How far will,Leftists go to co-opt

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/how_far_will_leftists_go_to_coop_judaism.html

How far will leftists go to co-opt Judaism?

The story is told of a kid who walked up to my father's business with puppies on a leash.

"You wanna by a poodle?" he asked.

"Nah," we said, "but how did you find polka dot poodles?"

"Those aren't polka dots," he said.  "That's Miss Clairol.  I put spots on them so the lady I ripped them off of wouldn't catch me."

I know this story because I am the one he was offering the poodles to.

This story came to mind this week as I read the invitation to attend a "Read with the Rabbi" session at my synagogue in suburban Detroit. 

Putting God Second by Rabbi Donniel Hartman
with Rabbi Aaron Starr
Thursday, August 22, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. 

Come early for Minyan at 5:30 p.m., join Rabbi Aaron Starr at 6:00 p.m. for this literary discussion, then everyone is welcome to remain for sips, sweets and our Berman Night of Learning featuring Nira Lev.

In Putting God Second, Rabbi Donniel Hartman tackles one of modern life's most urgent and vexing questions: Why are the great monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) chronically unable to fulfill their own self-professed goal of creating individuals infused with moral sensitivity and societies governed by the highest ethical standards?

Entitled "Putting God Second," it's being called to discuss the 2016 book of that name by Rabbi Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.  The book is being discussed in the wake of our rabbi's month-long stay at the institute in Israel this summer.

The publisher's notes ask, "Why have the monotheistic religions failed to produce societies that fail to live up to their ethical ideas?"  A Google preview is here.

The book's publishers apparently believe that America is a flawed society.  I don't.

The author's bio describes Donniel Hartman as a Modern Orthodox rabbi, holder of a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with rabbinic ordination from the Shalom Hartman Institute.

At my own (Conservative) shul, the senior rabbi contended (on Shavuot) that there is no covenant between The Holy One and the Jewish people.  Shavuot is the holiday that commemorates receipt of that covenant, our Torah.  A discussion of it including a video is here.

The thinking among some on the Left seems to be that Judaism, and perhaps all religions, is best seen as an association positioned to advance social justice.  And to elect leftist politicians.

Where I part company with the "social justice" crowd is on how good this country has been, for me and mine, and for the multitudes who have come here.  My mother died recently; after modest beginnings, she left seven grandchildren, including two medical doctors, one Ph.D., one biomedical/chemical engineer, one photographer, and more.

Unlike the two rabbis, I see a divine presence in the development of this nation.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," the very first founding document states.  That's right.

Last week's Torah portion included the Sh'ma Yisrael, Judaism's most important prayer, one that was uttered over the centuries by those who were put to death for their Jewish beliefs.  It begins, "Here, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one."

It continues with a directive: "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might."

How is it possible to love with all our heart and all our soul and all our might, while putting the Lord of Hosts second?  It isn't.

I didn't buy the polka-dotted puppies, and I'm not buying this, either.

Is Russia Hiding ..

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/is-russia-hiding-another-chernobyl/

Is Russia Hiding Another Chernobyl?

Breaking news from Russia's frozen Northwest, where a total of four nuclear-monitoring stations have been silenced. The Wall Street Journal says that's twice as many as last week, "heightening concerns among observers that Russia is trying to hide evidence from an explosion at a missile-test site this month."

Some background.

Russia has been developing a nuclear-powered cruise missile, the 9M730 Burevestnik or "Petrel" missile. To be clear, that's a missile powered by nuclear fission, not a missile "merely" carrying a nuclear warhead. On August 8, it's believed that a Petrel exploded during testing, killing five employees of Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy producer. Three others were injured. That we know of.

As the Kremlin is wont to do, they at first downplayed the incident, claiming that the amount of radiation released "was less than that of a medical X-ray." Although as The National Interest noted on Saturday, "the village near the explosion has been ordered to evacuate, raising memories of the Chernobyl incident." The same report casts some doubt whether a Petrel cruise missile was involved at all:

Edward Geist, an expert on Russian nuclear history at the RAND Corp. think tank, cautioned that it is premature to assume that the Petrel was the culprit.

“The case that this may be associated with the nuclear cruise missile is pretty circumstantial,” Geist told The National Interest. For example, the site of the accident is a closed Russian military town that is “associated with the testing of all kinds of missiles.”

Perhaps there was an accident involving Petrel. Or, perhaps there was an accident involving another weapon that damaged a Petrel. Or, maybe Russia was testing some other system: among Putin’s much-touted wonder weapons is the nuclear-powered Poseidon robotic torpedo.

