RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348013/irs-inquisition-update

Along with targeting tea-party groups, the IRS may also have given extra-special attention to the tax-exempt status of some Jewish groups for political reasons.

From the Jewish Press:

The passionately pro-Israel organization Z STREET filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming it had been told by an IRS agent that because the organization was “connected to Israel,” its application for tax-exempt status would receive additional scrutiny. This admission was made in response to a query about the lengthy reveiw of Z STREET’s tax exempt status application.

In addition, the IRS agent told a Z STREET representative that the applications of some of those Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.” . . .

And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now
–ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Another clue in the battle against Alzheimer’s. Researchers from Tel Aviv University believe they may have uncovered the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. They injected the protein Tomosyn into the brains of mice, and produced Alzheimer-like syndromes. Tomosyn exists in the brain but excess damages inter-cell communication.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-scientists-may-be-closing-in-on-cause-of-alzheimers/

Israeli post-trauma team in Boston. A team from the Israel Trauma Coalition has gone to the Boston suburb of Watertown to help develop “a recovery process” for the local school system. Watertown was the epicenter of the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers. Children in the area are still reeling from the event.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-team-to-bring-hard-earned-post-trauma-expertise-to-boston/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-team-helps-boston-plan-attack-on-trauma/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3D5YGZ8StIc

Israeli program to help children of AIDS patients. Professor Pnina Klein of Bar-Ilan University has developed an innovative in-home training program for caregivers and HIV-infected mothers. Children in their care gained significantly improved language skills, memory and cognitive abilities.
http://www.shalomlife.com/health/19217/bar-ilan-university-program-improves-lives-of-children-of-aids-patients/

Stopping bugs in hospital beds. Reuth Medical Center in Tel Aviv announced that, following a six-month trial of Cupron’s anti-bacterial copper-embedded linens, it will be the world’s first hospital to fully deploy copper-embedded textiles in all its patient-related hospital textiles. (see current JPost blog)
http://www.cupron.com/sitefiles/1/39/10206.asp

Eat three Israeli dates a day. All nine varieties of dates grown in Israel are better than other varieties at helping protect those who consume them against cardiovascular diseases. Researchers from Haifa’s Rambam hospital and Israel’s Technion have proved this in a study published in the prestigious Journal of Agriculture Food Chemistry. Three dates a day reduce triglycerides and improve cholesterol.
http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Local-dates-are-best-variety-to-fight-disease-312149

Education for all children – even in hospital. World ORT Kadima Mada in Israel now provides educational facilities in all 35 Israeli hospitals with children’s units. The Swiss-based SASA Setton Foundation has just made a $3.2 million investment to cover youngsters at psychiatric hospitals and mental health units.
http://www.ort.org/news-and-reports/world-ort-news/article/no-child-is-left-behind-in-israeli-hospitals-thanks-to-the-sasa-setton-kav-or-initiative/

Israel’s center for MS patients. The Grabski Multiple Sclerosis Center in Migdal HaEmek is Israel’s first and only dedicated residential and outpatient center devoted exclusively to patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. It provides a full home environment for 32 live-in patients and serves 35 daily outpatients.
http://www.colelchabad.org/Grabski_Multiple_Sclerosis_Center.bp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGxPRb83ARY

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Israel’s street-lab in Manhattan. 15 scientists from Israel, aged 16-18, are to present Israeli technological advancements in a “street lab” tent in Manhattan’s Union Square. The inventions include a handicapped parking protection system, a seizure-alerting cell phone app and a drunk driving prevention system.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4376515,00.html

Glowing plants. (Thanks to NoCamels.com) No need for electric street lighting in the future – the trees will glow. Israeli-American company Genome Compiler is working to synthesize the DNA of an Arabidopsis plant with genes from a firefly that cause natural luminosity.
http://nocamels.com/2013/05/record-breaking-kickstarter-project-will-put-light-emitting-plants-into-your-homes/

Grasping the opportunity. (Thanks to Israel21c) Israel’s Omek Interactive has taken the new Gesture Technology to a different level in order to manipulate PC, mobile and gaming screens. Omek’s “Grasp” follows 22 points along each hand and fingers to open a whole new world of possibilities.
http://israel21c.org/technology/shake-hands-with-omeks-man-machine-interface-of-the-future/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZrcZct3ol3c

It’s how you say it. Voice emotion recognition developer Beyond Verbal has launched a patented technology that can extract, decode, and measure a full spectrum of human emotions from a person’s raw voice. Based on 18 years of research, its emotional detection engines understand someone’s mood and attitude as they speak.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000843021&fid=1725
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aWFWIU9GXSw

52 Israeli designers. 52Designers is a project to showcase 52 of Israel’s most talented designers. Each week for a year a new Israeli designer will be featured.
http://52designers.com/

