RUTHFULLY YOURS

Israel’s top 20 greatest inventions of all time By ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
http://www.jpost.com/Dash/Entertainment/Article.aspx?id=251079

An end-of-the-year exhibit pays tribute to Israeli innovation.

A major Israeli source of pride is the enormous number of inventions and innovations that have taken root on its soil over 63 years, despite challenges of geography, size and diplomacy. The ever-churning Israeli mind has brought us drip irrigation, the cherry tomato, the electric car grid and much more.

Throughout December at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem, indispensable Israeli inventions are being displayed and demonstrated. Curator Varda Gur Ben-Sheetrit said that hundreds of ingenious inventions were considered for the exhibition Inventions, Inc., which offers visitors a chance to learn more and try their own hand at coming up with something new.

She emphasized that many other Israeli inventions are deserving of inclusion. “We were, of course, constrained by space limitations. Also, not every company we invited to exhibit responded,” she noted.
Another feature of the exhibition is the Transparent Studio, where graduates of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design conduct a course on innovation in the area of light and lighting design. Visitors can observe their work-in-progress and share their ideas and suggestions with the designers.

Here’s a list of Israel’s top 20 inventions highlighted at the exhibition, in no particular order.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8976283/Stop-teaching-about-the-holocaust-so-that-children-see-Germany-in-a-better-light-says-Lord-Baker.html
WELL IF YOU STUDY THE HOLOCAUST YOU SEE THE UK’S SORDID HISTORY WHICH SHUT THE GATES OF PALESTINE AND TRAPPED MILLIONS OF DESPERATE JEWS. AND ALSO, AFTER THE HOLOCAUST BRITISH SOLDIERS FIRED ON REFUGEE SHIPS OF SURVIVORS HEADING TO PALESTINE….RSK
Stop teaching about the holocaust so that children see Germany in a better light, says Lord Baker
British schools should no longer teach children about the Nazis because it makes them think less favourably of modern Germany, the architect of the National Curriculum has claimed.

Lord Baker of Dorking, who spent three years as Margaret Thatcher’s education secretary, said that he would ban the topic and concentrate on British history instead.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said that schools should concentrate on teaching “the story in our own country” rather than the events of the Second World War, including the Holocaust.

Lord Baker, who introduced the National Curriculum in the 1980s, said: “I would ban the study of Nazism from the history curriculum totally.

http://israel21c.org/health/new-solution-kills-hospital-superbugs

New ‘solution’ kills hospital superbugs By Karin Kloosterman
Resistant bacteria are soon to meet their match: a genetically engineered fluid that restores their susceptibility to antibiotics.

Every patient, nurse, doctor and visitor to a hospital knows the drill: hands get a splash of antibacterial fluid found at every bedside, entrance and exit. Keeping hands clean can prevent some infections, but superbugs — those sometimes deadly bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics — can outwit the best hygiene practices.

Hospital-acquired infections are one of the leading causes of preventable death in the developed world today, with 100,000 people in the United States alone dying every year from bugs they catch as patients in the hospital, according to the World Health Organization. The old and very young are at an especially high risk of infection from resistant bacteria that can spread like wildfire.

But now superbugs may have met their match, thanks to a genetically engineered cleaning solution developed in Israeli laboratories.

Costing only a few dollars a quart, the solution is non-toxic to patients and can be spread on hospital surfaces to kill what conventional soaps and antibiotics can’t, report researchers Rotem Edgar from the Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center and Udi Qimron from Tel Aviv University. They detailed their technology recently in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Weakening the superbugs

The solution uses a laboratory-grown virus called a bacteriophage, which disrupts the DNA of resistant bacteria and renders them susceptible to antibiotics.

“We have genetically engineered the bacteriophages so that once they infect the bacteria, they transfer a dominant gene that confers renewed sensitivity to certain antibiotics,” says Qimron, who believes his solution will one day be part of every hospital’s anti-germ arsenal.