If you're having flashbacks to 1986 -- I was a junior in high school, very much the young Cold Warrior, and remember this quite clearly -- so am I. The Soviet Union's outdated and poorly-designed nuclear power station at Chernobyl, Ukraine, suffered an open-air reactor core fire following an explosion on April 26 of that year. Heroic efforts were undertaken to avert an even greater disaster, yet despite nearly 100 deaths at or near the scene, the Kremlin tried to hide the fact that a huge nuclear reactor had just blown up in a small town not far from the capital of the country's second-most important republic. Ever since, the town had been the "Chernobyl Exclusion Zone," and uninhabited.

Two days after the explosion, radiation detectors went wild at Sweden's Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, more than 600 miles away. The Swedes contacted Soviet authorities behind the scenes, who at first denied that anything was wrong. Days later, Moscow was still downplaying to the West what had happened, all the while evacuating more than 100,000 locals as quietly as possible.

So what really happened on August 8 at Russia's Nyonoksa testing ground on the White Sea? Nobody who knows is saying much, which, given Russia's history, might be cause enough for alarm. Although clearly this most recent accident can't be as bad as Chernobyl, because there's just no way to cover up an explosion and radiation leak of that size for this long.

But we can probably draw two conclusions with some small measure of confidence.

The first is, whatever happened, it's certainly worse than Moscow will admit, given what we know about how Putin's Russia operates, and also what we just learned from that WSJ report. The second is that Putin's Russia, just like the Communist Soviet Union that preceded it, simply isn't capable of playing with matches of this size without putting their neighbors, or perhaps the world, at risk.

It's time to stop playing the I'm-Still-a-Superpower game, Mr. Putin, because you just aren't up to it.

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before ... August 19, 1921 ~ Happy Birthday Gene Rodenberry!!!

Born on August 19, 1921, in El Paso, Texas, Gene Roddenberry was a World War II Army Air Corps pilot before becoming a television writer and producer. He created the highly influential Star Trek television series, which spawned six feature-length films with the original cast. The franchise continued to expand with new movies and characters even after Roddenberry died of cardiac arrest on October 24, 1991.

Early Life and Career

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was born on August 19, 1921, in El Paso, Texas, and raised in Los Angeles, California. He joined the Army Air Corps after studying law enforcement at Los Angeles City College and flew 89 missions during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. While stationed in the South Pacific, he contributed stories and poetry to publications.

After the war, Roddenberry took a job as a commercial pilot for Pan American World Airlines before moving back to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a television writer.

Where No Man Had Gone Before

Gene Roddenberry worked as a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman and as a speechwriter for Chief William H. Parker in the early 1950s as he attempted to gain a foothold in the entertainment industry. Fortunately, the LAPD regularly consulted for the police show Dragnet, giving Roddenberry the opportunity to develop his script writing chops. He earned his first official television credit for an episode of Mr. District Attorney, and over the next decade he wrote for programs such as West Point, Naked City and Have Gun, Will Travel, for which he won his first Emmy Award.

In the mid-1960s, Roddenberry began work on a science-fiction show that he pitched as Wagon Train set in space. His original pilot was rejected by NBC as "too cerebral," but he was given another chance and in September 1966 the first episode of Star Trek aired. Featuring a diverse cast that included William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and George Takei, the show followed the U.S.S. Enterprise crew on its five-year mission to "boldly go where no man has gone before" in the far reaches of the galaxy. Although Star Trek found a loyal cult following, it was canceled in the summer of 1969 after 79 episodes.

Roddenberry stuck with the science-fiction theme as a writer and producer for the TV movies Genesis II (1973), Planet Earth (1974) and The Questor Tapes (1974). Meanwhile, Star Trek was enjoying a surge in popularity thanks to syndicated reruns and an animated version, and in 1975 Roddenberry was tapped to revive the franchise under the name Star Trek: Phase II. Executives elected to rush a feature-length film into production, and in 1979, the special effects-laden Star Trek: The Motion Picture opened to mixed reviews. Five sequels with the original cast followed, though Roddenberry had limited involvement after the first film as an "executive consultant."

Later Years and Legacy

On September 4, 1986, Roddenberry became the first writer/producer to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was an executive producer for Star Trek: The Next Generation, which became a huge hit following the series's launch in 1987. In 1990, he was honored with the Jack Benny Memorial Award of lifetime achievement by the March of Dimes.