ECONOMY & BUSINESS

Cooperation with China is flourishing. As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu visits China, the Chinese Ambassador to Israel says that Israel is a stakeholder in helping China reform, open up and innovate.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-start-up-nation-and-the-Chinese-dream-312049
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-and-china-ink-400-million-trade-agreement/

And with India. Israel is to advance bilateral business, technology and economic relations with the Indian State of Karnataka. In the first-ever Research & Development agreement between Israel and an Indian state, Karnataka benefits from Israel’s innovations and Israel benefits from the Indian state’s resources.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000842945&fid=1725

Indian firm invests in Israeli hi-tech. Indian conglomerate Tata is contributing $5 million to Tel Aviv University’s Technology Innovation Momentum Fund. It is the largest single investment in Israel by an Indian group. TAU’s relationship with Tata, is via an India-Israel tech and business forum set up ago some years ago.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/100-billion-tata-shops-for-tech-innovation-in-tel-aviv/

More fizz for SodaStream. Israel’s home carbonated beverages maker SodaStream International announced its profits were up 19.5% and revenue up 34% in the first quarter of 2013.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000842701&fid=1725

Sony invests in Israeli medical fund. Sony Corporation has invested $10 million in Rainbow Medical, which invests in the medical device inventions of serial entrepreneur Yossi Gross. Rainbow Medical will effectively function as a kind of R&D center for Sony.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000843054

The “Inside” story on Israeli Start-ups. “Business Insider” yesterday listed Israel’s 20 hottest start-ups, and praised the country’s developed start-up industry. Israel is home to some 4,800 startups. It’s also home to least two dozen accelerator/incubator programs in the Tel Aviv area, alone.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000842585&fid=1725

“A lean, green manufacturing machine” That’s what Israel can become, according to the Washington Post, thanks to its huge reservoirs of natural gas discovered off the coast of Israel. It is “capable of supplying cheap, clean energy to its people, factories and vehicles for a generation.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-once-energy-dependent-is-new-big-gas-producer/2013/05/07/75be92f4-b410-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

With apologies to My Fair Lady….rsk
There’ll be spring every year without you. Israel still will be here without you.
There’ll be fruit on the tree.
And a shore by the sea.
There’ll be danish and tea without you.

Art and music will thrive without you. Hebron still will survive without you.
And there still will be rain on that Judean Plain
even that will remain without you.
We can do without you.

You, dear friend, who taught so well,
You can go to Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire.

We can still rule with land without you.
Jerusalem will still stand without you.
And without much ado we can all muddle through without you.”

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

CAFFEINE EVERYWHERE AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK

In true Obamaesque form, the FDA has put out a cheerful flyer warning that caffeine is everywhere. It’s in your jelly beans. It’s in your shoes. It might even be in the air you breathe. The flyer includes a bizarre Q and A with its own boss, echoing Obama Inc’s strategy of fake interviews that make it seem like they have their own in-house press.

“An instant oatmeal on the market boasts that one serving has as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, and then there are similar products,” the flyer ominously informs us. I haven’t seen this over-caffeinated oatmeal anywhere, but maybe it’s sneaking up on me right now.

FDA Moving to Regulate The Deadly Menace of Caffeine

DON’T WORRY, BE SWEDISH

Majed, a 17-year-old Iraqi immigrant, stabbed his sister Maria to death inflicting 107 wounds with two knives and a pair of scissors. His sister had returned to Landskrona after she broke up from a forced marriage in Iraq. She was found dead in his apartment in Landskrona on the evening of 23 April, the day after her birthday.

Majed’s lawyer thought that the original sentence of 8 years in prison was too harsh. “I thought the sentence was very strong, it was a very tough punishment. I do not share at all the district court’s perception of the seriousness of the offense,” says the 17-year-old’s defense attorney, Mr. Jansson.

And the defense attorney got his wish. The 8 year sentence has been reduced to 4.

Swedish Court Sentences Muslim Who Stabbed His Sister 107 Times to 4 Years in Prison

THE ARMY OF TINY MINORITY OF EXTREMISTS

The tiny minority of extremists is so great that law enforcement officials are having trouble finding names in the tiny 875,000 names on the list. The number of names on a highly classified U.S. central database used to track suspected terrorists has jumped to 875,000 from 540,000 only five years ago, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said. And worse still, this isn’t anything like a comprehensive list. These are just the names that came up and were entered into it. The actual list would be vastly larger than a mere 875,000 names. But even 875,000 names is the equivalent of an army. The United States Army only has 561,437 active duty personnel.

