BOOKS Comments turned off

What Real Resistance Looks Like By Mary Spencer

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/book-review-last-letters-what-real-resistance-looks-like/

A new translation of letters between a husband and wife who resisted the Nazis offers a portrait of steadfast grace and courage.

In 2020, it is not difficult to find books, podcasts, and other media about resisting fascism and living in a political dystopia. But not all “resistance” manuals are created equal. One recent addition should be lauded for offering more than a simple picture of oppression.

In Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence 1944–1945, Shelley Frisch faithfully translates a compilation of letters between Helmuth von Moltke and his wife, Freya, written between September 1944 and January 1945. The letters were exchanged during the months that Helmuth was in Tegel prison, in Berlin, and were carried in secret by the prison chaplain, Harald Polechau. The Moltkes’ stoic refusal to give in to spiritual or moral defeat, even in the face of Helmuth’s death, is striking.

Count Helmuth von Moltke was a law student in Berlin when Hitler rose to power in January 1933. Helmuth was the great-grand-nephew of the Prussian field marshal Helmuth von Moltke the elder, a celebrated military commander, and was the great nephew of Helmuth von Moltke the younger, a German general during World War I.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Goodbye, Liz By Michael Brendan Dougherty

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/goodbye-liz/

She flip-flopped, fibbed, and pandered her way out of the race.

In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to describe the political scene:

A few years ago, there was a revolution against the intelligentsia. People said, “You know, those people, particularly on the coasts, are trying to tell us what to do.” They wanted a change. That explains Donald Trump. Now, people seem to have changed. This cycle, people want stability.

Have they changed so much? Bloomberg thinks the tides are turning in his direction. I’m not so sure on either count. If people wanted the intelligentsia, if they wanted someone on the coasts telling them what to do, Elizabeth Warren would be on her way to the Democratic nomination. Instead, she is soon to be packing up her campaign. Her job will have been to knife Michael Bloomberg before he could launch a sneak attack on Sanders on Super Tuesday.

Warren was clearly the favorite candidate of academics and journalists — the intelligentsia. Why? Because she was the quintessential “front row” candidate, to borrow a term from author and photographer Chris Arnade. The image of her campaign will be her on a debate stage, hand raised, ready with an answer — but losing support roughly every minute she speaks.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

10,600 CDC Employees Earn $1.1 Billion Annually Adam Andrzejewski

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/02/29/10600-cdc-employees-

With the stock market in correction, public health alerts, travel restrictions, and hot spot quarantines across the globe, the coronavirus has certainly captured public attention.

Taxpayers are rightly wondering if the billions of dollars they send to Washington every year will help keep them and their families safe.

The U.S. agency primarily responsible is the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a sub-agency of U.S. Health and Human Services. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that the CDC invested heavily in acquiring and keeping talent. Headcounts and compensation are at all-time highs in nominal terms.

So, can this elite group of doctors and healthcare professionals safeguard the health of the nation?

In 2018, the agency employed 10,639 staffers who earned $1.1 billion. The average pay was $106,000 — with doctors earning up to $288,653. The statistics are compiled from the last year available with analysis by our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Charles Lipson:Four Takeaways from Biden’s South Carolina Victory After Tuesday, ALL the other Candidates will either drop out or become zombies unless they actually win something

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

https://spectator.us/four-takeaways-joe-biden-south-carolina-victory/

1) Joe Biden lives to fight another day, bloopers, gaffes, and all. But on Tuesday he needs to win a major state or finish a strong second to seize the spot as Bernie Sanders’s chief competitor.

Biden’s poor showing in Iowa and New Hampshire meant the South Carolina primary was his last stand. His recent polling showed his lead was small and decreasing. So the stakes were high and the situation dire. But the former VP was right to go all-in for South Carolina, which he always called his firewall. His loyalty to President Obama and his endorsement by Rep. James Clyburn were crucial in a state with a large African American population. Clyburn, the highest ranking African American in the House of Representatives, is widely respected in his home state of South Carolina, and he revered in the black community. His backing and his political network helped Biden immensely. So did Biden’s relatively moderate positions, which are more popular among African-Americans than Bernie’s harsh radicalism.

2) Biden’s victory calls into question Mike Bloomberg’s basic ‘theory of the case’, which was that Biden was too weak to survive and would leave the middle of the field open after his candidacy collapsed.

