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January 2023

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on January 30th, 2023

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

The bad news:

Terrorism has again reared its ugly head in Israel, bringing grief and fear to all its citizens. Politics, as usual in a freewheeling democracy, is fractious with the biased media having a heyday in misinformation.

Is there good news? Definitely! Just read Michael Ordman’s weekly compilation of Israel’s remarkable achievements in every aspect of human endeavor to heal, give succor, and enrich the lives of billions of citizens throughout the world. rsk

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Israeli women are world’s 9th healthiest. (TY Hazel) In the 2021 Hologic Global Women’s Health Index (measured by Gallup) published this week, Israel is 9th overall and 2nd for life expectancy. The report aims to heighten awareness and guide actions that increase the life expectancy and quality of life for women globally.

https://hologic.womenshealthindex.com/sites/default/files/2022-09/Hologic_2021-Global-Women%27s-Health-Index_Full-Report.pdf

Medication to prevent antibiotic toxicity. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Israel’s Tissue Dynamics again used their “sensors on a chip” to bypass animal testing in developing a new treatment. They proved that the diabetic drug empagliflozin blocks the toxicity of aminoglycoside antibiotics in kidney disease patients.

https://en.huji.ac.il/news/breakthrough-antibiotic-safety-bionic-technology-blends-sensors-and-human-tissue

New anti-microbial compound. Scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have created a new compound by combining copper with a polysaccharide derived from the marine red microalga Porphyridium sp. The long, dense spikes on the surface of the compound kills bacteria and fungus by poking holes in their membranes.

https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/red_algae.aspx   https://www.mdpi.com/1660-3397/20/12/787

A natural remedy for IBD. Israel’s Sheba Medical Center has developed CurQD – a botanical combination of Curcumin (Tumeric) and QingDai for treating Ulcerative Colitis. Phase 1 and 2 human trials were successful and a spin-off company Evinature is now marketing the product.

https://www.israel21c.org/a-natural-plant-based-treatment-for-ulcerative-colitis/  https://evinature.com/

Smart partnership to find IBD treatments. Israel’s CytoReason (see here previously) is partnering France’s Sanofi to identify novel therapies to treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Sanofi will pay CytoReason millions of dollars to use the Israeli startup’s computational AI-discovery disease model platform.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/sanofi-extends-cooperation-with-israels-cytoreason-for-bowel-disease-drug-discovery/

More research about healthy aging. Ben Gurion University’s Dr Debra Toiber and her international colleagues have made more discoveries about the role of the protein SIRT6 in the aging process (see here previously). They have now found that SIRT6 prevents mitochondrial disfunction that causes brain diseases.

https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/toiber_aging.aspx  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41419-022-05542-w

Treating Autism and Alzheimer’s. The American Friends of the Hebrew University is hosting an evening with the University’s Dr Haitham Amal on 31 Jan in Florida. Dr Amal will discuss the groundbreaking development of therapies for Autism and Alzheimer’s disease. https://www.afhu.org/event/towards-the-groundbreaking-development-of-therapeutic-drugs-for-autism-and-alzheimers-disease/

Solutions for today’s medical challenges. The Tel Aviv University MedTech Hackathon attracted 200 students and 120 mentors. The winner OReye utilizes cutting-edge computer vision technology for a safer operating room. Runner up was a wellness app for the early diagnosis and treatment of peripartum depression.

https://english.tau.ac.il/news/medtech_hackathon_2023

Using the mind to benefit the body. Dr. Amit Abraham of Ariel University’s Department of Physiotherapy uses Dynamic Neurocognitive Imagery (DNI) to improve the lives of amputees and Parkinson’s sufferers. DNI also improves the performance of dancers and athletes such as Israel’s Olympic rhythmic gymnastic team.

https://www.ariel.ac.il/wp/en/discovering-how-mental-imagery-boosts-physical-performance/

