Stella, my magnet granddaughter on the right - "Hi -
Today in Science, we learned about magnetism.
First, we talked about what the word 'attract' means. We also discussed what we already know about magnets. For example, we know that they stick to our refrigerators.
Next, we each pulled an object out of a bag.
===
I happened to be speaking with Helen Stone the night of the recent SIRC "President's Day Dinner" and she is running for re-election and deserves your vote if she represents you.
===
The "flip generation" might be in for some surprises because their bosses are from a different generation and still have some character and principles. (See 1 below.)
===
Trump is not necessarily the person I would have selected as nominee of The Republican Party nor the candidate I believe should be our president but considering the two candidates the Democrats are prepared to force upon me I find Trump preferable.
Secondly, I do not find Trump as repugnant as so many others in the media and print world.
I believe the times call for someone who is the opposite of Obama in virtually every way thinkable and, for better or worse, Trump fills that bill.
Third,Trump has proven a very interesting campaigner because he has defied all the experts and did so by simply being himself and not the concoction or puppet of handlers.
He captured the mood of the nation, that people are angry, feel disconnected and lack confidence in government to achieve anything promised, needed, meaningful etc.
Finally, I suspect he understands his weaknesses (though his ego would never allow him to publicly admit) and will give a nod to a V.P candidate who will complement him, fill some of his voids and I daresay Trump will probably listen.
I also do not believe he will construct a cabinet of "yesers" but will fill each position based on his desire the appointees be problem solvers.
I would also like to think the unthinkable and would hope Trump would close some governments agencies etc. It would be far cheaper to retire many of the mice who inhabit some of these Federal mazes because the cost of their employment and operation of their facilities is far more than would be their pensions and considering what they accomplish is contrary to what we need it would be a win win.
Trump will probably take us for some wild rides but remember our adversaries will not be able to figure him out any more than the "domestic" experts have so if it to be Trump and he runs against either Hillarious or Bernie, I will give him my vote, pray I am right and willingly roll the dice.
I know the dice are loaded against me if I vote for Bernie the socialist who wants us to become Denmark and/or Hillarious the pant suit lady I find so morally unsuitable!
An interesting perspective. I agree with much of it as well. (See 2 below.)
===
Israel offers a warning to Europe. (See 3 below.)
===
Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of attending a closed conference call with David Horovitz regarding his thoughts on the current scene with respect to Israel and his response to questions. (See 4 below.)
===
Obama has decimated the coal industry, wasted billions on premature alternate fuel boondoggles and dis-employed tens of thousands of hard working Americans all because of his ideological war against the greatest threat America faces - fossil fuels. This from the head of a party that is all for the little person.
Hillary gets more money from speaking, while saying nothing worth hearing, than mining families earn in their lifetime but she cares for all you little people. Yeah, she is going to fight for you and don't you think otherwise because she came from a common folk Arkansas Hillbilly family just like you little people.
As for Bernie, he too cares for you. He cares for you so much he wants to have the government take over everything you use to do for yourself so you can turn to "Uncle Sam," quit being independent and just live off the rich 1%. If you need anything just come to uncle Bernie's store. He knows the needs of the working class because he has really never worked an honest day in his socialist life.
These are the two leaders of the new Democrat Party and if you will just allow them to help you get out of the mess they put you in all will be right - with what is left of your world. (See 5 below.)
===
And politicians cannot accomplish anything: People Are Awesome, Some Must be Crazy
==
Dick
========================================================================1) A Response to the Millennial Who Thinks She's Entitled to Everything
By now, most people are probably aware of the latest stupidity trending on social media. If not, to briefly recap, on Friday, a spoiled brat named Talia Jane flipped her boss the bird via an open letter on Medium.com and, surprise of surprises, got the axe. Unfortunately, the idiocy in this nation has reached such a fever pitch that one must address it, and address it daily, before we all wake up one day to find a reality TV star in the White House.
