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Back from conducting art tour to view GMOA's paintings in Athens.
Believe those who went had an interesting opportunity to mingle with some of the curators, have dinner with the director and view a friend's private collection of TAOS paintings.
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Paranoid politics - Tom Sowell. (See 1 below.)
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Israel - the start up nation remains alive and well though changing directions. (See 2 below.)
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Fox bows to pressure from Obama. (See 3 below.)
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When the shoe is on the other foot. (See 4 below.)
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Crony capitalism, what it is and why it is bad. (See 5 below.)
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A neurologist examines Cruz's face. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1) Paranoid Politics
By Thomas Sowell
Amid all the media analyses of the prospects of each of the candidates in both political parties, there is remarkably little discussion of the validity -- or lack of validity -- of the arguments these candidates are using.
It is as if what matters this election year is the fate of a relative handful of people-- currently seven -- running for their respective parties' nominations. Meanwhile, the fate of the 320 million Americans who are going to be affected by the outcome of this year's election fades into the background.
The fact that Hillary Clinton's election prospects, for example, depend on her ability to get the black vote has been talked about in the media numerous times. But what about the fate of millions of black people, and how that will be affected by the way Hillary Clinton is trying to get their votes?
Her basic pitch to black voters is that they have all sorts of enemies, and that blacks need her to protect them, which she is ready to do if they vote for her. In short, Hillary's political fate depends on spreading fear and, if possible, paranoia.
Similar attempts to get the votes of women are based on conjuring up enemies who are waging a "war on women," with Hillary again cast in the role of someone ready to come to their rescue, if they will give her their votes.
In both cases, rhetoric and repetition take the place of hard evidence. The closest thing to evidence being offered is that the average income of blacks is not the same as the average income of whites, and the average income of women is not the same as the average income of men.
But the average incomes of people in their twenties is usually lower than the average income of people in their forties -- and by a greater amount than the income difference between women and men, or the income difference between blacks and whites. Does that mean that middle-aged people are enemies of young adults?
In countries around the world, and for centuries of recorded history, people living up in the mountains have usually been poorer than people living on the land below. Does this mean that people in the lowlands have somehow been robbing mountain people? Or does it mean that the circumstances of people living in mountains have usually been less promising than the circumstances of others?
If poverty among blacks is due to whites, why has the poverty rate among black married couples been in single digits every year since 1994, despite far higher poverty rates among other blacks? Do most white employers even know -- or care -- which blacks are married?
When the imprisonment rate of blacks with a college education is a fraction of the imprisonment rate of other blacks, does that mean that white cops check out the education of blacks before they decide to arrest them?
Or does it mean that blacks who have chosen one way of life have very different prospects than those who have chosen a very different way of life -- as is true among whites, Asians, Hispanics and others?
Economic differences between women and men are not wholly due to personal choices, since only women have babies, and it is usually mothers who take time out from the job market to raise them.
When women work fewer hours per year than men, and do not work continuously for as many years as men, how surprised should we be that the sexes have different incomes on average?
Anyone who is being serious -- as distinguished from being political -- would have to take many factors into account before saying that male-female income differences, or black-white differences, are due to people with identical qualifications and experience being paid differently.
Any number of studies, including studies by female scholars, have shot down the oft-repeated claim that women are paid less than men with identical work qualifications. But that will not stop that same bogus claim from being made repeatedly this election year.
What about blacks, women or others who believe the political hype? Will that help them improve their lives, or will it be anther counterproductive distraction for them and another polarization of society that helps nobody, except those who seeking votes? As for the media, they are covering the political contests, not the effects of the lies generated in these contests.
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2)The Start-Up Nation Changes Direction
Israel, since the beginning of the high-tech revolution in the early 90s, has rightly earned the title of “Start-Up Nation” given that it is one of the top five centers of technical creativity in the world. I say the top five because rankings vary but clearly outside of the United States, Israel has more start-ups in absolute terms than any country in the world, bar none. With approximately 3,000 of them extant at any given moment, most other country’s stats pale by comparison.
But, of late, there has been a perceptible change in the makeup of the technology coming out of Israel. That change can be described as a switch from developing products to developing features and enhancements.