Gala raises $1.1 million for HU medical center. The 2023 Palm Beach Scopus Award Gala raised over a million dollars for the Hebrew University’s Center for Computational Medicine in Jerusalem. The center will develop data-driven personalized health solutions, to replace “one size fits all” medical treatment.

https://www.jns.org/wire/2023-palm-beach-scopus-award-gala-raises-over-1-million-for-the-hebrew-university-center-for-computational-medicine/

CNN features Israeli medical company, but….  How CNN can publish a detailed article featuring Israel’s Insightec without mentioning the word “Israel” is quite revealing. It describes the company as “a leading maker of focused ultrasound machines”.  Here in the IsraelActive archives are the full facts about Insightec.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/15/health/focused-ultrasound-tremor-depression-ocd-wellness/index.html

Largest increase to health basket. Israel has increased its health basket of Government-provided services, medications, supplies, and medical equipment by a record NIS 650 million. More than 120 new medications and treatments were added, benefiting 350,000 citizens and permanent residents.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-728878 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Justice for John Eastman The fundamental message implicit in the California Bar’s vendetta against Trump’s former lawyer is this: “We’re the government. We’ve defined what is truth. How dare you question us.”  By Roger Kimball

By on January 30th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/29/justice-for-john-eastman/

The January 6 Committee may have shut up shop, Liz Cheney may have scuttled back to her constituency in Georgetown and at CNN, but the great Democratic vendetta machine is still fired up and pounding along, looking for people to smash and livelihoods to destroy.  

Those who dared to walk around the Capitol that fateful day are still being apprehended and jailed. Many face multi-year prison sentences for such misdemeanor torts as “parading” or “obstructing an official proceeding.” Anyone associated with Donald Trump is fair game, as the names Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and Jeffrey Clark remind us. 

At the top of that hit list is John Eastman, the distinguished constitutional scholar who made the unforgivable error of offering legal advice to President Trump in the turbulent aftermath of the 2020 election. 

I have written about Eastman before, both in this space and elsewhere. He has had his life turned upside down. He was shuffled out of his position as dean of the Chapman Law School and has been treated as a pariah by colleagues in his profession. Anti-Trump protestors regularly congregate at the foot of his driveway—fortunately, a long one—to vilify him and his association with the Bad Orange Man. 

Now the State Bar of California has announced that it has filed an official complaint of 11 charges against Eastman, alleging that he endeavored to “plan, promote, and assist then-President Trump in executing a strategy, unsupported by facts or law, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anarchy, American-Style The Left runs Oceania, and we work for their various bureaus. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on January 30th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/29/anarchy-american-style/

The 1960s revolution was both anarchic and nihilist. But it was waged against—not from—the establishment. Hippies and the Left either attacked institutions or, in Timothy Leary fashion, chose to “turn on, tune in, drop out” from them.

The current revolution is much different—and far more dangerous—for at least three reasons.

The Establishment Is the Revolution

The current Left has no intention of “dropping out.” Why would it? 

It now controls the very institutions of America that it once mocked and attacked—corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, state and local prosecuting attorneys, most big-city governments, the media, the Pentagon, network and most of cable news, professional sports, Hollywood, music, television, K-12 education, and academia. 

In other words, the greatest levers of influence and power—money, education, entertainment, government, the news, and popular culture—are in the hands of the Left. They have transformed legitimate debate over gay marriage into a hate crime. Transgenderism went from a modern manifestation of ancient transvestism or gender dysphoria to a veritable litmus test of whether one was good or evil.

Students have no need to jam administrators’ offices because the latter, themselves, are as radical as the protestors and often lead them on in a top-down fashion. Had they not long ago demonstrated they were perfectly willing to subvert meritocracy, free expression, and equality under the law, they would not be occupying their present positions.

Apple, Google, Facebook, and other tech companies are not 1980s and 1990s “alternative” media geeks and hipsters creating neat gadgets for the people. They are not Steve Jobs and his pugnacious Apple battling the evil Microsoft or IBM, or the Macintosh commercial of 1984 depicting a maverick throwing a hammer into Big Brother’s screen. They are the Orwellian screen.