Talia Jane's letters are so full of irony that if this wasn't the year 2016 and millennials weren't sucking up half the air in this country and supporting, rather unironically, someone who was the '60s answer to Millennialism, I'd think her story was ripped from the pages of The Onion.Talia Jane is into "comedy – writing – better at thinking about things than actually doing them." Doesn't that last bit just encapsulate the millennial generation perfectly? No more honest a phrase has ever been written by anyone. And guess what, Talia Jane: I completely #feelya. See, I love to write, too, and writers, by nature, are thinkers, not doers. But one need not look any farther than Ernest Hemingway or Ian Fleming to realize that even writers need to "do," if for no other reason than to have something to write about. If not, then they end up like Lenin (or Lennon, for that matter), writing about struggles they only think they know, as is the case with our dear Talia Jane.
Talia Jane's tragic story was doomed almost from the beginning. First, she was using hashtags way back in the '90s. Second, at that impressionable age of eight, she somehow got the notion that "having a car and a credit card and my own apartment" were "what it means to be an adult." Maybe on Friends or Seinfeld, but not in real life.
Let me tell you about being an adult, Talia Jane: it's not all it's cracked up to be, except when it is, and those are the times they never told you about when you were eight years old, listening to "Spice Girls and owning a pager." (As an aside, I think the real tragedy in all this is that the poor young Talia Jane only dreamed of owning a pager, her mother clearly being too much of an ogre to give her a cell phone. Quelle horreur!)
I don't blame Talia Jane so much as I blame her Gen-X parents. And I don't blame her Gen-X parents so much as I blame their Baby-Boomer parents. And I don't blame their Baby-Boomer parents so much as I blame the Baby-Boomers' Greatest Generation parents.
It seems, sadly, that since the end of the Second World War, the members of every generation, in an effort to give their children everything they wanted, gave them everything except what they needed. And who wouldn't want the very best for his kids? Talia Jane doesn't know this yet, but none of us takes joy in telling his three-year-old that he can't have a treat because he didn't have his dinner, or that five minutes (which was probably five minutes more than we should have given in the first place) really means five minutes. But we do it nonetheless because we know that if we don't, the child will grow up without any respect for himself or anyone else and join the masses of folks "feeling the Bern," or worse, setting fire to their own cities as a way to air their grievances.
You see, Talia Jane was brought up to dream big dreams but not to do the hard work that goes into achieving them. It's unfortunate that Talia Jane had to learn the hard way that "a car and a credit card and an apartment would all be symbols of stress, not success," but it's even more unfortunate that she hasn't learned that her stress is of her own making. What Talia Jane doesn't realize yet is that she can take her grandfather's beater car and that ten-pound bag of rice and make for somewhere her dollar goes farther (and the government takes less of it in taxes, ironically). Of course, she might have to talk to some Republicans (#QuelleHorreur!), but such is the price of freedom.
Talia Jane also doesn't realize that the so-called "working poor" of today live better than the middle class of her grandparents' generation and oftentimes better than some of the middle class in nations most of us would consider first-world.
Talia Jane, before she bit the hand that fed her, had a car, an apartment, a college degree, a job, and all the free coconut water, pistachio nuts, and bread she could eat while at work. Heck, at my job, all we get is coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. And Talia Jane's job involved sitting on her privileged rear end answering phone calls from other privileged rear ends who apparently had to wait more than 30 minutes for their lamb vindaloo. Clean the fryers at the Bombay Grill at midnight, then get back to me, Talia Jane.
Now free from her corporate overlords, Talia Jane's decided she wants to do something constructive with her newfound fame. Her new raison d'être? You might have guessed it by now: a "living wage" for all!
She writes, "[C]all me entitled but I don't think you should be barred from growing and exploring and taking risks because your income isn't in proportion with the cost of living in your area."
Oh, Talia Jane, I really hate to break this to you, but if life were all unicorns and lollipops, then it wouldn't be a risk. I'll leave you with this: you want to help the working poor? Get a new job, work your way up in the ranks to a point where you have a little disposable income, and then join Rotary like your grandfather and give of your own time and treasure. My guess is that Jeremy Stoppelman is already contributing more than his fair share.
