RUTHFULLY YOURS

Social media, mobility, analytics and cloud technologies are transformational catalysts for communication and transactional relationships. They are rapidly becoming staples to the way people communicate both personally and professionally, and therefore carry huge implications for government across a wide range of areas.

Creating IT Futures Foundation, the philanthropic arm of CompTIA, recently published the Federal Technology Convergence Report which identifies the potential impact that converged technologies — social media, mobility, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) — could have on government communication, cooperation, and the ability to address the nation’s most significant issues.

The report defines convergence as a phenomenon that occurs when individuals use SMAC technologies to communicate, cooperate, and solve big problems. The 2013 Boston marathon bombing provides interesting insight into the power of convergence and the collective intelligence that can be gathered when SMAC is used cooperatively.

Pending further successful final run, Israel could bring David’s Sling online in months, boosting long-range missile defenses

The David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile system successfully passed a series of trial runs, shooting down incoming surface-to-surface and air-to-surface-missiles in a drill simulating rocket bombardments of Israeli cities, Defense Ministry officials said Wednesday.

The Defense Ministry indicated that the mid-range missile defense system, which is capable of intercepting incoming projectiles from over 300 kilometers (180 miles) away, should become operational in two months.

The series of tests was carried out under the auspices of the Defense Ministry’s research and development branch in conjunction with the US Missile Defense Agency and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

The system’s MMR radar discovered and tracked an incoming missile and submitted the data to the battery’s central nerve center, whereupon the flight-path was mapped and an interception point calculated. The system then launched an anti-ballistic missile that intercepted the target, destroying the approaching rocket as planned.

A few months ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook arrived in Israel to inaugurate Apple’s Herzlia R&D center. Many speculate that the primary motivation for this move was to capitalize on Israel’s long history and prowess in micro-chip design, but there also seem to be inextricable cultural factors Apple and other companies hope to capitalize on.

While Cook was in Israel, Israeli President Rivlin emphasized the importance of companies like Apple and innovators like Apple Vice-President for hardware technology Johny Srouji, an Israeli Arab, and their role in making Israel a vibrant, successful, and inclusive state.

The two men are different: They represent opposite ends of the political spectrum: Barack Obama was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. Ted Cruz was reared in Texas. Unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Cruz speaks flawlessly without notes or a teleprompter; we know more about Mr. Cruz’s years at Princeton than we do about Mr. Obama’s at Occidental and Columbia; while Mr. Cruz was described by Alan Dershowitz as one of the smartest students he ever taught at Harvard Law School, Mr. Obama’s transcripts have been kept under wraps.

But, it is similarities that are striking. Both men were born outside the continental United States: Mr. Cruz in Calgary, Canada and Mr. Obama in Honolulu, Hawaii. Both had emigrant fathers: Mr. Obama’s was born in Kenya and Mr. Cruz’s in Cuba. Both fathers abandoned their sons in their youth, Mr. Cruz’s temporarily and Mr. Obama’s permanently. They were both raised, at least for a time, by their mothers. Barack Obama’s mother found solace in the communist beliefs of her father, while Ted Cruz’s mother got comfort from religion.

Hysteria works. That’s the lesson of the debate, such as it is, over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Nothing so captured the spirit of the discussion as an exchange Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show.” That is, of course, the eponymous program hosted by Ed Schultz, who is the Edward R. Murrow of poorly informed bombast. For him, “Shut up, he explained,” is a high-toned argument. Schultz proved it when his guest Ryan Anderson of The Heritage Foundation badly overmatched him by saying knowledgeable things about RFRA, and, unable to handle it, the host had Anderson’s mic cut off. Ah, yes, #debate. Rarely has one side had so few facts on its side and gotten such results through sheer repetition of the word “discrimination” and through lurid, fantastical denunciations. Indiana Governor Mike Pence has been on the run.

