ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on September 29th, 2019

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Heart implant is a breakthrough (twice). (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (see here) on the interatrial shunt developed by Israel’s V-Wave. The US FDA has just granted two Breakthrough Device Designations to the device – the first is for Heart Failure (HF), and the second, for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH).
http://vwavemedical.com/2019/09/12/v-wave-receives-second-fda-breakthrough-device-designation-interatrial-shunt-for-pulmonary-arterial-hypertension/
 
Spine device gets humanitarian status. (Ty Atid-EDI) I reported previously (see here) on the twisted spine treatment from Israel’s Apifix. The U.S. FDA has given Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) to Apifix to market its MID-C system. Apifix addresses the unmet clinical need for an alternative to spinal fusion.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190827005604/en/ApiFix-Receives-FDA-Approval-Commercialize-MID-C-System
 
US approval for upright wheelchair.  I’ve reported previously (see here)about Israel’s UPnRIDE robotic standing wheelchair that allows wheelchair users to travel upright. The US FDA has just cleared the UPnRIDE for marketing and use in the US. Cofounder Dr Amit Goffer is a quadriplegic who uses the UPnRIDE himself.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-upnride-standing-wheelchair-receives-fda-clearance-1001301453
 
FDA approves diabetes management system. I’ve reported previously (see here) on the diabetes monitors from Israel’s DreaMed. The US FDA has just given approval to DreaMed’s Advisor Pro, to add to its EU approval. The software tells Type 1 diabetics how much insulin to use, without having to contact a physician.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/DreaMed-wins-FDA-clearance-for-AI-insulin-recommendation-technology-601846  
 
Smartphone CKD diagnosis approved. (TY Atid-EDI) I’ve reported previously (see here) on Israel’s Healthy.io and its smartphone-based urinalysis for Chronic Kidney Disease. It is now US and EU approved and some 100,000 kits have been sold. Healthy.io has just raised $60 million of funds. https://healthy.io/about-us/
https://vimeo.com/200176528 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLQ5lqsq2Y0(UK Financial Times video)
 
US approval for ultrasound skin tightening. (TY Atid-EDI) I recently reported (20th Aug) that Israel’s SofWave had received CE certification for its non-invasive ultrasound technology for skin tightening. It has now also received FDA approval. 86% of a recent trial demonstrated improvement in wrinkle appearance.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sofwave-medicals-low-divergence-ultrasound-technology-has-received-fda-clearance-for-the-aesthetic-treatment-of-facial-lines-and-wrinkles-300918611.html
 
US approval for lung diagnosis catheter. I reported previously (May 2017) on Israel’s Body Vision Medical when it was producing hi-res maps of the lungs to aid tumor removal. Since then it has developed a disposable lung navigation catheter which recently received US FDA approval. The company has also raised $20 million.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3771163,00.html
 
EU funds heart protection device. Israeli startup Filterlex Medical has received 2.1 million euros from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Filterlex develops an embolic protection device to reduce the risk of stroke and other complications during catheter-based heart procedures.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3770877,00.html http://filterlex.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e48mW5-Zdxo
 
Treatments for eye diseases. (TY Atid-EDI) Israeli biotech Wize Pharma markets Israeli-developed LO2A eye drops for the treatment of ophthalmic disorders, including Dry Eye Syndrome. Wize is now to develop and trial the WP-REP1 gene therapy from Cleveland’s Copernicus for treating the rare eye disease Choroideremia.
http://wizepharma.investorroom.com/2019-09-09-Wize-Pharma-Enters-Exclusive-License-Agreement-for-Ophthalmic-Non-viral-Gene-Therapy-Technology   https://www.wizepharma.com/lo2a-eye-drops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBw3cO_YMsM
 
Innovative infusion systems. (TY Atid-EDI) The infusion systems of Israel’s Eitan Group (Q-core, Sorrel and Avoset), are installed worldwide. E.g. there are 100,000 of Q-cores Sapphire devices in the market. Eitan has now agreed that Canadian Hospital Specialties will supply and support Sapphire across Canada.
https://www.massdevice.com/how-the-eitan-group-aims-to-disrupt-the-infusion-pump-industry/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/canadian-hospital-specialties-to-distribute-eitan-groups-sapphire-infusion-systems-in-canada-300918470.html  
 

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Persistence of the Oldest Hatred: Hillel Halkin Reviews “How To Fight Anti-Semitism” by Bari Weiss

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/books/review/how-to-fight-anti-semitism-bari-

Bari Weiss has written what must be judged a brave book. That it must be is a badge of shame for the “progressive” America with which she identifies.

