RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/maine-supreme-court-says-schools-banning-men-from-using-the-ladies-room-is-discrimination/print/

That’s not just the literal meaning of the ruling which states that a Maine school forbidding a boy who claims that his gender identity is that of a girl from using the bathroom is discrimination, but also the practical effect of the ruling which uses discrimination law to argue that, effectively, gender segregated bathrooms are illegal.

The school directed Maines, the boy in question, to use the staff bathroom, after complaints by family members of students.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday reversed a lower court’s decision that banned a transgender boy from using the girls’ bathroom in Orono schools.

In a 5-1 decision, the justices said that Superior Court Justice William Anderson erred when he ruled in favor of what is now Riverside RSU 26.

The Chief Justice dissented by pointing out the obvious implications of this ridiculous decision.

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/her-ladyship-marks-holocaust-without-mentioning-jews/

Here’s Ashton’s statement, all 121 words of it — a tribute to generic victims of yesteryear, sanitized of any reference that might offend anti-Semites by reminding the world of the mass atrocities committed in the name of their particular brand of bigotry. It’s hard to know whether Ashton did this deliberately, or is simply such an inept and banal functionary that by sheer accident she ends up sounding like a sly anti-Semite. Either way, is this really the face the EU wishes to present to the world? How horrifying.

You remember Baroness Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy? She’s the one who just can’t stop smiling at Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif. Here they are in Geneva together last October, beaming at each other as they prepare for Iran nuclear talks (from which Tehran’s rulers emerged celebrating the surrender to Iran of world powers and claiming they had an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium).

This week a friend sends news of Ashton’s latest performance. It seems that on Monday Her Ladyship issued a statement marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, in which she managed to make no mention whatsoever of the Jews. As the Jerusalem Post reports, in an editorial headlined “Ashton’s Lapse,” Ashton referred to the Jews who died — six million of them murdered by the Nazis quite specifically because they were Jews — as “victims” and “fellow citizens.” But not as Jews. The Jerusalem Post calls this a “mind-boggling omission,” quite likely pleasing to the likes of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but a watering-down of history.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/positive-environmental-report-means-admin-would-need-other-rationale-to-kill-keystone/?singlepage=true WASHINGTON – The proposed Keystone XL pipeline cleared a major regulatory hurdle on Friday with the release of an environmental impact statement declaring the controversial project presents only a limited environmental risk. The report, issued by the State Department – the controlling agency since the venture involves both Canada and the U.S. – was […]

NO, NO, NO “1. For $26 billion more a year, we could provide a basic education to every child in the world by 2015.” 26 billion dollars is roughly the education budget for New York City alone. New York has 8 million people. The world has 7 billion people. “2. For $990, a farmer can […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ Friday Afternoon Roundup – One Leader, Three Branches of Government HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO Strip away the year and it’s hard for the listener to tell whether he’s listening to a cut from the 2008, 2011 or 2014 SOTU album. Clip all the static about competing with China by building bridges so that babies […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/370095/progressivism-kills-kevin-d-williamson There are many horrific stories to be told about the implosion of Detroit, once the nation’s most prosperous city, today its poorest. There is the story of its corrupt public institutions, its feckless leaders, its poisonous racial politics, its practically nonexistent economy, the riots that have led to its thrice being occupied by federal […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/370056/print

Editor’s Note: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File.

Dear Reader (Including the growing number of you who don’t want this “news”letter to be a safe place where you can share things),

Here’s something I don’t say everyday: Capitalism ain’t all that.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still the artist behind the spoken-word album, Capitalism Is My Bag, Baby. But here’s the problem. Because most people on the right love and respect capitalism and pretty much everyone on the right feels the very real need to defend capitalism from the Occupiers, technocrats, sans-culottes, nudgers, equalizers, faux pragmatists, and other members of the Social Justice League, we don’t spend enough time focusing on the limitations of capitalism.

I say “limitations” rather than “faults,” because limitations aren’t necessarily faults. This is a really important distinction that is sometimes lost on people. A car that can’t go more than five miles per hour is faulty. A car that can’t drive through solid rock is simply a car. Water has no protein. But few would say that water isn’t essential or good. Water does what it does, but it can’t do things water can’t do. Air is awesome. I use it every day. I’m using it right now! But if ever there was a good illustration of how “necessary” and “sufficient” aren’t the same thing, air is it.

And so it is with capitalism. Okay, technically we don’t need capitalism the way we need air or water. Cavemen didn’t have it. And, as a result, they ate a lot of grubs, scraped their dangly bits on rocks while running away from large hungry animals, and usually died a violent or painful death at a young age. The North Koreans don’t have capitalism and many North Koreans would count themselves lucky to live like cavemen. In fact, much of the West didn’t have it, in a meaningful sense, until around 1700 at the earliest. And that’s why it stunk to live in 1700 — literally and figuratively — for a lot of people.

