ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on July 2nd, 2023

As Michael Ordman reminds us in this week’s dazzling list of Israel’s contributions to medicine, technology, agriculture, and water technology to name only a handful, Tel Aviv is also ranked as the happiest city in the world due to “Rich cultural heritage, kind people, and abundance of food, shopping, and learning” “as well as “a global hot spot for spring break and vacationing as a whole.”(https://www.thetravel.com/happiest-cities-in-the-world/#tel-aviv-israel)

All this from a post-colonial Jewish nation which is the size of New Jersey, Lake Michigan, Wales, or Kruger National Park, and the eighth smallest nation in Asia with a high standard of living and one of the world’s most educated work forces.

Read it all. rsk

 

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
4,000+ spine operations. The xvision Augmented Reality Spine System from Israel’s Augmedics (see here previously) has now been used to treat over 4,000 patients and implant more than 20,000 pedicle screws across 21 U.S. states. It consistently demonstrates 97-100% accuracy across multiple patient studies.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bjfbm8fu3  https://augmedics.com/
 
Hope for children with epilepsy. Researchers at Tel Aviv University and elsewhere have developed therapy in the laboratory to treat Dravet syndrome – a life-threatening form of epilepsy in children caused by a mutation in the SCN1A gene. The scientists used a harmless virus containing normal SCNIA genes to “infect” the brain.
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-discovery-may-help-children-suffering-from-dravet-syndrome/
https://www.jci.org/articles/view/159316
 
Converting skin cells into placenta cells. Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have converted human skin cells into functional human placenta cells. The breakthrough can help cure pregnancy-related diseases and infertility issues by generating placenta cells that won’t be rejected as foreign tissue.
https://www.jns.org/colleges-universities/hebrew-university-of-jerusalem/23/6/21/297061/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39104-1
 
When women should take their meds. Israel’s Levana.ai is an AI-based solution that personalizes women’s prescriptions based on their cycle. It’s a platform for women who are taking long-term medication and provides doctors with recommendations regarding when and how much medication to prescribe to their patients.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/s1iydoovh   https://levana.ai/
 
Brain block may cure addicts. (TY Nevet) Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers have identified in the laboratory that the claustrum area of the brain is vital to preventing addiction to certain medications. Existing remedies could help susceptible individuals increase their resistance and self-control.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-discovery-could-help-brain-block-urge-for-highly-addictive-fentanyl/
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00737-6
 
All fingers and thumbs. Arab Israeli Dr. Firas Mawase is head of the Neurorehabilitation and Sensorimotor Neuroscience Laboratory at Israel’s Technion. He is investigating rehabilitating the dexterity of brain-damaged patients (e.g., from a stroke), using engineering and computational tools and functional imaging of the brain.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2023/05/all-fingers-and-thumbs/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0H0uATaJPA
 
US approval for safe epidural device. The EpiFinder device from Israel’s Omeq Medical (see here previously) has just received US FDA approval. A limited US launch is planned for early 2024.
https://www.israel21c.org/smart-device-aims-to-improve-safety-of-epidurals/
 
Partnership with UAE healthcare system.  Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has partnered UAE’s PureHealth, the largest integrated healthcare platform in the Middle East. The two will conduct joint research, promote advanced technology in healthcare, collaborate on staff training, and boost bi-lateral health tourism.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sheba-medical-center-enters-partnership-with-largest-uae-healthcare-system/
 
Technion and Toronto medical AI partnership. Israel’s Technion Institute and the University of Toronto Artificial Intelligence Centers have partnered to develop AI solutions in the field of medicine. The first workshop took place in Ein Gedi in May. https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2023/05/changing-medicine-with-ai/
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-742749
 
Quick-thinking saves mother and baby. Rachel, a nurse midwife attending a mother in labor at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, noticed that the baby’s head was moving in the wrong direction. She rushed them to ER, where doctors diagnosed a complete rupture of the uterus, delivered baby, and later reconstructed the mother’s womb.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/quick-thinking-israeli-midwife-saves-mother-and-baby/
 
