Hitler lives  -- in America

A Israel defends itself against rocket fire and genocidal attack, the demonization of Israel and the scourge of raw anti-Semitism reappear

As Israel continues its dangerous incursion into Gaza to suppress Hamas terrorism and unceasing rocket attacks on Israeli citizens, predictably, the UN, the world media, and intellectual elites have initiated their collective denunciation of the Jewish state. More alarming have been the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and other U.S. and European cities which quickly devolved into anti-Semitic riots, with protestors yelling such epithets at pro-Israel counter demonstrators including such vile comments as, “Jews back to Birkenau” and “Drop dead, you Zionazi whores.”

In Boston, student supporters of Israel were surrounded by angry demonstrators, physically assaulted, and called “Jesus killers,” asked how many babies they had each murdered, and told they would “burn” for supporting Israel.

During Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-09 incursion by Israel into Gaza, campus radicals rose up in a similar manner, demonizing Israel for defending itself, accusing Jewish students and other supporters of Israel of being racist oppressors and supporting the “genocide” of Palestinian Arabs, and sponsoring campus events in which Israel, Zionism, and Jews were libeled, assaulted, and attacked for simply trying to live in peace.

Facing a fall semester of radicalism and hatred

We know from history that this fall campuses will again be in turmoil as pro-Palestinian activists, radical professors, and Muslim student groups agitate for resolutions, sanctions, and aggressive censure of Israel, and will use the recent events in Gaza as a platform for their continuing campaign to demonize Israel and intimidate Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of the Jewish state.

SPME addressed this same anti-Israel activism last semester as well in events such as these:

* At San Francisco State University the General Union of Palestinian Students organized an event at which students sold a t-shirt lauding Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, and the GUPS president, Mohammad Hammad, expressed the wish for all Israelis to be killed. Students were encouraged to use a stencil bearing the image of a notorious terrorist and another that stated, "MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS KILLED COLONIZERS"

* At University of Michigan, pro-Palestinian radicals promoting a BDS resolution on campus yelled “dirty Jew” and “get off campus, kikes” at pro-Israel students

* At Vassar College, members of Students for Justice in Palestine physically blocked faculty and students, passed out fliers, and verbally assaulted them as they attempted to enter a classroom where an International Studies course was being held because the course involved a trip to Israel and the West Bank. After a school-wide meeting was called by the diversity office to discuss the “ethics” of the trip, campus radicals continued to demonize Israel, harass the two Jewish professors leading the trip, and argue for the necessity for boycotts against Israel

* The American Studies Association, the Modern Language Association, and other academic associations continue to propose resolutions to boycott Israeli academic institutions, making the claim that Israeli academic institutions-and only Israeli ones-should be targeted for a boycott that marginalizes Jewish scholars because of the policies of their government. Radical faculty within these associations hold secret meetings and enlist the support of well-known Israel-haters who seek the destruction of the Jewish state.

Email from SPME






Female coder live-tweets overheard sexist remarks 'made by lunching IBM execs' who refuse to hire young women because they 'get pregnant again and again and again'

What the men were saying was perfectly reasonable given the many laws in existence which give women costly and disruptive special treatment  -- maternity leave etc.  Pro-women laws are so extreme in Sweeden that very few businesses will hire any.  Most women can find jobs with the Swedish government only.  British and Canadian laws are however moving in the Swedish direction.  With the shortsightedness that is typical of the Left, feminists will never be able to see such problems however.

A group of IBM execs underestimated the all-pervading power of the Internet when they obliviously made loudmouth sexist remarks during a business lunch - which were overheard and subsequently live-tweeted by a furious female coder at the next table.

Lyndsay Kirkham, an editor and freelance web developer in Toronto, had her birthday lunch ruined on Monday as she listened to the 'Big Blue' suits explain that they don't hire young women because 'they are just going to get themselves pregnant again and again and again'.

Ms Kirkham, a mother to five-year-old Aodhan, wrote: 'These executives are so comfortable in the sexism that they are openly sharing. Wow. My disbelief is tempering my anger. #IBM.'

Ms Kirkham had just sat down to lunch at the Richtree restaurant in Toronto with her son and her son's father, when she heard two men at the table next to her being 'obnoxiously loudly and belligerent' about their hiring strategies.

The 36-year-old told MailOnline today: 'It caught my attention because they were talking on what I am passionate about, women working in technology.'

Ms Kirkham is head editor of Demeter Press and has an MA in English and Computer Science from the University of Toronto.

She works part-time in web development and does volunteer projects for women's organizations.

She said the men were in the 50-plus age range and very well-dressed.

She said that their loud remarks, with little heed of who was nearby, made her question if they had been drinking but she saw no evidence of alcohol.

Ms Kirkham told MailOnline on Wednesday that her anger grew as she listened to the men explain that they would hire 'mature' women who were not likely to have more children.

She said: 'They said that women needed to take more breaks and longer holidays due to ''work-family stress''.'

The execs also named specific women in their department who they were 'anticipating to take time off to have children' in the next few years, Ms Kirkham said.

The two men were then joined by a woman, believed to be a colleague, who nodded along in agreement at their misogynistic diatribe.  'Women can be just as responsible for sexism as men,' Ms Kirkham added.

The coder considered taking photos of the offending IBM execs but said she felt strongly about protecting their personal right to privacy.

The editor told MailOnline: 'This is a such a serious issue. They seemed to be willing to cut off, or not even consider, young women for career advancement and saw them only as baby machines.'

The working mother said that her run-in with the tech execs speaks to a more systemic problem for women in technology - whether in gaming, web design or at a corporate Goliath.

She said: 'It is rampant across the board. Anytime a woman goes to a tech conference, she has to worry about being harassed.

'Any time I write an article about technology, I have a man telling me that I don't know what I'm doing with a computer.'