“Israel Hayom”, January 31, 2014, http://bit.ly/1dSaLHX

The assumption that Israel must accept the Kerry Plan as a basis for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority – lest it risk a rift with the US – should be assessed in light of the full context of US-Israel strategic cooperation, the imploding Arab Street, the unique foundations and nature of US-Israel ties, the US political system, the ineffectiveness of prior US plans and Israel’s own security requirements.

US-Israel strategic cooperation transcends the Palestinian issue. Thus, despite the 66-year-old disagreement, between the two Administrations, about the ways and means to resolve the Palestinian issue, strategic cooperation has catapulted to unprecedented heights.

Notwithstanding Arab talk – but based on the Arab walk – the Palestinian issue does not preoccupy the attention of Arab policy-makers, does not significantly impact vital US interests, and does not play a key role in destabilizing the Middle East, as reaffirmed by the tectonic Arab Tsunami, which is unrelated to Israel or the Palestinian issue.

Therefore, the Palestinian issue has been superseded by regional and global mutual threats, interests and benefits, shaping the increasingly two-way-street mutually-beneficial US-Israel agenda: the US supply of critical military systems to Israel; the Israeli battle-tested laboratory, which enhances the performance of US military systems and the US defense industries; the joint development of ballistic, space, UAV, cyber and other critical technologies; Israeli innovations upgrade the competitive edge of US high tech industries; Israel provides intelligence of Iran’s nuclear threat and Islamic terrorism on the US mainland and beyond; Israel trains US elite units in countering-terrorism and urban warfare, and shares battle lessons, shaping US battle tactics; Israel’s power-projection deters rogue regimes, which threaten pro-US Arab regimes such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia; etc..

Former Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, at an HJS in the House of Commons on Thursday.

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/

“We in the EU will be unable to emerge from our present crises safe, prosperous, innovative and influential without strong state-to-state relations at home, and healthy alliances with strategic partners in our neighbourhood. We must start by acknowledging and enhancing our critical strategic relationship with the State of Israel.”

“The Surprising Case of Israel and the EU”

When Jose Maria Aznar founded the Friends of Israel (FOI) initiative in 2010 it was as a concerted effort by non-Jewish leaders to re-right the balance in world opinion towards Israel. At a time of boycotts, divestment, sanctions and general de-legitimisation of the Jewish state, FOI put together a group of high level leaders to argue the case for sanity and indeed morality.

The former Spanish Prime Minister was joined by Nobel Peace Prize winner and HJS Trustee, Lord Trimble, former Speaker of the Italian Parliament Marcello Pera, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton as well as historian and HJS academic advisory board member Andrew Roberts among others. Their aim was to speak on a peer-to-peer level with European, South American and other world leaders in private as well as speak to all open-minded citizens of the world in order to right a great wrong.

http://politicalmavens.com/

So the Dalton School has decided that satire is not an acceptable form of comment in their rarified academic cloister. After getting some flak from students who watched “CSA: The Confederate State of America,” a pseudo-documentary of the U.S. had the south been victorious in the civil war – the administration immediately apologized for its insensitivity. Rather than using the opportunity to teach the unique, historic value of satire in the arts, the school chose to beg for mercy from the parents of those wounded students. How many of the parents and students have been to see “The Book of Mormon” and laughed comfortably through its skewering of Mormons? How many of the parents also went to see “The Producers,” making light of Hitler and the Nazis? Both of these plays were award-winning box-office mega-hits geared to the same demographic group that sends its children to New York’s elite private schools. Yet the doyens of our politically correct culture have deemed it ok to spoof certain topics but not others. Slavery is sacrosanct though genocide is not. Women and gays are; white men not. Palestinians and Muslims protected; Israelis and Jews – fair game.

Dalton is just a small speck in our politically correct world. Another guardian of our selective morality is Oxfam International, a collection of aid groups purporting to combat hunger and poverty everywhere – except the west bank of the Jordan river where an Israeli company operates a factory with 900 workers, 500 of whom are Palestinian. They work alongside Israelis, earn the same salary and receive the same benefits except for one extra – there is a mosque on the premises exclusively for their religious needs. The workers are happy to have well-paid jobs and by their reportage, get along well with each other. This integration is exactly what we westerners profess to value, and for some political thinkers, economic cooperation is the key to peace in the middle east. But for the holier than thou Oxfam, SodaStream is a business operating on occupied territory. Despite the enormous advantage of a company providing 500 workers with an excellent livelihood – Oxfam prefers that we boycott any Jewish employers operating from these disputed areas to the logical conclusion of unemployment for the very population they are pretending to help.