RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/.

Taped to my shaving mirror is a saying; “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” That simple homily is true, but its message has been lost in the narcissism of today’s world, and in the concept that social justice should not distinguish between the sexes. We see the absence of the former in the vapidity of Hollywood and in other displays of what Daniel Patrick Moynihan might have described as defining deviancy down. We see the promotion of the latter by those in Washington who see the state as the arbiter of equality and fairness.

Fifty years after President Johnson’s war on poverty, the poor are still with us. It is unrealistic to believe that poverty will ever be completely eradicated. For one, government statistics do change as a determinant. In fact, many of today’s “poor” would have been considered middle income fifty years ago. The important thing is allowing the poor the opportunity to advance. Apart from the eyes of the law and God, people are not equal. They never have been; they never will be. Despite primping for hours in front of the mirror, I will never look like Cary Grant, nor will I ever have the physique of Michael Jordan; I will never have the mind of Einstein, or the money of Warren Buffett. Not only are unlike in our inherited traits, we vary in our aspirations, work ethics and determination. We are who we are. But we can always work to improve.

Poverty remains a serious concern. One antidote is marriage. According to Census data, 41.3% of female-only households with children under 18 lived in poverty in 2011, while only 10.9% of married couples with children under 18 did so. In terms of unemployment, 6.6% of those married over the age of 18 were unemployed. At the same time 17.3% of those separated, divorced or widowed were unemployed. Of those never married, 17.7% were unemployed. Marriage is not always possible, but it should be encouraged, not dismissed. While correlation does not mean causation, those statistics cannot be ignored.

URL to article: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/you-cant-save-the-world/

For only ten dollars a day or a month you can feed all the starving children in Africa. For only the price of a cup of coffee a year, you can make sure that no one in Kansas City ever goes hungry again. For just a third of your paycheck, you can subsidize a vast bureaucracy that will conduct studies on the best way to save the world and then come up with proposals that will only cost you half your paycheck.

This misplaced philanthropic confidence is the idiot stepchild of a free enterprise society where anything can be accomplished for the right price. Do you want to build a house on the edge of a cliff? Do you want to play on every golf course in the world? Do you want to clone a dinosaur so you can hunt it?

It hasn’t been done yet, but it’s probably doable.

So why can’t we end world hunger for only the price of a cup of coffee every six seconds or forty percent of the national debt or some other appealing figure that looks good on an infographic?

Hunger isn’t a resource shortage problem. The Soviet dissident writer Vladimir Voinovich told an American cab driver about meat rationing in the USSR. The cab driver demanded to know why people didn’t just set up more chicken farms. Voinovich tried to explain to the incredulous driver that under Socialism, setting up more chicken farms doesn’t produce more chickens.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/obamas-feds-death-to-boston-jihadist/print/

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that the Justice Department would seek the death penalty for Boston Marathon jihad mass murderer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

This is a transparent face-saving gesture. The clueless, politically correct, willfully ignorant Feds bungled the Boston jihad attack in numerous ways. Now, when it is far too late, they’re trying to look tough on jihad terror.

The Feds’ incompetence on this case began long before the bombing itself. The Russian government had Boston jihad bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev under surveillance, were deeply concerned about his contacts with jihad terrorists, and shared those concerns with the FBI. A Homeland Security official at the same time confirmed reports that the Saudis had also warned the FBI in writing about Tsarnaev – a claim that the Saudi ambassador in Washington immediately and heatedly denied.