The researchers say that the new spray could be applied on any surface where there is a high concentration of germs, such as door handles, faucets, bedrails and handrails.

The product is now ready to be tested, first on a nasty strain of E. coli that leads to urinary trac

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2711/europe-march-towards-islam

Post-Christian Europe became noticeably more Islamized during 2011.

As the rapidly growing Muslim population makes its presence felt in towns and cities across the continent, Islam is transforming the European way of life in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.

What follows is a brief summary of some of the more outrageous Islam-related controversies that took place in Europe during 2011.

In Austria, an appellate court upheld the politically correct conviction of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a Viennese housewife and anti-Jihad activist, for “denigrating religious beliefs” after she gave a series of seminars about the dangers of radical Islam. The December 20 ruling showed that while Judaism and Christianity can be disparaged with impunity in postmodern multicultural Austria, speaking the truth about Islam is subject to swift and hefty legal penalties.

Also in Austria, the King Abdullah Center for Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue was inaugurated at the Albertina Museum in downtown Vienna on October 13. The Saudis say the purpose of the multi-million-dollar initiative is to “foster dialogue” between the world’s major religions in order to “prevent conflict.” But critics say the center is an attempt by Saudi Arabia to establish a permanent “propaganda center” in central Europe from which to spread the conservative Wahhabi sect of Islam

Darfur: Land of The Islamist Power Struggle

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2708/darfur-islamist-power-struggle

On December 23, the Sudanese army killed one of the most influential rebel leaders in Darfur, Khalil Ibrahim. The Washington Post wrote that Ibrahim’s death represents a “major setback to the eight-year-old rebellion in Sudan’s western region, and to the Justice and Equality Movement [JEM], which Ibrahim founded several years ago and developed into the most organized rebel force in Darfur.” Ibrahim’s life story, however, shows how his actions were dictated more by his eagerness for power and by his Islamist agenda rather than by finding a solution to Darfur’s worst humanitarian crisis of this century.

If You Care for the Palestinians, Boycott the Palestinian Authority by Mudar Zahran

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2712/boycott-palestinian-authority

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas, went to the UN General Assembly in September, seeking recognition for a Palestinian state — a request that was not only unilateral in breach of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 838. In response, three congressional committees blocked $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, a move the PA described as “collective punishment” — although it is hard to understand why it does not consider firing thousands of rockets at civilians in Israeli villages “collective punishment.”

In November of 2011, 44 lawmakers, all Democrats, wrote to the heads of the House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee, claiming that “Maintaining U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority is in the essential strategic interest of Israel and the United States”]. Nonetheless, it might just be in the Palestinians’ best interest if the US, and the world, not only stops financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, but even boycotts it.

When the autonomous PA came into existence through the legal framework of the Oslo Peace Accord, signed between the Israelis and the Palestinian Liberation Organization [PLO] in 1993, the agreement was the most advanced political accomplishment ever by any terrorist organization. The PLO was the first terrorist entity ever to be rewarded with such as internationally-supported agreement as Oslo. This reward for bad behavior doubtless inspired the PLO to continue doing what it has always done best: promoting terrorism.

http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2011/12/29/americas_big_loser_2011_americans/print

In North Carolina this week, a young man named Mostafa Kamel Hendi hit upon a plan to make ends meet in this rotten economy: He decided to knock over a local gold store. Tape shows this determined and enterprising flower of American youth strolling into the store, hoodie over his head, and then gesturing to the clerk, Derek Mothershead, to shove some money in a plastic bag.

Mothershead, however, not being a member of the liberal effete class who believe that all robbery is a noble redistributionist impulse, had an unexpected reaction. He handed Hendi some money — and then, as Hendi bent to put the money in the bag, Mothershead clocked him with a tremendous left. Hendi went down, bleeding profusely. “There was just an opportunity there where I thought that I could actually do something and justice could be served,” said Mothershead, “and I thought that’s what needed to be done.” This tough Mother then forced Hendi to clean up his own blood with paper towels and cleaning solution. “If he wants money,” Mothershead added, “get a job. Work like everybody else in this world.”

http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2011/12/29/the_justice_departments_identity_problem/print

Is there, or should there ever be, a point when a state is no longer penalized for its discriminatory past?

