EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Bulldozing Debate About the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict Princeton radicals promote a toxic referendum to divest from Caterpillar, Inc. Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on April 20th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/bulldozing-debate-about-israelipalestinian-richard-l-cravatts/

Last week, as Palestinian psychopaths murdered three more innocent Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv in an escalating campaign of terror, activist students at two American universities voted on repulsive resolutions to urge their respective universities to divest from companies doing business with Israel.

On April 5th, the undergraduate student government at Ohio State University passed what it categorized as an “emergency resolution,” asking the university to divest from Hewlett Packard and Caterpillar, Inc., and claiming that “by investing in such companies, The Ohio State University implicitly condones and profits from the decisions and actions of these companies, and, as such, becomes guilty by association . . , including, but certainly not limited to, the killing of innocent civilians.”

At Princeton University,  the Princeton Committee on Palestine (PCP) sponsored “Referendum Resolution 2-2022” that does not, like the Ohio State vote, include Hewlett Packard as a target of divestment but similarly calls on Princeton to “immediately halt usage of all Caterpillar machinery in all ongoing campus construction projects given the violent role that Caterpillar machinery has played in the mass demolition of Palestinian homes, the murder of Palestinians and other innocent people, and the promotion of the prison-industrial complex (among other atrocities).”

The Princeton Committee on Palestine is the University’s own version of the toxic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the rabidly anti-Israel student group responsible for most of the campus activism against the Jewish state. So, it is no surprise that this referendum is peppered with the counter-factual, demonizing language of social justice, oppression, victimization, and Jew-hatred.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

CNN Frets That Children Are Being Brainwashed – by Conservatives Hide your kids – the right-wing children’s entertainment complex is upon us! Mark Tapson

Posted By on April 20th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/04/cnn-frets-children-are-being-brainwashed-%E2%80%93-mark-tapson/

Hundreds of righteously concerned parents gathered recently outside the Walt Disney Company’s Burbank, California, headquarters to protest the corporation’s woke stance on gender ideology. The following weekend, Moms For America hosted a rally at Florida’s Disney World for the same reason. Now a mainstream media outlet has finally chimed in to warn its readers about the insidious political indoctrination of children – by conservatives.

CNN’s website recently featured an opinion piece by Nicole Hemmer titled, “The right-wing children’s entertainment complex is upon us,” which attempts to discredit conservative efforts to counter the leftist brainwashing of children that is widespread throughout America’s schools and the entertainment industry. Hemmer, an associate research scholar at Columbia University with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project and the author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics, paints such efforts as paranoid, cynical, exploitative, insular, and bigoted, while pretending the culture war being waged on impressionable young minds by the left is nothing more than a right-wing fantasy.

The essay is couched in phrasing which suggests that conservatives are “hand-wringing” about nothing (“conservatives claim”; “what the right sees as liberal indoctrination”; “supposed liberal indoctrination,” etc.). She never acknowledges that parents have legitimate concerns about identity politics being inculcated in schoolrooms and through children’s entertainment programming. Instead, she implies that the rise of conservative alternatives to such cultural Marxism stems from paranoia and greed.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Voter Registration Drive: What’s Biden Hiding? Mobilizing the federal government to sign people up may sound benign. Far from it. By Tarren Bragdon and Stewart Whitson

Posted By on April 20th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/voter-drive-whats-biden-hiding-justice-department-freedom-of-information-foia-transparency-corruption-lawsuit-

President Biden is ordering all agencies in the federal bureaucracy to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.” That language, from a March 2021 executive order titled “Promoting Access to Voting,” may sound benign. It isn’t, and it may conceal an abuse of power. The administration is making it difficult for the public to find out.

Promoting voter registration and participation—i.e., mobilizing voters—is an inherently political act for a partisan president. The resulting efforts can be directed at groups expected to vote for the president’s party and may take the form of pressure to support the party or its policies. A president has every right to sway potential voters on the campaign trail. He has no right to influence them using the force of the federal government.