Research training for doctors. The Israel Science Foundation has launched Israel’s MAVRI initiative (Hebrew for “one who heals”). The ISF will award grants totaling $100 million over five years, to create a select team of Medical PhDs who will conduct clinical research that will ultimately benefit patients.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-science-foundation-announces-new-program-to-support-physician-

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Poking the Snoring Conservative Dragon. Part Two Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on July 1st, 2023

https://victorhanson.com/poking-the-snoring-conservative-dragon-part-two/

In 2024, the Left will spend $4-5 billion on the presidential and congressional races, with another $4-5 billion in free advertising in propaganda from network news, PBS, NPR, and the Silicon Valley mob. The latter again will do their leftist best, from rigging the order of Google searches, to banning supposed “misinformation” and “disinformation” from non-Twitter social media, to blacklisting traffickers in “hate speech” who might critique Democratic candidates.

The only remedy would be millions of poll watchers to turn out on Election Day 2024. The Right must draft legions of lawyers right now to ensure balloting laws are not massaged by leftist activist lawyers and judges.

There must be a rare conservative mass get-out-the-vote effort (i.e., mail-in and early balloting), targeted at rest homes and retirement communities. Republicans, until they restore integrity to balloting, must bring Barack Obama’s proverbial “gun to a knife fight” (a phrase Obama stole from David Mamet’s screenplay of The Untouchables) determination not to keep losing, and master third-party vote harvesting and ballot curing.

The Left does not have the numbers (look at the poor poll numbers on every of Joe Biden’s current policies), but neither do conservatives—unless they organize and trump the tactics of the Left. (No, I am not suggesting protestors mass outside Hunter Biden’s house in the fashion leftists swarm with impunity the homes of Supreme Court justices in felonious, but exempt, efforts to intimidate them into rendering more favorable opinions.)

But there are things the Right can do, if it wishes to stop losing the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections (George W. Bush’s razor-thin 2004 being the outlier)—and finally for the first time in 36 years win 51% of the popular vote, as George H.W. Bush last managed in 1988 against a weak Mike Dukakis.

So what would an aroused dragon do?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Supreme Court Moves Us Closer to A Colorblind Society by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on July 1st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19759/colorblind-society

Although this decision was split along current conservative-liberal lines, with the court’s three liberals dissenting, it actually reflects traditional liberalism. Justice William Douglas, perhaps the most liberal justice in Supreme Court history, advocated precisely this race neutral approach when affirmative action was first introduced. He was right then, and his liberal, colorblind approach, has now been vindicated.

A simple example demonstrates why employing race as a criteria is both unconstitutional and immoral. As the Supreme Court correctly pointed out, admission to elite universities is a zero-sum game: for every student or group that is given preference, another is disadvantaged. So consider this zero-sum choice:….

After decades of vacillation, the Supreme Court of the United States has finally and firmly declared that the Constitution does not permit publicly funded universities to consider race, as such, in its admission processes. This is a decision that many, including this author, have been advocating since the 1970s, when my first law review article appeared, calling for affirmative action to be based on non-racial criteria and individual accomplishments.

The Supreme Court has been moving in this direction for some time now, but it has until now allowed loopholes the size of university football stadiums. These loopholes were exploited by universities to enforce quota systems whereby approximately the same percentage of minority applicants would be admitted every year. The results of these quotas impacted most heavily on one of the most discriminated against groups in American history – Asian Americans. The plaintiffs in the Harvard case were such Americans. It will be interesting to see how their numbers are affected by the decision.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Biden Administration’s Dangerous Nuclear Deal: Congressional Approval Required by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on July 1st, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19758/dangerous-nuclear-deal

“I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023.

“INARA [the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015] was enacted with strong bipartisan support to ensure Congressional oversight of U.S. policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program…. This definition makes clear that any arrangement or understanding with Iran, even informal, requires submission to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023 [Emphasis added].

