RUTHFULLY YOURS

A month from the midterm elections, an unusual dividing line has developed in the narrative of each party’s candidates and the national parties.

Republicans are happy to run against President Obama: a new Gallup poll [1]shows a near record number of voters who plan to use their vote to protest against the president. These numbers are in line with those from 2010, when Republicans picked up 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats in the midterms with voter anger focused on Obamacare. The numbers also match up with the results in 2006, when opposition to President Bush over the Iraq War and his handling of the response to Hurricane Katrina led to Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress, winning 6 Senate seats and 29 House seats. In general, voters who are angry are a bit more passionate about voting than those who want to express support, particularly in midterms when turnout is well below what is seen in presidential election years.

Below, Gallup describes the results from its latest poll of registered voters. Note that Nate Silver [2] of fivethirtyeight.com has argued that Republican support is usually a few points stronger among likely voters than is picked up in registered voter surveys:

Registered voters are more likely to view their choice of candidate in this year’s midterm elections as a message of opposition (32%) rather than support (20%) for President Barack Obama. That 12-percentage-point margin is similar to what Gallup measured for Obama in 2010 and George W. Bush in 2006, years in which their parties performed poorly in the midterm elections.

Surprisingly, given these bleak polling numbers of which the White House is clearly aware, President Obama seemed to double down this week, saying the upcoming Congressional elections were in fact a vote on his presidency:

Now, I am not on the ballot this fall. … But make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.

It was a tough day for FLOTUS yesterday in Iowa. When claiming to be a “good friend” of someone, a necessary element of credibility is knowing what his name is.

Fox News summarizes the events:

While campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa Friday for Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley, she referred to him multiple times as “Bailey” before she was corrected by someone shouting from the audience.

(a longer video featuring her repeated mispronunciation is found here)

More embearrassing: “The flub came despite a huge array of signs in the hall where she was speaking, all spelling Braley’s name correctly.”

Mrs. Obama’s excuse offered to the audience was that she has been traveling too much. This means, in other words, that her claim to be a good friend is so much eyewash, just empty words intended to fool Iowans.

She also got something else wrong. Very wrong:

The first lady also referred to Braley as a Marine Corps veteran, which he is not. Braley’s staff said she meant to refer to his late father, Byard Braley, a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima.

Braley’s opponent in the Senate race, Republican Joni Ernst, is a member of the Army reserve and National Guard.

All in all, it is hard to see how her visit to Iowa is going to help Braley.

How do you spell desperation? Wendy Davis of Texas! By Silvio Canto, Jr.

By now, most of us are immune to negative campaigning. We see it, it makes us sick, but life goes on.

However, the latest ad from the Wendy Davis campaign in Texas is about as bad as it gets. It makes the 1964 “Daisy” ad look like a G-rated film. It even makes those “James Byrd ads” against Bush in 2000 look reasonable.

It is nasty, as Aaron Blake reported in The Washington Post:

It goes on to attack wheelchair-bound state Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) for hypocrisy because, after suing and winning a large reward for the accident that caused his partial paralysis, he has opposed similar litigation as the state’s top cop.

“A tree fell on Greg Abbott,” the narrator says. “He sued and got millions. Since then, he’s spent his career working against other victims.”

This ad is the sort of highly risky gambit you only see from a long-shot campaign. And, as often as not, these sorts of “Hail Marys” fail miserably.

If it does backfire and Davis wants to run for office in the future, you can rest assured this one will stick with her.

If it does backfire?

This is a horrible ad, and it tells you a lot about the state of the Davis campaign. She has failed to excite her base because there is nothing to her story, whatever her story is this week. Her position on abortion is not clicking with Hispanic women. Worst of all, she has not presented a forward-looking agenda beyond playing every card in the Democrat playbook.

Hopefully, it reminds Democrats that they need to nominate a candidate who can win in Texas rather than in San Francisco.

If America is alone, is it therefore in the wrong?

