RUTHFULLY YOURS

Gender equality is now so thoroughly advanced, thanks to Western men, that feminism’s latest wave is free to insist the hijab is no instrument of oppression but a symbol of choice and liberation! You’ve come a long way, baby. Once, only men were privileged to make public fools of themselves.

“Can a privileged white male like me talk about equality and diversity?” While clearly suffering from ‘white-male guilt’, former Victorian politician Rob Hulls, writing in the Fairfax press, grudgingly answered in the affirmative. Bully for him, but that he thought the question worthy of sweating over is instructive. White men are not the flavour of the times. Indeed, those supporting Donald Trump are often described in left-wing media (e.g., in The Huffington Post) as “angry white men” whose influence is dwindling in the racial mixing pot.

I take no personal credit as a white man but it seems queer to me, without in the least belittling other parts of humanity, that the very part of humanity which has made this modern West, in which gender equality and ethnic and sexual diversity can flourish, is the subject of scorn and derision. I will focus on gender equality.

Men and women are one in Christ (Galatians 3:28) and therefore equal; no ifs, buts or maybes. And, in any event, indubitably, life is better for everyone and infinity less mean spirited in societies in which men and women have equal status. But, as we all surely know, that something is closer to God’s intention and better, doesn’t necessarily mean it will hold sway. For most of history and in most places it hasn’t. To wit: bad things have happened, are happening in many parts of the world, and can happen in our part of the world unless we guard the ramparts.

Equality as a state of affairs is often misunderstood. Turning to arithmetic: two plus two makes four but, equally, so does one plus three. Being equal is not the same as being the same. When it comes to men and women there is one important and statistically significant difference across all ethnicities and cultures. Men, on the whole, and with few exceptions, are stronger and more aggressive than are women.

Throughout most of history women have occupied a secondary position to men – certainly outside the narrow confines of the home. Their childbearing role undoubtedly contributed to this. But, undoubtedly, their lesser physical strength and aggressiveness were defining. This hasn’t changed, yet women in the Western world now occupy positions of authority in all walks of life.

After the Paris powwow in December the action switched to Davos. Then the serried legions of jetsetting carbonphobics repaired to the four corners of this tormented planet with renewed messages of a doom that only other people’s money can avert.
The Paris COP 21 at the end of last year may have set an all-time record for conference attendance of officials, NGOs and lobbyists—40,000 plus at least 5000 from the media. Virtually every world leader made an appearance, many changing their schedules at short notice to attend the opening rather than the close. There may have been a thousand booths of different organisations and countries, and in the course of the deliberations there would have been over 800 formal meetings and presentations.

During these meetings statesmen and NGOs repeated the same messages they had delivered dozens, sometimes hundreds of times. We heard how the ice was melting, the rivers were drying and sea levels were rising. We heard how tropical diseases were going to engulf us unless we took action and how, in view of the rapid expansion of renewable technology, that action was going to be much cheaper. Moreover if we used less energy we would be better off because we would spend less money. National spokesmen boasted of the sacrifices they were making and how much they were doing to advance the clean/low energy cause at home and abroad, while NGOs urged faster and further action.

The conference featured a constant series of street theatres. 350Org staged a major concert featuring, among others, Patti Smith, Flea (of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers), and Thom Yorke (of Radiohead). When musicians are lecturing us on policy we know the end of rational government is near.

The only note of dissent was the counter-conference hosted by the Heartland Institute, which featured genuine scientists, including the recently deceased great Australian Bob Carter, who demonstrated that:

the earth was not warming to a level that might cause unease;
there was no increase in inclement weather events;
sea levels were not rising;
the emission-restraining actions by the developed world would be meaningless since the developing world, especially China and India, would take no such measures and their emissions already exceeded those of the developed world.

The protesters outside and inside the Heartland event far exceeded the invited attendees. Among them, with his own camera/sound crew, was the University of Queensland’s John Cook, who originated the story that 97 per cent of scientists agree about human-induced global warming. Actually, only 1.6 per cent of the thousands of papers Cook and his activist team studied were said to have explicitly endorsed the warmist view and even some of these scientists have rejected the researchers’ classification of their papers.