Roddenberry went into cardiac arrest and passed away on October 24, 1991. His influence on popular culture was enormous; Star Trek became the first TV series to have an episode preserved in the Smithsonian Institution, and NASA named one of its space shuttles Enterprise. Four Next Generation movies and several television spin-offs were released in the years after Roddenberry's death, and in 2009 a Star Trek reboot was a box-office smash, proving that its characters and themes remained as beloved as ever. The reboot series continued with the blockbusters Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016).

Link:  https://www.biography.com/people/gene-roddenberry-9461573

Rally for Israel in India

India: Over ten thousand rally in support of Israel

10,000+ Hindus unite in a major rally in India to denounce terrorism, show support for Israel.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 19/08/19 10:19

Share

Hindu-Jewish unity rally

SinghaBahini

Last week, braving extremely inclement weather and floods, SinghaBahini, a grassroots organization in India, organized a major pro-Israel rally in Kolkata, India.
The Kolkata rally saw more than 10 -12,000 people come together to attend. With bumper-to-bumper traffic and roads clogged due to sudden heavy downpour and floods, many more who wanted to attend the rally could not make it to the site.
President of SinghaBahini Devdutta Maji, who organized the rally, said, "Hindus for generations have been facing genocides. We have lost 400 million Hindus in the last 1400 years. 53 million Hindus have simply vanished from Bangladesh alone. This must end. Hindus need to get organized and see inspiration in the tiny beautiful nation of Israel, on how they stop terrorism on their own soil and support their own people."
Devdutta Maji, who visited Israel in 2018 and was hosted by Israel-based organizations and activists, told the Jerusalem Herald, "Today's rally will help to build on the foundations we have created for the India Israel relationship on a people to people basis."
"The implications of these are bound to spill over to co-operation between the two communities worldwide, who share similar values, making us strong."
In the rally, placards reading, "We Support the Jewish People in their 2000 years Old Struggle,", "India and Israel Friends forever," and "We Support Israel in their WAR against TERRORISM" were also put up.
The relations between India and Israel have shown a positive turn under the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With strong trade ties, people to people contact and rallies in support of Israel as seen recently, ties between India and Israel and between the Hindus and Jews worldwide are expected to strengthen further.
While the organization SinghaBahini is just a year old, its organizers have been fighting the existential battle for the Hindus in the villages of Eastern India for over a decade. Devdutta Maji, SinghaBahini's founder, was instrumental in organizing two previous large pro-Israel rallies in India: one in 2014, with 20,000 people, and another in 2018, with 70,000 people.

At the rally SinghaBahini

The rally approaching SinghaBahini

At the rally SinghaBahini

Indians proclaim: Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel SinghaBahini

The crowd from afar SinghaBahini

Women activists leading pro-Israel rally SinghaBahini

Women leading pro-Israel rally SinghaBahini

SinghaBahini President Devdutta Maji addresses the rally SinghaBahini

link to source article below, may not be secure:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/267

Vegetable Brown Rice Sushi ~ One-Minute Video

Forks Over Knives
Published: 17 AUG 2017


"Once you get the hang of rolling them, sushi rolls are actually easy to make. If you don’t have a bamboo mat, you can use a cloth towel for rolling instead."

     Ingredients:

• 3½ cups cooked short-grain brown rice
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt (optional)
• 1 medium Persian cucumber, cut into ¼-inch sticks
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into ¼-inch strips
• 1 medium carrot, cut into ¼-inch sticks
• 1 avocado, thinly sliced
• 4 nori sheets
• Low-sodium tamari or soy sauce for serving
• Wasabi paste, for serving 

Directions:

• Combine the cooked rice, maple syrup, vinegar, and salt (if using) in a saucepan. Mix well and warm over the stove for 3 to 5 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice gets a bit sticky.
• Assemble your sushi station: Include a cutting board, a sharp knife, a bamboo mat (or cloth towel), a bowl with water, rice, nori sheets, and the vegetables.
• Place a nori sheet on the mat. Spread ¾ cup of the rice in a thin layer over most of the sheet. Keep your hands damp by dipping them in the bowl of water; this will prevent the rice from sticking to your fingers. Keep the rice ½ inch away from the top and bottom ends, the ends closest to and farthest from you. You can spread them right to the edges on the other two sides.
• Place the cucumber, bell pepper, carrot, and avocado on top.
• With the help of the mat, lift the bottom end of the nori sheet over the vegetables and tuck under. Roll the nori toward the top end. Using your fingers, apply water to the edge of the sheet and roll to seal it. Press the open ends to pack in any rice and vegetables trying to escape.
• Using a sharp knife dipped in the bowl of water, cut the rolled sheet in half. Continue to cut each segment into halves until you get 8 pieces.
• Repeat with the remaining sheets.
• Serve with the tamari and wasabi paste.

