P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Affirmative action Scrabble to hit shelves soon By Olivia Murray

Posted By on April 11th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/affirmative_action_scrabble_to_hit_shelves_soon.html

Scrabble is revamping—a more “inclusive” and “accessible” version is set to hit the shelves for those who don’t like the “competitive” nature of the traditional game. (Spoiler alert: The intended audience is Gen Z.)

Here’s the story, via a BBC report out yesterday:

Mattel is to launch a new version of Scrabble which is designed to be more collaborative and accessible for those who find word games intimidating.

The new double-sided Scrabble board will still feature the original game for those who want to play the traditional version.

But the new game on the flip side will include helper cards, use a simpler scoring system and be quicker to play.

Here’s what English broadcaster Gyles Brandreth said of the announcement:

‘The makers of Scrabble found that younger people, Gen Z people, don’t quite like the competitive nature of Scrabble….’

A “simpler” scoring system? How much “simpler” could Scrabble be though? As long as you can add into the single- and double-digits (or triple-digits with the right letters and premium squares), and you know your multiplication tables, the scoring system is self-explanatory. 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

It ain’t over ’til it’s over By Ruthie Blum

Posted By on April 11th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/it-aint-over-til-its-over/

Marking on Sunday six months since the Oct. 7 massacre, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his weekly Cabinet meeting by listing what he called the “considerable achievements” of the war in Gaza.

“We have eliminated 19 of Hamas’s 24 battalions, including senior commanders,” he said. “We have killed, wounded or captured a large number of Hamas terrorists. We have cleared out Shifa [Hospital in Gaza City] and other terrorist command centers.”

He went on, “We have destroyed rocket factories, command centers and weapons caches. And we are continuing to systematically destroy underground installations.”

Netanyahu punctuated the impressive inventory by stating, “We are a step away from victory.”

Encouraging words, to be sure. Yet, to everyone’s surprise, they were followed by a withdrawal of most of the Israel Defense Forces ground troops from southern Gaza, after four months of fighting in Khan Yunis.

As soon as the IDF announced the pullback, I began receiving frantic calls from abroad and WhatsApp messages at home requesting my take on the move.

“Does it mean that the war is over?” some asked. “Has Israel capitulated to pressure from the White House for a ceasefire with nothing in return?”

Others wanted to know whether Netanyahu and his War Cabinet—despite their repeated assertions—had decided against entering Rafah, where four of the six remaining Hamas battalions are located, along with many of the 133 hostages.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

How Biden is Sabotaging His Peace Deal Between Israel and Saudi Arabia by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20559/biden-sabotaging-peace-israel-saudi-arabia

Recently, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after meeting with [Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed] bin Salman that there is “good progress” on Saudi Arabia-Israel normalization talks. “I believe we can reach an agreement which would present an historic opportunity… We had a very good discussion about the work that we’ve been doing for many months now on normalization, and that work is moving forward. We’re continuing to make good progress.”

[T]here is good reason to believe that the Saudis will eventually agree to normalize their relations with Israel. In order for that to happen, however, Hamas, which is strongly opposed to any peace with Israel and does not recognize its right to exist, must be defeated and eradicated.

It is no secret that Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries despise Hamas and consider it a threat to their own national security….

There is no doubt that the Saudis, together with the UAE, Bahrain and the even the Palestinian Authority, are quietly praying for Israel to finish the job and get rid of Hamas. These Arabs, understandably, cannot express their views in public lest they be accused of “colluding” with Israel.

Arab states are motivated to sign peace treaties with Israel when they see Israel as a winner.

By pressuring Israel not to invade Rafah, the US administration is sabotaging its own efforts to persuade Saudi Arabia to normalize its ties with Israel…

By demanding that Israel refrain from entering Rafah, the Biden administration is actually asking Israel to forget about recovering the 130 hostages being raped and tortured by Hamas every day — which still include six Americans – and to lose the war. This is something that neither Israel nor Hamas’s Arab enemies — nor even Biden — can afford to accept.

