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May 24, 2012

Jeff Jacoby: The peace process battered Israel's reputation
Clifford D. May: What Iran's Rulers Want
Michael Muskal: 'Pro-choice' position hits record low, according to poll
Chris Farrell: Are We in a Tech Bubble?
Kimberly Lankford: Switching Medicare Advantage Plans Mid-Year
Bryan McIver, M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Understanding hyperthyroidism and its variety of treatment options
The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS --- hold the steak!
May 23, 2012
Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: Baghdad talks highlight Western naivete
Tony Pugh: More private colleges offering tuition discounts
Lisa Gerstner: 4 Money-Etiquette Questions Answered
Mary Beth Franklin: How to Choose the Right Annuity for You
Art Markman, Ph.D.: Get smart: How to bulk up your creativity muscles
Tina Susman: The wig wasn't enough: Man gets 13 years for posing as his dead mom
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen:A simple way to do fish right
May 22, 2012
David S. Cloud and Kathleen Hennessey: Obama changes mind on Pakistan invite to NATO summit --- and then gets dissed by country's president
Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide
Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
Environmental Nutrition editors: The lowdown on a low-acid diet
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: Enjoy a celebration of the most rich and layered flavors: Black bean, sweet potato and quinoa chili
May 21, 2012
Mark Clayton: Cybersecurity: How US utilities passed up chance to protect their networks
Howard LaFranchi: NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?
Chris Farrell : Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
James K. Glassman: 5 Stock Picks Among Online Retailers
Stephen Whiteside, Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Social anxiety disorder --- or just shy?
Guy Jackson : Victim's father regrets death of Lockerbie bomber
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: Famed chef's veal shoulder farsumagru: A festive meat course for late spring
May 18, 2012
Rabbi Berel Wein: Striving: The People of the Book's Book for (All of) the People
Caroline B. Glick: Embracing dangerous delusions and not our friends
Steven Goldberg: 5 Great Stock Picks and the Exchange-Traded Fund that Owns Them
Janet Bodnar: How to Teach Kids to Handle Credit Cards
Mary Pickett, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Don't be forced into gluten-free lifestyle based merely on a doctor's false-positive test
The Kosher Gourmet by Carolyn Malcoun: DIY healthy lunchbox treats: HOMEMADE FRUIT BARS for kids and brown-bagging adults alike
May 17, 2012
Warren Richey: Teacher fired for being unwed and pregnant can sue religious school, court rules
Josh Mitnick: Netanyahu's 'centrist' coalition is already proving it's anything but
Steven Goldberg: Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Mary Beth Franklin: Retirement Savings Tips for New Grads
Amina Khan: Research links coffee to lower death rates
Chelsea Sheasley: Social media: Is it too feminine?
The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
Jackson Holahan: The Aleppo Codex
Jonathan Tobin : Iran Declares Victory in Nuclear Talks
Anne Kates Smith: 7 Stocks That Let You Sleep Tight
Carmen Terzic, M.D., Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: A variety of exercises can help improve balance
Melissa Healy: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025
The Kosher Gourmet by Joyce White : GOODNESS GRACIOUS: GREENS! 4 winning recipes that are no longer just for down-home folks (Includes expert tips & techniques)
May 15, 2012
Dennis Prager: God and Man at (and for) Liberty
Kristen Chick: Obama administration resumes arms sales to Bahrain despite serious unresolved human rights issues. Activists feel abandoned
Pat Mertz Esswein: Homes are now affordable again and mortgage rates are low. What you need to know before you buy
Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments
Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Get the facts on palm sugar sweetening
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Richard Simon: Purple Hearts for domestic terror victims?
Nando Pelusi, Ph.D.: The privacy paradox: Surrounded by strangers, we risk isolation, anxiety
