http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2017/12/another-muslim-zionist-speaks-out.html The trend exemplified by this Kuwaiti writer and this one finds favour with this Pakistani Muslim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdMstCuV-LQ
As part of the tax reform bill passed by the Senate, Republicans included an amendment that would open a small part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil exploration.
ANWR comprises nearly 20 million acres of pristine wilderness. The bill authorizes drilling in less than 10% of that area.
Washington Examiner:
“This small package offers a tremendous opportunity for Alaska, for the Gulf Coast, and for all of our nation,” Murkowski said before the vote. “We have authorized responsible energy development in the 1002 area.”
Democrats have long been successful in blocking Republican efforts to allow energy exploration in a 1.5 million acre section of the 19.6 million acres of ANWR known as the “1002 area,” where billions of barrels of crude oil lie beneath the coastal plain.
But this year, Republican control of Congress and the White House spurred Senate Republicans to consider the provision with the tax reform measure under budget reconciliation rules that allow it to avoid a filibuster and pass with a simple majority vote.
Senate Democrats have blasted the process Republicans used to advance the ANWR bill, considering it an unfair way to change the character of a refuge that has been protected since 1960.
Democrats and environmentalists say drilling would harm the ecosystem of what they describe as one of the wildest places left on earth, inhabited by animals such as polar bears, caribou, and arctic foxes.
Opposition to drilling in ANWR has been irrational. Even Democrats have to admit that the tiny fraction of the reserve that will be opened to development will barely impact the ecosystem or any animal, rare or not.
Environmentalists oppose opening ANWR because, well, fossil fuels. When 90% of the wilderness set aside by Congress will be protected and preserved, the argument that oil exploration will destroy the land doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
To get the oil from the refuge to the coast would require construction of a pipeline. But we’ve built pipelines in Alaska before with little or no impact to the ecosystem.
The “best” argument made by the greens for not drilling in ANWR is the impact on one of our largest Caribou herds.
Science:
To the west of the Arctic refuge, in the heart of the North Slope oil fields, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that, in the 1980s and 1990s, the Central Arctic caribou herd shifted calving areas away from well concentrations. And in longterm studies of the Porcupine herd (named after the Porcupine River in the Yukon and Alaska), Johnson found that even decades after oil development in the Canadian portion of its range, caribou were still avoiding areas within 6 kilometers of roads and wells.
But it is not clear how those behavioral changes might affect population size. “We get into a more nuanced conversation: ‘Does this mean there are going to be a lot fewer caribou, [or] a little fewer?’” Johnson says. “What [development] means for population dynamics is the million-dollar question.” CONTINUE AT SITE
This review originally appeared in The Jewish Link of New Jersey.
Many people have likely heard the claim that Hebrew is the only
ancient language to be in active use today. While speakers of Farsi
and Chinese may disagree,Hebrew’s resurgence and resurrection may be
the linguistic equivalent of a miracle. From being a peripheral
language in far off Israel a little over a century ago, it’s now a
vibrant language spoken by millions across different continents.
In a fascinating new book, The Story of Hebrew (Princeton University
Press 978-0691153292), Dr. Lewis Glinert, professor of Hebrew Studies
at Dartmouth College, provides a history of the Hebrew language from
biblical times to today. While written by an Ivy League professor and
published by Princeton University Press, this is nonetheless a most
readable and highly engaging book.
In addition, knowledge of Hebrew is not needed to enjoy this
remarkable book. At Dartmouth, Glinert teaches a class From Genesis
to Seinfeld: Jewish Humor and its Roots. As to his dry sense of humor,
he has written an entire book about Hebrew, and aside from a few
illustrations, not used a single Hebrew character. The truth is that
this is not a book about what the Hebrew words mean. Rather it is
about what the Hebrew language has meant to the people who have
possessed it.
The book tells two stories. First, how Hebrew has been used in Jewish
life for the past 3,500 years; how it was left for dead, only to come
back. The other story is that of how Jews and Christians have
conceived of Hebrew, and invested it with a symbolic power far beyond
normal language.
A few of the many questions that Glinert addresses are: how did Hebrew
figure into the sense of identity of the Jews, how did that
relationship change with the advent of Zionism and their love affair
with the Hebrew language, what kept Hebrew from dying out completely,
and perhaps most importantly: what can its remarkable story teach
about the working of human language in general.
In a burst of bogus feminism and commercial ambition, Mattel Inc., the global doll-maker, has announced that in 2018 it will market a Barbie doll wearing a hijab. Barbie dolls rarely impinge on political and social issues but this one is so unsettling that it evokes a wide range of responses.
