RUTHFULLY YOURS

The negotiations in Vienna to restrict or prevent Iran from enriching sufficient fissile material to build nuclear weapons, raises the specter of yet a new round in what some have described as “the second nuclear age.” For the uninitiated, the first nuclear age was the period in the Cold War when the U.S. and allies confronted the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal. The second nuclear age is defined by the multiplicity of nuclear powers linked together by varying levels of cooperation and conflict.

Although the Soviet Union and the United States had tense and hostile moments, they did reach some accord for maintaining strategic stability. However, in the second nuclear age, deterrence involving threats from two or more potential adversaries is complicated. Actions of self-defense by nation one against nation two, may be threatening to nation three. Furthermore, non-nuclear technologies such as missile defense, cyber-attacks and precision weapons could challenge strategic balance.

Hence, there is a need to carve out a unique and unalterable restraint mechanism among nuclear powers to avoid endangering stability; what I have described as “a safe zone” to reduce the risk of deliberate, accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.

At the moment five nuclear powers, the U.S., China, Russia, France and England, maintain an uneasy, but recognized regimen under the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty with India and Pakistan included in the forum. Clearly North Korea is an outlier and Israel is an ambiguous supporter. But despite tensions on the foreign policy front among the Big Seven, equilibrium, however shaky at times, has held. Surely this fragile system needs buttressing with transparency and confidence boosting measures.

“Britain remains the world’s leading recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.” — Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph.

When she sought help from the police and a lawyer, “the family of the defendants were insulted that she had gone to the law. They wanted her back within the family fold… Therefore, it was decided that she should be forced to comply or be killed.” — Prosecutor of Ahmed A-Khatib, who murdered his wife for becoming “too westernized.”

British school teachers are afraid to teach their students about Christianity out of fear of offending Muslims. — Roger Bolton, BBC Radio 4’s Feedback program.

Rather than taking steps to protect British children, police, social workers, teachers… and the media deliberately played down the severity of the crimes [of Muslim sexual grooming gangs] in order to avoid being accused of “Islamophobia” or racism. — From the report “Easy Meat: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sex Slavery.”

A group of British lawyers launched a website, Sharia Watch UK. The group called Sharia law “Britain’s Blind Spot.”

After Adebolajo, who murdered and tried to behead British soldier Lee Rigby with a meat cleaver, was given a “whole-life” prison term, his brother said his sibling was the victim of “Islamophobia.”

“The problem of honor-based violence and forced marriages in England is “worse than people think.” — Claire Phillipson, Wearside Women in Need

Cap tax-deductible CEO remuneration at a maximum of 30 times the salary of that public company’s lowest paid worker. Thereabove, salaries will not be tax deductible as an operating expense for an employer. In addition, no bonuses (in cash or shares) for top management of a public company will be tax deductible if the company suffered losses by the end of the relevant year.
Limit the amount of airtime (on both public television and radio) eligible for advertiser tax deductions, to about 90 percent of the current level. Any advertising time above this level will not be tax deductible, reducing the cost-effectiveness of additional advertisements and helping to stem our country’s advertising epidemic.

By way of both suggestions 1 and 2, companies can allocate resources exactly as they wish. However, the government will cease to incentivize obviously counterproductive decisions.

Erdogan was happy. At least until a few days ago….

Erdogan probably did not know the Emir of Qatar’s next move on the Middle Eastern chessboard.

Turkey aspires to be a regional leader with no, little or problematic dialogue with about a dozen countries in its region.

Back in 2011, everything ostensibly was coming up roses between Turkey and Egypt. In a speech that year, then-Turkish President Abdullah Gul mentioned “…an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region [Turkey and Egypt], from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley…”

In September 2011, then-Prime Minister [now President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan found an emotional hero’s welcome at Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Tens of thousands of Egyptians had flocked to the Cairo airport to welcome him. Streets were decorated with posters of Erdogan.

In early 2012, a survey by TESEV, a Turkish think-tank, found that Turkey was the most popular country for the residents of seven Arab countries, including Egypt.

