RUTHFULLY YOURS

THANKS TO JANET LEVY FOR THIS GLOOMY NEWS…..RSK

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has issued its report cardhttp://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/ on the nation’s infrastructure. The overall rate, covering items such as dams, drinking water, waste systems, levees, transportation, bridges, waterways, ports, rail, roads, mass transit, parks, schools, and energy was a lowly D+.

The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee noted that “America’s infrastructure has fallen in rank from 6th in the world to 25th in just the past 5 years…aging transportation infrastructure is expected to increase the cost of business in America by an estimated $430 billion in the next decade.”

32% of American roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and 25% of bridges are rated as structurally deficient. The American Automobile Association (AAA) notes that many of the 30,000 deaths that occur on U.S. highways are “attributable to the direct result of inadequate lighting, poor signage or outdated road design that might have been prevented by fixing unsafe roads.

One aspect of America’s declining infrastructure, inadequate roads, was examined by National Review. “As congestion has grown worse, so has its estimated cost each year…in 2011, the total estimated cost of congestion in the U.S. topped $120 billion. Think of that as an annual tax on Americans that could be eliminated with better road management…Congestion slows business activity as well, which raises costs and reduces sales and output. A 2009 study by Kent Hymel showed that these costs add up: using data on congestion, existing road infrastructure, and employment, he estimated that a 50 percent decrease in congestion in the United States’ ten most congested cities could boost long-run employment growth in those cities by 10 to 30 percent, and economic growth along with it.”

International Holocaust Memorial Day’s Fatal Flaw On the surface, it is very moving to see half of the members of Knesset at Auschwitz marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. But in a larger sense, it is not at all clear why this is necessary. The Jewish people have Yom HaShoah V’Hagevura, our own national day of […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4145/egypt-elections-democracy

From reading the American press, you would believe that if Middle Eastern Muslims were allowed to govern themselves by having free elections, this would be the route to democracy. This is a fallacy that we have been following now as a matter of American foreign policy for many administrations and many years. You cannot tell me that, after the same Egyptians voted two-to-one to have an intense Sharia constitution, eight months later they suddenly did not want Sharia any more. What they decided was that they did not want Morsi any more.

If here is ever to be anything approximating democratic transformation in Egypt the only way it is going it happen is if Egypt has a respected institution, such as the military, that governs the country, with the help of whatever technocratic officials it needs to run the country day-to-day, and where the forces of secular democracy at least have a chance to compete — which means growing these institutions to cultivate a respect for minority rights and individual liberty.

The good news is that the Egyptians will not be able to keep their Sharia constitution, at least not the way the Muslim Brotherhood designed it. But the way it was covered in the United States, this was not reflected as good news.

What is going on in Egypt now, while I wouldn’t go up in a balloon over it, is much more of a ray of hope than anything that we have had previously in what has been called the Arab Spring — a misnomer, if ever there was one. We actually knew quite a bit about how Egyptians wanted to be governed before Mubarak fell thanks to polling that was done there – in fact, done not only in Egypt but across the Middle East, from Egypt all the way to Indonesia.

Pakistan and the Arab-Muslim Culture of Denial by Salim Mansur http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4147/pakistan-culture-of-denial Since 9/11, Islamist culture is seen to be synonymous with violence, misogyny and a pathological hatred for others; and, ironically, it has made Muslims themselves its most numerous victims. “Impure,” or non-authentic Muslims, meant those whose Islam had been weakened by un-Islamic or non-Islamic […]

http://spectator.org/articles/57543/steamroller-sotu

If you’re feeling a bit sick to your stomach, it’s probably not due to global warming or the flu. Tomorrow night Congress will hold its annual pep rally for President Obama’s agenda called the State of the Union address. It will be long, tedious, and over-filled with applause lines designed to get Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Chris Matthews to stand up and cheer. But it’s one of those rare Obama speeches that we need to listen to, not just hear. Because we are about to be steamrolled.

This year’s event will be worse than usual, almost certainly not featuring fun counterpoints such as Cong. Joe Wilson’s “you lie” shout or Justice Alito mouthing “not true” at Obama when he makes his rhetorical points. The only things we can be certain of won’t amuse, just abuse.

White House senior political adviser Dan Pfeiffer has set the stage for the speech in a three-page memo he reportedly wrote on why 2013 was such a disaster for Obama. Pfeiffer’s memo — which we’ll get to in a minute — tells us what we’ll hear tomorrow night, perhaps even some of the exact words. The other half of the speech will sound lot like the very long and very strange article about Obama by David Remnick in the New Yorker magazinelast week.

