RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/the_wolf_of_wall_street.html

I went to see Wolf with a friend who has zero investments. As we watched the film, which for all its 3-hour length flew by in a compulsively sickening but sustained high-wire act of what’s next?, he commented that he owns no securities. Now, watching this debauchery, he would never invest with this species of human infection.

When I spoke with my account manager after the film, I admit that even I — much more sophisticated than my friend, if far less knowledgeable than almost anyone in finance — also spoke with some shaded caution, as the film reminded me of the storied excesses that were tamped down in the 80s, 90s and aughts.

The initial article in Forbes that depicted Jordan Belfort as an ethics-challenged trader-wolf, Scorsese or the Belfort biographer would have us believe, initiated a tsunami of voracious young moneylusters who washed up in waves, excited by what they had read. But our reaction through the 3 hours, never less than interested, was yet never more than soured observation. Monitoring my reactions as the film unspooled, I was troubled, often found myself grimacing, disbelieving and disgusted. The man gave nothing back, and treated those who behaved less avariciously than he with oblivious cruelty. The single person who benefited from his early largesse, we are told in the film, is a female stockbroker who was given $25,000 at the start of her company tenure. We don’t know if that is even true. What is true, but got not one second of screen-time, were the pigeons, the wealthy and mostly not-so-wealthy who lost their savings, their IRAs, or their families in the wholesale losses engendered by the unscrupulous stocktraders of Stratton Oakmont.

http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2014/1/2/sorry-but-income-inequality-is-about-to-increase

Mayor Bill de Blasio was sworn in on the steps of City Hall. He gave an inaugural address reiterating all his major campaign themes. Chief among these was what he calls the “crisis of inequality.”

New York has faced fiscal collapse, a crime epidemic, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters. But now, in our time, we face a different crisis – an inequality crisis. . . . It’s a quiet crisis, but one no less pernicious than those that have come before. Its urgency is read on the faces of our neighbors and their children, as families struggle to make it against increasingly long odds. To tackle a challenge this daunting, we need a dramatic new approach. . . . A city that fights injustice and inequality — not just because it honors our values, but because it strengthens our people.

There were no specifics in the speech as to what de Blasio intends to do about the crisis, or why he thinks he can solve it, if indeed it is a problem.

I have a prediction for de Blasio that he might not like: income inequality, as measured by government statistics, is going to increase over the next four years, both in New York and in the United States as a whole. That will occur literally no matter what de Blasio does, no matter how much in the way of taxpayer resources he devotes to the issue. The reason is that government policies beyond his control, largely at the federal level, have a powerful effect of increasing measured income inequality. The big three policies driving measured income inequality are food stamps, Medicaid, and Obamacare. The third has just begun to work its destruction.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/fichte-erdogan-obama_773267.html#

In his ponderously titled book Contributions to the Correction of the Public’s Judgement Concerning the French Revolution (1793), the German philosopher and political leader Johann Gottlieb Fichte took time out from his defense of the Reign of Terror to compose what has been called by Daniel Johnson “the most notorious footnote in history.” It warned his German countrymen of the Jewish menace in their midst. The Jews, he told them, constituted “a state within a state. .  .  . I see no way of granting [the Jews] civil rights, unless it be by chopping off all their heads one night and replacing them with new ones in which there would be not a single Jewish idea. And I see no way to protect ourselves from the Jews, unless by conquering their promised land for them and sending them all there.”

This classic text of secular European anti-Semitism, which told the Jews, “You have no right to live among us as Jews” (though, perhaps, not yet “you have no right to live”), was recently echoed (just how intentionally we may soon find out) by Turkey’s embattled prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Under attack and investigation for massive corruption, and facing millions of angry street demonstrators, Erdogan has accused his prosecutors of being the agents of a global conspiracy to undermine him and to create in Turkey “a state within the state.” He and his minister of economics also blamed the international “interest-rate lobby” for the assault on the Turkish government.

