RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the last week or so, we’ve been marking the fifth anniversary of Climategate’s fascinating glimpse into how the science got settled. The subordination of the scientific method to ideological goals is well summed up by the headline of Matt Ridley’s column – “Policy-based evidence making”:

As somebody who has championed science all his career, carrying a lot of water for the profession against its critics on many issues, I am losing faith. Recent examples of bias and corruption in science are bad enough. What’s worse is the reluctance of scientific leaders to criticise the bad apples. Science as a philosophy is in good health; science as an institution increasingly stinks.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a report last week that found evidence of scientists increasingly “employing less rigorous research methods” in response to funding pressures. A 2009 survey found that almost 2 per cent of scientists admitting that they have fabricated results; 14 per cent say that their colleagues have done so.

Lord Ridley gives three recent examples of “poor scientific practice”. Here’s the second:

Last week, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a supposedly scientific body, issued a press release stating that this is likely to be the warmest year in a century or more, based on surface temperatures. Yet this predicted record would be only one hundredth of a degree above 2010 and two hundredths of a degree above 2005 — with an error range of one tenth of a degree. True scientists would have said: this year is unlikely to be significantly warmer than 2010 or 2005 and left it at that.

An inspiring black military hero who deserves the Medal of Honor. Where is the Congressional Black Caucus?
At a time of so much racial strife and discord, we should never lose sight of the fact that our military forces were the first, and remain the best, example of a fully integrated America. Yes there are problems from time to time, but there are few other places in our society where blacks, whites and Hispanics have learned to live and work together with a common mission as in our military. And that is an example that we seldom hear about from our media.

Instead we are treated by our sensationalist media to endless examples of lawlessness in black communities and the vitriol of the race-baiters like Farrakhan, vowing “We’ll tear this go**amn country up!” and unending charges of racism leveled against whites who question the values of black culture. However, we all, black, white, brown and whatever, should keep in mind the reality that we have family members out there serving shoulder to shoulder around this world, with some of them dying in the process.Such is the case of Sergeant First Class Alwyn C. Cashe, who, on October 17, 2005, sacrificed his life to save those of the troops in his care. With his unit under enemy fire, SFC Cashe, his uniform soaked with fuel from a roadside explosion which ruptured the fuel tank of his Bradley Fighting Vehicle and set it afire, repeatedly entered the fiery interior to rescue his men who were trapped inside. Even with his uniform burned away and his flesh ablaze, SFC Cashe managed to pull six soldiers from the flaming interior. Four of them later succumbed to their burn wounds as did, some three weeks later, SFC Cashe.

For his incredibly selfless valor, SFC Cashe was awarded the Silver Star, an award that seems to many of us in the military and veteran communities, insufficient to the events of that terrible day. Colonels have been known to be awarded the Silver Star for monitoring and directing ground combat from the relative comfort of an overhead helicopter. I would wager that among all warriors, soldiers, sailors, aviators, etc., fear of death by burning or being horribly injured and disfigured by fire is greater than any other dread associated with combat. Yet SFC Cashe overcame that fundamental fear and charged directly into the flames repeatedly to save his young soldiers. A Silver Star seems a bit inadequate to reward that level of courage and self-sacrifice.

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/law/news/events/2014/04/09_conference_international_law_and_the_state_of_israel.page

Conference: International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism

17 – 19 April 2015

This conference will be the first of its kind and constitutes a ground-breaking historical event on the road towards justice and enduring peace in historic Palestine. It is unique because it concerns the legitimacy in International Law of the Jewish state of Israel. Rather than focusing on Israeli actions in the 1967 Occupied Territories, the conference will focus on exploring themes of Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism; all of which are posed by Israel’s very nature.

The conference aims to explore the relatedness of the suffering and injustice in Palestine to the foundation and protection of a state of such nature and asks what role International Law should play in the situation.

The conference will take place over a whole weekend and will involve leading thinkers: scholars from law, politics, philosophy, theology, anthropology, cultural studies history and other connected disciplines.

The key speakers and various panels will diagnose the legal position with regard to the nature of Israel thus enabling a much needed platform for scholarly debate and disagreement.

For further information and to register please visit our conference website.