How much of Remnick’s piece is his sophomoric adulation of Obama and how much is Obama’s self-adulation is difficult to tell, but several things leap from its pages.

THERE WAS TO B A FILM, STARRING COLIN FIRTH AS STERN…BUT. TO DATE THERE IS NO MORE NEWS ON THAT….RSK
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Abraham-Stern-Israels-own-revolutionary-339431’Stern: The Man and His Gang’ Photo: Courtesy
The first year or two, they snuck into the cemetery at night, one or two at a time, and laid a stone on the grave or whispered a prayer before darting out.

In the years that followed they came in the hundreds, in broad daylight, hugging each other and singing songs at the grave. The years have passed, and this Sunday, the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Shvat, the remnants of the Stern Gang will gather in a Tel Aviv cemetery to pay their respects to their slain leader, Abraham Stern, just as they have for the past 72 years.

Describing Abraham Stern is not easy. “Stern was a bank robber” – yes, and a smuggler, too. “Stern wanted to talk to the Nazis” – yes, but when and about what? “Stern’s bombs killed British – and Jewish – policemen” – yes, they did. Stern was also a poet, a songwriter, and Hebrew University’s most promising Classics student.

For good measure, with only a couple of hundred followers in his “gang,” he declared war on England. He may not be easy to define, but with such a resumé, it is no wonder the veterans of his organization hold him in awe.

Abraham Stern was born in Poland in 1907. He survived World War I as an overworked, preteen refugee in Siberia, eventually moved with an uncle to St. Petersburg, and at 13 walked home to Poland. He completed his journey at 18 when he sailed for Eretz Israel. He studied Greek and Latin at Hebrew University, was the life of every party he attended, dreamed of becoming an actor, and enlisted in the newly created Irgun. He used the code name “Yair,” after Masada commander Elazar Ben- Yair.

http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=3103

While the United States and Germany are browbeating Serbia into the last leg of surrendering Kosovo to the narco-terrorist mafia demanding it, the latter are beating up female missionaries.

It happened this past November, and for almost two weeks was kept quiet and out of the news. And it happened in the very capital of our Kosovo “success,” Pristina. The Albanian perpetrators attacked Americans, their stubbornly eternal benefactors at Christian-Orthodox expense. (And of course at the expense of local Roma, Turk, Bosniak, Ashkali and Gorani Muslims who were just fine with rule from Belgrade.) When the news did finally get out, via an AP report, it was carried only locally and in Utah:

2 LDS sister missionaries attacked in Kosovo (Fox 13 Now, Nov. 13, 2013)

SALT LAKE CITY — Two American missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were attacked in Kosovo; it happened in the city of Pristina ten days ago, but news reports of the beating just surfaced late Wednesday afternoon.

The incident is being tied to terrorism and the suspects responsible have been arrested.

[An actual arrest is unusual for Kosovo; then again, the victims weren’t among Kosovo’s ethnic minorities, so they count for something.]

Fox 13 News has learned two sister missionaries were beaten by Albanians, who are also tied to plotting a terrorist attack. The LDS Church said the two young women are out of harm’s way and doing OK.

[Also unusual: This local Fox affiliate actually identified the perpetrators directly as Albanians.]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-01-270114.html I wish I had a nickel for every prediction of social unrest in China that I’ve read in the past year. Apart from the risk of stampedes at shopping malls before the Lunar New Year, China is tranquil. Meanwhile there are several dozen dead in Cairo overnight, central Bangkok remains under lockdown, street protests […]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304632204579342810332655056?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond Jan. 26, 2014 5:24 p.m. ET ‘Why is this necessary?” asked President Obama in his recent speech defending the National Security Agency’s metadata program to track phone calls. He cited the 9/11 hijackers who escaped detection because the NSA couldn’t connect the dots using records of calls involving terrorists in the U.S. After failing […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/369490/green-drought-charles-c-w-cooke San Joaquin Valley, Calif. — “We have the greatest factory anywhere on earth,” Harris Farms’ executive vice president, William Bourdeau, tells me, as our car bumps rapidly along the dirty, uneven track. “These are pistachio trees,” he says, sweeping his hand across the horizon. “Over there, we have asparagus.” He points through the windshield. […]