Should it call for courage for a politically liberal American Jew like Weiss to point out that Jews, though a tiny percentage of the population of the United States, are the victims of over half of its reported hate crimes? That anti-Jewish rhetoric, once confined to right-wing extremists, now infests the American left, too?

Should someone like Weiss, an editor and opinion writer at The New York Times, have to expect brickbats from her colleagues for observing that a vicious demonization of Israel and its supporters has become routine in much of the American left and endemic on college and university campuses? That whatever its failings, Israel is a remarkable human adventure that deserves at least as much sympathy as criticism? That it is only natural for a Jew to care deeply about a Jewish state’s welfare and survival? That Jewish solidarity is as legitimate as any other form of human solidarity?

Should she have to fear ostracism or damage to her journalistic reputation for pointing out that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, while theoretically distinguishable, have long merged into a single ugly phenomenon? Or that it is obscene, less than a century after the Holocaust, to class Jews with their historical “white oppressors”?

Unfortunately, as Weiss writes in “How to Fight Anti-Semitism,” the answer to all these questions is yes.

Weiss’s book, whose careful organization and articulate prose belie its hurried composition in the wake of last October’s Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, is not just about the left. (A native of Pittsburgh herself, she retains a strong attachment to its Jewish community.) The Pittsburgh shooter was a lunatic-fringe white supremacist, and “How to Fight Anti-Semitism” seeks to be evenhanded: Its chapter on the anti-Semitism of the left is preceded by a chapter on the anti-Semitism of the right and followed by a chapter on the anti-Semitism of radical Islam. Though not claiming to be original, Weiss is admirably succinct in her explanation of why groups having nothing else in common are united in their dislike or hatred of Jews. “In the eyes of the anti-Semite,” she writes, “the Jew is … everything.” It is not the actual Jew that most anti-Semites hate (many of them have never met one) but what they project onto him. “He is whatever the anti-Semite needs him to be.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge By Sean Davis

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/intel-community-secretly-gutted-requirement-of-first-hand-whistleblower-knowledge/

Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.

The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”

The internal properties of the newly revised “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” form, which the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), show that the document was uploaded on September 24, 2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no specific date of revision is disclosed.

The complaint alleges that President Donald Trump broke the law during a phone call with the Ukrainian president. In his complaint, which was dated August 12, 2019, the complainant acknowledged he was “not a direct witness” to the wrongdoing he claims Trump committed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How about a Bipartisan Treaty against the Criminalization of Elections? By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/how-about-a-bipartisan-treaty-against-the

Setting aside Hunter Biden, there was no impropriety in President Trump’s asking Zelensky to assist the Justice Department’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.

Back home in the Bronx is where I first heard the old saw about the Irishman who, coming upon a donnybrook at the local pub, asks a bystander: “Is this a private fight or can anybody join?”

I was a much younger fellow then. The prospect becomes less alluring with age, so I have some trepidation stepping in between two old friends, Andrew Napolitano and Joe DiGenova. Through intermediary hosts, the pair — Napolitano a former New Jersey Superior Court jurist and law professor, DiGenova a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and prominent defense lawyer — brawled this week on Fox News (where I, like they, contribute regularly).

I’m going to steer clear of the pugnacious to-ing and fro-ing. Let’s consider the intriguing legal issue that ignited it.

Judge Napolitano argues that the July 25 conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky contains the makings of a campaign-finance crime. He highlights Trump’s request for Ukraine’s help in investigating then–vice president Joe Biden. In 2016, Biden pressured Kyiv to drop a corruption investigation of Burisma, a natural gas company that paid Biden’s son, Hunter, big bucks to sit on its board.