The current generation of techies is effectively Stalinist. Big Tech now colludes with the FBI, the Democratic Party, and the bureaucratic state to suppress free expression, warp balloting, and serve as contractors of government surveillance. Currently, the most totalitarian people in America are likely to wear flip flops, have a nose ring or pink hair, and disguise their fascism with ’60s-retread costumes.

There are no “armies of the night” marching on the Pentagon. Would-be demonstrators see no need, since radical identity politics, and gay, woke, and transgendered agendas are fast-tracked by the Department of Defense. 

There are no protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau or the “La Migra” anymore by advocates of illegal immigration, because the Left owns the border. And it has utterly destroyed it. There is no border, no border enforcement, and no meaningful immigration law. As many as 6 million illegal entries during the first two years of the Biden Administration are proof enough of that. 

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Graves of Academe: A Job Announcement Replace the word “Black” by the word “White” and see if there might be a problem. by Hugh Fitzgerald

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-graves-of-academe-a-job-announcement/

A job announcement posted at H-Net on January 19, 2023:

The Department of History in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Simon Fraser University, respectfully acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), qiqéyt (Qayqayt), qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), Səmyámə (Semiahmoo), and sc̓əwaθən (Tsawwassen) Peoples, on whose ancestral, traditional, and unceded territories Simon Fraser University’s three campuses stand. We are committed to reconciliation through decolonization and Indigenization, telling inclusive stories about the past, and acknowledging different historical epistemologies.

The Department of History invites applications for a full-time tenure-track appointment in History at the rank of Assistant Professor, to start as early as July 15, 2023. We seek a scholar with expertise in the history of the Black Americas, broadly conceived. We especially welcome scholars whose research and teaching focuses on Canada, the Caribbean, or Latin America, while also welcoming comparative, transnational, and cross-regional approaches.

The successful candidate must have research and teaching interests and lived experience in Black communities, including a demonstrable history of community involvement. Ideal candidates will have experience teaching a diverse student body.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Rewarding Anti-Israel Radicalism at SFSU Reflections on the Middle East Studies Association’s latest award – to a terror-promoting academic. by Richard L. Cravatts

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/rewarding-anti-israel-radicalism-at-sfsu/

Unsurprisingly for an organization whose membership has been perennially hostile to Israel, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) just awarded the 2022 Jere L. Bacharach Service Award to San Francisco State University (SFSU) Professor Rabab Abdulhadi.

Though it positions itself as an organization of scholars engaged in research and teaching about the Middle East, MESA has gradually devolved into a highly politicized group of radical academics who display a singular and obsessive focus on Israel, and who have weaponized the organization to attack, degrade, and slander the Jewish state, allegedly in the name of Palestinian self-determination, and the naming of Abdulhadi is a not unexpected result of this toxic ideology.

MESA’s members, who Middle East studies expert Martin Kramer once described as “tenured incompetents” for their defective scholarship, further confirmed their anti-Israel bias earlier this year when its members voted overwhelmingly to endorse an academic boycott against Israeli scholars, a resolution that called “for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions for their complicity in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law through their provision of direct assistance to the military and intelligence establishments.”

There is no surprise that an academic association like the MESA would call for a boycott against only one country—Israel—precisely because a large number of its ranks are evidently steeped in a worldview defined by post-colonial, anti-American, anti-Israel thinking, and dedicated to the elevation of identity politics and a cult of victimhood. That they profess to hold high-minded, well-intentioned motives, and speak with such rectitude, does not excuse the fact that their efforts are in the end a betrayal of what the study of history and the university have, and should, stand for—the free exchange of ideas, even ones bad, without political or ideological litmus tests.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Lets China’s Spies Slide Welcome to the Open-Door Policy for the Communist regime. by Lloyd Billingsley

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-lets-chinas-spies-slide/

“Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have dropped their case against a New York Police Department officer who had been accused of acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the Chinese regime,” The Epoch Times reports.