But against that glittering backdrop, this author wrote in June 2011: “For Ankara, Cairo can be the new Damascus until another capital becomes the new Cairo. At that time, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erdogan’s one-time best regional ally, had already become his worst regional nemesis.

The Turkish-Egyptian love affair would, in fact, be quite short-lived.

Glazov Gang’s 2014 Episode of The Year: Geert Wilders

A titan and courageous truth-teller crystallized the only way the West will be able to preserve itself.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/glazov-gangs-2014-episode-of-the-year-geert-wilders/

“You are always a student, never a master.

You have to keep moving forward.”

Conrad Hall (1926-2003)

Cinematographer

The end of the year is a good time to reflect on subjects we deem of particular importance. Education, along with stability at home, is perhaps the most critical requirement for future success. I want to offer my own experience and to provide some additional thoughts. In public schools, administrators too often put students and parents second to demands of unions. They are, for example, reluctant to approve options available to the well-off. Vouchers and charter schools are inimical to their interests. In colleges and universities, political correctness has driven out the concept of liberalness – the importance to confront differing opinions. Walter Lippman once wrote: “When genuine debate is lacking, freedom of speech does not work as it is meant to work.” With ten grandchildren in school, education, especially its promises, is close to my heart.

Too often, our high schools are considered successful if 80% of their students graduate on time and matriculate. The fact that many seniors may be illiterate and/or innumerate seems of little concern. Any number of colleges and universities – for profit as well as not-for-profit – have sprung up to accommodate the growing supply of students, most of whom must borrow the cost of tuition, and many of whom are unqualified. They have been told that a college degree – not education – is critical to success.

What has been lost in this mechanical process of sloppy manufacturing has been learning how to think. Too often, high school students graduate in need of remedial training. College seniors, in turn, graduate unprepared for the real world. I recognize that condemnation is broad; it ignores hundreds of good schools – public and private – and tens of thousands of even better teachers. But, as a generalization it stands; for learning should be pleasurable, solid and provocative.

I am sensitive to this issue because of my own experience. While I grew up in an educated household – my father, like his father and both his grandfathers, were alumni of Harvard – I never took advantage of the opportunities offered …or I did not until I was twenty-one, after I met the woman who became my wife. I blame only myself. I did have a few teachers in school and in college who tried to reach an unreachable boy. I remember those few fondly, and some of what they taught did stick, in spite of my best efforts to remain impervious to their attempts.

There has been essentially no global warming since 1998. Some would choose 1997, others would more conservatively use 2002 as the proper starting date, based on satellite data. Of course, this is quite unexpected, since CO2 — a leading GHG, which climate models presume to cause anthropogenic global warming (AGW) — has been increasing rapidly in the 21st century.

Even if we cannot readily find the cause for the “pause” — as it is sometimes called — we can be absolutely sure that it was not predicted by any of the dozens of the UN-IPCC’s General Circulation Models (GCMs). Therefore, logically, such non-validated GCMs cannot, and should not, be used to predict the future climate — or as a basis for policy decisions.

Here I would like to discuss some of the possible causes for the GW “hiatus.” Its existence is creating a scientific challenge for climate skeptics — and a real crisis for alarmists; it can no longer be ignored by any who consider themselves to be scientists — nor, indeed, by responsible politicians.

One possibility, of course, may be that the pause is simply a statistical fluctuation, like tossing a coin, with 15 to 18 heads in a row. Such an explanation cannot be dismissed out of hand, even though it has a very low probability — which becomes even smaller with each passing year of no GW. Obviously, climate alarmists like this possibility — although the number of such ‘true believers’ is shrinking. Most have started to look for a physical cause for the pause — an explanation of why current GCMs are failing to match observations.

In the last few days, the local Fresno community was outraged — or at least was reportedly to be so — at the vandalism of a local Islamic cultural center [1].

The police authorities almost immediately, and without waiting for the full evidence to be collected, declared the minor burglary and damage the apparent dividend of illiberal dark forces. The chief of police, without compelling evidence, and without explaining why a secular medical building was also trashed in the spree, rushed to hold a press conference. He declared the broken window and moderate trashing of the center’s interior, not just a “hate crime,” but in fact a “brazen hate crime.”