Nor did the Feds conduct any investigation of the Islamic Society of Boston mosque that the bombers attended. Yet they are not the only jihad terrorists associated with that mosque. Aafia Siddiqui, a.k.a. “Lady al-Qaeda,” who was convicted of trying to murder American soldiers and may also have been plotting a jihad terror attack against an American city, was also a member, as was convicted jihad terror plotter Tarek Mehanna and his accomplice, Ahmad Abousamra. The renowned Muslim Brotherhood sheikh, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has praised Hitler and called upon Muslims to finish his job of killing Jews, was a trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston and has addressed the mosque congregation during fundraisers. Another imam who has addressed the Boston congregation, Yasir Qadhi, has called for the replacement of the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law and said that the “life and prosperity” of Christians “holds no value in the state of Jihad.”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arlene-kushner/no-time-to-spare-talking-about-israels-legal-grounds/print/

If the Israeli building in Judea and Samaria destroys the peace process, then, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, the EU ambassador to Israel, declared just days ago, “Naturally, the blame will be put squarely on Israel’s doorstep.”

Naturally: We wouldn’t expect anything else of the EU. The issue here is not that this is a surprise, but rather that Israel is being forewarned: The government must consider its official stance now, before that blame has been levied:

It is time for Israel to enunciate a policy that directly addresses her rights.

It is two years since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appointed a three-person committee, chaired by former High Court Justice Edmond Levy, to examine the situation of the settlements. The Committee’s report – “The Status of Building in Judea and Samaria” – was released on July 8, 2012.

While we have it on good authority that the prime minister was initially enthusiastic about the report, once he began to assess the opposition that was mounting against it, he decided to table it. In several quarters, this document is viewed as a radical departure from Israeli government policy – a departure that would be highly problematic in the context of the current political situation.

I will argue, however, that – rather than representing a radical departure from Israeli government policy – the report offers a reiteration of what has been normative policy. The perception that it is radical has been fostered because of the erosion of Israeli positions in the more than 20 years since the onset of Oslo.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/bracing-for-amnesty/print/ Unbelievable as it may be to their core constituency, House Republicans are now embracing comprehensive immigration reform. Late yesterday, the Hill obtained a one-page document outlining the GOP’s “statement of principals,” that endorses a path to legal status, once “specific enforcement triggers” have been achieved.  In an apparent sop to their base, House leadership stopped short of offering a path […]

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4675/hamas_runs_training_camp_for_schoolboy_martyrs_plans_laid_for_girls_camp_too
UPDATE: As of January 30, 17:52 GMT, this has not been reported in the UK media. Do not hold your breath. However, The Times has got to the core issue in MidEast, global and civilisational politics, by running an op-ed… on the son of Israeli PM Netanyahu’s sex life…

In a grim reminder of the way Islamist groups exploit the young and vulnerable for terrorism, it is being reported that Hamas has held terror training camps for schoolboys this month, with plans outlined for similar camps for girls.

“We will restore the climate of jihad, martyrdom and sacrifice for the sake of Allah to all sectors of society… This is the generation of stones, tunnels and martyrdom operations.

“Today is the anniversary of the death of martyrdom-seeker Rim Al-Riyashi, [Hamas’ first female suicide bomber], a woman who gave up everything in her life in order to wage jihad for the sake of Allah,” the Middle East Media Research Institute, MEMRI, reported Hamas Prime Minister Isma’il Haniya as saying at a concluding event for the camps earlier in January.

He added that camps for girls should be established too, so that “they can follow the path of the martyrs”.

The Western public relies on groups such as MEMRI for information like this since it is not reported in mainstream outlets such as the BBC or CNN.

In the world of Gates, terrorism, much like the weather, just seems to happen. The notion that something ideological — a grand political goal — motivates terrorism, is apparently a conceptual bridge too far for Gates
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4673/bob_gates_is_mr_establishment_and_that_s_worrying
Christian Whiton is the president of the Hamilton Foundation and the author of “Smart Power: Between Diplomacy and War.” He was a State Department senior advisor during the George W. Bush administration
Can you image if Robert Lovett, a Republican who served as President Harry Truman’s secretary of defense during the Korean War, left office and wrote a book that ignored communism, only mentioned the Soviet Union in passing, and reserved more criticism for Washington and London’s South Korean wartime allies than for our North Korean and Chinese enemies?