Chris Farrell: Investing Lessons from the Great Recession
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
Tiffany O'Callaghan: New hormone mimics effects of exercise without the sweat
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
Rabbi B. Shafier: Why happiness will always be elusive
Charles Krauthammer: Echoes of '67: Israel unites
Howard LaFranchi: With G8 snub, US-Putin 'reset' off to stumbling start
Jeremy J. Siegel: Investors, Relax About Rising Interest Rates
Jessica L. Anderson: Get the Best Deal on a Used Car
Jett Stone: Forget face-lifts and fake knees. Scientists have seen the fountain of youth --- and it's broccoli
The Kosher Gourmet by Chef Mario Batali: The famed chef's vegetable dish that tastes true to the season: FAVAS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH POTATOES AND TARRAGON
May 10, 2012
Clifford D. May: The Real Palestinian Refugee Problem
Sergei L. Loiko: Putin sends warning to U.S., NATO in Victory Day speech at Red Square
Mary Rourke: How being a 'mentch' got Vidal Sasoon his start and fighting in Israel's War of Independence provided him with confidence and a strong sense of his own identity
Harvard Health Letters: Palliative care: Underused therapy yields surprising benefits
Jeff Bertolucci: Get Home Phone Service for Less Than $10 a Month
Rachel L. Sheedy and Susan B. Garland : Make the Right Moves to Boost Benefits
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Gleaming with its golden, crimson, and snowy white hues, this silken smooth and creamy STRAWBERRY ORANGE TRIFLE looks impressive, but is easy to prepare
May 9, 2012
John Rosemond: Parents, stop destroying the American male
Valerie J. Nelson: Maurice Sendak, author of 'Where the Wild Things Are,' dies at 83
Bob Frick: Angst Over Annuities
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Why did my blood pressure suddenly shoot up?
Lisa Gerstner: Lower the Rate on All Your Loans
The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : Springtime soba with miso sauce offers a coloful mix of fresh textures and flavors
May 8, 2012
Edmund Sanders: Netanyahu suddenly cancels new elections, forms unity government
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: Farewell to European superstate
Anne Kates Smith: 4 Stocks That Mimic Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway
Gaia Vince and Clare Wilson The Rise of Miniature Medical Robots: Fantasy Fast Becoming Reality
Paul Takahashi, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Never suffer night leg cramps
Jessica L. Anderson: Extended-Warranty Warning
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate National Chocolate Chip Day with the Best Cookie Ever (Includes techniques)
May 7, 2012
Mark Clayton: Homeland Security warns major cyber attack aimed at gas pipeline industry underway
Angus Roxburgh: Putin Decoded: World view of a Russian feeling dissed
Kimberly Lankford: Navigate a Course for Long-Term Care
Kevin McCormally How to Adjust Your Tax Withholding
Celeste Robb-Nicholson, M.D.: Harvard Health Letters: How do you treat a Baker's cyst?
Joanne Capano: Healthy Snacks for Children: The Choices May Surprise You
The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: Classic Creamy Spinach Dip with a Fraction of the Calories and Fat
May 4, 2012
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Holy 'trivialities'
Jonathan Tobin: Bibi v. Barak will be no contest this time around
Steven Goldberg: Blue Chip Stocks On Sale Worldwide
Art Pine Slow Productivity Growth a Blessing --- For Now
Sue Hubbard, M.D. : The Kid's Doctor: Are Kids Too Wired?
Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D: Foods that are good for your smile
Amy Paturel, M.S., M.P.H.: Eating Well: Foods that are good for your smile
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Strawberry rhubarb parfaits are elegant yet simple to assemble
May 3, 2012
Michael Freund: Who's Afraid of the Messiah?
Clifford D. May: The Foggiest War
Susan B. Garland: Insurance to Cover Old Old Age
Steven Goldberg 6 Reasons to Bet on a Big Bull Market
Harvard Health Letters: Treating prostate cancer --- no rush to judgment
Larry Gordon: Harvard, MIT partner to offer free online courses
Naomi Nix : Man gets free trip to Chicago after postcard sent by mother in 1957 finally reaches him
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Intensely Italian vegetable frittata is a seriously simple standby


