RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/a-nasty-organic-hepatitis-outbreak?f=puball

A recent hepatitis outbreak in USDA “certified-organic” frozen berry mix has people worrying and wondering what steps are being taken to ensure that organic food is safe. Unfortunately, not many.

A remarkably similar case occurred in Germany three years ago. Forty-four people died and 3,700 fell ill after eating E. coli-contaminated certified-organic bean sprouts. Hundreds of survivors will require kidney dialysis the rest of their lives. The cause was never definitively determined, although a nearby cattle operation was suspected of contaminating water used to sprout the organic sprouts.

All this raises critical questions. What measures were taken to ensure that water used on this organic sprouting operation was safe? Was there any testing? Is there any organic field testing now in response to that German tragedy? What about numerous other outbreaks in certified-organic food – like outbreaks of listeria, E. coli and salmonella in organic spinach for instance?

Have such incidents provided incentives for organic industry leaders to recognize the need to test crops in the field, to ensure that they’re safe? Have they prodded government safety inspectors to require such tests? Are organic crops already tested to ensure that these kinds of things don’t happen again?

Sadly, the answer to all these questions is no or nothing. Instead, with steady media help, incidents that should spur the organic industry to take action invariably become mere bumps along the road toward expanding a food system that organic promoters hope will eventually replace conventional farming.

Meanwhile, the organic industry and news media promote regular stories about speculative (and even ludicrous) claims that genetically-modified (GM) crops might pose risks to human health. Recent articles about minute traces of GM wheat getting into a Japan-bound shipment represent just one example.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-conservative-founding-fathers-who-saved-america?f=puball On the Fourth of July it is traditional and proper that we pay tribute to the nation’s Founding Fathers. The names of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison are well known to Americans, but far less of the names of the conservative founders who, in many ways, saved and created the nation through their efforts […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

The Zimmerman case is about many things, but it isn’t about George Zimmerman, an Hispanic Obama supporter who campaigned against police brutality only to find himself plucked up by the hand of Big Brother to play the villainous white racist in the latest episode of liberal political reality television.

Zimmerman is the latest Bernie Goetz; another wholly unlikely cult figure who currently campaigns for vegetarian lunches in public schools and squirrel rescue. It’s not that the two men had anything particularly in common. Unlike Goetz, it is very unlikely that Zimmerman jumped the gun, so to speak, but they both fill a similar niche. They represent the embattled lower half of the middle class.

To understand the Zimmerman case, you have to live in a neighborhood that has just enough property values to keep you paying the mortgage and just enough proximity to dangerous territories to make you feel like you’re living on the frontier.

The chain of events doesn’t make much sense to the elites, which is one reason why they assume that the explanation must be racism There weren’t a lot of New Yorker readers cheering as Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey stalked the subways and parks of the city blowing away hoods. The perfect target audience for the Death Wish movies or for Goetz saying “You don’t look too bad, here’s another” was that bottom half of the middle class that didn’t have enough money to leave the city and didn’t have enough liberalism to accept the violence as their just due.

But the case isn’t about race either. It’s about a struggling middle class in a precarious economy trying to hang on to what it has. And it’s about a culture of dropouts from the economy who celebrate thuggery and then pretend to be the victims. It’s doubtful that anyone in Zimmerman’s neighborhood who weathered multiple break-ins has much sympathy for the Martin family. And that’s one reason that the prosecution hasn’t found any useful witnesses.

If Trayvon Martin had been the clean cut innocent kid that the media tried to pretend he is, the reaction might have been different. But he wasn’t. The gap between Martin and Zimmerman wasn’t race, in other circumstances most liberals would have called both men members of minority groups, it was aspiration.

George Zimmerman wanted to to be a cop. Trayvon Martin wanted to be a hood. It’s quite possible that Martin got no closer to his ambition than Zimmerman got to his. Both men were just going through the motions on the edge of a game of cops-and-robbers that suddenly turned deadly real. And even in a country where the thug tops the entertainment heap, the vulnerable parts of the middle class have more sympathy for aspiring cops than for aspiring thugs.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3928/palestinian_tv_broadcasts_little_girls_calling_jews_barbaric_monkeys_wretched_pigs

A recent broadcast on Palestinian Authority TV’s Palestine This Morning programme has featured two little girls voicing extreme anti-Semitic remarks comparing Jews to monkeys and pigs.

According to watchdog organisation Palestiniian Media Watch (PMW), the broadcast went out on July 3, and the two children were sisters. Prompted by the presenter, the girls are shown taking it in turns to recite the words of a poem about struggle, violence and fearlessness over Jerusalem.

Jews are described variously as the “most evil among creations” as “barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs” and as “filth”.

Congressional leaders in the United States have made it clear that aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) should be tied to the PA’s willingness to cease incitement and to stamp out anti-Semitism.

Congressional leaders say aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) should be tied to the PA’s willingness to stamp out anti-Semitism

Israeli officials frequently point to instances like the recent broadcast as evidence that Palestinian leaders are not preparing their society for a long term peace with Israel.