Terrorist Watch List of Tiny Minority of Extremists Approaching 1 Million

Friday Afternoon Roundup – Hearts and Minds
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
HEARTS AND MINDS

The Benghazi hearings sucked most of the oxygen in the room on the right, which is why the press conference on the next day by SEAL families and military experts on the Seal Team Six attack got little attention from the conservative media.

Those that did write about it focused mainly on the Muslim prayer, but not on the bigger issues involving the Rules of Engagement. And those issues, believe it or not, are bigger than Benghazi.

Let’s begin with Charles Strange, the father of Navy SEAL Michael Strange, calling out Biden and the administration’s Muslim appeasement in true Philly fashion.

“They hate us. They know our rules of engagement,” he tells the people, too many of whom aren’t listening. “After the crash, the Taliban came up with kids in front of them to see if they could skin our soldiers alive.” William and Karen Vaughn’s layout of the appeasement that got their son killed is even more important.
A FEARFUL SYMMETRY

According to Al-Ahram, Stone told prosecutors the attack took place while he was on his way to the US Embassy to finish some paperwork for his wife. A young man enquired about his nationality and stabbed him in the neck after he said he was American.

The man who stabbed an American in Cairo on Thursday says he was motivated by a hatred of the United States.

Ironically, hating the United States was something that Mahmoud had in common with Christopher.

When invited to a seven year old’s Israel themed birthday party, Stone declined by asserting that he didn’t just hate Israel… he also hated America, writing… “If she had invited me to a party celebrating the US I suspect my response would have been the same. This is not ONLY because of the odious behavior of the US and Israeli governments, but also because of the destruction wrought in the name of nationalism in general.”

American Professor Who Hates America Stabbed in Cairo by Muslim Who Also Hates America

PEACE IN OUR TIME

Whenever the media needed a “moderate” Palestinian Arab official to trot out, they would mention Jibril Rajoub.

CBS News describes him in its bio as “Rajoub, a moderate, was a longtime player in peace talks and truce negotiations with Israel.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348009/lying-state

My take on Benghazi developments can be found here, but there are any number of other pieces an informed person should take a gander at. I’d like to suggest reading the ABC News story and Steve Hayes’ Weekly Standard piece on the State-scrubbed talking-points in conjunction with Andy McCarthy’s column on the Libyan president Mohammed Magarief. Victoria Nuland and the State Department vacuumed any real “intelligence” out of the CIA talking-points like Dr Kermit Gosnell suctioning the brains out of Philadelphia babies. Why would they do this? The nearest thing to any genuine rationale that was offered was this:

The CIA version went on to say, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.” The draft went on to specifically name the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.

Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”

In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, “The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions…”

In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347980/benghazi-lie

A failure of character of this magnitude corrodes the integrity of the state.

Shortly before last November’s election I took part in a Fox News documentary on Benghazi, whose other participants included the former governor of New Hampshire John Sununu. Making chit-chat while the camera crew were setting up, Governor Sununu said to me that in his view Benghazi mattered because it was “a question of character.” That’s correct. On a question of foreign policy or counterterrorism strategy, men of good faith can make the wrong decisions. But a failure of character corrodes the integrity of the state.

That’s why career diplomat Gregory Hicks’s testimony was so damning — not so much for the new facts as for what those facts revealed about the leaders of this republic. In this space in January, I noted that Hillary Clinton had denied ever seeing Ambassador Stevens’s warnings about deteriorating security in Libya on the grounds that “1.43 million cables come to my office” — and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any. Once Ambassador Stevens was in his flag-draped coffin listening to her eulogy for him at Andrews Air Force Base, he was her bestest friend in the world — it was all “Chris this” and “Chris that,” as if they’d known each other since third grade. But up till that point he was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends of Hillary trying in vain to get her ear.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/from_a_young_black_goper_in_georgia.html

My name is Nicholas Buford. I’m a 19-year-old black Republican from Georgia. I currently attend Valdosta State University, where I have just wrapped up my freshman year, attempting to major in political science. I serve as the senator of the freshman class of Valdosta.

I am the first black Republican in my family of very religious, conservative Democrats. No one in my family had ever been politically active before, but I have loved politics since I was 13 years old. After the election in 2008, I decided to find out the values of the two political parties. I came to realize that the values I believe in are within the GOP party platform. At the age of 16, I made the decision to stand up for my values, even though it would be tough. Since then, I have never been afraid to talk about why I am a Republican and why I am a conservative. I try to educate others on the platform of the GOP as well.

I want the Republican Party elected officials and GOP leaders to work harder to promote the GOP platform to all Americans.

I’m tired of watching people vote for a party and they don’t even know what the party stands for. There are so many African Americans, Hispanics, and young people who stand with the GOP. Yet these people vote Democrat because the GOP does not do a good job of explaining and spreading its message.