Baimadajie Angwang, 33, an ethnic Tibetan and naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested in 2020 for acting as an agent of Beijing, for wire fraud, making false statements, and obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors charge that Angwang reported on Chinese citizens, cultivated intelligence sources, and connected Chinese officials with senior contacts in the NYPD.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New York recently filed a motion asking federal judge Eric R. Komitee, a Trump nominee, to dismiss the indictment due to “additional information” on the case. The Eastern District did not reveal the information or explain its relevance to the case. So the move to dismiss may reflect official Biden policy of turning a blind eye toward Chinese espionage in the United States.

“The Justice Department is ending a controversial program, launched under the Trump administration, to hunt down Chinese spies,” CBS News reported in February of 2022.

President Trump’s “China Initiative,” targeted China’s theft of trade secrets and intellectual property.

As federal prosecutors charged in 2017, MIT professor Gang Chen failed to disclose ties to China and failed to disclose a foreign bank account on a tax document. Prosecutors dropped the case against Chen, but it wasn’t clear what motivated them to act. This was hardly the only proceeding against Chinese agents the DOJ chose to abandon.

In 2020, federal officials changed that Chinese national Tang Juan lied about ties to the Chinese military in order to gain access to the University of California at Davis. The FBI  found an April 14, 2019 article on a Xi’an, China, health care forum that showed Tang in a military uniform bearing the insignia of the Civilian Cadres of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The FBI also found two other articles listing Tang’s employer as the People’s Liberation Army’s Air Force Medical University (AFMU), also known as the Fourth Military Medical University (FMMU).

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Who Was Really Behind the Jerusalem Terror Attack This isn’t random terrorism, it’s carefully calculated terrorism. by Daniel Greenfield

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/who-was-really-behind-the-jerusalem-terror-attack/

On Thursday, Jan 26, the Palestinian Authority announced that it was suspending “security coordination” after Israel broke up a Jenin terror cell that had been planning a major attack.

On Friday, Jan 27, an Islamic terrorist opened fire outside a Jerusalem synagogue killing 7 Israelis, including Asher Natan, a 14-year-old boy, Eli and Natali Mizrahi, a married couple who rushed out to help the victims, and Shaul Hai, a 68-year-old synagogue sexton.

The shooter, despite being branded a “lone wolf” with no previous connection to terrorism, was described as having advanced shooting skills. And the death rate testifies to that. It seems highly likely that he was selected and secretly prepped to carry out this attack.

On Saturday, Jan 28, a second shooting in Jerusalem injured two other Israelis. Another armed terrorist was taken out by the town’s security team in Kedumim. That may not be the last of it.

There is nothing coincidental about the timing of this surge of violence: the deadliest in years.

CIA director Bill Burns arrived in Israel on Thursday. The same day the PLO announced the end of its security coordination. Secretary of State Blinken is expected to visit Israel this week. Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan came to Israel the week before. The PLO’s suspension of security coordination and the attacks that followed were put on for their benefit. 7 Israelis thus far were killed to help the Biden administration pressure Israel.

Had Israel not taken out the terror cell in Jenin, the numbers might be far higher.

The last time attacks on this scale took place was when 11 Israelis were killed in three attacks in late March 2022. Those attacks also came after the Palestinian Authority had suspended “security coordination” a month earlier and overlapped with the Negev Summit featuring Arab leaders and Secretary of State Blinken.

What is happening is not random terror, it’s carefully calculated terror, executed, as usual, through plausibly deniable attackers who will be rewarded by the PLO’s pay-to-slay fund.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Environmentalism Impoverishes, Kills by Drieu Godefridi

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19364/environmentalism-impoverishes-kills

As you read this, some European families are already at 15 degrees (59° Fahrenheit) in their living rooms . Happy New Year!

Of course, nuclear energy is not without risks and shortcomings… After the progressive banishment of coal in much of Europe, however, and as the EU countries have practically no easily extracted gas of their own, there are only two options: nuclear energy, and imported gas.

