RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/20356-Campus-Hate-Speech-and-Speech-Codes.html
Campus Hate Speech and Speech Codes

Many of the finest and most honest minds – conservative and liberal — in and out of academia have argued, and sometimes succeeded, that campus speech codes often cross the line to suppression of First Amendment freedom of speech. The excesses in the wording of such codes, their arbitrary and often biased application, and the fear of usurping a constitutional right, together send chills up the spine.
Nonetheless, in court cases, private colleges have more leeway to enact speech codes than do public colleges, as they are not as subject to the First Amendment prohibition on government interfering with free speech. In the face of opposition to speech codes per se colleges, both public and private, have turned to anti-harassment policies. These seemingly turn the offense from the speech to the impact on those sensitive, and in effect make judging the offense even more subjective. Alongside, many campuses have instituted judgment procedures that deny those charged from confronting their accuser or, in some cases, even appearing to defend themselves. In many cases, those supporting such near star-chamber exercises in speech or behavioral prejudice are those judging for the kangaroo procedures. And, alongside these, liberal and leftist faculty have denied tenure or opposed research by those who have empirically challenged cherished thoughts or prejudices.

So, understandably so, any further enlargement of speech codes or definition of hate speech raises hackles among almost all those who have battled the present excesses. Further, most opponents have cause for little faith that in the prevailing leftist or hypocritical atmosphere on campuses that an enlargement to anti-Israel speech and actions that are anti-semitic would be enforced or fairly.
The occasion for the current discussion is the report by members of the University of California Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion task force on Jewish students (which I reported here). It recommends that a definition of anti-Semitism like that of the European Union be adopted to provide guidelines and current anti-harassment policies be enlarged to contain such guidelines.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2389

Egypt gets tough; Israel gets blamed

The Sinai Peninsula is burning this week, and not only because of the oppressive desert heat. Egypt has deployed troops, tanks, armored cars and attack helicopters to the ostensibly “demilitarized” zone, in efforts to snuff out — and stamp out — what the foreign press calls “militants.”

These “militants” are actually terrorists with blood on their hands and jihad in their hearts. But let’s not nitpick over terminology.

Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi is not concerning himself with linguistic nuances. He is busy giving orders to track down and kill anybody suspected of having a part in the massacre of 16 border policemen whose throats were slit and torsos riddled with bullets just as they finished breaking their daily Ramadan fast.

He is also letting his army loose on the area to signal to all radical Islamist groups who are not under his direct control that there is a new sheriff in town — one who knows their tricks inside and out.

These terrorists include members of Hamas, who have been running the show ever since Israel relinquished control of the Philadelphi Corridor (a narrow strip of land situated along the border between Egypt and Gaza), as part of the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. In the absence of Israeli security and settlements in the Gaza Strip, and with lax policing on the part of Egypt along its own border with the radical Palestinian enclave, a vacuum was created.

This vacuum enabled Palestinian terrorists from Gaza to build tunnels to Sinai, virtually unhindered. The tunnels became the conduit for the smuggling of contraband, such as drugs, and for massive amounts of weaponry. Israel’s attempts to put a stop to this were not fruitful, and members of the Egyptian police were undoubtedly getting their palms greased by drug lords and terrorists on either side of the tunnels, to keep them looking the other way.

It clearly never occurred to the Egyptian police that they, one day, would end up being targeted by those very terrorists, and murdered by those very arms. After all, whatever the internecine strife among the neighboring Arab populations to the south of the Jewish state, they all hated Israel.

By mid October in 1980 Carter had closed the gap in the early lead of Ronald Reagan.

Carter, was defensive and stopped holding White House press conferences.He raised questions about Reagan’s competency, portrayed him as an extremist who would split the nation along racial and religious lines. Carter pummeled Reagan taking the heat and the attention off his own dismal record in domestic as well as foreign policy.

Reagan became more focused in his attacks on Carter and the enormous differences in their agendas. Carter supported crippling environmental regulations; claimed that the economy was “recovering” with starts in housing and business. Reagan countered that environmental laws were hampering the economy and slowing job growth. He vowed to cut taxes, shrink government and balance the budget.

His famous line when challenged was:

“Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his”

The polls were jumping all over the place. The liberal media was in high gear painting Reagan as a warmonger and lightweight. Reagan rebounded in the debate of October 28, 1980.

When Jimmy brought up Reagan’s long standing opposition to Medicare, Regan delivered the blow to the solar plexus of the Democratic platform:

“Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?”

The rest is history.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
http://blogs.jpost.com/users/just-look-us-now

· Israeli stem cells have saved the life of another patient with bone marrow failure.
· Israeli treatment success for epilepsy that does not respond to medication.
· The Israeli government is paying Israeli companies to employ Israeli Arabs.
· Israeli broadcast communications technology is a winner at the London Olympics.
· An Israeli firm will employ hundreds to make bio fuels in Mississippi.
· Two Israeli mothers have invented a unique biodegradable packaging material.
· For the first time, a Pakistani media company is translating an Israeli news feed into Urdu.