The Constitution doesn’t grant the president authority over federal elections. It reserves that power to the states and to a lesser extent Congress. Mr. Biden’s order ignores that prohibition by expanding the role of federal agencies in elections. Congress hasn’t approved such an expansion, and election legislation Mr. Biden backs is stuck in the Senate.

The White House refuses to release the plans that various agencies created under the executive order. Agencies submitted their plans by September, yet the administration has provided only overviews of slightly more than a dozen, with little detail. Their full plans should be available, and so should those of hundreds of other agencies. With the federal government throwing its weight behind voter registration and participation, Americans have a right to see what it’s doing and which voters it’s targeting, especially with crucial midterm elections in November.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on April 19th, 2022

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Here are some highlights of two weeks in Israel brought to us by Michael Ordman:

For A (astronaut) to C (cancer cures) to Q (quantum computers) to T (Twelve Tel Aviv Techstars) to U (Ukraine and United Arab Emirates) to V (value ofIsrael’s 2021 exports volume of $143 billion) to W (women’s ice hockey team and whiskey distillery) to X (advanced x-ray tech) to Z and the legacy of Zionism-the dream of centuries and the reality in 1948. Happy holidays!

 

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Cancer therapy “double-whammy”. (TY UWI) Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a 2-in-1 anti-cancer nanoparticle. It is the world’ first RNA-based treatment to combine chemotherapy to destroy cancer cells and immunotherapy to stimulate the immune system to identify and attack the remaining cancer cells.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-2-in-1-cancer-drug-shows-promise-in-boosting-chemo-and-immunotherapy/   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q88d4GVq9KM

Natural antibodies fight cancer too. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered that in addition to cancer-fighting T-cells, the immune system’s B-lymphocytes also produce antibodies that take part in battles against cancer cells. They target the enzyme MMP14, a cause of metastasis and can be used in future therapies.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/antibodies-fight-cancer-too/
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/324515

Toxic cancer treatment made safe. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have improved a cancer therapy that killed tumors but was too toxic for use.  They added a specially created antibody that targets only the CD40 receptor protein molecule which stimulates the immune system to fight the cancer.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-lab-says-its-made-a-powerful-but-toxic-cancer-treatment-safe/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43018-022-00329-6

US approval for fast diagnosis of collapsed lung. Israel’s Aidoc (see here previously) has received US FDA approval for its newly developed X-ray solution that detects cases of pneumothorax (collapsed lung) on X-rays for more efficient triage. Fast diagnosis of the condition can prevent subsequent respiratory or cardiac failures.
https://nocamels.com/2022/04/aidoc-pneumothorax-lung-x-ray/

Eye-opening breakthrough. Doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center have performed the first implant of the thinnest artificial cornea ever printed in the world. The 50-micron thick EndoArt implant (see here previously) reduces recovery time and risk of rejection. The patient had a previous human cornea rejected.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/eye-opening-breakthrough-israeli-doctors-implant-worlds-thinnest-artificial-cornea/

The first “shining star” baby. (TY Hazel) Israeli doctors delivered by Caesarian section the first baby born at the “Shining Star” Israeli field hospital in Ukraine. Mother and baby are doing well.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/first-baby-born-at-israeli-field-hospital-in-ukraine/

Israeli Arab leads Ukraine field hospital lab. Arab-Israeli Amir Zoabi heads up the laboratory at the Israeli field hospital in Ukraine. Set-up in an unused schoolroom, his lab can conduct any required test. In this article Amir shares his feelings about being part of the Israeli humanitarian delegation.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-arab-israeli-leads-lifesaving-lab-in-war-torn-ukraine/

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth: Biden expresses ‘confidence’ in Sen. Dianne Feinstein Monica Showalter

Posted By on April 19th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/when_dinosaurs_ruled_the_earth_biden_expresses_confidence_in_sen_dianne_feinstein.html

Joe Biden has been fully exposed as a dotard who’d be better off at the dog tracks than the Oval Office, but he’s got nothing on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who’s reportedly so senile she can’t recognize her own staff.

Now, after a bombshell report from the San Francisco Chronicle on Feinstein’s desiccated state, Joe’s White House is telling the press that he’s got “confidence” in his former Senate colleague.