For example, in the past the things for which Israel was famous and which everyone acknowledged as transformational products included:
· SanDisk’s flash drive that enables people to store tens of gigabytes of data on a USB-accessible key.
· Computer chips that allowed Intel to dramatically increase the storage and operational capabilities of laptops without increasing the heat output of the processor.
· Development of the stent that allows patients with clogged arteries to have them opened and kept open permanently.
· Mobileye’s collision avoidance technology (using sophisticated vision algorithms) that ‘interprets’ a scene in real-time and provides drivers with an immediate evaluation based on its analysis. Automakers are now adopting this technology into their rapidly expanding safety feature applications known as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).
These are just a few examples of the tech product development that went on for years in Israel and contributed to Israel’s start-up nation reputation.
But lately, as we meet young startups seeking funding and strategic partners, we are noticing that the focus has turned to developing features and enhancements rather than specific products. Some current examples:
· SCREEMO helps retailers to engage with their customers in real-time and to create a call to action by using fun, engaging games that run on digital screens and attract customers to interact using their smartphones. This enables retailers to drive up sales, create a social buzz or promote their products and services.
· Rail Safe has developed an infra-red based technology that provides locomotive engineers with the ability to “see” up to two kilometers down the track, even in the dark and independent of any negative weather conditions such as rain, snow, sandstorms, and fog. For example, the technology would have averted the head-on collision of two commuter trains in Germany last week that killed so many people.
· TriDiNetworks has developed an innovative cloud based platform for wireless M2M (Machine-to-Machine) and IoT (Internet of Things) networks. The platform enables unprecedented low total cost of ownership and quick ROI based on patented algorithms, methods, tools and products. It is applicable for lighting and HVAC control, smart meters, home automation, smart appliances and wearable devices.
In each of these cases the developers have created a feature or enhancement that makes current activities either safer, more efficient or more profitable.
For those who worry about whether Israel as start-up nation is at risk of losing its “Mojo,” these new directions emanating from local techies clearly illustrate that the creative community here is well ahead of the curve and fully understands where the new opportunities are in technological development. This response augurs well in favor of Israel’s continued superiority as the start-up nation.
Sherwin Pomerantz has been living in Jerusalem for 32 years, is a past president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel and president of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem-based business development consultancy.
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3)FOX NEWS BOWS TO PRESSURE
========================================================================In response to Obama's complaint that FOX News doesn't show enough Black and Hispanic people on their network.FOX has announced that they will now air " America 's Most Wanted" TWICE a week.
4) Joe Biden’s Supreme Court Advice
The Vice President said in 1992 that the Senate shouldn’t act on a nominee in an election year.
Democrats keep saying that the Senate has a constitutional duty to vote on President Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy this year. We’ve already heard Senators Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid on tape saying the exact opposite when a Republican was President, and now we learn that Vice President Joe Biden also had a different view back in the day.
As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in June 1992, Mr. Biden spoke on the Senate floor the day before the Supreme Court was set to leave for recess. George H.W. Bush was President, Democrats controlled the Senate and they were worried that a Justice might resign before the election.
“President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not name a nominee until after the November election is completed,” Mr. Biden declared. And if the President were to plow ahead and name a new Justice anyway, “a process that is already in doubt in the minds of many will become distrusted by all. Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the President, to the nominee or to the Senate itself.”
Mr. Biden added that the Senate would have to fulfill its own constitutional duty of advice and consent, but that could mean withholding consent when it believed doing so was in the best interests of the Court and the country. “It is my view that if the President goes the way of Presidents Fillmore and Johnson and presses an election-year nomination,” Mr. Biden said, “the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over.”
(You gotta love that Fillmore reference. America’s 13th President never does seem to get his historical due. He was the last Whig President, by the way.)
Mr. Biden even said the Senate’s decision shouldn’t depend on the merits of a particular nominee. The inconveniences of a High Court with only eight Justices “are quite minor compared to the cost that a nominee, the President, the Senate and the Nation would have to pay for what would assuredly be a bitter fight, no matter how good a person is nominated by the President,” he said.
So there it is—a triple play of Democratic double standards on confirming Supreme Court Justices in an election year. Republicans should run these every time they respond to President Obama’s spin about “precedent” and Supreme Court confirmations
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