Mark Griswold is a blogger and radio show host (he has a "real job") who lives just outside the "home of the original Living Wage," Seattle, with his wife and two desperately unentitled children. He can be reached through his website, ThePoliticalBistro.com.
By now, most people are probably aware of the latest stupidity trending on social media. If not, to briefly recap, on Friday, a spoiled brat named Talia Jane flipped her boss the bird via an open letter on Medium.com and, surprise of surprises, got the axe. Unfortunately, the idiocy in this nation has reached such a fever pitch that one must address it, and address it daily, before we all wake up one day to find a reality TV star in the White House.
Talia Jane's letters are so full of irony that if this wasn't the year 2016 and millennials weren't sucking up half the air in this country and supporting, rather unironically, someone who was the '60s answer to Millennialism, I'd think her story was ripped from the pages of The Onion.
Talia Jane is into "comedy – writing – better at thinking about things than actually doing them." Doesn't that last bit just encapsulate the millennial generation perfectly? No more honest a phrase has ever been written by anyone. And guess what, Talia Jane: I completely #feelya. See, I love to write, too, and writers, by nature, are thinkers, not doers. But one need not look any farther than Ernest Hemingway or Ian Fleming to realize that even writers need to "do," if for no other reason than to have something to write about. If not, then they end up like Lenin (or Lennon, for that matter), writing about struggles they only think they know, as is the case with our dear Talia Jane.
Talia Jane's tragic story was doomed almost from the beginning. First, she was using hashtags way back in the '90s. Second, at that impressionable age of eight, she somehow got the notion that "having a car and a credit card and my own apartment" were "what it means to be an adult." Maybe on Friends or Seinfeld, but not in real life.
Let me tell you about being an adult, Talia Jane: it's not all it's cracked up to be, except when it is, and those are the times they never told you about when you were eight years old, listening to "Spice Girls and owning a pager." (As an aside, I think the real tragedy in all this is that the poor young Talia Jane only dreamed of owning a pager, her mother clearly being too much of an ogre to give her a cell phone. Quelle horreur!)
I don't blame Talia Jane so much as I blame her Gen-X parents. And I don't blame her Gen-X parents so much as I blame their Baby-Boomer parents. And I don't blame their Baby-Boomer parents so much as I blame the Baby-Boomers' Greatest Generation parents.
It seems, sadly, that since the end of the Second World War, the members of every generation, in an effort to give their children everything they wanted, gave them everything except what they needed. And who wouldn't want the very best for his kids? Talia Jane doesn't know this yet, but none of us takes joy in telling his three-year-old that he can't have a treat because he didn't have his dinner, or that five minutes (which was probably five minutes more than we should have given in the first place) really means five minutes. But we do it nonetheless because we know that if we don't, the child will grow up without any respect for himself or anyone else and join the masses of folks "feeling the Bern," or worse, setting fire to their own cities as a way to air their grievances.
You see, Talia Jane was brought up to dream big dreams but not to do the hard work that goes into achieving them. It's unfortunate that Talia Jane had to learn the hard way that "a car and a credit card and an apartment would all be symbols of stress, not success," but it's even more unfortunate that she hasn't learned that her stress is of her own making. What Talia Jane doesn't realize yet is that she can take her grandfather's beater car and that ten-pound bag of rice and make for somewhere her dollar goes farther (and the government takes less of it in taxes, ironically). Of course, she might have to talk to some Republicans (#QuelleHorreur!), but such is the price of freedom.
Talia Jane also doesn't realize that the so-called "working poor" of today live better than the middle class of her grandparents' generation and oftentimes better than some of the middle class in nations most of us would consider first-world.