The full transcript (courtesy of PMW) of the remarks by the two girls reads:

Girl 1: “I do not fear the rifle because your throngs are in delusion and ignorant herds.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3932/mass_resignations_at_al_jazeera_over_biased_egypt_coverage

Reports suggest that 22 member of staff have resigned from the Egyptian arm of Al Jazeera after complaining of pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias within the organisation

Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr, the Egyptian arm of the Qatari-funded broadcaster has suffered major embarrassment today after 22 staff members walked out over accusations of bias.

The 22 staff resigned on Monday over what they alleged was coverage that was out of sync with real events in Egypt, according to a report by the Gulf News website.

Anchor Karem Mahmoud announced that the staff resigned in protest against “biased coverage” of the recent events in Egypt. He explained that there was a lack of commitment and Al Jazeera professionalism in media coverage, stating, “the management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries.”

Mahmoud added that the management used to instruct each staff member to favour the Muslim Brotherhood.

He said that “there are instructions to us to telecast certain news”.

In February of this year, Ghaffar Hussain, contributing editor to The Commentator wrote, “Since the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power in Egypt, Al Jazeera has done all in its power to portray the group in a favourable light. Protests against the Brotherhood-dominated regime are presented as being led by violent thugs with no political grievances, while Morsi’s poorly constructed and shallow speeches are given positive coverage.”

Haggag Salama, a correspondent of the network in Luxor, had resigned on Sunday accusing it of “airing lies and misleading viewers”. He announced his resignation in a phone-in interview with Dream 2 channel.

Meanwhile, four Egyptian members of editorial staff at Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha resigned in protest against what they termed a “biased editorial policy” pertaining to the events in Egypt, Ala’a Al Aioti, a news producer, told Gulf News by phone.

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2013/07/08/at-last-the-secret-of-president-barack-obamas-middle-east-policy-revealed-no-kidding/?print=1 ” Not just surrender…pre-emptive surrender….” A statement from two National Security Council senior staff members has revealed the private deliberations of President Barack Obama and his administration. It is of incredible importance, and I plead with you to read it. If you do, you will comprehend fully what’s happening with U.S. foreign policy. First: […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/obama_administration_voter_id_hypocrisy.html

In light of the recent presidential pander-cation to Africa, it was timely to find the following link, from a simpatico, in my e-mail inbox: White House Pays $53 Million for Voter ID in Kenya While Opposing Same in US

At first, given the source link, I was suspicious that the article might be a hoax because the prime source for the article was not included. With some targeted searching, I traced the prime source for the Minuteman News article to a Whitehouse Fact Sheet, which confirmed the essence of the Minuteman News article. From FACT SHEET: U.S. Support for Strengthening Democratic Institutions, Rule of Law, and Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa:

In Kenya, the $53 million Yes Youth Can program empowers nearly one million Kenyan youth to use their voices for advocacy in national and local policy-making, while also creating economic opportunities. In advance of Kenya’s March 2013 general elections, Yes Youth Can’s “My ID My Life” campaign helped 500,000 youth obtain National identification cards, a prerequisite to voter registration, and carried out a successful nationwide campaign with Kenyan civic organizations to elicit peace pledges from all presidential aspirants.

The Fact Sheet includes a second disbursement:

In Tanzania, the United States has dedicated $14 million to strengthening government accountability institutions and linking them with Tanzanian civil society watchdog groups and civic activists in a constructive partnership to further government transparency. The program focuses on improving access to information for Tanzanian citizens in four key development sectors: health, education, natural resource management, and food security.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323899704578587291958750944.html?mod=opinion_newsreel In April, Russian General Staff Chief Col. Gen. Valery Gerasimov paid an unusual three-day visit to Managua. What is Russia up to in the Western Hemisphere? That’s a question increasingly on the minds of Latin America watchers, who have noticed signs that Moscow is again setting up shop south of the U.S. border. The […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323368704578593562819939112.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Think of the Keystone XL pipeline as an IQ test for greens.

As environmental disasters go, the explosion Saturday of a runaway train that destroyed much of the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic, about 20 miles from the Maine border, will probably go down the memory hole.

It lacks the correct moral and contains an inconvenient truth.

Not that the disaster lacks the usual ingredients of such a moral. The derailed 72-car train belonged to a subsidiary of Illinois-based multinational Rail World, whose self-declared aim is to “promote rail industry privatization.” The train was carrying North Dakota shale oil (likely extracted by fracking) to the massive Irving Oil refinery in the port city of Saint John, to be shipped to the global market. At least five people were killed in the blast (a number that’s likely to rise) and 1,000 people were forced to evacuate. Quebec’s environment minister reports that some 100,000 liters (26,000 gallons) of crude have spilled into the Chaudière River, meaning it could reach Quebec City and the St. Lawrence River before too long.

Environmentalists should be howling. But this brings us to the inconvenient truth.

The reason oil is moved on trains from places like North Dakota and Alberta is because there aren’t enough pipelines to carry it. The provincial governments of Alberta and New Brunswick are talking about building a pipeline to cover the 3,000-odd mile distance. But last month President Obama put the future of the Keystone XL pipeline again in doubt, telling a Georgetown University audience “our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/07/08/obamas-morsi-mission The Egyptian coup isn’t a rebellion against Islamism. It’s a coup against incompetence and starvation. Those who say it’s a blow to radical Islam are comprehensively wrong. The Wednesday coup that overthrew Mohamed Morsi’s Egyptian regime is of considerable significance, but not of the kind that has been lavished on it by the media. […]