The countless restrictions on heating and electricity that Europeans have to impose on themselves — they have no choice — will have devastating consequences.

Due to the current insane energy prices, The Economist explained, 147,000 Europeans will die this winter in excess of the annual average… If the winter is mild, according to the magazine, this drops to 79,000 “excess” deaths. If the winter is harsh, the number of “excess” deaths is projected to be 185,000…

Tens of thousands of soldiers are estimated to have been killed in the Ukraine war. Put another way, even in a best-case scenario — a mild winter — according to The Economist, exploding energy prices could kill more Europeans than the war in Ukraine has killed soldiers. Staggering.

Cold kills. The cold directly kills those who give up heating, those who perish in the street. The cold encourages the deadly diseases that thrive in winter. The cold kills those who try to heat themselves by alternative, makeshift means.

This tragedy the direct consequence of the green energy policies that have been pursued in Europe for the past 20 years.

The biggest European environmental organizations have been massively financed (bought, bribed) by Gazprom — in other words, by the Russian government.

The explosion in energy prices after the war in Ukraine began, but above all as a consequence of the “green” energy policies which have made Europe so dependent on Russian gas for the last 20 years, has led and is leading hundreds of millions of Europeans to restrict their energy consumption, especially this winter, in heating.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Crazy Optimism About China’s Economy by Gordon G. Chang

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19369/china-economy

Stocks may soar for a while, but China’s economy is far sicker than analysts assume.

First, China’s disease statistics are questionable.

Beijing is asking the world to believe that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing this disease, is behaving differently in China than it has in all other parts of the world.

Second, even if China were over Covid as the regime maintains, the economy is still plagued by its over-dependence on property, which accounts for almost 30% of GDP.

“The property sector downturn is hard-wired into the first half of 2023,” reported the Rhodium Group last month, in an analysis on China’s economic prospects.

Fourth, the regime during the pandemic did almost nothing to remedy the principal structural flaw in the Chinese economy: the overreliance on government spending.

China is not going to have a good 2023 or a good 2024. Foreigners are going to lose money in China again.

China’s propagandists tell us the Chinese economy this year will “accelerate to 4.8%.” Foreign analysts are even more bullish. Goldman Sachs estimates growth of gross domestic product of 5.5%.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Not Seeing Clearly The VA wants to allow optometrists to perform some surgical procedures on veterans. Henry I. Miller

By on January 30th, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/veterans-admin-unwise-laser-eye-surgery-policy

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the federal government’s second-largest department. As of 2021, it operated approximately 1,600 health-care facilities, 144 medical centers, and 1,232 outpatient sites, of varying complexity. The VA has long been plagued by a wide spectrum of problems, including long delays in scheduling appointments, substandard care, and years of trying to get a $10 billion electronic system to work effectively.

As a veteran myself (I have never received medical care through the VA, though I did numerous medical school clinical rotations at a VA hospital), I know that veterans deserve better. And yet, the VA seems to be committed to a change in policy that would further degrade the quality of their care—specifically, by allowing underqualified practitioners to perform laser eye surgery.

Last September, the VA modified its eye-care guidelines for treatment from community providers by letting optometrists, who are neither medical doctors nor surgeons, perform some surgical procedures. Without soliciting input from the public or medical community, it removed language from the Community Care guideline, which had ensured that “only ophthalmologists can perform invasive procedures, including injections, lasers and eye surgery.” This change would permit optometrists to perform surgical procedures such as laser trabeculoplasty—an operation on the eye to treat glaucoma—rather than restricting them to ophthalmologists (who are highly trained, experienced, qualified surgeons), as had been the policy. The change would be felt immediately in a small number of states that already allow optometrists to perform laser surgery. But the VA is considering a broader policy change that would make it possible for optometrists in all VA facilities to perform these procedures.

The differences in the amount of training and the scope of competence between optometrists and ophthalmologists are vast. Ophthalmologists log over 17,000 hours of clinical experience in general medicine, surgery, and emergency management during medical school and specialized postgraduate training.

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