Why paper is considered...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/08/14/why-paper-is-considered-state-of-the-art-voting-technology/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=75781911

Why paper is considered state-of-the-art voting technology

Raj Karan GambhirWednesday, August 14, 2019

On June 27, the House passed a bill that would bolster America’s high-tech voting infrastructure with a low-tech fix: paper. Introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-19), the SAFE Act requires that all voting machines involve “the use of an individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballot of the voter’s vote.” While the inclusion of paper ballots may seem like a technological step backward, the SAFE Act’s affinity for paper is not a quirk. Election security experts from Harvard, Stanford and the Brennan Center for Justice all recommend the phasing out of paperless voting, and twelve of the thirteen Democratic candidates who have declared a position on election security support mandating the use of paper ballots.

Yet despite expert consensus, political activism, and availability of funding, opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate makes it unlikely that the SAFE Act or any paper ballot standard will be implemented by 2020. With no method to verify votes in the case of software or hardware failure, paperless voting machines represent a large vulnerability. Failure to act on election security risks not only a loss of trust in the next election, but in the democratic process as a whole.

The role of paper ballots in voting machines

Broadly speaking, there are three classes of voting machines. Today, the most commonly used devices are optical scan machines. In this system, poll workers use an optical scanner, a device which registers marks on a page, to process voters’ paper ballots, storing the results electronically. This system has a paper audit trail by design, and election officials can compare the paper ballots each voter fills out with the scanner’s tabulation.

A less common class of voting machines is ballot marking devices, in which voters select their choice on a screen. Rather than storing the selections electronically, the machine then prints a paper ballot to be either hand counted or scanned by a computer.

The only widely used machines that do not incorporate paper as a necessary part of their design are direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines. When using DREs, voters select their choices onscreen, transmitting the data straight into the voting machine’s memory. While DREs can record voters’ choices onto paper, many do not. These DREs that completely forgo paper ballots are among the most vulnerable parts of American election infrastructure.

From paper to paperless and back again

America’s turn to paperless voting has its roots in the confusion caused by ambiguous ballot marking during the 2000 election. In its aftermath, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which allocated $3.9 billion to help voting precincts replace old lever and punch card systems with state-of-the-art equipment. While computer scientists warned Congress at the time of the dangers of paperless systems, HAVA passed both chambers of Congress without requiring that funds be used to purchase systems that utilize paper ballots.

When HAVA came into effect, DREs were seen by many as the most accessible, convenient, and high-tech option. The fully-electronic systems displayed text in multiple languages, accommodated the hearing- and visually-impaired, and simplified logistics for poll workers. According to the New York Times, over two-thirds of precincts used DREs after HAVA.

The DRE honeymoon was brief, with problems surfacing as early as the 2002 election. Concerns over paperless DREs came to a head in the 2004 election in which Democratic activists and politicians claimed that error with the newly installed DRE machines had swung the election in Bush’s favor.

High-tech voting systems need low-tech paper

Without a paper audit trail, it can be difficult to detect errors or breaches in the voting machine’s software or hardware, possibly allowing an incursion into American voting systems to go unnoticed. Even if an error is found, performing an audit of a paperless system can be difficult or impossible given a lack of redundant records to verify vote totals.

These concerns are not hypothetical: At the 2018 DEF CON hacking conference, a computer scientist easily manipulated a paperless DRE system such that every vote for one candidate registered as a vote for their opponent. Even more troubling was that without a paper audit trail, it was not possible to know the true count for each candidate.

The vulnerability of paperless systems became a real issue during the tight Georgia gubernatorial and Texas senate races of 2018. In both cases, paperless DRE machines allegedly switched votes for Democratic candidates into Republican votes. While this was likely a software glitch, the lack of a paper audit trail confuses what the intended votes were, and whether these allegations were true.

Why have these machines not been replaced yet?

As controversy over paperless DREs has mounted, states have gradually adopted systems that use a paper audit trail. However, as of the 2018 midterm election, 12 states representing 150 electoral college votes use paperless DREs as their primary election infrastructure in some of their precincts. Many election officials would like to replace insecure machines but are limited by shortages in funding. While the aforementioned SAFE Act would provide a much needed $600 million with a continuing $175 million every two years for election machine upgrade and renewal, it may take a new Senate or president to enact new election infrastructure standards.