Erdogan has not (yet) gone beyond these familiar euphemisms of European paranoia regarding the Jewish conspiracy, although his deputy, Besir Atalay, explicitly blamed “the Jewish Diaspora” for the assault on their regime. Erdogan is not a highly educated man, but in Europe one need not be an intellectual to appreciate the resonance of Fichte’s depiction of the continent’s Jewish minority, even in its pitifully reduced post-Holocaust condition, as “a state within a state.”

We’ve got the facts at CFACT.org.

All that inconvenient ice.

First a bunch of global warming people get themselves frozen in. Now the Chinese ice breaker which used its helicopter to free them is stuck too!

You can’t make this stuff up.

The media would like to ignore the fact that climate scientist Chris Turney of the University of New South Wales was on a global warming expedition.

The more inconvenient fact they hope to dance around is that 2013 saw massive expansion of Antarctic ice.

In a world which has not warmed since 1998, can the media ignore thermometers, satellites and all that ice?

In his later years, Herbert Zweibon, the late and beloved chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel, recognized the importance of education and Jewish failure in this regard. He hoped to create a site for the Internet age which would provide a place where people could go to learn about Zionism, of whose history little is known even by Israel’s supporters. He would be pleased with the results thus far of his brainchild, Zionism101.org.

Isaac has amassed a treasure trove of footage to tell the story of Israel’s political prophets – Theodore Herzl and Ze’ev Jabotinsky– as well as of leaders like Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion.

Zionism 101 has a stunning series on Christian Zionism. Because Zionist historians have glossed over Christian contributions to the movement, these films are an eye-opener even for those with a strong foundation in Zionist history. How many know, for example, that Theodor Herzl allowed only one person outside his own family to visit him on his deathbed and that was Rev. William Hechler? Isaac says, “British Christian Zionists were critical in paving the way for the Balfour Declaration. I hope that Zionism 101 will set that record straight and give them the credit that’s long overdue.”

Christian Zionists show a love for Israel without necessarily being aware of their historical contributions to the creation of the Jewish State. Jews, for their part, know even less about Christian moral and material support that continues to this day. The site’s films on the topic should make Christian friends of Israel friendlier still and open Jewish hearts to our non-Jewish allies.

An email Isaac received this week indicates the site’s potential. “I discovered your excellent website this morning. Thank you for this professional, user friendly, resource. I am a Christian Zionist who teaches on Israel, both the ancient and modern history of the State. I am always looking for excellent material to use in educating people with the truth on the subject. I work with a group that advocates for Israel within the Christian population of Canada and also encourages the Jewish population of our nation. I live at Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Please continue to produce this excellent resource and know that it is being used in the nations for your cause. Shalom, Lorraine B.”

http://www.americanclarion.com/category/international Zionism, simply put, is the Jewish people’s national liberation movement. Put in Biblical terms, it is the return from exile of the Jews to Zion – to that very special land promised by God to the first Jew, Abraham, and through his descendants, Isaac and Jacob, to the Jewish people forever. The Hebrew Scriptures equate Zion […]

A Speech Given at the The Gettysburg 150th Commemoration St Peter’s Eastern Hill, Melbourne, Tuesday 19 November
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=47498a2e1ad97dd3d09ae19c5&id=a38d8567ce&e=ce445aaf82

DR. DURIE IS A THEOLOGIAN, ANGLICAN PASTOR, A FELLOW OF THE MIDDLE EAST FORUM, AND A RESEARCH FELLOW OF THE CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF ISLAM AND OTHER FAITHS AT THE MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY.
Memories shape us powerfully. For all of us there are certain defining events, the memories of which stay with us and determine how we view the world. Not only individuals, but communities and nations have landmark, watershed memories. The Gettysburg address of Abraham Lincoln is one such.

I remember one of my birthdays, above all others. Ten years ago, as it so happened, on my 45th birthday, I had the pleasure, together with my teenage son David, of attending a Melbourne Writer’s Festival head-to-head debate between Keith Windschuttle and Robert Manne about their respective recent books on the fabrication of Australian history.