What next followed was Fresno’s comic version of what now is normal race and gender news. Almost immediately it was learned that there was a video of the suspected perpetrator in mediis rebus. Mr. Asif Mohammad Khan was a Muslim, with a record of mental disturbances, and had attended the center. He claimed that he had vandalized the buildings as part of payback to other center attendees who, he claimed, had bullied him — and reportedly was known to be an admirer of Osama bin Laden. The “brazen” hate crime and the atmosphere of intolerance vanished with the local morning fog. The FBI, of course, is still “investigating” a possible “hate crime.” But they too will quietly go away in short order.

But just a few days earlier, there was another Fresno crime captured on video, both violent and in theory fueled by racial animus, or at least more deserving of a FBI second look at such a possible catalyst. At a local municipal bus stop an elderly man with a walker bravely protested [2] that a large youth was bullying a smaller teen. The video captures the thug in response yelling at the defender, then striking the man to the pavement. The latter hit his head on his walker and momentarily lost consciousness.

State Department’s “vetted moderates” do Jabhat al-Nusra’s dirty work while Sen. John McCain pleads for more FSA support.

A remarkable report by Anne Barnard of the New York Times this weekend confirms my multiple reports here at PJ Media about the increased alliance between the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.

As Barnard reports:

In northern and eastern Syria, where Mr. Assad’s opponents won early victories and once dreamed of building self-government, the nationalist rebel groups calling themselves the Free Syrian Army are forced to operate under the extremists’ umbrellas, to go underground or to flee, according to Syrian insurgents, activists and two top commanders of the American-financed F.S.A. groups.

Two weeks ago I reported that Jabhat al-Nusra had used U.S. TOW anti-tank missiles in the rebels’ seizure of the Syrian Army’s base in Wadi al-Deif. The terror group posted a video showing the use of the TOW missiles in the battle (at ~3:50):

Nusra fans on Twitter were also noting the U.S. missiles being used:

Now Barnard confirms that FSA elements were fighting at Wadi al-Deif under the direction and/or control of Jabhat al-Nusra:

The fall of the army base at Wadi al-Deif, which straddles an important supply route in Idlib Province, proved the Nusra Front’s dominance, they said. Other insurgents had long besieged the base without victory. Nusra succeeded after seizing much of the province from Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, two of several groups that until recently, American officials were calling the opposition’s new hope […]

An Israeli year is usually tumultuous. It has to do with the hostile Middle Eastern environment, with Israel’s problematic parliamentary system that often produces rickety, short-lived coalitions, and with the dynamism of a young society undergoing dramatic economic and demographic growth.

This wasn’t one of Israel’s most tumultuous years but also definitely not one of its quietest. The Gaza war and a wave of terrorism broke five years of relative calm since the 2008-2009 Gaza war. The Obama administration kept lambasting Israel publicly, while in Israel a governing coalition collapsed after less than two years in office. Outside the media limelight, though, Israel kept making diplomatic and economic gains, and the immigrants kept coming.
1. Gaza erupts.

On June 12 two Hamas terrorists kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenage boys. On July 2 three Israeli criminals kidnapped and murdered a Palestinian teenage boy. Although the standard line is that these events precipitated the summer’s seven-week Gaza war, that assumption is now challenged by Israeli intelligence reports saying Hamas had actually been planning the war, or something similar to it, going back months before those two incidents.

Israel won this Gaza war big. Four months after it ended, much of Gaza is still devastated and Hamas is still dazed. Blasted buildings and homeless civilians are nothing to celebrate. They are, though, the outcome of Hamas’s human-shields strategy coupled with firing 4500 rockets at Israeli territory.

The war took a high toll for Israel, too—66 soldiers and six civilians for the side that made every effort to avert the war even as the rockets were already falling. The revelation of Hamas’s tunnels from Gaza into Israel, and plans to use them to perpetrate mass-murder and kidnapping attacks on Israeli soil, chilled Israelis to the bone. On the plus side, the Iron Dome antimissile system turned in an amazing performance and kept the casualty toll from being much higher.

The Middle East is no picnic for a non-Arab, non-Muslim, Jewish state. The 2014 Gaza war showed a tough, resolved, realistic Israel.