Politics and diplomacy were the dominant issues in Paris. Few were concerned about the science or economics of climate change. Even the source material in the IPCC Fifth Assessment issued in 2014, once the 6000 pages of jargon and intimidating diagrams had been navigated, asserts that with a three-degree warming total loss of global GDP compared with business-as-usual is just 2 to 3 per cent over the course of a century. That’s just half a year’s growth even without any mitigatory action, such as planting different crops. Meanwhile the apparently trivial costs of preventing the emissions rest upon massive new breakthroughs in renewable energy technology and a Philosopher’s Stone discovery of how to capture and store the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

In view of the IPCC’s sober assessment of losses from climate change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) could hardly endorse the double-digit losses in global GDP claimed by hack studies like those of Stern and Garnaut. It did however promote alarmist studies, such as one that topically claimed climate change was killing more people than terrorism.

In January, the UN cavalcade moved on to Abu Dhabi where UN chief Ban Ki-moon said: “Sustainable energy is the thread that connects economic growth, social equity, and our efforts to combat climate change.” Leaders of the world’s mendicant states queued up to divert to themselves funds from this major oil producer and owner of Manchester City.

WHAT CEASEFIRE?
[Notes below by Tom Gross]

One of the most misleading aspects of news coverage in the New York Times (which stated again a couple of days ago – in a story abut John Kerry and Iran – that there is a “cessation of hostilities in Syria”) is the impression the paper has given that there is an effective ceasefire in Syria. Or that Russia has withdrawn its forces. Neither is true. One can only presume that New York Times editors are eager to defend the policies of the Obama administration, which helped negotiate the failed ceasefire in Syria.

I attach seven articles below. There are summaries first of some of these articles.

There are also still reports in the Iranian media every day, about the funerals of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and other Iranian-backed Shia mercenaries who died fighting in Syria. For example, this IRGC commander, Amir Ali Mohammadian, died in Aleppo province on April 8.

For example, on April 6, IRGC members Mohammad Jabali and Abufazl Rahchamani, both from Tehran, were killed in Syria.

On the same day, three members of the Afghan Shia militia Fatimiyoun Brigade and four members of the Pakistani Shia militia Zainabiyoun brigade were killed in Syria. The Zainabiyoun and Fatimiyoun Brigades are among the Shia militia that have been brought in by Iran to support of the Assad regime. There are pictures of their funerals here from the Mehr News Agency.

And so on.

But Western media that want to pretend the Iranian government is moderate, or not at the forefront of orchestrating the killings and ethnic cleansing in Syria, fail to report on this.

Mr. Cain, a former U.S. ambassador to Denmark, is the principal of Cain Global Partners

Two Saturdays ago, just outside Maastricht, the Netherlands, I visited the 65-acre American Cemetery in Margraten. A sea of marble white crosses and Stars of David is arrayed in a gentle arc marking the final resting place of 8,301 American soldiers who fell nearby while ensuring the liberty and security of a Europe brutalized by World War II.

My wife, Helen, our daughters Cameron and Laura, and a few friends and I were there to view the magnificent array of flowers brought to the cemetery the day before. The flowers came from the funerals of Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski, Dutch siblings who lived in New York and were murdered on March 22 in the Brussels airport by Islamist terrorists Ibrahim el-Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui.

Alex was married to our daughter Cameron.

He was an exceptionally clever student of international relations, and possessed a keen curiosity about the world. Alex and I talked about the deliverance of Europe from the evils of Nazism, including his family’s hometown of Maastricht. We didn’t always see eye to eye on politics, but Alex and I agreed that the Allies’ success in 1944 had some essential requisites. Those included: the ability to coordinate an effort against a poisonous ideology; the willpower of free people from noncaptive nations to commit to fighting a common enemy; and the presence of resolute leadership—which could only come, at that point, from America.