The spirited debate was conducted in front of a sell-out crowd sympathetic to Robert Manne. I remember the evening because of a single moment – no more than a few seconds – in question time when Windschuttle announced that of course in colonial 19th century Australia most government officials believed human beings were created equal – and thus that aboriginal people were equal to white people. This was, he said, because they were all either humanists or evangelical Christians.

At this point, a loud guffaw erupted from the crowd.

http://acdemocracy.org/hurtling-downhill/#sthash.FyyNpqj0.dpbs

If recent events are any indication, the pace of U.S. withdrawal from the world and the extent of our fecklessness (and the West’s generally) in the face of threats coming from Islamist terrorism, Russia, China, and Iran promises to pick up in 2014. Something new pops up every day.

Al Qaeda and its various affiliates have made a great leap forward in Syria and Iraq, where the took over Fallujah. The Obama administration did not react apparently because it no longer sees al Qaeda as a threat. If Ramadi falls as well, there’s unlikely to be a response then either.

The fact that Syria has missed its chemical weapons removal deadline is largely ignored or excused by “unfavorable” weather and other “difficulties” to transport the chemicals for shipment. The Syrian civil war is being spread with Iran’s blessing as is growing Saudi intervention into Lebanon without apparent attention from Washington.

Iran’s growing intervention in Syria and Lebanon, the upgrading of Hezbollah’s missiles, which increases the threat to Israel, and assassinations of Lebanese Sunni leaders who dare to criticize Iran, fail to solicit any reaction from the U.S.

On nearly every foreign policy front, except the utterly fatuous and doomed promotion of Israeli-Palestinian peace, the U.S. is either doing nothing or backtracking.

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

Shattering the silence of Autism. Ola Mundo (“Hello World ” in Spanish) transmits instant messages using symbols for people whose speaking or writing ability is severely impaired. Israel’s Ophir Harel developed the world’s first and only symbolic communication app to help his 10-year-old autistic son.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/12/31/promising-new-israeli-app-shatters-the-silence-of-autism/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u0x-1xgLxA

Your car to the operating theater. (Thanks to Israel21c) Being wheeled into an operating room is a stressful experience for everyone. The Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel has now decided to try and alleviate that anxiety among its youngest patients by pushing them in pedal cars.
http://israel21c.org/news/israeli-hospital-wheels-kids-to-surgery-in-pedal-cars/

Treating age-related macular degeneration. Israel’s Cell Cure Neurosciences has been awarded a grant of NIS 6.1 million from the Office of the Chief Scientist. The grant will help finance the human clinical trials in 2014 of OpRegen, a cell-based therapeutic product for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000904027&fid=1725

Success in treating rheumatoid arthritis. Israel’s Can-Fite BioPharma has announced positive results in its Phase IIb trial of their CF101 treatment for patients with active rheumatoid arthritis.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000903835&fid=1725

75 years of saving lives. Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center received a $10 million birthday present from US entrepreneur Warren Buffet.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000904459&fid=1725

Israeli hospital delivered 20,000 babies in 2013. 20,000 babies were born at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem during 2013 – the highest number ever in any Israeli hospital and almost unsurpassed in the world. 2014 will see more delivery rooms, a huge neonatal intensive care unit and new obstetrics wards.
http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Jerusalems-Shaare-Zedek-delivers-its-20000th-baby-this-year-breaking-record-336174

Implant helps rehabilitation of shoulder injury. (Thanks to Israel21c) Israel’s OrthoSpace has developed the InSpace Balloon. It alleviates pain for patients recovering from massive injury to the rotator cuff, a group of muscles and tendons that stabilize and activate the shoulder. 2000 people in Europe and Israel have used the implant invented by Israeli orthopedic surgeon Dr. Assaf Dekel.
http://israel21c.org/health/new-implant-eases-rotator-cuff-pain/

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4117/st-james-church-bethlehem-unwrapped St. James Church supports the lie that the wall exists not to save Israeli lives but to subjugate Palestinian ones. Its replica of the security barrier has not managed to bring people together; it has only legitimized the extremism of the Holy Land Trust and the terror links of Interpal. In reality, it is […]