RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/05/we-must-not-ignore-christian-persecution/

Editor’s note: The following are remarks delivered on November 26 to the 2nd International Conference on Christian Persecution in Budapest, Hungary. The mission of the event is “to find answers and solutions to the most neglected humanitarian and civilizational crisis of our time.”

Dear Mister President, I am here to say thank you for what you and your government have done to help Christianity. Hungary is the first country within the European Union that has actively promoted Christian based human rights.

This means most and above all, the protection of human life from conception to death. It also means the protection of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, the protection of the family, and of religious freedom.

Hungary is also, one hopes, not the only country in the European Union that has a targeted program to help Christians around the world and especially, Christians from the Middle East.

It is quite frustrating to us that we don’t hear of any such programs in our own rich countries.

The way priorities have shifted is very worrying. No one seems to take the streets for religious freedom and peace anymore.

The West seems to be more worried about global warming and animal life. But where have we come to, if plants and animals are more valued than human beings?

Even the Pope has declared a climate emergency! Of course, we all want to live in a healthy environment, but how can we accept and tolerate the most atrocious artificial proceedings, when it comes to our own species?

What on earth is more unnatural, unhealthy and traumatizing than hormone treatments for egg harvesting in surrogate moms for surrogate children? Or the traumatizing procedures for sex changes? What could possibly be more unnatural or unhealthy to body and soul than ripping babies to pieces to get them out of their mother’s womb? And the horrible practice of euthanasia happening in Europe today? All this while we insist on eating organic food?

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Antisemitism/More-than-100-tombstones-desecrated-with-antisemitic-content-in-France-609792

DPS Note: 

Comme toujours, the French do a lot of tut-tutting but they never do anything substantive – except to find that every Jew attacker and killer in France (which most often means Muslim) is not brought to justice. I wonder if they’re just scared of the Muslims or if it’s just the usual French anti-Semitism. A combination I think. More and more French Jews know how to say “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.” And they are doing it. And come to think of it, Tlaib, Omar, Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez (and their innumerable fans) would probably be just fine if it was that way in America. The morning line in Vegas is 8 to 5 that they’re the new face of the Democrat Party. One more generation and Katie bar the door for Jews in America. Yeah. I sound like a slightly tipsy alarmist. I sure hope I am. I don’t drink so tipsy I am not. But try being an overt Jew on most college campuses today. If you don’t know what I mean by that then alarmed you should be.
More than 100 tombstones were daubed with antisemitic text and imagery at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France.
The desecration was discovered Tuesday at the Jewish cemetery of Westhoffen near Strasbourg, the AFP news agency reported, as French lawmakers were scheduled to vote on a resolution about fighting antisemitism.

A spokesperson for the town’s municipality did not specify the nature of the text and images painted on the cemetery.

“I condemn very firmly the despicable antisemitic acts that have once again occurred the region and express my unreserved support of the Jewish community,” Jean-Luc Marx, the prefect of the Bas-Rhin region where Westhoffen is situated, said in a statement.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15245/eu-migrants-relocation-quota

The continuing debate over migration is, at its core, about European federalism and the degree to which the European Union will be allowed to usurp decision-making powers from its 28 member states.

If everything goes according to plan, the draft legislation would be adopted by the European Parliament in the second half of 2020 when Germany holds the presidency of the EU. It would then be ratified by the European Council, made up of the leaders of the EU member states.

“We fundamentally reject illegal migration. We also reject allowing smuggling gangs to decide who will live in Europe.” — Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

“The V4’s [Visegrád group: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia] position is clear. We are not willing to admit any illegal migrants into central Europe. The success and security of central Europe is thanks to our pursuit of a firm anti-migration policy, and this will endure…. Hungarians insist on our right to decide whom to allow into our country and with whom we wish to live.” — Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has unveiled a new plan to reform the European asylum system. A draft of the proposal leaked to the media shows that all member states of the European Union would be required to take in illegal migrants.

Countries in Central and Eastern Europe are opposed to mandatory relocations on the basis that decisions about the granting of residence permits should be kept at the national level. They have noted that by unilaterally imposing migrant quotas on EU member states, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels are seeking to force the democratically elected leaders of Europe to submit to their diktat.

Indeed, the continuing debate over migration is, at its core, about European federalism and the degree to which the European Union will be allowed to usurp decision-making powers from its 28 member states.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15244/nato-divisions

While getting NATO’s finances in order clearly remains a pressing priority for the Trump administration, the real divisions at the summit have been caused by the conduct of the Europeans, most notably France and Turkey.

Turkey’s recent decision to purchase Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, which was designed specifically to shoot down NATO warplanes, has been another serious bone of contention at the summit.