When the Iran-backed Hamas terror group invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, it not only sought to kill and kidnap Israelis. The group and its patrons in Tehran undoubtedly had other goals in mind, such as thwarting US-sponsored efforts to achieve normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Fortunately, Hamas has so far been unsuccessful in achieving this goal. In addition, Hamas has failed to drive a wedge between Israel and the Arab countries that have peace treaties with it: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. None of these countries has cut off its diplomatic relations with Israel, despite their harsh criticism of Israel over the war in the Gaza Strip and pressure from the Arab street.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

So the CDC knew all along about those 780,000 side effects to its COVID vaccine as it was assuring us it was ‘safe’ By Monica Showalter

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/so_the_cdc_knew_all_along_about_those_780_000_side_effects_to_its_covid_vaccine_as_it_was_assuring_us_it_was_safe.html

Does anyone in “public service” ever get busted for lying to the public?

It would seem not, based on a report that the Centers for Disease Control covered up 780,000 reports of significant side effects, such as seizures, tinnitius, and facial paralysis, from the COVID vaccine it was foisting onto the often hesitant public, oilily assuring that it was “safe and effective,” and anyone questioning that was an “anti-vaxxer.”

According to Epoch Times, as seen on The Jewish Voice:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released previously hidden reports of facial paralysis and other adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.

The 780,000 reports were received shortly after the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out and show that people experienced a wide range of post-vaccination problems, including heart inflammation, miscarriages, and seizures.

“Loss of consciousness and seizure immediately following injection. Went to ER by ambulance,” one person reported.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Ministry of BS Will See You Now By J.B. Shurk

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/04/the_ministry_of_bs_will_see_you_now.html

I wonder if there is ever a moment while DHS Secretary Mayorkas is claiming that America’s borders are entirely secure and blaming “climate change” for the influx of tens of millions of illegal aliens into the United States when he thinks, “Wow, I am really full of BS.  I mean, it is simply amazing how much BS I shovel down the American people’s throats every single day.”

The notion that powerful people lie to the public is certainly not new.  You can go back through the centuries and find essays, songs, drawings, and folktales that all attest to the timeless truth that every generation sees its “rulers” as an unworthy camarilla of cutthroats, liars, backstabbers, and thieves.  Still, the lies being told today are just so brazen.  Damaging tornado?  That’s what we get for driving cars.  Too many white mathematicians?  Obviously another bout of “systemic racism” rearing its ugly head.  Trump’s beating Biden in the polls?  Duh — that’s because America runs on “hate”!  

Disney and other child-grooming companies keep telling us that the only way to protect America’s youth is to put them on puberty blockers and let them dance for skeevy adults.  We used to call those skeevy adults “pedophiles,” but now the medical community insists that we treat them with more respect.  I have trouble respecting a profession that wants me to respect child molesters.  I also have trouble respecting a profession that pushes experimental “vaccines” on patients without their informed consent.  The fact that so few physicians have taken responsibility for their unscientific and unethical behavior during totalitarianism’s favorite overhyped pandemic feels like a giant whiff and strike three for medicine.  Or maybe the white coats (“systemic racism” alert!) struck out four years ago when medical associations insisted that Antifa and BLM be allowed to burn down neighborhoods in the name of “social justice health,” while the rest of us were forced to stay inside and participate in the theatrical production of the “Great COVID Hoax.”  A lot of MDs have BS degrees.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Featherbed Ed Education hiring continues regardless of the number of students. By Larry Sand

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/10/featherbed-ed/

New data for the 2022-2023 academic year paints a disturbing picture. While students are slowly trickling back into public schools post-COVID-19, the same cannot be said for staff. The National Center for Education Statistics revealed an increase of 173,000 students in public schools, yet during the same period, a staggering 159,000 employees were hired, including 15,000 additional teachers.