Not according to the Department of Justice, which last Friday rejected a South Carolina law that would have required voters show a valid photo ID before casting their ballots.

Justice says the law discriminates against minorities. The Obama administration said, “South Carolina’s law didn’t meet the burden under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices preventing blacks from voting.” Why South Carolina? Because, the Justice Department contends, it’s tasked with approving voting changes in states that have failed in the past to protect the rights of blacks.

Are they serious?

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2011/12/29/republican_voters_choices/print

“There are no guarantees, no matter whom the Republicans vote for in the primaries. Why not vote for the candidate who has shown the best track record of accomplishments, both in office and in the debates? That is Newt Gingrich. With all his shortcomings, his record shows that he knows how to get the job done in Washington.”

No one seems to be really happy with this year’s field of Republican candidates for that party’s presidential nomination — except perhaps the Democrats.

The sudden rise, and equally sudden fall, of a succession of Republican front-runners is just one sign of the dissatisfaction of the Republican voters with this field of candidates.

In this, as in many other aspects of life, we can only make our choice among the options actually available. So Republican voters who want to be realistic need to understand that they are going to end up with qualms and nagging doubts about whomever they pick this time.

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/28/shock-horror-saudi-textbooks-teach-islam/

Shock Horror: Saudi Textbooks Teach Islam!

Catherine Herridge of Fox News reported last week that “despite Saudi Arabia’s promises to clean up textbooks in the kingdom, recent editions continue to raise alarms in the West over jihadist language.” The story of the Saudis’ supposed duplicity has been circulating widely, but what is more surprising than the contents of the Saudi textbooks is that anyone would be surprised by them. The Saudi textbooks teach Islam. What else did anyone expect?

Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, correctly pointed out that “this is where terrorism starts, in the education system.” He stated, quite rightly, that “if you teach 6 million children in these important years of their lives, if you install that in their brain, no wonder we have so many Saudi suicide bombers.”

But there is nothing in the least unusual about what the Saudis are teaching given the fact that the official religion of the Kingdom is Islam. For example, Al-Ahmed explained that tenth-grade textbooks “show students how to cut [the] hand and the feet of a thief.”

Why not? The Qur’an says: “As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands. It is the reward of their own deeds, an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty, Wise” (5:38). Is the problem that tenth graders are too young to learn this sort of thing? But why should anyone be too young to learn the ins and outs of the eternal and perfect law designed by the supreme being for all human societies in all times and places?

Al-Ahmed also noted that a ninth-grade text called on Muslims to kill Jews in order to bring about the hour of judgment: “The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. … There is a Jew behind me come and kill him.”

Here again, why is anyone surprised? The hadith collection that Muslims consider most reliable, Sahih Bukhari, quotes Muhammad saying this: “Allah’s Apostle said, The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him’” (4.52.177).

Should Saudi ninth graders not be learning about what they must do in order to bring about the blessed day and hour in which all things will be consummated and the golden age will dawn? Yes, it’s genocidal, anti-Semitic and monstrous, but then again, so is the original statement attributed to Muhammad. To condemn the Saudi textbooks is to condemn Muhammad and Islam. Yet the mainstream media stories that wrung their hands over the Saudi textbooks never pointed out that the noxious elements of those textbooks came straight from the Qur’an and the Islamic prophet.

Instead, the media reports pretended that the Saudis had cooked all this up themselves. That would certainly be a comforting thought, for then the problem could – at least theoretically – be isolated and contained, and one would hope that cooler heads would prevail in Riyadh and genuine reform ultimately undertaken. Reality is much less comforting, because of one central fact that no one wishes to acknowledge or consider in its implications: anywhere and everywhere Islam is taught, this kind of hatred and violence could be taught.