Biden, of course, is one of the favorites for the Democratic presidential nomination. Napolitano reasons that the information Trump sought from Ukraine would be a form of “opposition research” that could be seen as an in-kind donation to Trump’s reelection campaign, which should be deemed illegal because the law prohibits foreign contributions and attempts to acquire them. (Napolitano also raised the “arguable” possibility of a bribery offense, on the theory that Trump was withholding defense aid as a corrupt quid pro quo to get the Biden information. But he emphasized the foreign contribution issue. That is his stronger argument, and I am focusing on it, given that the Trump-Zelensky transcript does not support a quid pro quo demand; plus bribery, in any event, raises the same “thing of value” proof problems addressed below.)

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Downton Abbey – A Review By Marilyn Penn

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

http://politicalmavens.com/

One of the more interesting aspects of the long-running television series was how skillfully Julian Fellowes managed the transition from 19th century British mores to the 20th. From the introduction of the automobile to the radical concept of a chauffeur marrying into an aristocratic family, almost every episode had some element of gradual change in the lives of upper class gentry and glimpses of how the downstairs servants could begin to see their aspirations materialize, frequently with the support of their benevolent upper class employers. While all this was happening, we had the best-written character of Lady Grantham, played to perfection by Dame Maggie Smith to represent the other side of these “advances” with her clever and witty pronouncements of the old-fashioned way of thinking and doing.

So it was particularly disappointing to see Fellowes’ graceful touch become heavy-handed in the movie version. The film begins with the announcement of an imminent visit from the King and Queen who will stay at Downton overnight. Without giving away the specific twists in the plot, there are hurt feelings among the staff at the planned usurpation of their usual jobs for this occasion and an overly absurd plan is hatched to level the playing field. Devoid of subtlety, it also defies credibility, particularly in several of the staff whom we have come to know so well over a long period of time. Concomitant with this is the introduction of homosexual freedom surfacing in a private club attended by a member of the staff, something that might be believable if it were not taking place during the hoopla of the royal visit. Other sub-plots involve theft, jealousy, adultery, illegitimacy and paternity rights and wrongs. It made me feel as if Fellowes was consulting his checklist of issues and inserting them without regard to logic or the long friendship and understanding most viewers would have with his characters who were very real to us.

To its credit, Downton Abbey is lush, scenic, photogenic and helped by a magnificent score. Fans of the series are legion and will see the movie regardless of its defects but I wish Fellowes had not sullied his almost perfect track record for having written every episode with this clunky finale. Too bad Lady Grantham wasn’t his editor for the screenplay.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Humanitarian Hoax of Impeachment: Killing America With Kindness – hoax 49 by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

The entire 2020 lineup of leftist Democrats and their Congressional sycophants have assured the nation that impeachment of President Trump is necessary to protect the nation. It is an odd assertion considering that President Trump has been wildly successful by pro-America standards. Let’s review.

In less than three years President Trump has added 6 million jobs to the workforce, unemployment is the lowest it has ever been for the black, Hispanic, and Asian communities. The United States is energy independent and we are now the leading exporter of energy in the world. So, what exactly do the Democrats mean when they say that YOU, the nation, will be safer without POTUS? Let’s find out.

It appears there is pervasive pronoun confusion in the Democrat assertion! The corrupt pay-to-play Democrats would definitely be safer without America-first President Trump in charge, but YOU, the American taxpaying voter, will definitely not be safer. Let me explain.

In 1994, ice skater Tonya Harding stunned the world with her participation in the unprecedented and shocking physical attack against competitor Nancy Kerrigan. Fans were familiar with anabolic steroid doping schemes in athletics, but a physical assault intended to break Nancy Kerrigan’s leg?? The attack was simply beyond the threshold of public tolerance. Fans want a fair fight – a fair competition between athletes who perform and compete fairly for the competition prize – no cheating or dirty tricks allowed.