We have to understand that Mattel likes to believe Barbie dolls positively influence the feelings of girls and help to point them toward the possibilities of adult life. That’s a self-justifying idea that runs through the company’s bloodstream. It suggests that Mattel serves a social purpose while selling its products.
After all, Barbies aren’t just princesses and wonder women. You can buy Barbies wearing practical clothing for offices, “chic summer suits” and camel-hair coats. This is Mattel’s bow to feminists who believe little girls should be discouraged from dwelling on fantasies of the future: they should learn, as soon as possible, the truth about what they are likely to become.
For girls with higher aspirations, you can get Barbies clothed in a cocktail dress, a classic black dress, or an Oscar de la Renta ball gown. One Barbie has a Hudson’s Bay jacket and another displays an Andy Warhol painting on the front of her dress.
Attached to the news about the hijab Barbie is a line from Mattel about “Continuing to inspire girls to be anything.” Girls are to become whatever their desires and talents can make them. Elsewhere, such as in admiring quotations from Glamour magazine in the Mattel publicity, the same idea appears.
The charge to which retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty may tell us a great deal about the Robert Mueller investigation.
The first question is, why did Flynn lie? People who lie to the FBI generally do so because, if they told the truth, they would be admitting to a crime. But the two conversations that Flynn falsely denied having were not criminal. He may have believed they were criminal but, if he did, he was wrong.
Consider his request to Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., to delay or oppose a United Nations Security Council vote on an anti-Israel resolution that the outgoing Obama administration refused to veto. Not only was that request not criminal, it was the right thing to do. President Obama’s unilateral decision to change decades-long American policy by not vetoing a perniciously one-sided anti-Israel resolution was opposed by Congress and by most Americans. It was not good for America, for Israel or for peace. It was done out of Obama’s personal pique against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than on principle.
Many Americans of both parties, including me, urged the lame-duck Obama not to tie the hands of the president-elect by allowing the passage of a resolution that would make it more difficult to achieve a negotiated peace in the Middle East.
As the president-elect, Donald Trump was constitutionally and politically entitled to try to protect his ability to broker a fair peace between the Israelis and Palestinians by urging all members of the Security Council to vote against or delay the enactment of the resolution. The fact that such efforts to do the right thing did not succeed does not diminish the correctness of the effort. I wish it had succeeded. We would be in a better place today.
Some left-wing pundits, who know better, are trotting out the Logan Act, which, if it were the law, would prohibit private citizens (including presidents-elect) from negotiating with foreign governments. But this anachronistic law hasn’t been used for more than 200 years. Under the principle of desuetude — a legal doctrine that prohibits the selective resurrection of a statute that has not been used for many decades — it is dead-letter. Moreover, the Logan Act is unconstitutional insofar as it prohibits the exercise of free speech.
In Washington, the ostensible story is rarely the real story. We know, for example, that former President Clinton engineered a meeting with President Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch, on the tarmac of the Phoenix Airport on June 27, 2016.
That’s the official story, replete with the charming and intentionally disarming detail that all they talked about was their grandchildren. It was just coincidental, don’t you know, that at the time the FBI was looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a “personal” email server to send, receive and store classified information.
And it was also simply coincidental that just a few days later, the director of the FBI – who served under Attorney General Lynch – announced that he wouldn’t recommend a prosecution of Hillary Clinton.
Richard Nixon must be rolling over in his grave.
What we haven’t known, until now, is that a frantic scramble erupted in the halls of the FBI to cover up this meeting. In fact, the FBI turned its sharp light not on the scandalous meeting between the attorney general and Bill Clinton – but rather on one of the whistleblowers who got the word out.
The organization I head, Judicial Watch, asked the FBI on July 7, 2016, for any records that might pertain to the infamous tarmac meeting. We had to sue after we were ignored by the agency.
Then the FBI told us flat-out that it couldn’t find any records. And we now know that was flat-out untrue. Because, in responding to another one of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, the Justice Department gave us heavily redacted documents that showed there were additional documents tucked away at the FBI headquarters.
If not for Judicial Watch’s lawsuits these documents would still be hidden today.
The oh so reasonable professor is married to corrupt Obama UN Ambassador Samantha Power who has yet to credibly explain her record unmasking of Trump campaign officials. She set a record as a hack for the Obama administration….rsk
The Founders would be concerned if Trump won with help from a foreign nation on unfriendly terms with the U.S. But we don’t have the facts yet.