As I stood before the dozens of bouquets at the cemetery, I pondered whether, with an enemy of a type different in this century, America today was still willing to fulfill the leadership role that once brought peace and freedom to the world. And are the countries affected by this modern war, which includes many of the same nations ravaged by World War II, willing to take this fight seriously?

Our own experience in Brussels, while frantically searching for Alex and Sascha, gives reason for doubt. CONTINUE AT SITE

Belonging to ISIS or trafficking in slavery evidently do not constitute serious crimes in Turkey. But signing petitions calling for peace and non-violence, or requesting political equality for Kurds, are unspeakable offenses.

“We are not shocked that the defendants have been acquitted. This lawsuit has become one of the hundreds of other lawsuits in our country in which the criminals have been protected even though the evidence against them is obvious.” — Association of Progressive Women, on the acquittal of six people charged with having ties with ISIS and trading in Yazidi sex slaves.

“Requesting peace has become a crime in this country. The state of Turkey has committed the gravest rights violations against those who struggle for human rights, against the Kurds and against free thought.” — Sebnem Korur Fincanci, President of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.

Turkish politics has therefore not been able to go beyond a clash between assorted Islamists whose worldviews are foreign to democratic values, and non-Islamist but still extremely oppressive political parties that operate under the shadow of a tyrannical military, whose worldview is also foreign to democratic values.

Turkey’s “fight” against the Islamic State (ISIS) continues. On March 24, Turkey released seven suspects who had been arrested in a case involving the Turkish branch of ISIS.

Halis Bayancuk, alleged to be the “Emir,” or commander-in-chief, of ISIS, is among the suspects. This was the fourth hearing of the trial known as the “Istanbul ISIS trial.” A total of 96 suspects are on trial. Only seven had been jailed; the others had not. Although those seven were released on March 24 at the end of the hearing, their trial is still ongoing; the final verdict has not been given. All of them are now outside jail, free, and living their lives as they wish.

BRUSSELS—Belgian authorities said Sunday they believe the terror network that killed 32 people in Brussels last month was initially planning a fresh attack in France but changed the target as investigators closed in.

“The Federal Prosecution Office can confirm that numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again. Eventually, surprised by the speed of the progress in the ongoing investigation, they urgently took the decision to strike in Brussels,” prosecutors said in a press release.

On March 18, Belgian and French police arrested key terror suspect Salah Abdeslam in Brussels. The terror attacks at the national airport and the city’s metro station took place four days later.

Federal prosecutors also said they are now charging Mohamed Abrini with terrorist murders and participation in a terror group in the Brussels attacks. On Saturday, he was charged with the same offenses over the Paris attacks of last November.

The prosecutors said on Saturday that Mr. Abrini admitted to his involvement on the attack on Brussels’ national airport on March 22. CONTINUE AT SITE

In Muslim Malmo, Sweden, a teacher was fired for being a Jew. Pretty much just that simple. Just like that. Fired.

Sweden is a a cautionary tale and the best example of the disastrous outcome of large -scale Muslim immigration. Sweden is now a de facto Islamic country, with the attendant Islamic Jew-hatred, creed apartheid, misogyny and religious violence.

Färdiga!

Swedish-Jewish Activist ‘Not Surprised’ Israeli Teacher in Malmö Told to Seek Employment Far From School Children ‘Who Hate Jews’ By Algemeiner, April 5, 2016 (thanks to Chai):

A Swedish-Jewish intellectual said she was “not the least bit surprised” to learn of a report in the Israeli press on Tuesday about a teacher in Malmö who was fired for being a Jew.

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein told The Algemeiner that the only thing “baffling” about the incident recounted in the report is how “out-in-the-open” it was.

Hernroth-Rothstein, well-known in Sweden for her pro-Israel activism and both personal and public battles against antisemitism in Europe, was responding to a story that appeared in the Hebrew news site nrg about “A,” a decades’-long Israeli ex-pat who claimed she was let go from her position on the grounds that she would be hated by both Swedish and Arab children.

According to nrg, “A” posted on Facebook a description of her experience with the principal of the school where she had only begun working in February.

