RUTHFULLY YOURS

Kudos to Scarlett Johansson for ignoring the ridiculous boycott of SodaStream and agreeing to be the spokeswoman for the popular “make your own soda at home” product from Maale Edumim, a large community in disputed eastern Jerusalem. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) crowd ignores the fact that the SodaStream plant employs 1100 workers – mostly Arabs from Judea and Samaria, who, under Israeli law, get paid the same salary as the Jewish workers, which is more than ten times what they might get in the Arab world. I’m glad to say that I own and enjoy the product and gift SodaStream to all my friends and family to whom I wish to give a special treat. I urge everyone to buy the product for themselves.

Kudos also to CAMERA for its giant billboard in plain view of the NY Times bulding in NYC. The billboard reads, “Would a great newspaper slant the News against Israel? The NEW YORK TIMES does. ” The ad continues, accusing the Times of “Misrepresenting facts, omitting key information, and skewing headlines and photos.” It concludes with the demand, “STOP THE BIAS.” CAMERA plans to keep the billboard up for the next six months. We loudly applaud CAMERA for this action and I must add that I cancelled my NY Times subscription years ago when I became aware of the relentless attacks against Israel, not only in their editorials and op-eds, but actually within the reporting itself. We encourage readers to cancel their subscriptions also, if, indeed, they are still subscribers.
A One-way Ticket to the Zero-State Solution A “boycott” is comparatively harmless to the Zero-State Solution.
From Mark Langfan
Earlier this month, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni stated that “the boycott is moving and advancing uniformly and exponentially.”
Exactly to her point, Defense Minister Ya’alon responded that if security compromises would lead to “rockets from Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin onto Ben Gurion Airport, then I would rather have a European boycott” on Israel.
Unable to intellectually or rationally respond to Ya’alon, Livni resorted to sophistry and made an even more intellectually specious statement: “In the context of priorities, I prefer the Galilee, Kiryat Shemona, Tiberias and the Negev over the isolated settlements outside the ‘settlement blocs.'”
What Livni doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, is that without all, I repeat ALL, the heroic Jewish settlers of Judea and Samaria, there will be no Negev, no Galilee. There will be no Israel, period.
But, as a prefatory note, Livni omitted Sderot and Ashkelon from the fanciful list of Israeli cities that she considers her “priorities.” In her messianic bubble, Livni can’t process the fact that these Israeli cities have been rocketed solely because of her suicidal failed peace ‘policies.’ If anything, for Livni, the Gaza rockets only serve to further convince her of the “end-of-days” messianic and delusional salvation of the “Peace Process.”

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2756/From-US-Helpers-in-Iraq-to-Sex-Criminals-in-Colorado.aspx Two Iraqi men in their 20s have been convicted of a bloody sex crime in Colorado that left the victim, a woman in her 50s, in need of immediate surgery and a colostomy bag. Three other Iraqi men, also in their 20s,were convicted on lesser charges as accessories. Four points set this case apart. […]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Into-the-Fray-A-public-challenge-to-Michael-Oren-339234 What is it about the Palestinian problem that makes otherwise seemingly smart people expound such utterly stupid ideas?   One solution could be a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian population centers in the West Bank… but unlike in Gaza, most Israeli settlements would remain within Israel, and Israeli troops would still patrol strategic borders. […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7125

Rouhani’s curtain call

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been strutting through the halls of the World Economic Forum in Davos like an Oscar nominee at the Academy Awards. And why wouldn’t he be working the red carpet with a wide grin on his face, while treated like a movie star?

After all, being an actor comes easily to the head of the Islamic republic. Since taking the reins in Tehran in August, he has been type-cast in as a “moderate.” It is a role he has assumed with ease. Not only does it require few rehearsals, since his script is both short and predictable. But the Western audiences to whom he is playing get caught up in his performance, even when he forgets his lines and lets it slip that he only differs from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in style but not content.

It is thus that the long-time Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini loyalist — and current Ayatollah Ali Khamenei protégé — has been able to stave off stepped-up sanctions from the United States and Europe by pretending to engage in diplomatic discussions over Iran’s nuclear program. No matter how many centrifuges continue to spin or how much uranium continues to be enriched, all Rouhani has to do to buy more time to perfect long-range ballistic missiles for future nuclear warheads is to assure his P5+1 negotiating partners — the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany — that his intentions are “peaceful.” Then, when presented with evidence to the contrary, he goes on the offensive, accusing them of imposing “illegal sanctions.”

2014.01.21 (Mastung, Pakistan) – Over two dozen Shia pilgrims on a bus are massacred by a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi suicide bomber.
2014.01.21 (Karachi, Pakistan) – Fundamentalists murder three members of a polio vaccination team.
2014.01.21 (Beirut, Lebanon) – Four people are killed when an al-Nusra sucide bomber detonates in a Shia neighborhood.
2014.01.20 (Wulgo, Nigeria) – Islamists take out a teacher in his own home with an AK-47.
2014.01.20 (Baghdad, Iraq) – A series of Mujahideen attacks in Sunni neighborhoods leave fourteen dead Iraqis.
2014.01.20 (Baghdad, Iraq) – Jihadis bomb a market, killing three patrons.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/369338/cuomo-still-prince-darkness-andrew-stiles New York’s governor has a long history of nasty behavior toward opponents. New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently berated conservatives — including pro-lifers, Second Amendment supporters, and gay-marriage opponents — as people who “have no place in the state of New York.” But Cuomo has a long history of behaving like a schoolyard bully. Just […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/369312/print Fixated as we Americans are on Canada’s three most attention-getting exports — polar vortexes, Alberta clippers, and the antics of Toronto’s addled mayor — we’ve somewhat overlooked a major feature of Canada’s current relations with the United States: extreme annoyance. Last week, speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canada’s foreign minister calmly but […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/369309/satan-state-house-jonah-goldberg The Constitution is powerless against Satan. Earlier this month, the state of Oklahoma received a proposal from New York–based Satanists to build near the state capitol a seven-foot-high statue of Baphomet, a goat-headed pagan idol. The Satanists’ letter boasted that “the statue will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/nuclear-deterrence-second-to-one?f=puball On November 8th, 2013, at Kings Bay Naval Base in Georgia, Professor Mathew Kroenig of Georgetown University, explained that “there is no reason to believe that the U.S. nuclear arsenal somehow causes proliferation in other countries.” This is a startling statement because the assumption in much of the nuclear deterrent commentary is that US […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/democrats-failure-factories

Teachers unions supply the Democratic Party with money and foot soldiers. But if Democrats intend to make income inequality their issue in 2014 and 2016, they will have to give up their slavish devotion to these unions, which deny inner-city kids a shot at a quality education and an escape route from poverty.

A few Democrats, such as former Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have challenged union power, but not New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Anyone eyeing Cuomo as the backup candidate for president in 2016, in the event Hillary Clinton doesn’t run, needs to take a look at his failed record on school reform.

New Yorkers are fleeing the upstate region’s moribund economy and moving to states with more jobs, fewer taxes and job-killing regulations. But inner-city school kids in Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo aren’t going anywhere. Despite the phrase “no child left behind,” that’s exactly what they are: kids left behind. They are victims of Cuomo’s indifference to school failure and the greed of teachers unions.