Researcher Chad Aldeman provides specific examples of hiring trends in various districts across the country. He explains that about one-third of these districts added teachers while serving fewer students. For instance, Philadelphia lost nearly 16,000 students but employed 200 more teachers, dropping its student-to-teacher ratio from about 17:1 to under 15:1.

About a quarter of all districts followed the path of California’s Capistrano Unified School District, which lowered its teaching force over time but not as fast as it lost students. Capistrano suffered a 22% decline in student enrollment but reduced its teaching staff by just 7%.

Another group of districts saw an increase in student enrollments, but their teacher count has risen even faster. The Katy Independent School District, near Houston, added 4,299 students last year, a gain of 4.9%. At the same time, it hired 366 teachers, a 6% gain. Over the period, its student body increased by 22%, while its teacher count grew by 29%.

But as Aldeman notes, the future is murky: “As districts spend down the last of their federal ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief ) dollars, they may have to lay off staff or close under-enrolled buildings.”

If teachers must be laid off, the typical union contract stipulates that it must be done by seniority, or the “last in, first out” (LIFO) regimen. This industrial style of dealing with teacher overstaffing is typified by Michigan’s Ann Arbor Public Schools system, where the teacher union contract states that after considering years of experience with the district, if two teachers have equal seniority, the last several digits of a teacher’s Social Security number would be the tiebreaker for a layoff.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Screaming ‘Death to America’ in Dearborn Yes, it has come to this. by Robert Spencer

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/screaming-death-to-america-in-dearborn/

Old Joe Biden has stabbed Israel in the back in order to try to ensure that he carries Michigan in November, but at least some of the Muslims in the Great Lake State don’t exactly seem grateful. Friday was International Al-Quds Day, an orgy of global victimhood posturing and rage over Israel’s refusal to surrender to the Palestinian jihad, and in Dearborn, rallygoers observing the day demonstrated that if Biden actually cared about the wellbeing of the American people, he would have bigger things to think about in Michigan than the presidential election.

Dearborn’s International Al-Quds Day rally was streamed live on the Facebook page of the Arabic-English news site Dearborn.org. It seems to have been taken down from Facebook, but video of the entire rally is still available as of Sunday afternoon at Dearborn.org. Around the 40-minute mark of that video, as the crowd screams “Free, Free Palestine” and the genocidal “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” an activist named Tarek Bazzi came to the podium. What he said should be a matter of grave concern to Old Joe, Merrick Garland, and the FBI — if, that is, anyone can convince them that someone who isn’t a “Jan. 6 insurrectionist” or “white supremacist” should warrant any of their attention.

“We’ve been asked in the past,” Bazzi said, “why are our protests on the International Day of Quds, why are they so anti-America? Why don’t we just focus more on Israel and not talk so much on America? Gaza has shown the entire world why these protests are so anti-America.” Bazzi went on to claim that the U.S. was bankrolling Israel’s war effort and running interference for Israel at the UN; he also referred to Hamas propaganda regarding alleged Israeli atrocities.

Reality had no part in this propaganda display, for if it did, Bazzi would have had to take note of the fact that the Biden regime has betrayed and abandoned Israel both at the UN and in regard to its overall war effort.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Unfriendly Fire Only Israel faces impossible standards for conducting war. by Bruce Thornton

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/unfriendly-fire/

Last week Israel mistakenly attacked with missiles a humanitarian convoy in Gaza, killing seven aid workers. As they have done for eight decades, Israel’s international enemies and alleged friends across the world immediately started demonizing Israel and accusing the IDF of intentionally targeting the aid workers. Biden also suggested just that when he said, “Even more tragically, this is not a standalone incident,” adding that the war in Gaza “has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed.”

Of course, Biden claims as well that Israel’s alleged callous indifference to the lives and well-being of civilians and aid workers “is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult—because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers.”

Sadly, such unjust reactions and mendacious slurs against Israel have been unexceptional for decades. And only Israel faces incessant criticism over the mistakes and miscalculations that are the tragic, eternal contingencies of war.