So it is with politics. The radical leftist Democrat party has pushed the public past the threshold of tolerance. Americans voters want a fair fight – a fair competition between politicians who present their positions and compete fairly for the election prize – no cheating or dirty tricks allowed.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Real-Life ‘Schindler’s List’ Holocaust Survivor Introduces Algemeiner Honoree Sir Ben Kingsley at ‘J100’ Gala

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

DPS Request:
This is special – very special. You can see from the short report below what the story is, but you cannot begin to appreciate how it was told unless you were at this Algemeiner Dinner (I was) or, barring that, watching the video which accompanies the story. There are 3 parts. All are marvelous and need to be watched in order to fully grasp the importance of what was being said. The 10 minutes that Sir Ben Kingsley spoke left me profoundly moved but also awestruck as I watched a truly great actor deliver a finely crafted, important and moving speech in a way which only those who are gifted with the ability to transmit thoughts and feelings through physical presence and spoken words can do. No notes. No pauses. No hesitations. Perfectly crafted. Every gesture and movement clearly designed to enhance his words. The words were the substance, of course, but their delivery was the work of a master craftsman.

*******************************

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/09/27/real-life-schindlers-list-holocaust-survivor-introduces-algemeiner-honoree-sir-ben-kingsley-at-j100-gala/
Real-Life ‘Schindler’s List’ Holocaust Survivor Introduces Algemeiner Honoree Sir Ben Kingsley at ‘J100’ Gala
By Algemeiner Staff – 9/27/19

Daniela Lavender, Sir Ben Kingsley, Halina Silber, Mushka Efune and Dovid Efune at the 6th annual Algemeiner J100 gala in New York City, Sept. 27, 2019. Photo: PMC / Sean Zanni for The Algemeiner.
Famed British actor Sir Ben Kingsley was honored with the prestigious “Warrior for Truth” award on Thursday at the 6th annual Algemeiner ‘J100’ gala in New York City.
Kingsley, whose most prominent Jewish role was as Itzhak Stern in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List,” was introduced by Holocaust survivor Halina Silber — who was No. 16 on the real-life list compiled by German industrialist Oskar Schindler.
In his subsequent remarks, Kingsley remembered, “When I met with the great Steven Spielberg to discuss playing Itzhak Stern, I asked him, ‘What is my narrative function in this role?’ and he said, ‘Conscience. Witness.’ As I was filming, I had in my pocket a photograph of Anne Frank and I would say to this beautiful photograph, ‘Dear girl, I’m doing this for you.’ Everyday on the set I would say that.”
“Well, dear friends, tonight I can assure you that if given another opportunity to tell your story I can say wholeheartedly, ‘I’m doing this for you,’” he added.
Watch the speeches of Silber and Kingsley here:

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/09/27/real-life-schindlers-list-holocaust-survivor-introduces-algemeiner-honoree-sir-ben-kingsley-at-j100-gala/

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Italy: Salvini Out, Migrants In by Soeren Kern

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14933/italy-salvini-immigration

During just the past several weeks, the number of migrant arrivals to Italy has increased incrementally…. Many of the new arrivals are reaching Italy by using new people-smuggling routes that originate in Turkey.

The interior ministers from France, Germany, Italy and Malta met on September 23 in the Maltese capital, Valletta, where they agreed to a tentative proposal for shipwrecked migrants to be “voluntarily redistributed” throughout the European Union…. Similar proposals have failed in the past and there is no reason to believe this one will be different, largely because the concept of European solidarity is a myth. So far only six EU states have agreed to migrant redistribution: France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain.

NGOs such as Open Arms claim to be playing an invaluable humanitarian role in saving the lives of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war and oppression in their home countries. Statistics show something else entirely.

Salvini has condemned the new government as one “produced by Paris and Berlin, born out of a fear of giving up power, without dignity and without ideals, with the wrong people in the wrong place.”

Italy’s new government, which has pledged to reverse former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s hardline approach to migration policy, appears to have triggered a new wave of mass migration from northern Africa.