Page Down for more details on these and other good news stories from Israel.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Pluristem saves another bone marrow patient. PLX stem cell therapy by Israel’s Pluristem Therapeutics saved a 54-year old Israeli woman with lymphoma cancer and terminal bone marrow failure at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital. The patient failed to respond to chemotherapy or bone marrow transplants. She has now been discharged from the hospital. In May, Pluristem saved a 7-year-old girl with an aplastic bone marrow.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000771854&fid=1725

Good results from initial pulmonary fibrosis trials. Pluristem Therapeutics positive results in pre-clinical test of its PLacental eXpanded (PLX) stem cells for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis. It reduced pulmonary fibrosis (scarring of the lung tissue) and improved lung function in interstitial lung disease (ILD).
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000770385&fid=1725

Caesarean at 30 weeks saves baby and mother. (Thanks to Israel21c) A routine ultrasound scan discovered that an unborn baby had a blockage in its breathing passage. Surgeons at Israel’s Sheba medical centre performed a rare operation on the baby while it was still attached to its mother by its umbilical cord.
http://israel21c.org/news/israeli-doctors-perform-surgery-on-baby-still-attached-to-placenta/

Record 30 cornea transplants. Normally surgeons at the Rabin Medical Centre – Beilinson campus perform 10 transplants a month. But in July, they tripled the number of operations to restore the sight of patients. This is another positive result of the new ADI organ donor cards that more and more Israelis have signed up to.
http://www.jpost.com/Health/Article.aspx?id=279774

Can prayer prevent Alzheimer’s? A new joint American-Israeli study has found that praying regularly can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by 50%. Spiritual well-being slows progression of the disease by reducing stress levels. Memorising prayers helps cognitive function. (And maybe other factors?)
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Controls/SendFriend.ashx?print=1&type=0&item=158642

Deep Brain Stimulation stops epileptic seizures. Professor Itzak Fried of Sourasky Medical Center implanted electrodes deep inside the brain of a patient with intractable epilepsy (does not respond to medication). So far, the treatment has been a complete success. There are some 20,000 Israelis with intractable epilepsy.
http://www.jpost.com/Health/Article.aspx?id=280200

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ “The entity is already here. Its czars are running things in D.C., and its judges are dismantling both constitutional government and democratic elections. It creates a crisis and then makes sure that it doesn’t go to waste. It has excellent design skills and terrible planning skills. It has all the money in the world […]

www.geraldahonigman.com On August 9th, Turkey’s Islamist government’s Foreign Minister engaged in some mathematical chutzpah. Follow the excerpts below from Istanbul’s Today’s Zaman to get a hint at what I mean… Ahmet Davutoðlu said Turkey would not be opposed to a possible autonomous Kurdish region in Syria following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, if […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443404004577580913026070278.html?KEYWORDS=FOUAD+AJAMI

The sight of Hillary Clinton cutting a rug on the dance floor this week in South Africa gives away the moral obtuseness of America’s chief diplomat. That image will tell the people of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, under attack by a merciless regime, all they need to know about the heartlessness of U.S. foreign policy.

True authority over foreign affairs has been vested in the White House, and for that matter, in the Obama campaign apparatus. All the great decisions on foreign policy—Iraq and Afghanistan, the struggle raging in Syria, the challenge posed by the Iranian regime—have been subjugated to the needs of the campaign. All that is left for Mrs. Clinton is the pomp and ceremony and hectic travel schedule.

Much has been made of her time in the air. She is now officially the most traveled secretary of state in American history. She has logged, by one recent count, 843,458 miles and visited 102 countries. (This was before her recent African swing; doubtless her handlers will revise the figures.) In one dispatch, it was breakfast in Vietnam, lunch in Laos, dinner in Cambodia. Officially, she’s always the life of the party.

This is foreign policy trivialized. If Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, was “present at the creation” of the post-World War II order of states, historians who bother with Mrs. Clinton will judge her as marking time, a witness to the erosion of U.S. authority in the international order.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/could-israel-safely-deter-a-nuclear-iran/260947/ Whatever their current disagreements on the reasonableness of further sanctions, Washington and Jerusalem have now both indicatedthat they may be willing to use military options against Iran. After all, sanctions have apparently not convinced Tehran to abandon their nuclear efforts, and rejecting the military option altogether could leave Israel vulnerable. At the same time, […]

The Last Berber Jews As a child, the French filmmaker Kamal Hachkar learned the Berber language from his grandparents in Tinghir, a Berber oasis city east of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. As an adult he discovered that the now exclusively Muslim town once had a substantial Jewish community. In Hachkar’s film Tinghir-Jerusalem, Echoes from […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/moshe-dann/israel-policy-forum-the-network-of-intrigue/ A recent letter to PM Netanyahu opposing the Levy Report organized by the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) and signed by 40 critics of Jewish communities built in Judea and Samaria (“settlements”) received wide media attention. With perhaps a few exceptions, those who signed the letter did not read the report, since it was only […]