Thursday, May 24, 2012


TIME Magazine VS Bibi Netanyahu: 3 Big Lies in 3 Lines

    Michael Prell

I worked as a writer for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu on his victorious 2009 election, and I have a deep connection to the land, to the people, and to the politics of Israel.

But none of my qualifications are required to recognize the three big lies on this week’s TIME cover: “King Bibi. He’s conquered Israel. But will Netanyahu now make peace—or war?” Three big lies in three lines – on the cover alone.

First; why judge TIME Magazine by its cover? Because it’s the only part of TIME Magazine that most people ever see. Each week 99% of all Americans make the wise decision to not buy, not open, and not read TIME. And only a tiny fraction of Americans have even a passing exposure to the magazine – a quick glance at its cover – usually while buying something they do value, like chewing gum, bottled water, or magazines that don’t consistently get things wrong.

But the TIME cover does have an impact. If you don’t believe that, then why did America just spend a week talking about breast feeding children, instead of talking about the mountains of government debt those children – and their children – will never be able to pay back in their lifetimes. Like it or not, the TIME cover matters.

So, when TIME Magazine tells three big lies about Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu on its cover, those three big lies have an impact.

So I’m calling TIME out on TIME’s cover.

LIE #1: the headline, “King Bibi.” No. Bibi Netanyahu is the democratically-elected Prime Minister of a Parliamentary democracy. Contrary to the distorted view of Netanyahu put forth by Western liberal media, Mr. Netanyahu is almost too democratic. In Israel, Netanyahu is often criticized for behaving too democratically, for trying too hard to reach a middle ground – often with those who oppose his policies, or who oppose the existence of the Jewish State and want to wipe Israel from the map.

Contrast that to the “kingly” behavior of Barack Obama, who rules by fiat with Czars, often in extra-Constitutional ways. When King Barack’s fiats are challenged by the Supreme Court, by American citizens, or even by a Governor of a State like Arizona, he berates them in public, demonizes them, or sues them. “King Bibi?” Hardly.

LIE #2: “He conquered Israel.” No. Prime Minister Netanyahu was democratically elected by the people of Israel. He then reached across the aisle to the politicians and parties he defeated, and formed what could be the longest-lasting coalition government in Israel’s history. This is not the behavior of a conquerer. It is exactly the kind of “reach-across-the-aisle” bipartisanship that the American leftist media always claims it wants.

Here’s an analogy to bring it home to America. Imagine that Barack Obama won the 2008 election, but failed to get enough “seats” in the “legislature” to form government (if America had a Parliamentary democracy). If he behaved like Prime Minister Netanyahu, he would have reached across the aisle to make John McCain his Vice President, Sarah Palin his Secretary of State, and Mitt Romney his “Jobs Czar,” in order to form a working coalition government. Then, for the last three years while almost everyone in his Cabinet was angling to run against him and defeat him in the 2012 election, Obama would have to run all of his major policies by the people he defeated – and who want to defeat him in 2012 – and find some way to make a coalition like that work in order to keep the country safe and prosperous. And, just to bump up the level of difficulty, let’s say Canada wants to wipe America off the map, and is building a bomb to do so.

Bibi Netanyahu did not conquer Israel, as TIME contends on its cover. He reached across the aisle to form a stable coalition with his sometimes hostile political opponents, in the most hostile part of the world, and he found a way to make it work. For example, Prime Minister Netanyahu manages to pass his budgets. King Barack couldn’t even get his own party to vote for his budget – not one Democratic member of the Senate, not one vote, and no budget for America for more than three years.

LIE #3: “will Netanyahu now make peace - or war?” Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to make peace with those who only want to make war. He has been trying, for years, to make peace with those who openly state that they want to wipe Israel from the map, to kill Jews, and to end the Jewish State forever.

How do you make peace with those who want war? The answer is: you can’t. But still, Prime Minister Netanyahu has tried, and tried, and tried again – to make peace with those who only want war.