Bloomberg was only half right. He was right that there is no strong, fresh candidate in the middle lane. Mayor Pete Buttigieg did well in Iowa but hasn’t caught fire and has little support among key minority constituencies. Amy Klobuchar hasn’t done well, either. For now, then, it looks like Biden is Mayor Mike’s main obstacle in that lane.

But Bloomberg was wrong that Biden would drop out quickly or that the former New York mayor’s huge advertising budget could hide his glaring defects as a retail politician. He was wrong, too, in deciding to debate twice before Super Tuesday. To call him a poor debater is a vast understatement. He was fairly effective in CNN’s one-on-one town hall last week, but he was dreadful in the multi-candidate debates, which were more like food fights than intelligent discussions of public policy. Bloomberg is, at heart, a corporate manager, and he sounds like one.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on March 1st, 2020

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Breakthrough in fighting resistant bacteria and cancer. Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have used Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and AI to design new antibiotics and treatments for RNA viruses responsible for diseases such as hepatitis, HIV and many cancers.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/breakthrough-israeli-screening-method-could-lead-to-new-cancer-treatments-antibiotics/
 
Treatment for severe victims of coronavirus. As reported previously, (see here) the Allocetra treatment from Israel’s Enlivex cures patients suffering severe sepsis. Allocetra is now being offered to governments for the thousands of coronavirus patients suffering sepsis-induced organ failure due to overactive immune responses.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-company-ready-to-assist-coronavirus-victims-with-novel-drug-617777
 
Faster diagnosis of coronavirus. New technology developed by researchers at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University reduces the time taken to test viruses from an hour down to 15 minutes. The enhanced test is already used in Sheba Medical Center for other viruses and is now undergoing testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-tech-may-help-drastically-reduce-coronavirus-diagnostic-time-617796
 
Israeli support for coronavirus patients. Israeli innovation organization INNONATION recruited 100 Israeli volunteer doctors to provide medical videos to people in quarantine for Coronavirus in China and globally. It has also raised funds to send 150,000 pieces of medical equipment to China. Please see the inspiring video.
https://www.innonation.io/videos?wix-vod-video-id=baeb7735a7c84a1e90db1b678b6ca7c2&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-k0ezbnr7  https://www.innonation.io/
 
Monitoring suspected coronavirus patients. 12 Israelis exposed to the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) on the cruise liner in Japan have been quarantined at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. Each patient uses a TytoCare, device (see here) for doctors to remotely check pulse, temperature, throat, lungs, ears, heart, abdomen and skin.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/with-handheld-device-israelis-exposed-to-coronavirus-monitor-their-own-conditions/
 
Working on a coronavirus vaccine. The MIGAL Galilee Research Institute has made several scientific breakthroughs (see here)but the latest may be a treatment for the coronavirus (COVID-19). They are adapting their effective vaccine against avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV). Approval target is 90 days.
https://worldisraelnews.com/coronavirus-breakthrough-israeli-researchers-make-discovery-that-could-lead-to-vaccine/
 
Let me see inside your shoulder. The innovative AI-based / CT technology from Israel’s RSIP Vision (reported here previously)can now assist with shoulder surgery – one of the most complex procedures with a long recovery time. The system provides a precise 3D anatomical model of the shoulder for better diagnosis.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-ai-tech-lets-surgeons-see-inside-of-shoulder/
 
Now we’re smiling. Israel’s Mavrik Dental develops dental devices that help automate dental treatments. Its Thera-Smile teeth-whitening system has been cleared by the US FDA. Mavrik has just raised $30 million to fund opening commercial operations in the U.S. while retaining its product development center in Israel.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3793850,00.html  https://mavrikdental.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzi-_51FuyI
 
Israeli startups save lives. The 2020 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit attracted a record 23,000 delegates from 186 countries. They heard about three Israeli medical startups – Insightec, AlphaTAU and Surgical Theater and three of the patients whose lives they had saved with their groundbreaking technology.
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/How-Israeli-technology-saved-78-years-old-Leah-from-skin-cancer-617514   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTEdBuRURE
https://www.timesofisrael.com/this-israeli-tech-helped-grandpa-stop-spilling-his-drink/
 