I joined my university’s College Republican club in September 2012. In November, I participated in a debate against the College Democrats at my school. The audience was over 300 people, and 80% of the crowd was African-American. During that two-hour debate, many students were getting their first glimpse at a black Republican. We discussed the social, fiscal, and national defense platforms of America’s two major political parties. I stood up for the values of my party and presented the party platform; I spoke passionately about the Republican Party platform and put it in clear and simple language.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/what_maisie_knew_–_a_review.html

Here is a contemporary adaptation of Henry James’ respected eponymous 1897 novel directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel. Maisie is the kindergartner offspring of a self-involved rock singer, Susanna (a blistering Julianne Moore), and an equally unreflective international art dealer, Beale (a distant, philandering, unlovable Steve Coogan, abjuring his uproarious comic side for this fad-sad-trad dad). The convolutions and setbacks, wrangles and self-righteousness of an acrid divorce and custody battle are displayed here, all from the point of view of the child in question, sweet 5- or 6-year-old Maisie.

The casting is particularly daring, because both Moore and Coogan are well-loved for their frequent, winning simulacra of beloved characters. But we give them the leeway they earn as frivolous and heedless bits of parental flotsam. We willingly cede our ingrained habit of instant affection for these limbic, obliviously self-concerned parents of a most adorable, deserving child, the Maisie pictured here — done to a perfectly steady sadness by Onata Aprile, who is heartbreakingly trusting, painfully aware of much more than her selfish parents realize. Like most children, she may not articulate all she senses, but she sees and knows considerably more than the adults give her credit for. The casting ignores Mancunian Coogan’s hyphenates as comedian-actor-producer-writer, and all his awards as a popular TV impressionist; his usual personae of warped and wussy humor are here not hinted at.

Instead, these accomplished artistes are petty, vindictive, hysterical, and mindless, unaware of all the theoretical constructs we have been doused with since the Spockian psycho-inspirational deluge of the mid-’50s, ’60s and onward. Some psychoanalytic critics over the years have argued the Jamesian story is a parallel between James’ narrative voice and the jargon-rich common problem of psychological transference. Whatever, it is a gripping, even tension-filled, unmerry-go-round.

What Maisie Knew is no museum piece from a fustian prior era. Given a spit-gloss of trendy elements, it is a Baedeker of a damaged, decayed and careless society. James has given us a rough and prescient microcosm of a culture that has failed its prime responsibility: lovingly ferrying its children into adulthood.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Rebut-or-retract-A-public-challenge-to-Dershowitz-312710

“I challenge Dershowitz to respond to the queries I raise and to rebut my critiques of his proposal.
If he cannot, he should retract both the proposal and his pejorative portrayal of its critics. That would be no more than his moral and public duty.”
Alan Dershowitz’s response to his derisive reception at ‘Post’ conference in New York late underscores bankruptcy of “The Case for Two States”.

I have now joined this distinguished company of people who get booed for advocating territorial compromise in the interest of peace. That’s why I will no longer lend my support to ‘far-right pep’ rallies of the kind I spoke at last week.
– Alan Dershowitz, Jerusalem Post, May 5

In many ways, Alan Dershowitz’s somewhat puerile and petulant response to the derisive reception he was given by the audience at The Jerusalem Post Second Annual Conference in New York late last month vividly underscores just how bankrupt “The Case for Two States” has become.

Sulk, sulk; pout pout

True, Dershowitz has been a stout defender of Israel against its more vehement critics. For this he should be – and often is – commended.

But this does not give him a carte blanche to promote preposterous and perilous policy proposals – or immunize himself from censure when he does.

His intemperate reaction to the irreverent giggles that the plan he presented for restarting talks with the Palestinians – or at least, certain elements of the plan – elicited from the audience were hardly becoming of a figure of his stature.

Although a case could perhaps be made for greater courtesy from the crowd, Dershowitz’s disparaging dismissal of his critics as “foolish” and “part of the problem, not the solution”; and his rather juvenile jibe that he reserved the right “to tell you what I think of you, and it’s not much,” hardly added to the force of his arguments.

His conference exchange apparently stung him sufficiently to prompt him into penning a riposte last Sunday, in The Jerusalem Post, titled “Jews who boo efforts to make peace.”

In a display of pouting pique he, in essence, declared that henceforth he would confine the presentation of his blueprint for peace to more compliant and consensual crowds, sulking: “… I will no longer lend my support to ‘far-right pep’ rallies of the kind I spoke at last week.”

When an ardent and articulate two-state advocate, such as Dershowitz, finds himself resorting to insults, rather than intellect, and vows to eschew endeavors to persuade dissenting audiences of the merits of his case, the arguments for it must be becoming terribly threadbare.