According to the New York Post:

President Biden has confidence in Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) despite a recent report that her Democratic colleagues believe she’s mentally unfit for office, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.

Daily Mail reporter Nikki Schwab asked Psaki at her regular briefing if Biden still believes in Feinstein, 88, in light of last week’s San Francisco Chronicle bombshell.

“Yes, she’s a longtime friend, a proud public servant and someone he has long enjoyed serving with and working with,” Psaki replied.

Schwab followed up, asking, “After that report came out last week questioning her health, did the president reach out to her at all?”

“I don’t have any updates on private conversations,” Psaki said.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Professor Wins $400K Settlement over University’s Pronoun Policy By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on April 19th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/19/professor-wins-400k-settlement-over-universitys-pronoun-policy/

In Ohio, a university professor was awarded $400,000 after he sued his employers over their policy demanding that he refer to students by their “preferred” pronouns.

The New York Post reports Professor Nick Meriwether was first punished by Shawnee State University back in 2018 after he refused to refer to a male student with female pronouns, after the student claimed to be “transgender.” Meriwether said that, at the time, “I tried to find an accommodation with the student. I was willing to use his proper name, female proper name, and initially the administration was willing to go along with that.”

“But then the administration changed course and demanded that I defer to the ideology, that I refer to the student as a female,” Meriwether explained in an interview. “And I simply could not do that.”

In response to Meriwether’s stand for his religious beliefs, the university claimed that his beliefs were not protected under the First Amendment, since it was his job as a university professor to use whatever language the school ordered.

“I believe that God created men and women, male and female. But also the idea that my speech could be coerced, could be compelled by the administration…The college classroom is to be a place of debate and discussion and freewheeling ideas,” Meriwether continued. “The university has no place in telling professors how they are to think with the students. It was a coercion of my freedom of speech.”

BOOKS, HISTORY Comments turned off

Growing Up Under Mao :Book Review by Wolfgang Kasper

Posted By on April 19th, 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/04/growing-up-under-mao/

When the Cultural Revolution raged in China in the 1960s, I was not very interested. Periodic violent repression and maltreatment of non-conformists was what communist regimes did. My attitude changed in the late 1970s when I met some Chinese academics who visited Australia. They told harrowing tales of their personal suffering in the Cultural Revolution. This was much more brutal than the suppression of uprisings in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), Poland (1956, 1980) and Czechoslovakia (1968). The Great Leap Forward (1959 to 1961, when an estimated 20 to 45 million were starved) and the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1977, when around 1.5 million were murdered) were orders of magnitude above the periodic ructions in Eastern Europe. In 1981, on a lecture tour around China, I met people then in their seventies and eighties who had recently been restored to leading positions. They were resolutely determined that these atrocities “must never be allowed to happen again”. Clearly, the Mao-era convulsions sprang not only from Marxist totalitarianism but also had roots in China’s history.

Summary accounts of these events of course circulated in the West. But where were the detailed personal stories that added colour and substance? Had Chinese authors written “literary digestions” of the events? In recent years, fewer and fewer mention the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, as the generations that lived through the terror are thinning and new worries have taken over. Are these horrors, and the lessons from them, slipping into oblivion?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Of Oranges, Balls and Sexual Shape-Shifting-Peter Smith

Posted By on April 19th, 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/04/of-oranges-balls-and-sexual-shape-shifting/

A boy or girl, the parents asked? Well, the doctor averred, ‘Baby has a penis. Boy or girl? We’ll have to wait and see.’

That’s about where we are, I understand. But it isn’t so, is it? Those outside of relatively few loud-mouthed transgender cranks, the intimidated commentariat and woke elites aren’t following the bizarre script and never will. We, the great unwashed, easily distinguish between boys and girls.

Mind you, I’m sympathetic to prominent people being unwilling to try to define what a woman is; which seems to be the question of the moment posed by conservatives to embarrass lefties. To wit, Ketanji Brown Jackson put on the spot in the US Senate hearings.

