RUTHFULLY YOURS

The so-called new Cuba policy has put Senator Rubio on front stage. He has become the face of the opposition to President Obama’s decision to change our approach to Cuba.

On the other side, there is Senator Paul, who supports President Obama’s decision.

Phillip Rucker of The Washington Post sees it as an early sign of 2016 GOP divisions:

The feud is the loudest public dispute so far between potential GOP 2016 candidates and lays bare the divergent world views of traditional hawks — including Rubio and past Republican presidents and nominees — and the emerging, younger libertarian wing represented by Paul.

For decades, Rubio’s position has been the GOP’s natural default. But Paul is testing that convention.

From Hollywood back-biting to North Korean terrorist threats against American movie-goers, the hacking-of-Sony saga by now includes so many stupefying elements that it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s focus on President Obama’s remarks at his end-of-year press conference [1] Friday, when he criticized Sony Pictures Entertainment for canceling its planned Christmas Day nation-wide release of The Interview, the movie that incurred the wrath of Pyongyang by making fun of one of the 21st century’s most ludicrous tyrants, Kim Jong Un.

A reporter asked Obama if Sony had made a mistake in pulling the movie. Obama summarized part of the background: “Sony is a corporation. It suffered significant damage. There were threats against its employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced.”

Having staked out his ground as a sympathetic observer, he hit the punch line: “Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake.”

There was a flurry of pro-Palestinian-state international activity this week. It basically happened in dizzying succession in the space of one day—Wednesday.

This was also a week in which two Islamic terrorist incidents, one in Australia and one in Pakistan, got some airplay. Seemingly the fact that the leading Palestinian movement is currently Hamas, an Islamic terrorist organization, should put a damper on pro-Palestinian-state activity. But it doesn’t—in the least.

So, on Wednesday, the European Parliament voted in favor of Palestinian statehood [2], the European Union’s second-highest court voted to remove Hamas from a terrorism blacklist [3], the Geneva Convention voted that no Israeli Jews should live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem [4] (where it believes the Palestinian state should be), and Jordan, representing the Palestinians, submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council [5] for a total Israeli withdrawal and a Palestinian state by the end of 2017.

In each of these cases there were mitigating factors.

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Israeli MRI detects brain damage earlier. Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University’s Brain Imaging Research Center have developed a method that can detect damage to the brain much earlier than previously thought. Detection, soon after a trauma, means that the damage might still be reversible.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4597206,00.html

Generic blood pressure treatment. Israel’s Teva has launched a generic version of Exforge HCT – a popular treatment of high blood pressure. Teva’s generic products save money for patients and health services.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-teva-launches-generic-high-blood-pressure-treatment-1000990435

Life expectancy rises again. In Israel in 2013, men had an average life expectancy of 80.3 years while women had 83.9 – an increase of nearly five months for men and three months for women in comparison to 2012.
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/society/51887-141122-israelis-life-expectancy-shoots-up

50,000 wear Israeli remedial shoes. Israel’s AposTherapy has developed a treatment for knee and back pain using unique individually calibrated shoes. AposTherapy currently treats 50,000 patients and has just raised $15 million to help expand its business in the US market.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-knee-treatment-co-apostherapy-raises-15m-1000989010

New test for foreign matter in lungs. (Thanks to San Diego Jewish World) Scientists at Tel Aviv University have developed a new technique for detecting hazardous particles in the lungs. The test can be used in emergencies such as fire rescues or as a warning of high pollution levels.
http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2014/12/11/israeli-device-measures-foreign-matter-lungs/

New cancer center is a communal success. (Thanks to Stuart) The Emek Medical Center in Afula, Israel is one of many successful stories showing how ethnic groups in Israel can successfully work side by side. Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze raised funds together for a new cancer center, via an inspiring radio campaign.
http://haifadiarist.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/working-together-achieves-dream.html

Recuperating from the week’s latest disasters authored by Obama, New York Mayor de Blasio, John Boehner, and others of that ilk, I had a very odd dream.
Or, My Global Banning

Last night, in my dreams, I took an imaginary junket around the world with every expectation that I would return alive and in one piece. Or at least not wake up screaming and in a cold sweat. I have recorded this adventure for the amusement of readers.

Actually, I didn’t travel with my late (but not late enough) biological aunt, although

Rockland County Legislator Aron Wieder said he’s been looking over his shoulder since receiving a threatening picture in which his face is superimposed on an ISIS prisoner about to be beheaded.

A Rockland County legislator who received a threatening picture earlier this week said Friday the message of violence and intimidation will not deter him from serving his constituents.

Legislator Aron Wieder, D-Spring Valley, said the chilling color image, in which his face is superimposed on the body of an ISIS prisoner about to be beheaded, was sent in an envelope postmarked from Monsey to his county office. He opened it while the Legislature was in session Monday, he said.

“I opened the letter and I was completely shocked. I literally had shivers running down my spine,” Wieder said.

Following the execution of two New York Police Department officers, a Brandeis University student leader wasted no time in making it clear that she did not care that they were murdered.

“i have no sympathy for the nypd officers who were murdered today,” Khadijah Lynch, a junior and an Undergraduate Department Representative in the African and Afro-American Studies Department, wrote on Twitter.

Here’s what race baiting leads to. The blood of these police officers is on the hands of Bill de Blasio. It’s on the hands of Obama. It’s on Al Sharpton’s hands (but his hands are covered in blood from Crown Heights and Freddy’s) and they’re on the hands of a media that helped whip up the racist rants.

Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley announced on Instagram, They Take 1 Of Ours … Let’s Take 2 of Theirs. And murdered two police officers.

He apparently spoke Arabic and his Facebook page from March 17 included this screenshot of the Koran.

The most serious and crushing harm to those Muslims who respect their non-Muslim neighbors and detest the extremists is that many Western commentators appear utterly uninformed about the representatives of the moderate, non-extremist Muslims.

How long will it take before responsible Westerners perceive the struggle among Muslims between extremists and non-extremists, between the radicals and anti-radicals?

A Sunni Muslim funeral for the slain student Tuğçe Albayrak, a German-born 22-year old woman of Turkish descent, was attended on December 3 by 1,500 mourners in Wächtersbach, a town in the western German state of Hesse. Prayers for Albayrak began in the local mosque, which is controlled by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs [DİTİB], an official arm of the Turkish government that administers Sunni religious affairs in Germany. She was then buried in her hometown, Bad Soden-Salmünster, not far away.