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Turkey’s Sweeping “Educational” Penetration into the Balkans by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on January 31st, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13639/turkey-balkans-education

Erdogan repeatedly has said that his government aims to raise “devout generations” in Turkey. To this end, he has Islamized Turkey’s education system. Now he is working on exporting Islamized curricula to Europe.

“Turkey’s experience in religious education is very important to us, as it has advanced in a remarkable way. If we also use the imam hatip school method in our countries, in ten years we could also have a president [such as Erdogan] raised in an imam hatip school.” — Participants in a conference of school administrators from Europe and the Balkans, 2017, according to the Maarif Foundation.

“…[J]ihad is obligatory until judgment day… in some places, jihad is done with the pen; in others it is done with the tongue. And in some other places, it is carried out with guns. What is your jihad in the lands where you reside? If Muslims are persecuted somewhere, it is because there is no caliphate where they live.” — Nureddin Yıldız, one of the first members of the World Union of Scholars from Turkey and also the founding member of the Union of Scholars in Turkey, in a fatwa on his website.

As part of its expansionist neo-Ottoman agenda, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been building mosques and setting up Islamic educational institutions around the world. The mosque that Ankara is currently constructing in Tirana, Albania, will reportedly be the largest of the dozens of its mosques in the Balkans.

Through the Maarif Foundation — established in 2016 by means of a law enacted by the Turkish parliament, which gave it the authority to open schools abroad — a kindergarden, primary-, middle- and high-schools were built in Tirana. In October 2018, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu was the keynote speaker at the inauguration in Albania of the Maarif-run University of New York Tirana.

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Duke University: Polyglot Boarding House By Helen Lamm

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/29/duke-universit

Middlebury College is widely renowned for their top-quality, immersive foreign language learning programs. Central to the Middlebury curriculum is the infamous language pledge, a promise which all students must take to use for communication only the language one is studying for the duration of the program. Whether during the summer in idyllic Middlebury, Vermont, or overseas at one of the school’s satellite locations, hundreds of students every year commit themselves to Middlebury’s infamous language pledge, immersing themselves in the culture of the target language and internalizing all the subtle cues and linguistic patterns that occur over water cooler talk, gossip, run-of-the-mill transactions, etc.

Fulfilling one’s obligations under the language pledge is difficult. Most people process their emotions and thoughts by speaking about them. Living in a strange, new place with all of the emotional turmoil that brings can be overwhelming, especially when one lacks the vocabulary to articulate one’s experience. In rare moments of longing, the average Middlebury student might call home and speak in his native tongue for awhile. But those instances of quiet desperation are understood to be private.

The language pledge is as much a matter of respect for the other people in the room as it is a personal commitment to self-improvement. Speaking the language of the host country notifies the people of that country of one’s regard for their culture, time, and welcome. Thus, a certain intimacy may be achieved with friends of completely different backgrounds through speaking the host language. As for classmates, staying true to the language pledge in public and private settings communicates to them that their learning process is of as much value as one’s own. The shared experience of stumbling toward fluency also lends to the development of comradery among fellow students.

Ultimately, Middlebury Language School graduates are generally regarded as the best in the field. The positive outcomes of immersing oneself in the target culture cannot be overstated. From the national security perspective, Middlebury Language Schools are fantastic tools of cultural diplomacy.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Learning the lessons of Australia’s recognition of the State of Israel, seventy years on Peter Wertheim ****

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/lessons-of-australias-recognition-of-israel-1949/10758504

Peter Wertheim is co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

Today, 29 January 2019, marks the 70th anniversary of an obscure and long-forgotten event in the history of Australia’s international relations: the day Australia recognised the State of Israel. The issue generated intense behind-the-scenes controversy, and ultimately open disagreement, between the then Labor government, led by Prime Minister Ben Chifley and Foreign Minister, “Doc” Evatt, and its sister Labour government in Britain.