Talk of impeaching President Trump surged after Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser and transition aide, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. But what is the real meaning of the Constitution’s mysterious provision authorizing removal of the president and other federal officials for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”? Is the growing interest in impeachment simply wishful thinking by Trump’s political opponents?
Before we get to current events, let’s insist on a principle of political neutrality.
Under the Constitution, presidents have four-year terms. It’s not legitimate to call for impeachment simply because you abhor the president or think that he is making terrible blunders.
If you are inclined to think that he has committed an impeachable act, you should immediately ask yourself: Would I also think that if I voted for him and thought he was doing a terrific job?
While the Red Sea Jazz Festival gives August a jazzy rep, Tel Aviv & Jerusalem haven taken the cake in making December the unofficial month of jazz. Just as the Jerusalem Jazz Festival draws to a close, Tel Aviv Cinematheque (in conjunction with Zappa Tel Aviv & Zappa Herzliya) has packed an impressive schedule of 20 performers from Israel and abroad, including: Ester Rada, Daniel Jobim, Dee Alexander, and the famed Ravi Coltrane.
With original productions, live shows, free performances (every evening outside the Cinematheque), and tributes to the greats, the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival is the best way to ring in the winter.
In the wake of his botched exclusive about Michael Flynn, Brian Ross has been suspended without pay for four weeks, effective immediately, ABC News announced Saturday.
The network said in a statement that Ross’ report “had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process.”
The statement added: “It is vital we get the story right and retain the trust we have built with our audience. These are our core principles. We fell far short of that yesterday.”
.@ABC News statement on Michael Flynn report: https://t.co/sd9TeFiiLQ pic.twitter.com/UtHFHeuwcM
— ABC News (@ABC) December 2, 2017
Ross, ABC’s chief investigative correspondent, reported on Friday that Flynn would testify that then-candidate Trump had directed him to contact the Russians about foreign policy during the campaign — causing a media firestorm and stock markets to plummet.
The implication that the president had done something improper or possibly illegal during the campaign led to wild speculation throughout the day Friday that the president was about to be impeached.
ABC first “clarified,” then corrected Ross’s report, saying Flynn would testify that Trump’s directive had actually come after the election (when contact with foreign governments by a new administration is standard procedure).
Several hours after the initial report, Ross himself appeared on “World News Tonight” to offer a “clarification.”
“David, a clarification tonight on something one of Flynn’s confidants told us and we reported earlier today,” Ross said at the end of his “World News Tonight” story. “He said the president had asked Flynn to contact Russia during the campaign. He’s now clarifying that, saying, according to Flynn, candidate Trump asked him during the campaign to find ways to repair relations with Russia and other hotspots. And then after the election, the president-elect asked him–told him–to contact Russia on issues including working together to fight ISIS.” CONTINUE AT SITE
Introspection is not one of the left’s strong suits so I wouldn’t expect people who are oblivious to their own faults and foibles to consider the reaction of “The View’s” Joy Behar to what turned out to be the false news that General Michael Flynn would testify that he was asked to contact the Russians by Donald Trump during the campaign. (The report was based on false information broadcast by ABC’s Brian Ross. Flynn was told to contact the Russians after Trump was elected.)
Behar totally lost it, as did her audience and her co-hosts. The implication was clear: Trump was guilty of colluding with the Russians and would be impeached.
BuzzFeed:
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and it’s beginning to look a lot like collusion,” said cohost Ana Navarro.
Conservative cohost Meghan McCain wasn’t so thrilled by the news, conceding it was a “good moment for Democrats,” but saying she doesn’t want the country “to become more polarized.”
“Not to be the Debbie Downer, but if this somehow leads to indictment, the country’s going to rip itself apart and it’s not good for America,” said McCain.
“It should lead to resignation,” Behar responded, to thunderous applause. “I remember Richard Nixon, and Richard Nixon stepped down, and so should Donald Trump.”
Behar said that reading about Flynn’s plea was “the antithesis of election night.” She was so, so, very sad when Donald Trump was elected but now, with the prospect of overturning that election and tearing the country apart, she is so very, very happy.
It makes you wonder if Behar would celebrate the destruction of an American city by a nuclear bomb — as long as it was the “right” city. Dallas, yes. Boston, no.
Left-wing icon Dahlia Lithwick writing in Slate wonders, “Is it too late for Robert Mueller to Save Us”? CONTINUE AT SITE