The actress and Democratic activist Eva Longoria, who apparently has never heard of France, was ruthlessly mocked this week for her claim that the United States “is the only country that promotes monolingualism.” Both of the assumptions behind that statement are false: The United States does not promote monolingualism, and some other countries, and would-be countries such as Quebec, do. Ms. Longoria is a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, where state standards at the time of her high-school education generally required two years of the same foreign language, and where neither the University of Texas nor Texas A&M, which Ms. Longoria attended, will admit students without two years of the same foreign language. Ms. Longoria currently is a resident of California, a state in which official business is conducted in more than 30 languages. As for other countries, suffice it to say that neither China nor Mexico is offering driver’s-license exams in Farsi. Spain has one language with national official status — guess which.

Ms. Longoria is not what you would call a rigorous thinker. Arguing in favor of immigration reform, she demands to know whether Americans are ready to pay — horrors! — $17 for valet parking or “$8 for a head of broccoli,” but in the very next sentence boasts of paying three times the going rate for avocados, choosing much more expensive organic avocados in order to ensure that “a farm-worker wasn’t sprayed with pesticides.” So, paying more to avoid Round-up residue is an act of civic virtue, but paying more to ensure that farmworkers are not being paid starvation wages in a market in which wages are depressed by the flood of illegal workers from Latin America is xenophobia. That’s one way to read the guacamole.

So, another dopey celebrity heard from — who cares?

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

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Preventing the brain from aging. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered that the protein interferon beta impairs the cognitive ability of the brain – common in old age. The finding may lead to treatments that can prevent or reverse cognitive decline and rejuvenate the brain.
http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/scientists-identify-the-signature-of-aging-in-the-brain#.VDQ5LVeGfB8

A target for anti-cancer treatments. (Thanks to Atid-EDI) Israeli biotech Compugen has discovered a protein, codenamed CGEN-15049 that prevents the immune system from destroying tumors. Attacking CGEN-15049 could prevent many cancers, including lung, ovarian, colorectal, gastric, prostate and liver.
http://cgen.com/press-releases/2014/248-compugen-discloses-new-results-for-novel-target-candidate-for-cancer-immunotherapy

ALS treatment is fast-tracked. The US FDA has designated NurOwn, developed by Israel’s Brainstorm, as a Fast Track product for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease).
http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/10/08/brainstorms-stem-cell-based-drug-nurown-gets-fda-fast-track-approval/

Incubating life. Israel’s government is to fund FutuRx – an incubator to provide as many as 40 new biotechs up to 3 years and $2.3 million to develop life-saving treatments. So far, it has selected one startup developing brain disease treatment technology and another working on a cancer treatment that blocks a specific protein.
http://www.israel21c.org/headlines/israel-takes-a-risk-on-tomorrows-epic-drugs/

Gold-coated heart patches. Israeli scientists have performed successful lab tests to repair damaged heart tissue using replacement tissue that has been impregnated with gold atoms. Gold carries electrical signals from the heart until the new tissue is able to grow sufficient amounts of protein to do the same job.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israelis-test-gold-plated-cardiac-patch-to-treat-heart-attacks/#ixzz3Ezy3YECs

The first ever treatment for dry AMD. OpRegen, developed by Israel’s CellCure NeuroSciences is designed to treat patients with the severe stage of the dry form of age-related macular degeneration (dry-AMD). Dry-AMD is the leading cause of visual impairment in an aging population. No approved therapy currently exists.
http://www.cellcureneurosciences.com/biotimes-subsidiary-cell-cure-neurosciences-ltd-files-an-ind-with-the-fda-for-opregen-designed-to-treat-patients-with-dry-amd/

Protecting the elderly from falls. Up to 1 million hospital patients a year are hurt in falls. Israel’s EarlySense bed sensors give nursing staff advance notice of patients who are about to get out of bed at night. Assistance and intervention at the bedside will potentially prevent falls.
http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/10/10/earlysense-get-va-contract-and-releases-study-results-supporting-its-technology/

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Aiming for the Moon. Yanki Margalit is an Israeli entrepreneur. He is also the chairman of SpaceIL – the company that is planning to make Israel only the fourth nation in the world to land a spacecraft on the Moon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7dt69yvEnY

Eilat’s technology hub. Kibbutz Ketura near Eilat will be the location for a new technology hub developing products that can provide energy and water to poor populations that are not connected to their national grids. Companies can test off-grid solutions, including for energy storage, horticulture, biogas generation and water.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/New-Tech/Eilat-Eilot-Off-Grid-Hub-to-open-in-the-Arava-376557
http://www.timesofisrael.com/negev-lab-promises-a-better-tech-tomorrow-for-africa//