Seventy years later, following the passing of a resolution at the recent ALP National Conference supporting recognition of a Palestinian State, it is worth recalling what the controversy was about and understanding why it still matters.
Recognising Israel ― 1949

In the late 1940s, support for the Zionist cause in Australia came primarily from the Labor side of politics, whereas the conservatives were the source of most of the opposition to it. Conservative views were shaped largely by traditional feelings of loyalty to Britain, which had ruled Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. Britain fought a bitter insurgency by Jewish forces for three years, sparked by its decision to bar entry into Palestine to tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors who were desperate to escape Europe and leave behind the traumas they had endured.

On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to recommend the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State, giving international endorsement to the principle of “two States for two peoples.” This was not an act of recognition, however; neither State yet existed. The British Mandate government continued to function.

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Former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey on Anti-Semitism in the UK

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey, now a life peer, is seen below asserting, in an interview on i24NEWS with video anti-antisemitism campaigner and Middle East analyst Jonathan Sacerdoti, a few home truths on Holocaust Memorial Day:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E8Xx58zq68

‘…. Lord Carey of Clifton told i24NEWS on Sunday that ‘Christians are to blame as well’ for high-levels of anti-Semitism in the UK, which he suggested was linked to the one-sided narratives many received on pilgrimages to Israel and the West Bank. ‘What I think we need to do is to better educate Christians who go on these pilgrimages to see this as not the total story,’ Lord Carey said, urging the thousands attending such religious trips to prominent and widely-contested holy sites in the region to seek the entire picture with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many of the religious sites such as Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron are located in the West Bank, often flashpoint and conflict-centric areas. ‘What they don’t realize is what is happening to the Jewish communities in their own land who are sidelined and in a way persecuted by Palestinians. You’ve got to get a much more balanced view of what’s going on,’ he continued. ‘I think of Israel as a wonderful, sophisticated, democratic society surrounded by undemocratic nations. I mean we must support one another,’ he said, emphasizing shared the Judeo-Christian heritage. ‘Christians owe so much to the Jewish scriptures and Jewish history, so we stand as one,’ the former top church leader added. Lord Carey of Clifton has often spoken out publicly against anti-Semitism in the church and across the UK. ‘It’s not going to cost my life, it’s not going to cost my future, and this is what Jews fear, you know, the persecution, indirect persecution,’ he asserted, referring to the detrimental impact anti-Semitism can often have on daily life. ‘Think of Jewish children walking to school with armed guards, guards outside synagogues — in an advanced civilization such as ours, this is quite deplorable,’ he told i24NEWS’

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Federal Agencies’ Nutrition And Obesity Recommendations Are Junk Science Too often, medical research is stunted by cronyism, bad incentives, and lack of competent peer review. And it all comes at the expense of taxpayers.By Edward Archer

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/30/federal-agencies-nutrition-obesity-recommendations-junk-science/

Over the past decade, my colleagues and I have published analyses in top medical and scientific journals showing that no human could survive on the diets the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) used to create the dietary guidelines for Americans. To be precise, we demonstrated that the methods used by researchers at public health agencies produced data that were physiologically implausible and inadmissible as scientific evidence. We further showed that these pseudo-scientific methods and meaningless data generated a fictional diet-centric discourse on obesity and chronic disease, with significant consequences for public health policy.

Yet despite our rigorous analyses plus scathing critiques from scientists around the world, federal public health agencies repeatedly refused to address contrary evidence and re-examine their demonstrably invalid methods. As a result the USDA, HHS, National Cancer Institute (NCI), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continue to use meaningless dietary data to tell Americans what to eat and drink while promoting futile “diet-centric” public health policies such as menu-labeling mandates and banning large sodas.

Nevertheless, federal agencies impeding scientific progress is merely the tip of the iceberg. Recent events show that the U.S. research establishment is incompetent and corrupt, existing largely to transfer wealth from hard-working Americans to elite academics.
Taxpayer Funding Is A Substitute For Scientific Rigor

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Austria Reeling From Migrants’ Murder of Women When patriarchy and misogyny among foreigners spawn killings. Stephen Brown

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272710/austria-reeling-migrants-murder-women-stephen-brown

It is definitely not how Austrians wanted to begin the New Year.