3D-printing in the hospital. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center is using 3D printing alongside MRI and VR/AR as a precision tool to save lives and greatly improve surgical outcomes such as in knee replacements, heart bridges and facial reconstruction. Printing replicas of organs and bones also helps train new surgeons.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/health-and-medicine/sheba-medical-center/printing-3d-dreams-the-future-of-operating-room-technology-has-arrived/2020/02/25/
 
Targeting solid tumors. Israel’s KAHR Medical (reported here previously) has just raised $18 million to advance its DSP107 treatment to combat solid tumors. DSP107 works by targeting CD47, a protein that is overexpressed by cancer cells. DSP107 prevents CD47 from suppressing the immune system.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3796430,00.html
https://kahr-medical.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/February-2020-KHAR-Round-D-financing-2020.pdf
 
Using bacteria to fight cancer. Israel’s NeoTX uses Selective T cell Redirection (STR) technology to enlist a powerful immune response against tumors. Mutated bacteria are fused with monoclonal antibodies which target the tumor’s 5T4 antigen, alerting T-cells to kill the tumor.  NeoTX has just raised $45 million of funds.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3794957,00.html
 

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Billy Joel: The New Chairman of the Board By Kyle Smith

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/music-review-billy-joel-madison-square-garden/

Now 70, Billy Joel has all of the swagger & sangfroid of late-period Frank Sinatra.

H e is 70, and expansive across the midsection, and with his shaved head he could be a barroom bouncer. There is a line running up from his right eye into his forehead. That eye looks like it took a punch, or maybe it’s just being squeezed by the years. Billy Joel used to race around the stage in tennis shoes, sometimes jumping up on his grand piano. “Don’t take any s*** from anyone!” would be his Long Island valedictory at the end of an evening. Now he limits his movements, spends nearly the entire evening seated at the piano, which is on a turntable that does a half-turn once in a while. He brought on a surprise guest — “the world’s greatest violinist!” Itzhak Perlman added his beautiful violin to two numbers. Perlman is 74. We’re none of us as young as we used to be.

So: Let’s party? The crowd was non-young on February 20 at Joel’s 118th Madison Square Garden concert, but 40,000 creaky knees got a workout beneath that giant sports-style banner in the rafters (currently reading JOEL 118) up there with the Knicks and Rangers jerseys. Joel spoke for all of us who are old but feisty: “Last time I was here they hit my house!” he cried at the top of the show. “They knew I wasn’t home, so . . .” Joel was referring to the strange break-in at his Centre Island, Long Island estate (14.6 acres) the weekend of January 25. The burglars didn’t steal anything; they merely damaged several specimens of Joel’s prized motorcycle collection. Who breaks into a man’s home and beats up on his bikes? “This time I got dogs, I got guns, I got everything,” Joel said. “I hope they come back.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Oxford Should Keep Homer and Virgil on the Syllabus By Seth Cropsey

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://www.hudson.org/research/15764-oxford-should-keep-homer-and-virgil-on-the-syllabus

The Oxford Student, the largest student newspaper of the nearly thousand-year-old teaching institution, reported in mid-February that the classics faculty has recommended that Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid be removed from the literae humaniores, an undergraduate program in ancient literature, history, and philosophy. The program has been criticized because of the difference in scores between male and female students, as well as because of differences in how much previous training its students have had in classical languages. This is an absurd standard. What will be taught if equality of grades between the sexes becomes the standard of choosing course material? The classics faculty would solve the grade-difference issue by shedding two of Western civilization’s core works.

A student studying classics at Oxford opposes removal of the two epic poems and is gathering signatures for a petition to end debate on their future at Oxford. Note that cutting off debate on difficult issues is not restricted to American universities.

The Oxford Student quotes the student’s objection to Homer-exit. It means, he says, that “Oxford would be producing Classicists who have never read Homer and never read Virgil, who are the central authors of the Classical tradition and most of Classical literature, in one way or another, looks back to Homer and interacts with the Iliad.”

It’s worse than that. Homer and Virgil are fundamental not only to classics majors or students who will eventually teach classics to other students. Homer, by himself, is the keystone of Western literature.

The Iliad is a story about human passions: anger, pity, remorse, compassion, revenge; men’s relations to forces greater than themselves; war and its horrors (and it is very horrible in Homer’s supremely elegant lines); and the beauty of art and nature. It is a complex and deeply insightful exploration of the soul, human fate, and immortality. 