Searching for Dark Matter. Scientists believe that mysterious Dark Matter comprises much of the known universe, but cannot prove it. Dr Ran Budnik of Israel’s Weizmann Institute is lead scientist on the project to build the prototype of a device to detect the result of dark matter particles colliding with liquid xenon.
http://www.weizmann-usa.org/media/2014/09/23/searching-for-dark-matter

Israeli wins international computer award. Bar-Ilan University Professor Doron Peled was presented with the 2014 CAV (Computer-Aided Verification) Award at the 26th annual CAV conference in Vienna, Austria. Prof Peled and 3 others were commended for their contribution to eliminating computer errors.
http://www1.biu.ac.il/indexE.php?id=33&pt=20&pid=4&level=1&cPath=4&type=1&news=2235

The first commercial smart glasses app. Mekorot, Israel’s water company, is the first firm in the world to equip its field workers with smart glasses – Epson’s Moverio BT-200 devices. It’s also the first to be deploying a commercial app – by Israeli startup FieldBit to receive specific guidance and instruction when they repair high-tension electricity installations at Mekorot facilities.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-start-up-makes-1st-commercial-smart-glasses-app/

Two security awards for Magal. (Thanks to Atid-EDI) Two products of Israel’s Magal-Senstar won awards at the 2014 ASIS Accolades Competition: Security’s Best Award. Its RoboGuard robot patrols security fences. CyberSeal protects against cyber attacks.
http://www.magal-s3.com/index.asp?catID=76335&siteLang=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIcCNR2g13Q

ECONOMY & BUSINESS

Record business with the UK. Bilateral trade between Israel and the UK rose by 28% between January and August, reaching record levels. Israeli exports to the UK were worth £1.6 billion, up 38%.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/israel-enjoys-record-exports-uk-despite-palestinian-boycott-movement-1469013

New laws for Angels. Israel is amending the Angel Investors Law, granting tax incentives to those investing in start-ups at the seed stage of research and development. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said it “will ensure that the New Year will be one of entrepreneurship and encouragement of investment in high tech.”
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-ministerial-cttee-approves-angels-law-amendment-1000976440

US Navy buys Israeli radar systems. The United States Navy is acquiring Gulfstream jets which have been modified to carry the radar detection system developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)/Elta Systems for airborne Aerial Early Warning missions.
http://defense-update.com/20141006_us-navy-orders-gulfstream-jet-for-test-range-surveillance.html#.VDPpNVeGfB-

China is Israel’s top investor. Nearly 1,000 Chinese business people visited Israel last year, including those at the first-ever Israel-China Economic Summit. For China, Israel is a great source of technology to help them develop their economy. For Israel, it’s a unique opportunity to gain entry into the biggest market in the world.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/culture-business-cement-israel-china-relationship/

Israeli beer wins Gold at World Beer Cup. (Thanks to NoCamels.com) Israel’s Alexander Brewery tasted international success when its Black Beer beat 74 other brews to win the Robust Porter category at the World Beer Cup in Denver Colorado, USA. The Israeli brewery has only been marketing beer for 3 years.
http://nocamels.com/2014/09/as-microbreweries-take-off-in-israel-alexanders-eco-friendly-ale-tastes-international-success/

Kaspersky to open Jerusalem R&D center. Russian software giant Kaspersky Lab, known for its popular anti-virus system, will open a development center in Jerusalem next year – one of its few outside of Russia.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-kaspersky-lab-to-open-jerusalem-rd-center-1000976674

Israel gas will save Jordan JD 700 million annually. (Thanks to Atid-EDI) The Jordanian government said that its state-owned National Electric Power Company is expected to buy 250-300 million cubic feet per day of (Israeli) natural gas, which experts said will save around JD700 million annually of the energy bill.
http://jordantimes.com/israel-gas-deal-will-save-jordan-jd700m-annually

CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT

Netanya’s International Guitar festival. Netanya hosted the 9th International Guitar festival, featuring concerts, master classes, competitions, flamenco dancers and even a guitar tour of Netanya.
http://guitar-gems.ru/ http://guitar-gems.ru/festival-program