In a bloody start to 2019, four women have been brutally murdered in the peaceful Alpine nation of almost 9 million people in just over two weeks, shaking the country to its core.

With an additional two murders of women committed last December, the tally of this “femicide,” as it is being termed, stands at six in a little over five weeks. (There have been no male murder victims.) And this in a country with the very low murder rate of only .66 per 100,000 people! (The United States, by contrast, has 5.35)

What is conspicuous to Austrians about these terrible tragedies is that all the women-killers, except one, are not native Austrians. (Non-Austrians are only 15 per cent of the population.) Another visible factor is most murders were committed by partners or ex-partners of women who were about to leave, or had left, relationships with their killers.

“It is striking that many foreigners and asylum seekers are found over proportionally among the suspects. That suggests that this group is particularly misogynistic and patriarchist oriented,” said social scientist Birgitt Haller of the Institute for Conflict Research in Vienna.

Police concur. They report that sometimes when called to a migrant home where the husband is physically abusing his wife: “Then he doesn’t understand at all why he is not allowed to hit his wife and why he has to leave the apartment.”

Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the ruling conservative Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), horrified by the killings, says the fact most of the criminals have a migrant background “is not permitted to be withheld.”

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Guns, #MeToo, Israel, Human Rights and Trump Do you have an opinion that is not shared by most of your peers?

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/guns-metoo-israel-human-rights-and-trump-11548806463

Editor’s Note: This is the first edition of Future View, a WSJ Opinion series allowing college students to sound off on politics, culture and global affairs. In this installment, contributors share opinions that are unpopular among their peers. Next we ask, “What’s one issue on which President Trump and the Democrats can compromise?” Click here to submit responses of fewer than 250 words by noon ET Feb. 5. The best responses will be published on Feb. 6.

Women Need the Right to Bear Arms

If you don’t support Second Amendment rights, you can’t claim to be a supporter of the #MeToo movement. In the fall of 2016 I was a senior at my dream university in Philadelphia. What started as an ordinary day ended up being the worst of my life: I was violently raped. At the time I was a law-abiding gun owner, but I couldn’t bring my gun with me to my gun-free university. That senseless rule left me defenseless. I was just months away from being the first in my family to graduate from college, but I was forced to drop out due to the emotional trauma stemming from my assault.

Unfortunately, there are times when women in particular need to have a reliable means of self-defense. There are times when seconds count and no one is there to save us. If you won’t respect our right to bear arms and let us have a reliable means of self-defense on college campuses, you have no right to tell us you stand with victims of sexual assault.

–Savannah Lindquist, Tidewater Community College and Old Dominion University, majoring in psychology.

Israel Is Powerful. That Doesn’t Make it Wrong

Why do my peers oppose Israel? Not because college students are anti-Semitic, but because most hold one truth to be self-evident: Powerlessness implies moral legitimacy. The Israelis are powerful; the Palestinians are not. As such, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is merely a struggle between victim and oppressor, and nobody wants to support the oppressor.

Accordingly, campus pro-Israel groups often try to portray Israel as a victim, too—a victim of international bias and unprovoked aggression from its Arab neighbors. This strategy, however, has failed. It will continue to fail because even though Israel may be under threat, it isn’t powerless. Israel’s army is strong and its technology is advanced. But power doesn’t automatically imply moral turpitude; and conversely, powerlessness does not guarantee goodness. In other words, might does not make Israel right, but it certainly does not make Israel wrong, either. Indeed, Israel strives for justice and peace. But students can’t see that when they allow the popular morality of power to obscure the truth.

–Benjamin Simon, Stanford University, intends to major in philosophy and religious studies and computer science.

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The Latest Brexit Episode Disappoints Remainers By John O’Sullivan

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/latest-brexit-episode-disappoints-remainers/

It didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to.