Jewish World Review Sept. 25, 2006 / 3 Tishrei, 5767

U.N. shows why it's incapable of reform

By Mark Steyn


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The last intervention in public affairs Ted Turner made was a month or two back, when he recounted what an agreeable vacation he'd had in Kim Jong Il's North Korea. (I sent him a postcard saying, "Wish you were still there.") He's now weighed in on the ayatollahs, and his line's pretty straightforward: Why shouldn't Iran have nukes?


"They're a sovereign state," he said. "We have 28,000. Why can't they have 10? We don't say anything about Israel — they've got 100 of them approximately — or India or Pakistan or Russia. And really, nobody should have them. They aren't usable by any sane person."


Cut to President Ahmadinejad's address to the United Nations. His speech was mostly a lot of run-of-the-mill kook boilerplate — the U.N. is a stooge of the Great Satan (if only), America started the Israel-Hezbollah war (whatever) — but he wound up the usual shtick with a prayer for the return of the Twelfth Imam, the so-called "Hidden Imam" — or, as the Iranian president put it: "the perfect, righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet."


This isn't just some cockamamie pie-in-the-sky deal. Last year, Ahmadinejad told the Indian foreign minister that everything would be hunky-dory in two years' time, which the minister took to mean when Iran's nukes would be ready to fly. But, as the president went on to explain, that's apparently the Twelfth Imam's ETA.


The New York Times and most other media outlets didn't mention Ahmadinejad's big Twelfth Imam finale. America would appear to be largely uninterested in the arrival in 2007 of "the perfect, righteous human being." If he shows up on schedule, the attitude of most Americans seems to be that they're washing their hair that night. But go back to Ted Turner's observation on nukes: "They aren't usable by any sane person." The annals of human history are filled with millennial cultists of one form or another but ours is the first era in which they have the capability to live up to their sandwich boards. President Ahmageddonouttahere is an apocalyptic with a delivery system: "The end is nigh" is an old slogan. Now the means are nigh.


What to do? Alan Dershowitz is a big liberal but he's a sane liberal and, unlike many of his chums, he acknowledges the threat. So what's his big idea?


He thinks Iran should be expelled from the United Nations.


Yeah, right. There's more chance of the Twelfth Imam eloping with Paris Hilton.


Iran's president was a huge hit at the U.N. Short of bringing out some burqa-clad Rockettes and doing a couple of choruses of "This Is the Dawning of the Age of a Scary Us," he couldn't have been a bigger smash. I said a year or two back, apropos the U.N., that it's a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice cream and blend it with a quart of dog poop the result will taste more like the latter than the former. And last week's performances at the General Assembly were a fine illustration of that. Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez were the star finalists of "UnAmerican Idol," and, just when you need Simon Cowell, the only Brit in sight was the oleaginous Mark Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan's deputy, fawning over every crazy in town. The rest of the bigwigs reacted like Paula Abdul, able to discern good points even in fellows who boast about not having any. That's the reality the Dershowitzes refuse to confront: that structurally the U.N. enables thugs to punch above their weight.


As further evidence of my fecal ice-cream thesis, the Iranian president followed his boffo speech with a trip to the Council on Foreign Relations, where he said the Palestinians were the ones being penalized for an event they had nothing to do with: World War II and the Holocaust, "if it, in fact, occurred." On the matter of whether it did occur, he said that "more unbiased research should be carried out on the subject." A survivor of Dachau, Morris Greenberg, happened to be in the room and pointed this out. President Ahmouttamatree then queried whether Greenberg was old enough to have been at Dachau.


Chavez was an even bigger hit, in part because he eschewed the Holocaust denying, doesn't see himself as the warm-up act for the Twelfth Imam, and stuck closer to the American left's talking points: It's all the Bushitler's fault. He denounced Bush as an "imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal" and also "the devil," he held up a copy of some unreadable Noam Chomsky book, gave it a big plug and subsequently regretted that he couldn't meet with the late Professor Chomsky. Chomsky isn't late, he's alive and well. Granted, it's easy to get the impression he's been dead for 30 years, since he hasn't had a new idea since the early '70s. Speaking of which, Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat, agreed that President Chavez was a little overheated but was broadly sympathetic to the general Venezuelan line: "Let me put it this way: I can understand the frustration, ah, and the anger of certain people around the world because of George Bush's policies." Without Bush "frustrating" them, Chavez and Ahmadinejad would be as rhetorically bland as the prime minister of the Netherlands.


It may be news to the Council of Foreign Relations types and the Dems, but the U.N. demonstrated this last week that it is utterly incapable of reform. Indeed, any reforms would be more likely to upgrade and enhance the cliques of thugs and despots than of the few states willing to stand up to them. The most sensible proposal this week came from Chavez, who demanded the U.N. relocate to Venezuela. You go, girl! Dershowitz would be better off trying to get America expelled from the U.N., and encouraging it to join a new group of nations serious about defending freedom in the world: It would be a very small club. This week Jacques Chirac dropped the threat of sanctions against Iran. A few months ago, he briefly mused about nuking the Persians, but he's now folded like ... well, not like the Arabs and their tents: They're busily pitching them all over Europe with no plans to fold at all. Anyone who thinks the U.N. is the body to mediate Iran's nuclearization or anything else is more deluded than Ahmadinejad. At this rate, the Twelfth Imam will be the next secretary-general.


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