World record swim. Six Israelis have entered the Guinness Book of Records with the open water relay record by swimming the 236 miles (380km) from Cyprus to Tel Aviv. Last year’s attempt had failed – but Israelis never give up! They also raised awareness for protecting the environment of the Mediterranean.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/six-israelis-break-world-record-by-swimming-home-from-cyprus/
http://www.greenprophet.com/2014/10/swim-vegan-world-record-guiness/

Formula 1 cars return to Jerusalem. Ferraris, Audis and Porsche racecars roared up to 240km per hour around the walls of the Old City as part of the second annual Jerusalem Formula road show. The event drew hundreds of thousands of onlookers along the route from the First Station to the Karta parking lot near Mamilla.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/drivers-roar-past-holy-sites-in-jerusalem-f1-roadshow/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqh8mXpik-8

THE JEWISH STATE

Unique twins. 19-year-old twins Yael & Noga Steinman were born Fatima and Zukra Islambakov, in Uzbekistan to a Muslim mother and a Jewish father. When they discovered their roots they made Aliya and joined the IDF. One has since converted to Judaism and the other is completing her conversion.
http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/10/09/from-islamic-school-in-uzbekistan-to-the-idf-in-israel-what-a-journey/

An inflatable tabernacle! It’s kosher, and easy to put up – an idea for next year, perhaps?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrD0BfOaXj4

A luxury Sukkot at the Inbal Hotel. This is the ultimate for those wanting 8 days in a 5-star penthouse overlooking Jerusalem. Full board for a family of four with your own huge sukkah costs a cool $50,000.
http://www.jta.org/2014/10/03/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/sukkot-luxury-in-jerusalem-hotel-penthouse-suites-with-private-sukkahs

Excavation reveals ancient & modern. Archaeologists working in the hills outside of Jerusalem uncovered an ancient Jewish ritual bath that reveals not only remnants of Second Temple-era life in the area, but also the inscriptions of two Australian soldiers who visited the site while passing through during World War II.
Ancient bath and Aussie carvings uncovered at archaeology site

He knows with whom he is dealing, that Caliph.

The caliphate is now at the “sublime door”, the Turkish borders of Europe, leaving behind piles of thousands of unburied dead. Yet the terrorist insurgency of the Islamic State does not lift an eyebrow on the faces of the self-righteous Westerners who unleashed hatred against Israel.

This summer there were two wars: the just war of Israel against the anti-Semitic terrorist regime in Gaza, which for two months tried to besiege the people of the Shoah, and the laconic war of the White House and the Western governments against the Islamic State.

The European governments, mirror of the idle self-righteous conscience, are reluctant to act against the Islamists of the Caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and his terrorista, who want to scar the society in which they lived and that gave them birth, who take pride in fighting for the Prophet and who are trying to sweep away any sign of civilization through the imposition of a regime of submission.

It is part of a Western syndrome which revealed itself during the war in Libya, a caricature of the “France-à-fric” (the cash), the war of the assimilated Jew Bernard-Henri Lévy, a war that had the sweet, honey, reassuring, taste of humanitarian mediation.

In the name of the idiotic slogan “neither interference nor indifference”, France presented a war of eastern Libya’s tribes, which have always been hostile to the central government of Tripoli, as a liberation struggle of the entire people against a tyrant who did business with the West. That stupid citoyen, fed with the mantra of humanitarian intervention, hypnotized the Western public opinion to lead a war from above, skewed in substance.

Today the black flag of the Islamic State waves on some Libyan cities. The same scenario is repeated in the Nineveh Plains, the land of the two rivers, where the caliphate now governs a region as large as Great Britain.

Airstrikes and hypocrisy.

Arabs attack Light Rail with rocks, as “silent intifada” in the capital rages on.

In four separate incidents, Arabs threw rocks on Saturday night at the Jerusalem Light Rail, as it passed near Arab neighborhoods in the capital.

No one was hurt but the windows of the trains sustained damage.

In another incident in the capital, Arabs from the Abu Tor neighborhood hurled rocks at Border Policemen on the Mount of Olives. Two officers were lightly wounded and were treated at the scene.

The rock attacks are the latest in the ongoing “silent intifada” in the capital. On Friday afternoon, Arab terrorists attacked the Jerusalem neighborhood of Maaleh Hazeitim, targeting Jewish residents with fireworks and rocks.