Turkey’s important geographical location means that NATO leaders have previously been reluctant to sanction Ankara for its increasingly pro-Russian outlook, which is very much at odds with NATO’s position that Russia poses the most significant threat to the alliance’s security.

If there is one clear lesson to be drawn from the NATO summit just held in London to mark the alliance’s 70th anniversary, it is that the Europeans, and not Donald Trump, are to blame for many of the divisions that exist between NATO’s 29-member states.

Prior to the summit, during which leaders of the alliance attended glitzy receptions at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, much of the focus centred on the American president and persistent fears that he might carry out his threat to withdraw the US from the alliance.

Mr Trump’s unhappiness with NATO is well-documented, and dates back to the NATO summit in Brussels in July 2018 when, during a testy exchange over the failure of most European member states to pay their fair share towards NATO’s running costs, Mr Trump made a direct threat to withdraw the US from the organisation.

It still remains the case that, despite Mr Trump’s hectoring on the subject, a significant number of European powers — most notably Germany, Italy and Spain — fail miserably to meet the defence spending target of 2% of GDP, which is the minimum requirement for NATO membership. In all three cases, their contributions are just above 1%, which lends credence to Mr Trump’s accusation that American taxpayers are footing the bill to ensure the security of feckless Europeans.

https://jamieglazov.com/2019/12/04/katie-hopkins-they-plotted-to-behead-me/

When a female Jihadi wants your head as a wedding present.

https://quillette.com/2019/12/01/gm-crops-like-golden-rice-will-save-the-lives-of-hundreds-of-thousands-of-children/

Any day now, the government of Bangladesh may become the first country to approve the growing of a variety of yellow rice by farmers known as Golden Rice. If so, this would be a momentous victory in a long and exhausting battle fought by scientists and humanitarians to tackle a huge human health problem—a group that’s faced a great deal of opposition by misguided critics of genetically modified foods.

Golden yellow rice ear

Compare two plants. Golden Rice and Golden Promise barley are two varieties of crop. The barley was produced in the 1960s by bombarding seeds with gamma rays in a nuclear facility to scramble their genes at random with the aim of producing genetic mutations that might prove to be what geneticists used to call “hopeful monsters.” It is golden only in name, as a marketing gimmick, with sepia-tinged adverts helping to sell its appeal to organic growers and brewers. Despite the involvement of atomic radiation in its creation, it required no special regulatory approval or red tape before being released to be grown by farmers in Britain and elsewhere. It went almost straight from laboratory to field and proved popular and profitable.

Golden rice

Golden Rice, by contrast, was produced in the 1990s by carefully inserting just two naturally occurring genes known to be safe—from maize and from a common soil bacterium—into a rice plant, disturbing no other genes. It is quite literally golden: its yellow color indicates that it has beta carotene in it, the precursor of vitamin A. It was developed as a humanitarian, non-profit project in an attempt to prevent somewhere between 200,000 and 700,000 people, many of them children, dying prematurely every year in poor countries because of vitamin A deficiency. (Vitamin A deficiency causes children to go blind and lose immune function.) Yet the rice has been ferociously opposed by opponents of GM foods and, partly as a result, has been tied up in red tape for 20 years, preventing it from being grown. One study in 2008 calculated that in India alone 1.38 million person-years of healthy life had been lost for every year the crop has been delayed.

Golden Rice was the brainchild of two scientists, Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer, aimed at helping the 250 million children—predominantly in Asia—who subsist mainly on rice and suffer from vitamin A deficiency. Telling the parents of these children to grow vegetables (most don’t have land), or distributing vitamin capsules—the preferred alternative of some environmental activists—has not proved remotely practical.

Potrykus hit upon the idea of awakening the molecular machinery in the seed of a rice plant—it is active in the leaves—to make vitamin A while casting around for something he could do to help the world towards the end of his career. Within a few years, and with Beyer’s help, he had succeeded. With additional assistance from scientists at the agricultural company Syngenta, organized by Adrian Dubock, they eventually produced a version of Golden Rice that was sufficiently rich in beta carotene to supply all the vitamin A a person needs. (Dubock wrote about the development of Golden Rice here.) With some difficulty, they cleared the many intellectual property hurdles, getting firms to waive their patents so that the rice could be sold or given away. Potrykus and Beyer insisted that the technology be donated free to benefit children suffering from vitamin A deficiency and Syngenta gave up its right to commercialize the product even in rich countries.

Given the scale of human suffering Golden Rice could address, there may be no better example of a purely philanthropic project in the whole of human history. Yet some misguided environmental activists still oppose Golden Rice to this day.