NOBODY TELLS IT BETTER….RSK

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Yoram Ettinger, Jerusalem, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”

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Israelis wake up, your land is not a piece of real estate as Isaac Herzog, Zippee Livni, Yair Lapid, Eitan Cabel and the like of them, and to an extent, even Benjamin Netanyahu see it to be.

Israelis have learned that the Arabs dig tunnels in “their territory” that extend beyond the ambiguous border line they have with the state of Israel into the sovereign land of Israel. These tunnels are to serve as terror tool from which Israel’s enemies can infiltrate her land, abduct, terrorize and cause harm to civilians.

Now Israelis are experiencing political tunnels dug under each politician’s chair to try unseat their political opponent while the political tunnel is serving their ego and self-grandeur and while they are weakening Israel’s democracy and look the fools they are in the eyes of the entire world and more so Israel’s enemies. Yes, the enemies of Israel are watching the political charade or circus, you choose.

Leading this political rebellion are Zippee Livni-Isaac Herzog who formed a marriage for the purpose to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu. I call her “Zippee” because one must zip her mouth. This woman has proven to be unfit to serve in a government already then when she served as Israel’s foreign minister. She however created a new term in the political arena; she is a political harlot who switched 4 parties and four ideologies in only nine years. Who, in his or her clean sane mind can trust such a person?

Right now Netanyahu is the best Israel has to offer to lead the country and that attests to the available poor political menu. But Netanyahu is better than all other items on the menu.

Livni and her like on the Left regularly travel to Europe to meet their European counterparts who, I will not hesitate to say, allocate to their Israeli spokespeople financial support, and together they scheme how to pressure, subvert, undermine and delegitimize Israel’s stance in the world.

My Own “Enemies List”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Not necessarily. Remember what happened when FDR allied himself with Josef Stalin to defeat Nazi Germany. At war’s end, Stalin gobbled up half of Europe with FDR’s leave. The U.S. was saddled with a costly “cold war” with our former “friend” Soviet Russia for nearly half a century. See Diana West’s path-breaking book, American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character, for details, or here, about how “mainstream” historians deny the truth of West’s thesis. The USSR was never a friend of America.

The proverb suggests that two opposing parties can or should work together against a common enemy. Although it is often described as an Arabic proverb, there is no evidence of such an origin.

But now I can say that the friends of my enemies are without question or a shade of doubt my enemies, as well.

To begin with, every one of them is a liar.

Daniel Greenfield, in his December 12th FrontPage column, “Lying in Post-Truth America,” prefaced his comments with a reprise of Bill Clinton’s lies about Monica Lewinsky, then remarked:

Clinton’s antics set the stage for a current administration which can never be caught in a lie because it’s lying all the time. Obama and his people don’t just lie, they lie about the lies and then they lie about those lies. Bringing them in to testify just clogs the filters with an extra layer of lies.

Invite [Jonathan] Gruber to testify about the time that he admitted that the administration had been lying and the only thing that will happen is more lies being told by a man who is there only because he lied….

Journalists repeatedly dismissed ObamaCare scandals by arguing that no one could have taken Obama’s claims at face value anyway. When Obama promised Americans that they could keep their doctors, the housewife in Topeka, the freelance programmer in San Francisco and the geologist in Tulsa were supposed to be as knowing as the Washington press corps and realize that he didn’t mean it….

SLALOM OR SHALOM? RSK
“I laminate the siddurim,” says Rabbi Robbi of the prayer books she carries in a backpack on the slopes. “Otherwise, the pages get too wet.”

Picture this prayer service.

The temperature is -11ºC, the surrounding peaks reach 3,700 meters. Below is a sea of dramatic peaks and valleys blanketed in snow. The rabbi is leading the congregation in the singing of Mi Kamocha, “Who is like You, Lord among the mighty? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, doing wonders?” This is Crested Butte, Colorado, a home rule community in the American Rockies. Home rule means you can make your own, and Rabbi Robbi Sherwin does.

I met her this week because she came to Hadassah University Medical Center, clad in cowboy boots and a brown rodeo skirt with a guitar over her shoulder, using her vacation time to sing to terror survivors. But when she’s leading prayers at 3,000 meters up, both she and the congregants are on skis.