[T]he return to the nuclear deal means that the current sanctions against Tehran will be lifted and the regime would reportedly receive $100 billion a year “to Destabilise [the] Region,” as well as legitimately to rejoin the global financial system. Through the nuclear deal, the Iranian regime will again buy itself a blank check to advance its aggressive and fundamentalist policies across the Middle East, just as it did after the 2015 nuclear deal, but this time with the potential of threatening other countries with its nuclear breakout capability.

“To give them another windfall of cash like we did as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to an expansion of their proxy wars in the Middle East, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not in our national interest…. They’re gonna fuel their proxy wars and they’re seeking domination and control in the Middle East…. No, it’s not a good deal. It wasn’t a good deal in 2015. It’s not a good deal now.” — Retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, The Hill, June 18, 2023.https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19758/dangerous-nuclear-deal

“I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023.

“INARA [the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015] was enacted with strong bipartisan support to ensure Congressional oversight of U.S. policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program…. This definition makes clear that any arrangement or understanding with Iran, even informal, requires submission to Congress.” — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023 [Emphasis added].

[T]he return to the nuclear deal means that the current sanctions against Tehran will be lifted and the regime would reportedly receive $100 billion a year “to Destabilise [the] Region,” as well as legitimately to rejoin the global financial system. Through the nuclear deal, the Iranian regime will again buy itself a blank check to advance its aggressive and fundamentalist policies across the Middle East, just as it did after the 2015 nuclear deal, but this time with the potential of threatening other countries with its nuclear breakout capability.

“To give them another windfall of cash like we did as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to an expansion of their proxy wars in the Middle East, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not in our national interest…. They’re gonna fuel their proxy wars and they’re seeking domination and control in the Middle East…. No, it’s not a good deal. It wasn’t a good deal in 2015. It’s not a good deal now.” — Retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, The Hill, June 18, 2023.

The Biden Administration, in an attempt to revive the Iran nuclear deal, has been quietly negotiating with the theocratic regime of President Ebrahim Raisi, known — for his crimes against humanity and his involvement in a massacre of nearly 30,000 political prisoners — as “the Butcher of Tehran.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Inevitable Suppression Awaits the RFK Jr. Movement By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/29/inevitable-suppression-awaits-the-rfk-jr-movement/

On the surface, there seem to be plenty of reasons as to why the Right should support, directly or tacitly, the quixotic bid of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President of the United States. The hopelessness of his campaign might be the biggest one.

The Enemy of My Enemy?

Many conservative commentators suggest that RFK Jr. is worth supporting because he represents a more “conservative” brand of Democrat than any presidential candidate since Jim Webb in 2016.

And indeed, on a handful of cultural touchstone issues, the son of the late senator and would-be president of the same name does seem to agree with the Right: Most prominently, he has been critical of efforts to mandate COVID-19 vaccines. He also has spoken out against the rise of transgenderism. And he has engaged with such free-thinkers of the Internet as Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, which in turn have led to him getting censored by Big Tech, an achievement often limited exclusively to conservatives.

Furthermore, his status as the latest standard-bearer of the outsider Democratic candidate waging a one-man war against the party machine also will naturally draw a lot of conservative sympathy, if not support, due to the Right’s universal opposition to Joe Biden. The previous symbol of this resistance to the Democrat Party elite was Bernie Sanders, who also had the race for the nomination rigged against him not once, but twice.

But, ironically, the aging socialist senator from Vermont was probably more ideologically aligned with President Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden – or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for that matter. Sanders, for his many flaws, was nearly in complete agreement with Trump when it came to trade and tariffs, as both were opposed to such free trade deals as NAFTA and TPP. They shared a similar outlook on foreign policy, in favor of non-interventionism. And, once upon a time, Sanders was just as critical of open borders and mass immigration as Trump was.