Talia Jane, before she bit the hand that fed her, had a car, an apartment, a college degree, a job, and all the free coconut water, pistachio nuts, and bread she could eat while at work. Heck, at my job, all we get is coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. And Talia Jane's job involved sitting on her privileged rear end answering phone calls from other privileged rear ends who apparently had to wait more than 30 minutes for their lamb vindaloo. Clean the fryers at the Bombay Grill at midnight, then get back to me, Talia Jane.
Now free from her corporate overlords, Talia Jane's decided she wants to do something constructive with her newfound fame. Her new raison d'être? You might have guessed it by now: a "living wage" for all!
She writes, "[C]all me entitled but I don't think you should be barred from growing and exploring and taking risks because your income isn't in proportion with the cost of living in your area."
Oh, Talia Jane, I really hate to break this to you, but if life were all unicorns and lollipops, then it wouldn't be a risk. I'll leave you with this: you want to help the working poor? Get a new job, work your way up in the ranks to a point where you have a little disposable income, and then join Rotary like your grandfather and give of your own time and treasure. My guess is that Jeremy Stoppelman is already contributing more than his fair share.
Mark Griswold is a blogger and radio show host (he has a "real job") who lives just outside the "home of the original Living Wage," Seattle, with his wife and two desperately unentitled children.
2)Weekly Commentary: Donald Trump, Treaties and Israeli-Arab Deal
By Dr. Aaron Lerner
As an Israeli, I try to steer clear of making observations about American
candidates.
Nevertheless, there are three quick ideas I would like to share:
1. When Donald Trump suggests he can unilaterally slap a duty on Mexican
goods why don't the journalists covering him (or for that matter the teams
of the candidates running against him) go to the trouble to check if this
jibes with the treaty the United States signed covering trade with Mexico?
It doesn't.
2. Mr. Trump says he would like to negotiate a deal between Israel and the
Palestinians. One that would require that Israel make great sacrifices that
he isn't sure we would be willing to make. Donald Trump comes from the
business world where one selects a handful of deals worth negotiating from
thousands of possibilities. This isn't one of them. We don't need a
broker. We need a backer.
3. I'm not going to go into the virtues of the very logical and reasonable
argument that the United States gets its money's worth from the defense
dollars it contributes to the Jewish State. I expect that businessman Trump
will wonder why the United States, so incredibly in the red in its federal
budget, should be giving money to a country in such fantastic fiscal shape.
I will no doubt anger many of my fellow Israelis, but I suggest that we
preempt whoever is going to be elected by thanking America now for their
generosity and graduating now to a relationship that focuses on cooperation
and sets aside the begging.
If we feel that project X is important, we should pull out our own checkbook
and bankroll its progress in accordance with our needs. Its timetable
should reflect its importance - not the timing of transfers from Uncle Sam.
And as paying customers rather than beggars, Israel would be in a
significantly better position to cut deals best tailored to meet its needs.
And this with Made in Israel products able to compete with Made in USA.
Right now purchasing decisions are distorted by "free" American products.
Our soldiers even wear inferior Made in America boots because the IDF
doesn't want to spend the money to buy the Israeli combat boots. For years
troops were given inferior American rifles because the superior Israeli ones
cost money. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Why act now? Today we would get credit for the move. Postpone the move
too much and we may find ourselves in a no win situation: if we act, it may
be interpreted as a sign of retreat and fear and if we don't we may find
ourselves facing a humiliating unilateral cut.
========================================================================
3)
Ya’alon: Iran readying sleeper cells to attack US, Europe
Defense minister, in Cyprus, accuses Tehran of being anchor of axis that includes Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Saana and elsewhere
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon accused Iran Wednesday of building an international terror network that includes “sleeper cells” that are stockpiling arms, intelligence and operatives to be ready to strike on command in places including Europe and the US.
Ya’alon, speaking in Cyprus, said Iran is aiming to destabilize the Middle East and other parts of the world and is training, funding and arming “emissaries” to spread a revolution.
He called Tehran the anchor of a “dangerous axis” that includes Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Saana and other cities in the region.
In 2012, a Lebanese man was arrested in Cyprus and accused of plotting a Hezbollah attack against Israelis.