Virginia Marie Rometty is the current chairman and CEO of IBM, the first woman to have ever headed the company.

When her role was announced in 2012, retiring CEO Samuel Palmisano told The New York Times: 'Ginni got it because she deserved it. It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies.'

According to the company's global employment standards: 'IBM will not discriminate in hiring, promotion, compensation of employees and employment practices on grounds of race, color, religion, age, nationality, social or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, marital status, pregnancy, political affiliation, disability or veteran status.'

SOURCE





California puts limits on full-contact youth football

California lawmakers have a new plan to make football safer for young players: Put a time limit on tackling.

Under a law signed Monday by Governor Jerry Brown, youth football teams are allowed just three hours of full-contact play per week during the season. In the off-season, full-contact play is not allowed at all. The law will also delay an injured player's return to the field. Players who are suspected of having head injuries cannot play for the rest of that day and must obtain approval from a medical professional before going back into a game.

The issue of football head injuries grabbed headlines nationally in the fall of 2013 as the NFL reached a $US765 million deal with 4500 former players who suffered such injuries. The issue also reached the high school level last year after a Mississippi parent filed the first federal lawsuit involving a high school athletic association over the treatment of concussions.

California Assemblyman Ken Cooley, a Democrat who drafted the legislation, said it will reduce the risk of lasting brain damage among players in middle school and high school.

Many states, including Alabama, Maryland and Texas, have added restrictions on full-contact play in the past year. At a conference this year, top health and college sports officials discussed a national mandate to limit the amount of full-contact practices.

Laws regulating youth football began sweeping the country in 2006, when a 13-year-old player suffered multiple blows to the head and fell into a coma for three months. Zackery Lystedt still walks with a cane and has limited speaking abilities - but continues to push for stronger regulation.

Every state now has safeguards against youth concussions. In January, Mississippi became the final state to pass a youth concussion law. A few months later, Indiana became the first state to require concussion education for coaches. The program is funded by a $US45 million national grant awarded to the Indianapolis-based youth organisation USA Football.

About 140,000 high school athletes sustained concussions in 2012, according to data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.

The National Football League has also pushed for concussion safety bills on the federal level. A pair of bills requiring concussion prevention training were floated in Congress last year, though neither made it to a full vote.

SOURCE





Muslims Purge Christians From Mosul

Many people may be surprised to learn that Christians and Jews have lived peacefully in Muslim lands since Islam began. Christians and Jews predate Islam. Muhammad considered himself the last in the line of the prophets beginning with those of the Old Testament and continuing through to Jesus. Though not a paragon of virtue by any stretch, Muhammad respected the Bible enough to call Christians and Jews the “People of the Book,” and he granted them the right to live in Islamic lands and practice their religions. He considered others non-believers.

Islam divides the world in two: the House of Islam and the House of War. Muhammad told his followers to fight until non-believers submit to Islamic rule. From Islam’s beginning, Muhammad waged jihad against non-believers, using all the tactics of the ancient world: torture, rape, pillage, slavery and division of the spoils.

Then in the 20th century Islam’s tolerance of Jews and Christians began to disappear. Now terrorists widely practice heinous religious bigotry throughout the Middle East, and the great imams say nothing if not praise for such barbarism.

For months, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which now calls itself just the Islamic State, has waged jihad in Syria and Iraq, racing from sector to sector, crushing resistance. This borderless nation of Islamists is what we have long dubbed Jihadistan.

Last month, ISIL invaded Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city – a place where far too much American blood was spilled in what is now a lost cause. ISIL demanded that Christians pay a tax for non-Muslims, convert to Islam, leave or die. Reportedly, all Christian residents chose to leave. As they left, soldiers forced them to surrender all of their possessions except the clothes they wore. The flight of Christians from Mosul ends two millennia of Christian habitation in this historic city.

Since the U.S. invasion, more than one million Christians have been exiled from Iraq while an estimated 300,000 still remain.

And Iraq and Syria are not alone. Jihadis in Egypt and parts of Africa are driving thousands of Coptic Christians from their ancestral homes. As usual, Islamic imams and Western leaders are ignoring this descent into a new Dark Age.

So far the golfer-in-chief has remained silent on the issue of international Christian persecution. While the White House waged a pathetic hashtag campaign for the Nigerian girls abducted by jihadis, virtually nothing has been said or done to help Christians in Iraq. Also, Meriam Ibrahim, a pregnant Christian woman in Sudan, was sentenced to death for recanting her Islamic faith. She’s been jailed, released, jailed again and released again. Although she’s now at the American Embassy, Sudanese officials are playing cat and mouse with her and refuse to let her leave the country, claiming her passport is forged. Silence from the administration.

But fear not, Barack Obama and his sidekick Joe Biden have launched their own war on prejudice – international LGBT prejudice. Speaking to a group of U.S. and international homosexual rights advocates, Biden said that Obama has ordered U.S. foreign relations agencies to make LGBT rights a priority in dealings with nations throughout the world. “I don’t care what your culture is,” Biden sermonized. “Inhumanity is inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice is prejudice is prejudice.”

Taking a stern tone, Biden also warned, “[T]here is a price to pay for being inhumane…” He called homosexual rights “the civil rights issue of our day.” The administration has lectured countries like Uganda and Senegal for anti-homosexuality laws that are, in part, meant to curb the HIV and AIDS crisis in Africa.

But what about Christian and Jewish rights? Where’s the outrage from the leader of the free world when it comes to the hateful persecution and violence against these people? The arrogance and hypocrisy of this administration would choke the devil himself.

It is frightening to ponder the religious bigotry growing in the world today. Anti-Semitism is rising again in Europe and here in the U.S. – a disease we thought had been stamped out over 60 years ago. Muslim jihadis grow in number everyday. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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