It would have been odd. Yet Robert Gates effectively authored the modern analogue of this in “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.” Lost amid early reviews of the former Pentagon chief’s new book, which stressed its political gossip, was just how poor his analysis of the world is — and what that says about our national security establishment embodied so perfectly by the politically androgynous Mr. Gates.

In the world of Gates, terrorism, much like the weather, just seems to happen. The notion that something ideological — a grand political goal — motivates terrorism, just as the communist ideology drove political subversion and military aggression in an earlier era, is apparently a conceptual bridge too far for Gates.

Thus one word you will find nowhere in “Duty’s” 594 pages is “Islamism.” And what is never mentioned was presumably never targeted as a threat by the vast bureaucracy Mr. Gates oversaw for four years. That might explain why the political-military force whose name must never be uttered has done so well these past several years — especially its terrorist vanguard.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/370001/print

The seltzer-maker spokeswoman strongly supports Israel and its manufacturers.

Puleez!!! Enough already. The actress is doing what a sensible and fair minded person should do….good for her…but the endless columns and fawning and gushing praise will make her nuts. rsk

Of all the possible defenders of the Israeli town of Ma’aleh Adumim, a burg of 40,000 located five miles east of Jerusalem’s Western Wall, a gorgeous worldwide movie star is hardly the most likely candidate. But there was Scarlett Johansson, the 29-year-old screen and stage actress, vigorously doubling down on her decision to sign on as a spokesperson for SodaStream, a do-it-yourself-soda company headquartered in Israel, and to appear on its behalf in a provocative ad during this Sunday’s Super Bowl.

“I stand behind the SodaStream product. . . . I am happy that light is being shed on this issue in hopes that a greater number of voices will contribute to the conversation of a peaceful two state solution in the near future,” she wrote in the Huffington Post late last week.

Why such a fuss over bubbly water?

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303448204579338650490889042?mod=Opinion_newsreel_10
Tender Is the Light of My Incandescents
Bracing myself for life once the filaments in my beloved bulbs grow weak.

My heart aches as I stand in the light bulb aisle of Home Depot, looking for an LED light to replace the incandescent bulbs that went out of production at the beginning of this month. The saleswoman asks if I prefer a soft white or a warm white—as though between the two either is less harsh.

I wonder if the members of Congress who passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which slowly outlawed the manufacture of incandescent bulbs, have ever sat beneath an LED or Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulb. If they have, they will know that it induces a sort of drowsy numbness—something I learned recently when my roommate brought home a set of Nanoleaf LED bulbs with an advertised 30-year life span.

After a few minutes sitting in his room, we both realized that there was something almost nauseating about the quality of the dull light. That the makers of Nanoleaf—or any manufacturer of efficient bulbs—would be deluded enough to think that I would want to spend the next 30 years with their product is beyond me. And not only are their life spans unbearably long, but the manufacturers want to charge $20 per bulb. Over time, we are told, they save us money. I’d rather eat the extra cost and avoid having my living room look like an interrogation cell.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304007504579349011669560726?mod=WSJ_Opinion_

Investigating Chris Christie’s administration, indicting another prominent Republican. Is it political?

Is Eric Holder’s Justice Department driven by a political agenda, or are the department’s recent prosecutorial decisions simply signs of overzealousness?

The Justice Department has focused on two prominent Republicans, announcing a corruption indictment of former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell and launching an active and very public criminal investigation into the antics of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration. In doing so, federal prosecutors have created at least the appearance that they are targeting two men who have been touted as plausible candidates for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.

A reading of the McDonnell indictment raises the obvious question of why the feds are charging someone who, as governor, engaged in conduct that is run-of-the-mill political activity in virtually all jurisdictions, but especially in states, like Virginia, whose laws quite clearly allow it. Certainly Mr. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, don’t come off well in the indictment. She in particular is painted as greedy even by political standards. Both are charged with receiving expensive gifts as well as loans from businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr., whose commercial dietary supplements were promoted by the governor. Mr. McDonnell and his wife also invited Mr. Williams to dinners and events at the governor’s mansion and arranged audiences for him with state health officials.