In the meantime, those drafting proposals in Congress on the campaign trail would do best to remember the mistakes of HAVA and listen to the recommendations of election security experts for voting machines. Experts are currently sounding the alarm over certain types of ballot marking devices, and even DREs with paper audit trails.

Should lawmakers committed to election security have the opportunity to enact substantive legislation, they should take great care in specifying the security requirements for voting machines that precincts be permitted to buy with allocated funds. Needlessly employing vulnerable infrastructure will not only undermine the integrity of the 2020 election but will tear into the very fabric that undergirds democratic society, the electoral process.

The Unmasking Of BDS

https://spectator.org/the-unmasking-of-bds/

The Unmasking of BDS

Congress will need to do much more.

by ZIVA DAHL

August 19, 2019, 12:02 AM

After fourteen years of being lulled by propagandists into believing that their boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign (BDS) is a human rights movement, we’re finally waking up to the deception.

The U.S. House last month overwhelmingly passed a bill opposing BDS efforts to target and delegitimize the State of Israel. Last February, the Senate passed a bill, never taken up by the House, legalizing the right of state governments and employee benefit plans to refuse to do business with companies boycotting Israel, thereby protecting the 27 states with anti-BDS legislation. Concerned about BDS similarity to Nazi boycotts and incitement of anti-Semitism becoming “the breeding ground for escalations to violence,” the German parliament recently passed a resolution declaring BDS anti-Semitic.

The Western world is acting, albeit slowly, to unmask BDS for what it is — a dangerous 21st century iteration of the age-old scourge of Jew-hatred. Anti-Semitism is a mutating cancer, evolving and adapting, intent on destroying Jews in their host communities. Our State Department definition of modern-day anti-Semitism identifies expressions of hatred, including when disguised as Israel-bashing and anti-Zionism, the hallmarks of BDS.

The BDS movement was founded by left-wing socialists and Marxists in 2001 explicitly to undermine Israel’s sovereignty, skillfully exploiting the language of peace, justice, and human rights to appeal to Western audiences. Adopted by Palestinian extremists in 2005, BDS misleads civic and cultural organizations, governments, and individuals into believing that its goal is merely to establish a Palestinian state living peacefully beside a Jewish state. Using sophisticated subterfuge to hide its linkage to Palestinian terror groups, it obscures its extremist endgame — the destruction of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and the creation of yet another Arab-majority state.

People who should know better have bought into this “Big Lie,” conforming to their ideological predisposition and antipathies toward Israel, Jews, and the West. BDS founder Omar Barghouti calls for the destruction of Israel. He explained that a Jewish state “contravene[s] the basic rights of the land’s indigenous Palestinian population.… Ending the occupation doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean upending the Jewish state itself.”

BDS is the latest version of a history of boycotting European Jews. Arabs boycotted Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine. The Arab League formalized this policy in 1945, three years before Israeli statehood.

By delegitimizing and demonizing Israel, BDS flagrantly crosses the line into pure anti-Semitism. Its supporters equate Israel with Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. By advocating the right of return of millions of Palestinians, it attacks the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. It targets Jewish students, intimidating, harassing and physically threatening them.

New York Times writer Roger Cohen, a liberal critic of Israel, realizes that “Mellifluous talk of democracy and rights and justice masks the BDS objective that is nothing other than the end of the Jewish state.”

Israel has issued a report, “Terrorists in Suits,” providing detailed evidence of more than 100 links between BDS and Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, both U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. More than 30 Hamas and PFLP operatives hold senior positions within BDS advocacy organizations. Known terrorists are invited to national conventions of BDS affiliates, radicalizing followers to view terror acts as legitimate resistance. “We believe that people under occupation, in international law, have a right to resist by any means, including violent means,” said Barghouti.

Victory against this sinister marketing campaign is not at all assured. Strong forces within the Democrat Party inhibit bipartisan support against BDS. Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilan Omar (D-MN), champion of the first pro-BDS resolution in Congress, and others invoke America’s boycott of Nazi Germany and the civil rights movement in their support for BDS. Of the seven Democrat presidential candidates, only Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) supported the Senate anti-BDS legislation.

Congress must pass binding anti-BDS legislation, defining BDS as anti-Semitic, with penalties for engaging in discriminatory action against Jews. Title VI requirements must include the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism to protect Jewish students just like blacks, gays, or other ethnic groups.

The BDS movement is “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,” to echo George Orwell. It cannot be tolerated. History demonstrates that Jews are the proverbial canary in the coal mine and any country allowing anti-Semitism to flourish is one in which all freedom is imperiled.

Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center.