Israel considers Iran the biggest threat to the region, citing its support for anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as efforts to use the power vacuum in Syria to set up cells to attack Israel from the Golan Heights.
Ya’alon’s comments came during a one-day visit to the island to meet with counterpart Christoforos Fokaides. The visit was touted by local media as the first to Cyprus by an Israeli defense minister.
Ya’alon, who earlier this week expressed doubt a US and Russian brokered ceasefire in Syria would hold, said that the war there has resulted in “widespread infiltration by murderous, merciless terror organizations.”
Israel has recently grown closer to Cyprus and last month held tripartite talks with Cyprus and Greece over energy exploration in the Mediterranean, following large offshore finds of natural gas.
During his visit, Ya’alon also met the President of the House of Representatives and Acting President of the Republic, Yiannakis Omirou and was taken to lay a wreath at the Imprisoned Graves in Nicosia.
An official press release said that Ya’alon visited the military Camp of Lieutenant General Vasiliou Kapota in Nicosia, where a monument dedicated to Cyprus-Israel friendship was unveiled.
===================================================================================
4)David Horovitz is the founding editor of the online newspaper The Times of Israel.
He was previously the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s English-language daily, before stepping down in July 2011 after almost seven years, and editor and publisher of the award-winning newsmagazine The Jerusalem Report.
In his writing and lectures, Horovitz often seeks to promote intra-Jewish tolerance and to urge the Israeli leadership to devote more attention to the struggle for Israeli legitimacy on “the second battlefield” – in the media, the legal arena and diplomatic forums. He gave a warmly received address on the subject at the 2009 Herzliya Conference.
Horovitz has written from Israel for newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Irish Times and (London) Independent. He is a frequent interviewee on CNN, the BBC, Sky, Fox News, NPR and other TV and radio stations.
Horovitz lectures widely in Israel, the United States and Europe on Israeli current affairs, regularly giving the introductory briefing on Israel to Congressional delegations brought to Israel under the aegis of AIPAC.
He has conducted landmark interviews with a succession of Israeli and international figures, including all of Israel’s recent prime ministers, Presidents Barack Obama (when he visited Israel as a candidate in 2008) and George Bush, as well as Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin and, to the particular delight of his children, Paul McCartney.
Horovitz is the author of 2004’s “Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism,” and 2000’s “A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel,” both published in the US by Knopf. He edited and co-wrote The Jerusalem Report’s 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin, “Shalom, Friend,” which was published in 12 countries and won the U.S. National Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction. He was the recipient of 2005’s JDC award for journalism on Israel and Diaspora Affairs, and is a previous winner of the Bnai Brith World Center award for journalism.
A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he was profiled, in the university’s 90th anniversary President’s Report, as the graduate who had most impacted Israel’s reality in the field of media, alongside Dorit Beinisch (judiciary), Yuval Steinitz (the legislature) and other Israeli luminaries.
Horovitz immigrated to Israel from London in 1983 and did his army reserve service in the Educational Corps. He is married to Lisa and they have three children.
===============================================================
5)
Reviving America’s Obama-Devastated Coal Country
With thousands pushed into unemployment, right-to-work laws can help Kentucky and West Virginia make a comeback.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/TETRA IMAGES RF
Few states have been as devastated by the Obama administration’s war on coal as West
Virginia and Kentucky. During the past seven years, they have reeled from bankruptcies
in the mining and energy industries. Some 20,000 jobs have been lost. Fortunately,
lawmakers in Charleston and Frankfort are moving toward pro-growth policies that might
help their states make up for lost ground.
Right-to-work legislation, which gives workers the freedom to choose whether to join a
union or pay union fees, could revitalize these states’ economies. Roughly half of U.S.
states have right-to-work laws, and between 2004 and 2014 their economies grew 19.3%, according to our study of Bureau of Economic Analysis data. That compares with 10.2%
for states without such laws. This growth advantage has persisted through every 10-year
period since the 1960s, according to data from the 2014 book “The Wealth of States.”