If the Benghazi committee is planning on subpoenaing Clinton once her campaign starts, they’re in for a rude awakening.
Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), who chairs the House select committee investigating the Benghazi massacre, has invited former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to submit to a private, transcribed interview with committee staff. The interview would cover her improper use of a private e-mail system to conduct government business, and her unilateral decision to destroy over 30,000 e-mails previously stored on a Clinton-owned server – e-mails that she and her counsel dubiously claim have been irretrievably deleted.
In a column on Tuesday, I argued that this invitation is a mistake: Mrs. Clinton should be subpoenaed, forthwith, to provide public testimony under oath. Congress’s Benghazi investigation is supposed to be about public accountability, and there is no justification for extending the courtesy of a private interview to a critical witness who has been impeding investigations of Benghazi for two-and-a-half years. Some sympathetic to Representative Gowdy’s approach point out that the private interview is not an either-or proposition: Having Mrs. Clinton submit to a private interview with committee staff now does not preclude calling her as a witness at a public hearing later on. The point is academic since, as I will explain, it is hard to imagine Mrs. Clinton and her lawyers agreeing to submit to a private staff interview. But it is nonetheless worth considering this “private interview now, public testimony later” strategy.

The world powers assembled at Lausanne, Switzerland, with the representatives of the Islamic Republic may or may not reach a framework deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But succeed or fail, the disaster that their negotiations have unleashed is already unfolding. The damage they have caused is irreversible.

US President Barack Obama, his advisers and media cheerleaders have long presented his nuclear diplomacy with the Iran as the only way to avoid war. Obama and his supporters have castigated as warmongers those who oppose his policy of nuclear appeasement with the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism.

But the opposite is the case. Had their view carried the day, war could have been averted.

Wow!!! Drum roll please. One militarist thug General Muhammadu Buhari defeated a marginal thug Jonathan Goodluck in Nigeria and quick to the draw the media is in ecstasy. Even the President put down his golf clubs to congratulate the winner:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2015/04/01/obama-nigeria-goodluck-jonathan-muhammadu-buhari/70761982/:

“The last few days have shown the world the strength of Nigeria’s commitment to democratic principles,” Obama said in a statement Wednesday. “By turning out in large numbers and sometimes waiting all day to cast their votes, Nigerians came together to decide the future of their country peacefully.”

Major-General Buhari was one of the leaders of the Nigerian military coup of December 31, 1983 that overthrew the democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari and promptly suspended Nigeria’s Constitution. He was a serial human and civil rights violator engaging in arrests, harassment and executions. Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka, wrote a piece called “The Crimes of Buhari” in 2007, which exposed the abuses conducted under his military rule.

Oh well….at least he does not belong to the Likud party in Israel…..rsk

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001524.html

CONTENTS
1. “The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal”
2. Nuclear “peace in our time”?
3. “A Bad Deal: Iran is outwitting the West in nuclear talks” (Times of London editorial, March 30, 2015)
4. ‘President Obama must not complete a disastrous deal with Iran’ (New York Observer editorial, March 30, 2015)
5. “Deal or No, Iran will remain a nuclear threat” (By Dennis Ross, Politico, March 31, 2015)
6. “Etiquette versus annihilation” (By Thomas Sowell, Townhall, April 1, 2015)
7. “Iran’s Charmer in Chief Wins Again” (By Eli Lake, Bloomberg, March 31, 2015)
8. “How France became an Iran hawk” (By Joseph Bahout, Benjamin Haddad, Foreign Policy, March 30, 2015)

1. According to Heinrich Heine, the 19th century German poet, “Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.”

2. Passover is the prime Jewish Independence Day. It is the most significant game-changing event in Jewish and human history, highlighting personal and national faith, spiritual and physical liberty, civil liberties, democracy, optimism, hope, defiance of imperial odds, tenacity in the face of adversity and sustained education as a prerequisite to national survival.

3. The Passover legacy constitutes the foundation of Judaism and the Jewish people, and is therefore included in most Jewish blessings (“in memory of the Exodus”).

4. Passover was an early – and more successful – edition of the (19th century) Spring of Nations. It is celebrated in the spring, the bud of nature. The Biblical scroll of Song of Songs, which highlights spring, is read during Passover. Spring, Aviv in Hebrew (אביב) consists of two Hebrew words: Father – אב – of 12 – יב – months/tribes. Spring is mentioned 3 times in the Torah, all in reference to the Exodus. Passover – which commemorates the creation of the Jewish nation – lasts seven days, just like the creation of the universe.

5. The Exodus is mentioned 50 times in the Torah, equal to the 50 years of the Jubilee, a symbol of liberty inscribed on the Liberty Bell. 50 days following the Exodus, Moses received the Torah (Shavou’ot/Pentecost Holiday), which includes – according to Jewish tradition – 50 gates of wisdom. What does that mean for the 50 States in the USA, whose Hebrew name is ארצות הברית – the States of the Covenant?!