More than 1,400 migrants reached Italian shores since the new government took office on September 5, according to data compiled by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

During just the past several weeks, the number of migrant arrivals to Italy has increased incrementally: 59 migrants arrived on September 6; 67 arrived on September 9; 121 arrived on September 14; 259 arrived on September 15; 275 arrived on September 18; and 475 arrived between September 19 and September 25, according to the IOM. Overall, the number of migrant arrivals in September 2019 is up by more than 100% over the number of arrivals in September 2018.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

MARK STEYN ON BIDEN*****

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9755/hunted-biden

Joe Biden is not Bill Clinton in his artful prime; indeed, Hunter Biden does not even rise to Chelsea Clinton at her dopiest. The Dems can accuse Trump of trying to “dirty up” the Bidens, but it’s hard to dirty up an overflowing sewer:

The defense of Democrats is that Joe Biden may have said he got rid of this prosecutor, but all the governments, every government in Europe wanted this prosecutor gone. That may be true. But the foreign minister of Germany and the foreign minister of France didn’t go on TV and brag about how he gave a six-hour ultimatum to a foreign government to fire its prosecutor-general. The only politician on earth who did that is Joe Biden – and then you’re surprised that suddenly people are excited about why Hunter Biden is getting 50 grand a month in a country where the average wage at that time was $200 a month.

In April 2014, a sleazy Ukrainian oligarch called Mykola Zlochevsky put Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer, on the board of Ukraine’s biggest oil-&-gas company, Burisma.

How did it get to be so big?

Well, Mr Zlochevsky and his business partner Nikolay Lysin were respectively Minister of Natural Resources and the chairman of the Natural Resources parliamentary committee for much of the previous twelve years. There is a rule in Kiev that no Member of Parliament should have any business beyond his parliamentary responsibilities – so, as Messrs Zlochevsky and Lysin’s parliamentary responsibilities included oil and gas, they happily spent their terms of office handing out oil and gas licenses to companies they personally controlled (for which Burisma is the overarching holding company).

Mr Lysin did not live to enjoy his oil-gotten gains. A healthy fortysomething, he swerved to avoid a rabbit in the road one night and ploughed his Lamborghini at 150mph into (appropriately) a set of gas pumps. That’s the official story. So now Mr Zlochevsky owns all of Burisma.

That said, it is not, technically, a Ukrainian company. It’s registered in Limmerssol, the second biggest city in Cyprus but one that the locals now call Limmerssolgrad, because it’s the preferred destination for Russian money-launderers. As to how preferred it is with Ukrainian launderers, by the time Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board virtually the entire national economy was Cypriot: In 2014 92 per cent of Ukraine’s outward investment went to Cyprus.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

False Testimony Sworn statements at a recent congressional hearing on policing veered sharply from the truth: here are the facts. Heather Mac Donald

Posted By on September 28th, 2019

https://www.city-journal.org/police-shootings-racial-bias

The House Judiciary Committee, now controlled by Democrats, had called a hearing to address a “series of deaths of unarmed African-American men while in police custody” as well as the “mistrust between police and marginalized communities.” Throughout the four-hour session, a photo array of blacks killed by the police played continuously on video screens around the room, interspersed with statistics allegedly proving that the police harbor lethal racist bias. Committee chairman Jerry Nadler claimed in his opening remarks that the “frequency of these killings and the absence of full accountability for those responsible send a message to members of the African American community that Black Lives Do Not Matter.” Nadler invoked the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, as examples of “police misconduct against African-Americans,” though Barack Obama’s Justice Department found no misconduct in the first case, and criminal charges against the Freddie Gray officers were dismissed either before or after trial.

Minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin, Al Sharpton escorted Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, to the witness table, surrounded by a mob of photographers. Garner had tragically died of a heart attack after New York Police Department officers tried to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes in July 2014; Garner resisted arrest, and one of the officers used a chokehold to take him down. Garner’s repeated last words—“I can’t breathe”—became an international rallying cry against police brutality. Carr gave impassioned testimony denouncing the lack of consequences for the police “murder” of her son: after five years of federal and local investigation, the officer who used the fatal chokehold was fired, but no prosecutions or other actions in the case have taken place. Carr left the witness table after her remarks to sit in the spectator section, but she remained a frequent reference point for the Democratic argument that the police devalue minority lives.