Additional growth creates jobs and helps incomes rise faster. From 2005-15, the
employment rolls in right-to-work states grew by 8.1%, our analysis of Bureau of Labor
Statistics data shows, compared with the national average of 5.4% and only 4.0% in states
where workers are forced to join a union. Meanwhile, personal income per capita grew 3.5% faster in right-to-work states, according to BEA data.
Democrats point to higher incomes in union states as proof that “right to work” really
means “right to work for less.” Yet those states, concentrated in the Northeast and on the
West Coast, are among the most expensive places to live. A 2013 analysis by the
Mackinac Center for Public Policy adjusted for the cost of living and found that per capita personal incomes in right-to-work states were actually 4.1% higher than in union states.
These economic advantages would be a boon to West Virginia and Kentucky, where the
war on coal has destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of families. Since President
Obama took office, 335 West Virginia coal mines have closed, according to the West
Virginia Coal Association. Nearly 10,000 mining jobs—over one-third of the industry’s employment in the Mountain State—have been eliminated, contributing to an
unemployment rate of 6.3%, the fifth-highest in the country. Similar economic desperation exists in parts of Kentucky. Sixteen counties east of Frankfort had unemployment rates above 10% in December, and nearly every county was above the national rate of 4.9%.
These blighted areas are desperate for the economic opportunities that right to work could
usher in. Many companies, especially manufacturers, cite these laws as one of the most
important considerations when deciding where to locate their operations. Right to work i
s “the first lens on the decision,” Richard H. Thompson of the commercial real-estate
company JLL said in the trade publication Area Development’s Q1/2015 Corporate Survey. A 2015 study from NERA Economic Consulting found that from 2001-12, the number of businesses in right-to-work states grew by 5.6%; in union states the number dropped by
0.8%.
West Virginia completed its right-to-work law earlier this month, when legislators
overrode Gov. Ray Tomblin’s veto of their bill. That makes the Mountain State the 26th i
n the country to enact such legislation, joining Indiana (2012), Michigan (2013) and
Wisconsin (2015). When it comes to giving workers freedom from unions, more progress
has been made in five years than in the past half century.
Momentum for change is also building in Kentucky. Thanks to the intransigence of state lawmakers in recent years, 12 counties have passed right-to-work laws of their own since
2014. They were dealt a momentary set back on Feb. 4, when U.S. District Judge David Hale ruled that, under the National Labor Relations Act, only state governments have
authority to enact such legislation.
While that case is appealed to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lawmakers in
Frankfort should move ahead with a statewide law. Conventional wisdom once held that
right to work was a nonstarter in the state given the anticipated opposition from a heavily unionized and once-thriving coal industry. Yet today, after years of regulatory assault, not
a single unionized coal-mining job remains in the Bluegrass State.
A special election on March 8 for four vacant House seats could flip control of the
chamber for the first time in 95 years, priming the state for right-to-work legislation. With
58% of Kentuckians supporting right to work, according to a March 2015 Echelon
Strategies poll, Gov. Matt Bevin and state legislators should be compelled to follow West Virginia’s example.
Drawing manufacturers and entrepreneurs would go a long way toward revitalizing the
areas hit hardest by the Obama administration. The same can’t be said of the proposals
offered by his would-be successor, Hillary Clinton. Last year she suggested revitalizing
coal communities by spending $30 billion on new infrastructure projects, job-training
programs, an expanded New Markets Tax Credit and local “arts and culture” initiatives.
Put another way, Mrs. Clinton wants government policies to compensate for the crushing
costs of other government policies.
A thriving private economy is far more likely to lift thousands of people out of poverty,
enabling businesses—not bureaucrats—to provide opportunities for the unemployed to
restart their careers. The war on coal may have Kentuckians and West Virginians down,
but they don’t have to be out.
Ms. Crigler and Mr. Huffman are, respectively, the Kentucky and West Virginia state
directors for Americans for Prosperity.
=========================================================
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