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

Fact-Check: Obama Waited Until ‘Millions’ Infected and 1000 Dead in U.S. Before Declaring H1N1 Emergency

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/fact-check-obama-waited-until-millions-infected-and-1000-dead-in-u-s-before-declaring-h1n1-emergency/

“Let’s call it Trumpvirus,” urged a New York Times opinion writer conspiratorially. Nancy Pelosi groused that President Trump waited too long to attack the coronavirus (COVID-19) and then impetuously declared he couldn’t have leftover and unspent Ebola virus money to fight it, while Senator Chuck Schumer looked down his nose and over his glasses to intone that it was the end of the world and the president hadn’t spent enough money to stop the scourge. Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg have both been called out for politicizing the virus.

By their lights, Trump’s doing it all wrong. They won’t be able to tell you why, but (stomps foot) they just know. They’re praying for a pandemic filled with infected people and decimation of the stock market just to fix Trump’s wagon in his re-election campaign, now that the whole Russian-secret-agent and peeing-hooker story went belly-up.

They just know that he’s such a dummy that it wouldn’t ever occur to him to stop air travel from an infected nation, increase screenings, involuntarily quarantine those infected with the virus when they were repatriated and seek a vaccine now.

Oh, wait, he has done all of those things and was called a racist for doing it.

We’ve had several creepy viruses emerge over the past two decades. There’s been MRSA, SARS, and H1N1 (swine flu), to name a few. But it’s been the H1N1 flu that has been most compared to this outbreak.

Surely, St. Barack of Obama would have dealt with this horrible pandemic better than Orange Man Bad, right? No-Drama-Obama had this whole thing under control, of course!

Well, let’s compare and contrast.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Has Trump Helped Women? Let Me Count the Ways By Mary Vought –

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/02/29/has_trump_helped_women_let_me_count_the_ways.html

Last month, radical leftists held their annual Women’s March in Washington. They claim the Trump administration doesn’t represent women, but the facts indicate otherwise. In reality, women have benefited from huge gains, financial and otherwise, during the past three years.

Take the most important issue for families: The economy. Our nation has created more than 7 million jobs since the 2016 election — and women have filled over half, or more than 4 million, of those vacancies. The unemployment rate for women stands at a minuscule 3.2%, and last September reached its lowest level since 1953. And as the unemployment rate has declined, so too did the number of women in poverty, decreasing by 1.5 million in President Trump’s first two years in office. 

Likewise, President Trump and his administration continue to work to improve our health care system. As the mother of two young daughters, one of whom suffers from cystic fibrosis, I know that Donald Trump is fighting to help the sickest among us. That’s why the  administration recently released a series of regulations that could lead to 28,000 new organ transplants every year, not only saving lives but also, saving up to $13 billion in taxpayer funds over five years.

Efforts like the organ donation rules don’t win much press, but they show how the president is committed to reform health care. His administration has approved record numbers of generic drugs, making once costly prescriptions more affordable for patients. Individuals also have new ways to achieve portable health insurance coverage, providing them with additional and better coverage options to choose from.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

German Court Rejects Attempt to Enshrine Sharia Law by Soeren Kern

Posted By on February 29th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15658/german-court-rejects-attempt-to-enshrine-sharia

“From a constitutional-law perspective, the legislature’s decision to establish a duty of neutral conduct with respect to ideological and religious matters for legal trainees must therefore be respected….” — Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court

“The proper functioning of the justice system requires that society not only place trust in individual judges, but also in the justice system in general.” — Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court

“With this groundbreaking decision, the court sent an important signal in favor of the ideological neutrality of state institutions. Especially in today’s society, in which people from many countries around the world live with different cultural biographies and also with different religions, the state order must place more value than ever on its ideological neutrality. This is only possible if the state parties to judicial proceedings are not allowed to show religious insignia.” — Hesse’s Minister of Justice Eva Kühne-Hörmann

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms of Muslims can be curtailed if public displays of religiosity — in this case wearing Islamic headscarves in German courtrooms — endanger the ideological and religious neutrality of the state.

The court’s landmark ruling effectively smashes a backdoor effort to enshrine Sharia law into the German legal system.