The fireworks caused a fire in the nearby brush, which spread quickly but was extinguished by the residents and private security guards before the fire department showed up.

Ten days earlier, local terrorists attacked a day care center in Jerusalem. Three weeks ago, a school bus was attacked with rocks and paint, almost causing it to veer off the road.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has turned to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a letter demanding that the terror wave be ended.

Barkat’s letter also reached members of the government, Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino and recently retired Jerusalem District Police Commander Yossi Pariente.

First, I should say that I never win prizes. My name is never called. Wait. Years ago I won a bowling trophy. So don’t count me out.

Not so fast, for each year around this time comes the Nobel Prize for Literature. I sit and I wait. I wait by the phone…along with Philip Roth.

This is what people talk about in my business – the phone call. Yes, the phone call from Sweden. It’s supposed to come early in the morning and sure enough the phone rang. “Congratulations,” said the man. “It’s you.” Only it wasn’t Sweden. It was Moishe.

“You’re nuts,” I said.

“Your gloomy outlook on life stops as of today. You’re in. Mazel Tov. Though I’m told success ruins a writer.”

“So does failure,” I said. “Listen up. You’ve got to stop this.”

“Listen, Yankele. Why not you? I hear it’s a French guy who won moments ago, a Jewish Frenchman. Who else could it be?”

It could be Patrick Modiano, son of a Belgium mother and an Italian Jewish father. But that information only came later. Meanwhile…

“So are you at the computer, watching TV?”

“I’m still in bed. It’s five in the morning. Wait till I get my hands on you.”

“Islam is a religion of peace and has nothing to do with the ideology of our enemies.” — Home Secretary Theresa May, on the beading of David Haines by IS in Syria.

The documentary did not shed light on why the British government continues to allow Sharia law to take precedence over UK law by tolerating polygamy.

“You’ve got an eight, nine, 10-year-old child playing those kind of violent games with heads blowing off and limbs blowing off. What kind of mentality is that kid going to have?” — Convicted terrorist Shahid Butt blaming video games for radicalization of Muslim youth.

“Gangs raping children get let off and ignored, people making comments about it get chased down and treated more severely than the rapists.” — Angry citizen in South Yorkshire

Islam-related issues were widespread in Britain during the month of September 2014. What follows is a summary of the main stories, presented in three broad themes.

1. Islamic Extremism and Syria-Related Threats

The House of Commons on September 26 voted 524 to 43 to approve a request by British Prime Minister David Cameron to join the American-led coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State [IS], but only in Iraq, not in Syria where the IS has established its headquarters.

The vote came after IS jihadists decapitated the British aid worker David Haines in Syria on September 14.

In a politically correct statement on the beheading, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed that the murder had nothing to do with Islam. “No religion could possibly justify such grotesque acts,” he declared.

There has never been a war in American history so strategically ill-conceived as the one currently developing against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.
The Mexican war of 1846-47 was essentially an aggressive operation to take Alta California and New Mexico, and to cement the status of Texas. It was limited in its objectives, and it was conducted in a strategically sound manner. The goals – their legality apart – were achieved, and the balance between costs and benefits was never in doubt. Vae victis!
The Civil War (under whatever name) was a “rational” bid by Abraham Lincoln and his team – legal, moral, and humanitarian considerations notwithstanding – to create a centralized state. He won the war, and hugely expanded federal governmental power. This was a disaster for America, but it was a resounding success from the standpoint of its instigators.
The 1898 war against Spain was but another exercise in Realpolitik. It finally moved America from a republic to an empire, the “manifest destiny” now manifested in Admiral Mahan’s and Theodore Roosevelt’s geopolitical designs.
Woodrow Wilson’s 1917-1918 intervention against the Central Powers was the first overtly “ideological” war – to make the world safe for democracy etc. Its slogans were silly, but in the end it could be argued that the geopolitical purpose was well served: to prevent the dominance of the continent of Europe by a single hegemon. America did not make much difference to the outcome in the battlefield, but her entry signaled to the Germans that the Entente could not lose.
World War II was a convoluted affair that entailed FDR provoking Japan in order to provoke Germany. Considering Roosevelt’s Weltanschauung it worked beautifully. His goals were rational within that paradigm, and they were fulfilled beyond expectations.