So, when TIME Magazine writes “will Netanyahu now make peace – or war?” they are offering a false choice. If Mr. Netanyahu fails to “make peace,” according to the TIME paradigm, it will be Bibi’s fault because he made war.

The truth is: the choice to make war always lies in the hands of the aggressor. If those who want to make war with Israel simply accept Mr. Netanyahu’s repeated offers of peace, there will be peace. Tomorrow. But if they keep pushing for war, there will be war.

Here is a personal analogy. Imagine that someone with murderous intentions is advancing on you and your family. You have the capabilities to stop the murderer, by force if necessary, but you try to make peace as long as you can. But, if all your attempts to make peace with the murderer fail, and if your assailant is now within striking distance of you and your family, you have two choices: sit there and wait to die, or stop the murderer who wants to kill you and your family. If you stop the murderer who wants to kill you and your family, does that mean that you made war? According to TIME Magazine, and many others on the left, the answer is: yes.

Three big lies in three lines, on this week’s Time cover. Don’t buy the lies. Don’t buy TIME.

SOURCE




Transgender Five-Year-Old?

What decisions should small children be permitted to make?

A five-year-old child with large dark eyes, full lips, and a button nose stares out from the front page of the Washington Post Sunday edition. “Transgender at Five” declares the provocative headline. The child’s hair is being cut in a close, boy’s cut by her father.

We learn from the article that “Tyler,” who was born “Kathryn,” began insisting that she was a boy at the age of two. “‘I am a boy’ became a constant theme in struggles over clothing, bathing, swimming, eating, playing, breathing.” The child’s parents, at first uneasy and later accepting their girl’s desire to be a boy, agreed to raise her as a boy. Starting at age four, she began to wear boys’ clothes, was permitted to choose a boy’s name for herself, and has been introduced to family, friends, teachers, and fellow congregants at church as a boy.

Oh boy.

Let’s stipulate, for the sake of argument, that something called “gender dysphoria” — with which Tyler was diagnosed at age four — does exist. Let’s further agree, again for the sake of argument, that the proper treatment of this condition is choosing to live as the other sex, with all that such a radical decision implies. Is there any reasonable way to conclude that something as drastic as attempting to change one’s sexual identity can be undertaken by a four-year-old?

“Parents who ignore or deny these problems,” warns the Post, “can make life miserable for their kids, who can become depressed or suicidal, psychiatrists say.” How many psychiatrists? The very most that can be said is that the practice of treating children for what is sometimes called “gender identity disorder” is highly controversial in the psychiatric world. Some psychiatrists want to change the name to “gender incongruence” to remove the word “disorder.” Others, like Dr. Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, think the whole idea of treating children for this condition is unwise. “We shouldn’t be mucking around with nature,” he told Fox News. “We can’t assume what the outcome will be.”

Apparently, hormone blockers are being prescribed more and more for children with “GID.” The hormone blockers postpone puberty indefinitely and thus, the Post explains, “give the kids more time to decide who they are and whether switching genders is the answer to their problems.” Dr. McHugh calls giving hormone blockers to children “child abuse.” Some young people are having “gender reassignment” surgery as early as age 16.

Perhaps some tiny percentage of children truly are born to feel trapped in the body of a person of the wrong sex. But it is undeniable that the vast majority of children go through stages. I recall wishing to be a boy myself when I was about five or six. I didn’t like frilly dresses and asked my playmates to call me “Timmy.” Perhaps mine was a normal tomboy phase and maybe that’s distinguishable from what Tyler is experiencing. But how can we be sure? The Post quotes Dr. Edgardo Menvielle, of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who has been treating “transgender kids” for a decade. About 80 percent, he says, switch back to the gender they were born into by the time they reach adulthood.

