed to develop a stem cell-based bio-artificial pancreas for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. They received NIS 5.4 million from the European Commission and the intergovernmental research organization EUREKA.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3749642,00.html

Targeting liver and metabolic disorders. Israeli biotech 89Bio has just raised $60 million to advance its pipeline of biologic and small molecule treatments for liver and metabolic disorders. 89Bio’s BIO89-100 is in a phase 1 clinical trial for treating nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a type of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3748585,00.html

Halting the growth of Mesothelioma. (TY Grace) Scientists in the labs of Israel’s Technion and in the US have stopped the growth of mesothelioma – a cancer of the mesothelium membrane protecting the internal organs of the chest and abdomen. They found heparanase inhibitors PG545 and defibrotide slowed tumor growth. https://www.israel21c.org/cure-may-be-on-the-horizon-for-mesothelioma/
https://mesothelioma.net/mesothelioma-news/israeli-and-american-researchers-halt-growth-of-mesothelioma/

Repairing hearts again in Tanzania. Since 1999 (see here) surgeons from Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart have saved the lives of over 750 children from Tanzania. SACH doctors recently flew again to Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to conduct life-saving heart surgeries.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-heart-surgeons-save-childrens-lives-in-tanzania/

ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL

In their shoes. (TY Zissie) The Israeli charity In Their Shoes (ITS) trains caregivers to better serve patients with compassion. ITS’ Virtual Dementia Tour allows participants to feel the effects of dementia – hence “In Their Shoes”. ITS also conducts the Music and Memory Program for residents in nursing homes.
http://www.intheirshoes.org.il/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fAcE1Hjr20
https://il.musicandmemory.org/

Recycling fair funds special needs program. Israeli mum Ayelet Sanens launched the Ashdod Environmental Preservation and Recycling Fair. Toys, cosmetics, costume jewelry, clothing, household items etc. were sold to raise funds for Israeli charity Ezer Mizion’s special summer program for special needs children in Ashdod.
http://www.ezermizion.org/blog/special-childrenspecial-parents/

New Israeli town to support special needs kids. I reported previously (19th Aug) about the new community named “Daniel” being built in the Negev that will provide home care for children (mainly Bedouin) with severe medical and therapeutic needs. Here is a much more detailed article on the new town and its aims.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-town-aids-families-of-children-with-special-needs/

Israeli-Arab captain of women’s basketball team. (TY Hazel) Shahd Abboud, who plays for the Hapoel Petah Tikvah women’s basketball team in Israel, opened the 2018/19 season as their new captain, making history as the first female Arab captain of a professional Israeli basketball team.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-israels-1st-female-arab-israeli-basketball-captain/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QWYd4-ZSqI

Friendship born on the soccer field. Nice story about Motke (“Berko”) Berkowitz and Mohammed Einan who have been friends for over sixty years, having played on Hapoel Nahariya’s soccer team in the 1950s and 1960s. Each week, Berko drives from Shavei Zion to the coastal village of Mazra’a to have coffee with Einan.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-sixty-year-friendship-of-muslim-and-jew-born-on-the-soccer-pitch/

Bahrain invites Startup Nation Minister. Israel’s Economy Minister Eli Cohen has received an invitation from Bahrain to participate in its “Startup Nations Ministerial” – an international high-tech conference. Cohen will join global leaders aiming to boost bilateral technology initiatives and partner on policy initiatives.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/middle-east/188308-181109-israel-s-economy-minister-invited-to-high-tech-conference-in-bahrain

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“A Pure Genocide”: Extremist Persecution of Christians, June 2018 by Raymond Ibrahim

By on November 18th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13312/pure-genocide

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.” — Christian Association of Nigeria.

“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.” — Christian Association of Nigeria.

“Realistically speaking, Christianity is on the brink of extinction in Nigeria. The ascendancy of Sharia ideology in Nigeria rings the death toll for the Nigerian Church.” — Christian Association of Nigeria.

“Just one in 400 Syrian refugees given asylum in the UK last year were Christians despite them being subjected to ‘horrendous persecution.'” — Express, UK.

The Jihad on Nigerian Christians

In what the Christian Association of Nigeria called a “pure genocide,” 238 more Christians were killed and churches desecrated by Muslims throughout the month of June. This brings the death toll of Christians to more than 6,000 between January and June of 2018 alone. 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.” In one of the attacks, “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 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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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

THE CARAVAN…..VIDEO

By on November 18th, 2018

WATCH: Stunning Footage Reveals the ‘Truth Behind the Caravan’
saraacarter.com ^

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3706672/posts

Stunning new footage from deep inside the ‘migrant caravan’ slowly making its way towards the United States’ southern border reveals the shocking truth behind the impending crisis, according to filmmaker Ami Horowitz.

Horowitz took to the streets alongside the Central American migrants to speak with those hoping to enter the United States as asylum seekers, hearing first-hand accounts of their journey north.

“We’ve been hearing a lot about the ‘migrant caravan’ in the news… A lot has been said about this caravan, so I’ve decided to go down and find out for myself,” says Horowitz.

“Despite the framing of the caravan being full of women and children, the reality on the ground is quite different. Approximately 90% to 95% are male,” he adds.

Watch ‘The Truth Behind the Caravan’ above.

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