Kennedy, by contrast, harbors views that are just as dangerous as Sanders’, if not even more so. He once advocated for passing a law that would “punish” anyone who doesn’t accept the pseudo-scientific belief that is global warming. He tows the party line on many other issues too, including his pro-choice stance when it comes to the ongoing abortion battle.

And, for a man who claims to be in complete opposition to the Deep State, JFK’s nephew once eagerly parroted all of the same DNC talking points when it came to the “Russian collusion” conspiracy theory against Trump, thus propping up one of the biggest Deep State lies of all time.

RFK’s Pyrrhic Victories

If conservatives shouldn’t support RFK Jr. based on his politics or ideology, then perhaps they’d be better off supporting the idea of his campaign rather than what he actually stands for: Giving Biden a political black eye ahead of the 2024 general election.

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Wai Wah Chin The Next Battle Over Racial Preferences While the Supreme Court has swept away affirmative action, universities still intend to practice preferential admissions by using proxies for race.

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/article/supreme-court-ends-affirmative-action-will-universities-defy-the-ruling

With its ruling that Harvard and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (UNC) unconstitutionally discriminated against Asian applicants, the Supreme Court has delivered justice. Congratulations and thanks are due to the plaintiff in these cases, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), as well as to its president Edward Blum, for mounting a tireless, principled fight.

Universities, however, have made no secret that, regardless of how the Court ruled, they would continue to bring to campus students who wouldn’t have made the cut if they hadn’t been black. It is axiomatic for universities that a campus with “not enough blacks”—whatever that means—is guilty. It is the only acceptable starting point of any discussion. The universities believe, moreover, that “diversity” of student skin color—meaning having “enough,” but not “too much” of any particular group, whatever that means—can only be achieved by racial favoritism in admissions. Why are colleges able to achieve other forms of diversity without quotas or favoritism, such as diversity of religion, which the counsel for UNC conceded to the Supreme Court thrives on campus without favoritism? This question is off limits.

So if the Court won’t allow universities to take race into account, then the universities will look for other ways to do so. Some have even advocated open disobedience of this “ultra-MAGA” Supreme Court, as the White House has called it.

How can universities do an end-run around the Supreme Court? The University of California (UC) system’s recent actions are instructive. In 1995, the UC regents voted to end affirmative action, and in 1996, Golden State voters approved Proposition 209, which banned affirmative action in public education, contracting, and hiring. Legislators subsequently tried and failed several times to restore affirmative action. Then, in 2019, UC president Janet Napolitano convened a faculty task force to evaluate the continued use of standardized testing in admissions. The UC faculty is well known for its devotion to the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) cause. However, after a year-long study, the task force gave the sober recommendation to keep the standardized test requirement. Undeterred, Napolitano ordered the UC system to go test-optional anyway. White and Asian families soon realized that “test optional” really applied only to blacks, Hispanics, and some other groups, but not to them. Then, in 2021, the UC system went “test blind,” meaning that, even if an applicant submitted SAT scores, UC would disregard them. (Today, following California’s lead, all but a handful of top-tier U.S. universities are test-optional.)

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan and Woke Ideology By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/londons_mayor_sadiq_khan_and_woke_ideology.html

Our cousins across the pond apparently have jumped on the woke bandwagon and the Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is leading the charge.

In fact, Sadiq Khan’s staff have been banned from calling people ‘men and women’ as part of a new inclusivity drive.

Pictured is an example of some of the banned phrases issued to staff working for the London Mayor’s office. 

In the guide’s section on gender, staff was told: ‘Avoid using “men and women” – say “people” or “Londoners”.

‘Similarly, instead of ‘ladies and gentlemen’ say something that doesn’t exclude non-binary people.’

The memo reportedly goes on to say the terms male and female are ‘dated and medicalised’ and that ‘female humans are called ‘girls and/or women’, male humans are called ‘boys and/or men’.

Workers are also told that ‘not all women have periods’ and to use the phrase ‘people affected by period poverty’ as some trans men and non-binary people may have periods too.