The problem with the Post’s recommended approach — which amounts to “let’s accept a child’s version of reality to avoid causing depression or worse” — is that the decision of parents to indulge a child’s whim on gender identity is itself irreversible. The effects of hormone blockers, the Post reassures readers, are fully reversible. Maybe. How much research can there have been on such a new practice? Would parents who hesitate to let their kids eat preservatives or non-organic eggs consent to block the complex hormones that begin to flood kids’ bodies at puberty? In any case, the decision to dress a girl in boys’ clothing, cut her hair, and call her a boy — even if reversed later — must, absolutely must, scramble a child’s psyche. Imagine the confrontation between a teenaged girl who has changed her mind and the parents who raised her as a boy. “Did you not think I was pretty enough to be a girl? Wasn’t I feminine enough?” Or, perhaps even more damaging, a teenaged boy demanding to know whether his father thought him lacking in masculinity as a child. It’s a psychological minefield.

We have the technology to make — or at least appear to make — women into men and vice versa. If adults choose to do this to themselves (and can afford it), that’s their business. But a child? One wonders: What other major life decisions should four-year-olds be judged competent to make?

SOURCE





Liberal love of regulation holding British business back

Adrian Beecroft, who reviewed employment law for No.10, says that Liberal Democrat objections to plans for removing red tape are harming the economy and preventing companies from creating jobs.

In his first newspaper interview, the venture capitalist tells The Daily Telegraph that entrepreneurs are going abroad and that unemployment is rising because of the Coalition’s failure to help business. The impact on the public sector of outdated employment regulations is even more damaging, he says, with taxpayer-funded services “hugely less efficient than they could be” because of the legal difficulties associated with dismissing under-performing workers.

He concludes that the economy will grow by five per cent less than expected – the equivalent of more than £50 billion – because of the Government’s failure to push through radical reform of employment laws.

The Beecroft report was finally published earlier this week, following the leak of the recommendations to this newspaper. The central recommendations, which would make it easier for firms to sack poor performers, were dismissed as “bonkers” by the Liberal Democrats.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said he had seen no evidence that the measures would help the economy.

Today, Mr Beecroft says ministers are not focused enough on growth and urges the Prime Minister and the Conservatives to stand up to the Liberal Democrats.

“I do think they are hugely held back by the Lib Dems. I think you could put together a bunch of suggestions out of the report, as a coherent programme, that would say, you know, we are tackling the issues that business has with employment law but the Lib Dems will have none of it,” he says.

“Nick Clegg is always threatening to go nuclear and dissolve the whole thing if he doesn’t get his way with this, that and the other. Which you’d think actually must be a hollow threat. Therefore, why can’t the Government be more robust? I don’t know what the answer is. But it is disappointing.”

Mr Beecroft, who has sat on the boards of more than 20 companies, says of Mr Cable: “People find it very odd that he’s in charge of business and yet appears to do very little to support business.”

Recommendations from the Beecroft report to delay or halt family-friendly policies, such as flexible parental leave, were removed from the report by Downing Street without Mr Beecroft’s knowledge.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for No 10 declined five times to say that Mr Beecroft had approved the alterations to his report.

Mr Beecroft, a major Tory donor, says in today’s interview that he backs the delay of new family-friendly rules and questions why ministers want to “use businesses as a sort of agent of government”. Asked what the impact would be by 2020 if his recommendations were not introduced, Mr Beecroft said: “Some points of lost GDP. If all my recommendations were done in the private sector [there would be] up to five per cent [increase] of GDP.

“I’m convinced that the result [of not implementing the proposals] is less employment than there would be and that businesses are less efficient than they could be and that the public services are hugely less efficient than they could be.”

He adds: “There’d be more jobs and we’re in a sort of phase in this country and probably most of the western world where we’re so frightened of injuring people’s feelings, we ignore all the people, [because of] the unwillingness to injure some people’s feelings.”

He claims the Business Secretary’s objections to the proposals are “ideological not economic”. “I think he is a socialist who found a home in the Lib Dems, so he’s one of the Left,” Mr Beecroft says. “I think people find it very odd that he’s in charge of business and yet appears to do very little to support business.”