A stickler for punctilious prayer, I’m trying to work out the choreography: stepping forward and back, bowing, rising on tiptoes. Then I think of the exhilaration of communicating with the Creator so close to the heavenly domain, experiencing the surprisingly pleasant and theologically appropriate sensation of being tiny in relation to God’s overwhelming universe.

Among those praying are the regular members of B’nai Butte congregation, and tourists who have come to ski and snowboard in Colorado. Many would never walk into a synagogue – but this mountaintop synagogue doesn’t require walking into.

Naftali Bennett gave a spirited performance at the recent Saban Forum, but was far more convincing on what should not be done, than on what should be done.

You know, I just think you live in another reality. It’s what Steve Jobs called distorted reality thinking.
– Martin Indyk to Naftali Bennett, at the 2014 Saban Forum.

How many missiles need to fall on Ashkelon until you’ll wake up? How many? How many people need to die in our country until you wake up from this illusion?
– Naftali Bennett to Martin Indyk, at the 2014 Saban Forum.

Last weekend, the 11th annual Saban Forum convened in Washington, with its usual bevy of high-profile participants, to discuss the developments in the Middle East, Israel-US relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hardly hospitable milieu

Funded by Democratic benefactor Haim Saban, and hosted by the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, the tenor of the Forum is usually left-wing on Mideast affairs, with a strong bent in favor of the two-state principle and the land-for-peace doctrine.

This year’s lineup included former US secretary of state for the Obama administration Hillary Clinton; the current US Secretary of State for the Obama administration, John Kerry; Labor Party head Isaac “Bugie” Herzog; Martin Indyk, Brookings vice president, until recently Kerry’s special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; and Jeffrey Goldberg, the Obama-philic columnist seen widely as a mouth piece for the White House.

Clearly the Forum was hardly the most hospitable milieu for someone like Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, generally considered one of most hawkish/right-wing members of the government. As Bennett quipped, if he conducted “a poll here, probably Zehava Gal-On [head of the far-left Meretz party] would be prime minister and maybe Tzipi Livni No. 2.”

Not over their dead bodies.
​
Cops are warning Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa ​Mark-​Viverito to stay away from their funerals should they be ​killed in the line of duty.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association distributed a flier to members, blaring: “DON’T LET THEM INSULT YOUR SACRIFICE!” Cops were encouraged to sign and submit the “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver to ban the cop-bashing pols from their funerals.

“I, as a New York City police officer, request that Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito refrain from attending my funeral services in the event that I am killed in the line of duty,” the waiver states.

“Due to Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito’s consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve, I believe that their attendance at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice.”

Officers can download the form on the PBA’s Web site and drop off a signed copy to their PBA delegates.

The mayor traditionally attends funerals for fallen officers.

As so-called right-wing, nationalist, anti-democratic extremists are what majority of Israeli voters want, left’s ongoing stinging attack is actually a scathing condemnation of voters themselves.Already for weeks, as the breakup of the coalition appeared imminent, the word “extremist” began appearing in the Israeli media at a somewhat bewildering pace.
Knesset members from Yesh Atid, Hatnua and other left-wing parties began driving home the message that Israel is being run by a bunch of right-wing, nationalist, anti-democratic extremists.
Similarly, Israeli columnists and other well-known public figures started churning out opinion pieces littered with basically the same accusations.

The goal of such a comprehensive and in all likelihood coordinated attack, one that has only intensified now that new elections have been formally announced, is obvious; the left wants to gain control of the Knesset, the only piece of the Israeli puzzle that in a fair and honest game is well beyond its reach.

As is well known, the majority of Jews in Israel have become increasingly right-wing over the years. This may be annoying to various liberal Jewish organizations in America or to the US State Department, but it’s a fact.

Moreover, after more than twenty years of the Oslo fiasco and all the suffering that it brought, together with a heightened awareness of the growing threat to Israel posed by Islamic forces from within and without, most Jews in Israel are fed up with the condescending and disconnected from reality attitude of the above mentioned MKs and their friends in the media who are still trying to convince us that the two-state solution is in our best interest.

Therefore, in such a scenario the only way for the left to have any chance of succeeding in the upcoming elections and in doing so regaining the one thing that has eluded it, outside of a few brief periods, since 1977, is by vilifying its opponents over and over again.