In every battlefield throughout history, fighters have had to face the “fog of war”–– the chaos, uncertainty, unforeseen consequences, mistaken intel, dubious tactics, mediocre leadership, faulty training and discipline, plus terror, panic, and a “thousand shapes of death,” as the Roman poet Vergil described the brutal sack of Troy. These all lead to inadvertently killing one’s own troops or civilians.

Moreover, these grim constants of armed combat are multiplied and intensified in unconventional guerilla wars, especially in the complex landscape of towns and cities, where terrorists like Hamas shelter, spring ambushes, hide explosives, store armaments, use civilians of every age and sex as human shields, and employ humanitarian aid vehicles and ambulances to transport killers.

But over the last century, these historical realities of war have come to be understood as residues from more primitive and savage times, anomalies that modernity fancies can be corrected and mitigated with international laws, multinational covenants, institutions like the Red Cross, self-defeating “rules of engagement,” diplomatic intervention, and the conversion of illiberal autocracies into liberal democracies that acknowledge universal human rights and humanitarian restraints on war-making.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Democrats, EVs And Tyranny

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/04/10/democrats-evs-and-tyranny/

Why do Democrats insist on forcing consumers to make choices they don’t want? Americans are making it clear they don’t want electric vehicles, yet Democrats won’t give up their mandate zealotry. Are they driven by authoritarian urges?

A poll taken last month shows that 48% of consumers would not consider buying an EV. That’s up seven percentage points from last year. Only 35% of those who responded to the Gallup poll said they might consider buying one, down from 43% just a year ago. A mere 9% said they were seriously considering an EV purchase. That portion was 12% in 2023.

Yes, EV ownership has increased. In 2024, 7% of Americans own a battery-powered car. Last year only 4% owned an EV.

But this combined with a growing resistance is an indicator that the demand is reaching a peak if it hasn’t already. After all, there are only so many consumers willing to buy an expensive, unreliable, grid-draining and destructive automobile merely for the privilege of demonstrating their green street cred and moral superiority. There are quite a few shallow people in this country but not enough apparently to keep the market warm.

Even with the rank of Democrats – whose positions are built on political superficiality – the EV fever has broken, with 27% saying in 2024 they would not buy an EV compared to 17% last year. Among independents, the “would nots” have grown to 47% from 38%. (A thanks to Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell for asking Gallup to break down the responses by party.)

Which is why the Biden administration and nearly half the states have to force EVs on the people.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Dangerous US Rush to Save the Terrorist Group Hamas by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on April 10th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20560/us-saving-hamas

Had the Biden administration maintained the strong support for the destruction of Hamas that it showed in the immediate aftermath of Oct 7, the fighting might already have subsided and all the hostages been returned. But every time the Biden administration weakens its support for Israel, it strengthens the determination of Hamas to raise its demands and threaten Israel, to the point that Israel cannot possibly agree.

Where are the threats and the pressure on Hamas, Qatar or Iran?

Although Hamas praised — indeed celebrated — the resolution, it has no intention of complying with its demand regarding hostages. Yet, it expects Israel to comply unilaterally with what is demanded of it.

Recent data show that it is not Israel that causing hunger in Gaza, it is Hamas: “Hamas, which has been hoarding food and stealing from Gazans, is the root cause of Gazans’ suffering.”

[Hamas] must be required to surrender and the people of Gaza must be de-radicalized. Any other endgame will only postpone a repetition of October 7. Except this time, with calls this week for “Death to America” from within the United States, just as terrorism came to a theater near Putin, this time it may be coming to a theater near you.

The Biden administration’s drift away from full support for Israel will cost more Palestinian and Israeli lives. It will encourage Hamas to keep fighting and to keep rejecting proposals for the return of hostages in exchange for a humanitarian cease-fire. It will persuade Hamas that it can win its war, weaken Israel and create distance between the US and Israel.