In the latest thrilling parliamentary episode of Brexit, the hopes and expectations of, among other Remainers, House of Commons speaker John Bercow were largely disappointed, and the hopes of Brexiteers began to rise again. That was not supposed to happen.

Before the actual votes on seven amendments to a government motion supporting Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union, it was generally expected that some would pass and either delay the date of Brexit, or transfer control of parliamentary business from cabinet ministers to a coalition of Remainers, or allow MPs to choose among several alternative versions of Brexit. All of these were departures from usual parliamentary conventions — which Bercow had approved, contrary to both precedent and his duty of impartiality — and almost all represented a reversal of what a vast majority of MPs had voted for a year ago. Most significantly, however, they would all have had the intended effect of delaying Brexit indefinitely and likely canceling it altogether.

That was expected because it has become conventional wisdom that a House of Commons with a Remainer majority would inevitably vote only for a Brexit tolerable to the Remainers and thus disappointing to Leavers. It very much didn’t turn out that way. Of the seven amendments, the five most hostile ones were defeated, all by healthy majorities. The two amendments that did pass were (1) the Brady amendment, which the government had accepted as a way of keeping May’s plan alive, and (2) a non-binding amendment calling for the government not to pursue a No Deal Brexit but not providing any means to prevent it.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Death Spiral for BuzzFeed, the Millennial Reader’s Digest By Kyle Smith

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/buzzfeed-death-spiral-the-millennial-readers-digest/

Which Pandering And Meretricious Yet Doomed Advertorial Dungbot Are You? Take The Quiz!

At its peak in the 1970s, Reader’s Digest pleased America like no other publication ever, selling 17 million copies a month while leaving no footprint whatsoever. It was invisible yet ubiquitous. Sure, it carried (often condensed) versions of real news stories written by fancy reporters for respected outlets, but that wasn’t why America adored it. Mainly it was defined by its periphery, its ephemera. Reader’s Digest was the mild, studiously inoffensive little nuggets of japery that readers sent in. The heartwarming stories about men in uniform, pets, kids. The “service journalism” — tips for soothing your aches or bringing harmony to your bank account. The patriotism, the Christmas miracles, the ironclad Frank Capra optimism. You’d see desiccated copies in your dentist’s waiting room or on Grandma’s coffee table. The product wasn’t quite junk food, merely the gentlest possible level of mental stimulation for the lowest common denominator. It was literary meatloaf.

Now picture the Reader’s Digest ethos reborn in 2006. What if you were willing to endure any amount of ridicule, contempt, dismissal, and eye-rolling in pursuit of the largest conceivable audience? What if your highest aspiration was the lowest common denominator? Keep in mind that the public had lost interest in paying for even moderately high-quality journalism, must less replacement-level journalism, much less the LCD variety. And all of the Gladyses were gone.

POLITICS Comments turned off

KAMALA HARRIS: THE ELIMINATOR

Posted By on January 30th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/kamala-harris-health-care-plan-elimination/

Kamala Harris has a big idea for your health-care plan: elimination.

The early contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are working feverishly to out-radical each other. Senator Elizabeth Warren has come out with a confiscatory wealth tax that in practice proved too oppressive for Sweden and Denmark, both of which abolished theirs years ago. Harris, not wanting to be outflanked on her left, has now called for the abolition of private health insurance, a proposal that would go well beyond even the practice in single-payer systems such as those of the United Kingdom and Canada.

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her whether under her “Medicare for All” proposal people would be permitted to keep their insurance if they like it. Harris, unlike Barack Obama, offered no such concession. Instead, she offered this: “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.”

Move on to what?

Harris argued that under her system patients would be liberated from having third parties “give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require.” That has not, to say the least, been the experience under government-monopoly health-care systems in real-world practice. In reality, those systems are characterized by bureaucracy, delays, and seemingly arbitrary decisions enforced by the state. There is plenty to criticize about the U.S. health-insurance and health-care businesses, which remain much in need of reform, but the evidence of history strongly suggests that the imposition of a new federal bureaucracy is not the most convenient means of reducing paperwork and delay.