“Listen, ‘A,’ you know that I’m on your side,” she recounted her employer saying to her. “And it’s really unpleasant for me to say this to you, but I think that problems are liable to arise here as a result of your origins.”

For the last few years, Sweden has been overwhelmed with Roma beggars from Romania and Bulgaria. Recently, the government estimated that there are now around 4,000 in Sweden (population 9.5 million).

“We do not fool anyone. We just benefit from the opportunity.” — Bulgarian beggar in Sweden who said he “owned” five street corners.

“If the begging is profitable, they stay miserable…. [Giving money] improves the acute situation. At the same time, it contributes to making the bigger issue permanent — the misery…. It will not help the Roma, but it gives you a chance to feel like a good person. … The basic concept of racism is precisely that we as westerners and Swedes are far superior (smarter) and that the Roma are inferior (dumber). If this… is not racist then I do not know what is. … One could add that the image is inverted among Roma. They consider themselves superior and smart, while the gadjo (non-gypsies) are stupid, naïve and gullible.” — Karl-Olov Arnstberg, Swedish ethnologist

“It is our very strong recommendation not to give money to beggars. It turns the panhandling into an occupation… To give [money] encourages a life with no future; moving from country to country does not solve their problems.” — Florin Ivanovici, director of the Life and Light Foundation, Bucharest, Romania.

Nobody knows exactly how many of them there are, but for the last few years Sweden has been overwhelmed with Roma beggars from Romania and Bulgaria. In 2014, the newspaper Sydsvenskan reported that an estimated 600 Roma beggars lived in the country; a few months ago, the government-appointed “National Coordinator for Vulnerable EU Citizens,” Martin Valfridsson, found that there are now around 4,000.

You see beggars sitting outside virtually every store, not just in the big cities, but also in small rural villages. In the far north of Sweden, at gas stations in the middle of nowhere, patrons are greeted by beggars saying “Hello, hello!” while holding out their paper cups.

A new ISIS affiliate has been formed in the Horn of Africa — vowing to differ from Al-Shabaab by not keeping operations within the “prison” of al-Qaeda.

Jahba East Africa, without specifying, promises that their fighters will be ready to sow terror on new fronts.

And as Al-Shabaab has drawn recruits from America, that could potentially affect our home front.

There had been dissension with Somalia’s Al-Shabaab for some time about whether to remain allied to al-Qaeda or to follow the lead of Boko Haram and pledge allegiance to ISIS.

Just the act of crossing over to ISIS would mean expanding the group’s reach beyond Shabaab’s fairly tight focus of establishing strict Sharia rule in Somalia. The government and allied African forces have pushed Shabaab’s control out of the cities and into rural areas.

It’s not the only place on the map where ISIS is trying to flip al-Qaeda chapters — there are pitched battles in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, whether physical brawls or wars of words, between the terror outlets. ISIS wins over recruits who like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s message of expanding the caliphate ASAP by any means possible.

The Jahba East Africa statement begins by pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi, recognizing him as “the rightful Khalifa [caliph] of all Muslims.”

“We pledge our obedience to him in times of ease and hardship, and Allah is witness to our pledge.”

SEOUL—North Korea said it successfully tested a new engine of an intercontinental ballistic missile, the latest in a series of announcements that appear intended to suggest progress in its goal of building a nuclear-armed missile capable of hitting targets as far away as the U.S.

The run of statements about technical breakthroughs started in March as Pyongyang ratcheted up its warlike rhetoric following international penalties imposed for its nuclear-bomb test and long-range rocket launch earlier in the year. They also coincide with anger from North Korea about annual military drills taking place in South Korea.

Outside experts have expressed skepticism about the claims, including that North Korea has built a nuclear device small enough to mount on a long-range missile.

The latest announcement said a test of a new high-power missile engine was made under the guidance of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the country’s main rocket launch site in its far northwest.

“The great success made in the test provided a firm guarantee for mounting another form of nuclear attack upon the U.S. imperialists and other hostile forces,” North Korea’s state news agency said in its account of the test. CONTINUE AT SITE