If I had my wits about me, when asked the question, I’d say males have an X and Y sex chromosome pairing while females have an XX. But I might well forget which is which, if caught by surprise. Like forgetting the unemployment rate. And, I have no real idea what a chromosome is so wouldn’t want to be interrogated. I looked it up in my OED: “a thread like structure of nucleic acids and protein found in the nuclei of most living cells, carrying genetic information in in the form of genes.” OK, still double Dutch.

UK Opposition Leader Keir Starmer got into trouble for refusing to acknowledge that a woman can’t have a penis. That’s a little more problematic than being unable to define a woman. He should watch the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Kindergarten Cop, in which it’s made clear that “boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.” Now that’s one way to answer the question asked of Ms Jackson. But you can understand why this might not do in polite company. And it’s unthinkable that any remake of the movie (apropos the sequel in 2016) would include that kind of dialogue.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians Are Going to End Up Starting a Third Intifada

Posted By on April 19th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/palestinians-are-going-to-end-up-starting-a-third-intifada/

After a slew of deadly terrorist attacks this month and now rioting in Jerusalem, it’s increasingly starting to look like there’s a coordinated effort by Palestinian authorities to spark another Intifada. It’s unsurprising. Every time Abu Mazen needs more funding to prop up his kleptocracy, he triggers new bloodshed and takes his case to the international community. The traditional way to accomplish this is by fanning false rumors about Jewish plans to appropriate Islamic holy sites.

Back in 1929 — before the modern state of Israel was formed or “occupied territories” existed — the father of Palestinian nationalism, Amin al-Husseini, used the Holy Mount site to spread blood libel and whip up violence that resulted in the murder of 133 Jews. In nearby Hebron, an ancient neighborhood was destroyed and 67 Jews were slaughtered by their neighbors. This same strategy has been implemented numerous times since. The pretext for the Second Intifada was an Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount area. Any openly Jewish presence near Al-Aqsa is considered a “provocation” by Palestinians. And international organizations help fuel their grievances by attempting to erase the religious and historical connection between the city and the Jewish people.

There has never been a shred of evidence to back the claim that Israel wants to eject Muslims from the Temple Mount. Indeed, after taking back the site from Jordan in 1967, Israel handed custodianship to the Hashemites and Waqf Muslim religious trust. To put that act into context, it’s worth remembering that before 1967, Jewish holy sites that were occupied by Arabs were treated as garbage dumps — and not much better today in Arab-controlled areas.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Divorce, Florida-Style- Trump Vs. De Santis Neal Freeman

Posted By on April 19th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/divorce-florida-style/

Trouble ahead for Trump and DeSantis

Tallahassee, Fla. — Eavesdrop on any pair of political obsessives here — media types, campaign consultants, lobbyists, the rent-seekers of all parties — and you will hear them veer quickly toward the most reliable conversation-starter in this politically obsessed town. The Split. The political marriage of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, never passionate but for a time mutually convenient, is all but over. The only questions that remain are when it will end and how ugly it will get.

Trump likes to say, and he does so with Trumpian repetition, that in 2018 DeSantis was at 3 percent in the polls (not quite) and that without a Trump endorsement DeSantis would have lost the gubernatorial election (probably so). That spring, after trailing for months in statewide polls, DeSantis gave up running as DeSantis and began to run as Trump-Lite. His lead TV spot featured DeSantis sprawled on the living-room rug, teaching his toddling children how to build a wall with tiny blocks. That fall, DeSantis was elected by less than 1 percent of the vote over one of the worst Democratic candidates in state history: Andrew Gillum, a (formerly) closeted bisexual man, married to a woman, with a large drug problem and a wafer-thin resume.

In 2022, Trump says that DeSantis owes him, and invites DeSantis, with Trumpian repetition, to support Trump for 2024. DeSantis has declined the invitation and Trump, in turn, has declined to support DeSantis for election this year, after endorsing, among other notables, Dr. Oz, Mo Brooks, and Herschel Walker.

Can this marriage be saved? The consensus seems to be: no, and it is more likely to end with a bang than a whimper.

I count four scenarios advanced with more or less conviction by the obsessed.