The venture capitalist also discloses that the Conservatives were very supportive of his proposals in private meetings, despite Mr Cameron now publicly distancing himself from the report.

He says: “I’m talking about Steve Hilton, that group and they assured me that David Cameron wanted to do the whole thing. Whether that’s right or not I’m not sure but that was the strong impression I got. I’ve been in meetings with Oliver Letwin and Ed Davey, where Oliver Letwin was all for and Ed Davey was totally against.”

He added: “And then there was a large argument which I’m told ended up in the 'quad’ [the core Coalition leaders of Mr Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander] when they’re sort of trading off one policy against the other.”

SOURCE






Vindicated: British mother, 24, who fled to Spain when social services ruled she was 'unfit' to bring up child is allowed to keep her daughter

The family of a young mother who fled to Spain to stop social services taking her baby demanded an apology yesterday after health workers confirmed the girl was thriving under her care.

Megan Coote, who has mild learning difficulties, was told she would have to hand over her child because of concerns over its emotional development.  Instead, she moved to Alicante where she gave birth to her daughter, Olivia.

She returned only after her parents were granted a court order allowing them to share her parental responsibilities – meaning she was certain she could keep  her baby.

Now Miss Coote, 24, wants to highlight what she says are the dangers posed by social workers who wield the power to tear families apart.  ‘I have proven the social workers wrong,’ she said. ‘They made the wrong decision.’

Her father Dale, a 47-year-old businessman, said: ‘We have just had Olivia’s two-year check and a health worker said she was well advanced and interacting with everyone perfectly. They were absolutely over the moon with her.   ‘That made me think that social services had made a mistake and hadn’t apologised.  ‘They haven’t apologised to my wife, who lost three stone when she went to Spain with Megan, or to my daughter for what they put her through.

‘They made her feel like dirt and she was talking about taking her own life if they took her daughter away.’

Miss Coote, who was diagnosed with learning difficulties as a child, became pregnant in 2009. Suffolk social services carried out an assessment which flagged up concerns about her low IQ and inability to show emotion, which it said meant she could not look after  a baby.

Child protection officers also claimed Olivia’s father – from whom Miss Coote had separated – had a bad record with social services, but refused to give further details. Miss Coote’s father and mother Lorraine, 45, offered themselves as potential foster parents but realised staff did not favour their application after a report criticised the fact Mr Coote had smacked his three children to discipline them.

In February 2010, Miss Coote and her mother drove to Spain, where she gave birth a week later. The family spent £12,000 on accommodation and other costs until they were assured mother and child would not be separated.

A five-minute court hearing in January last year confirmed a ‘residence order’, meaning Miss Coote would live with her parents in Kesgrave, near Ipswich, and Olivia could be taken off the at-risk register.

Mr Coote, who owns three companies involved with the construction, container and motor industries, said: ‘When Megan came back from Spain an independent team of social workers were assigned to her.  ‘They eventually apologised for interfering in our lives and said there was never any need for them to be involved.  ‘I have phoned the council nine times to discuss the case and get an apology but they will not have a meeting with me.’

His daughter added: ‘I would tell other mothers in the same situation to keep fighting. You have to believe in yourself and know that you are a good mother.’

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, the chairman of campaign group Justice for Families, accused social workers of removing children from families for ‘spurious reasons’ and said experts used in family courts were ‘unreliable’.

He added: ‘They remove babies from people who are never given the chance to prove they are good parents – and even when there are good grandparents around. The Government should stop being complacent and take action.’

Suffolk county council said it  was ‘delighted that everything  has continued to go well’ for  the family. A spokesman said: ‘When concerns about the wellbeing of a child are brought to the attention of children’s services, we have a duty to investigate.

‘Over the past two years, childcare professionals have had a very positive working relationship with the family.’  Asked about apologising for the Cootes’ treatment, they added: ‘We are more than happy to speak with the family when they feel the need to contact us.’

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, GUN WATCHAUSTRALIAN POLITICSDISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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