Staff working for Mr. Khan must no longer call someone a ‘non-English speaker’ because it portrays them as flawed and defective’. 

Instead, Greater London Authority employees must refer to them as ’Londoners with English Language needs’.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Hunter Biden invoking ‘my father’ resulted in millions flowing from CCP-linked company by Jerry Dunleavy

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/hunter-biden-invoking-father-spurred-millions-china-company

Hunter Biden’s threatening messages invoking “my father” resulted in a swift agreement being signed between President Joe Biden’s son and a Chinese Communist Party-linked company and millions of dollars flowing to Biden family accounts.

The bombshell new WhatsApp messages were between Hunter Biden and key intermediaries with the since-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC whose chairman, Ye Jianming, is tied to the Chinese military. The messages were revealed by an IRS whistleblower.

Hunter Biden sent messages to Chinese businessman Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017, in which he leveraged his father’s name and threatened CEFC executives unless a lucrative deal was worked out with Ye, whose biography said he had been “deputy secretary-general” of the China Association for International Friendly Contact, which the U.S.-China Commission assessed was a “front organization” for the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department.

The newly released messages provide key context to previously discovered foreign bank transactions involving Hunter Biden. Within days after the president’s son named dropped his father in a text threat, Hunter Biden and his associated businesses soon received an estimated $5 million in payments from CEFC in 2017 and 2018, with Chinese payments quickly beginning to roll in, according to banking findings from a 2020 Senate report.

“I am sitting with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden told Zhao in one of the July 30 messages. “I am very concerned that [Ye] has either changed his mind and broken our deal without telling me or that he is unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Glazov Gang: Child Trafficking, the Open Border and Willful Blindness The haunting silence of the Left, #MeToo, and our elites.

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/glazov-gang-child-trafficking-the-open-border-and-willful-blindness/

This new Glazov Gang episode features Judd Dunning, author of ’13 1/2 Reasons Why Not To Be a Liberal’, a Newsmax regular columnist, and the host of ‘Unapologetic! The Judd Dunning Hour‘ on KABC am790.

Judd discusses Child Trafficking, the Open Border and Willful Blindness, analyzing The haunting silence of the Left, #MeToo, and our elites.

Don’t miss it!

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Supreme Court Finally Gets Affirmative Action Right Ending the blatant contradiction of America’s foundational principles. by Bruce Thornton

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-supreme-court-finally-gets-affirmative-action-right/

After 45 years of bad decisions rationalizing discrimination outlawed by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court finally voted 6-3 to end affirmative action and the use of racial preferences in college admissions. This outcome joins the Dobbs vs. Jackson decision last June as another major pushback against activist Supreme Court jurisprudence, and a restoration of the Constitutional guardrails against an overweening federal government that bypasses the sovereign people and impugns their rights.

Racial set-asides were midwifed in the 1978 Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke decision that created by fiat “diversity” as a “compelling state interest” justifying discrimination. Since then various minor adjustments have been made in other decisions such as Grutter vs. Bollinger (2003) and the two Fisher vs. University of Texas cases (2013, 2016), which validated the magical thinking of “diversity” and the “broad state interests” and “educational benefits” it supposedly serves.

None of these decisions addressed the central begged question in affirmative action jurisprudence. As Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissent in Grutter put it, the majority “refus[ed] to define rigorously the broad state interest” served by “diversity,” and thus demonstrate specifically the “educational benefits that flow from student body diversity,” as Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the second Fisher case.

As a result, over the years “diversity” has metastasized throughout the body politic, from school curricula to entertainment–– and has even reached corporate board rooms in the guise of  “ESG,” environmental, social, and corporate governance guidelines for investment. This expansion has  hollowed out the principle of individual merit, and eroded the notion of individual rights and the virtues of independence and self-reliance. That’s what happens when one branch of the government, the one most unaccountable to the people, enshrines in law a politicized, incoherent idea.