RUTHFULLY YOURS

In Saturday’s column, I suggested that, somewhat improbably from the late Sam Huntington’s point of view, the clash of civilizations is dwindling down to the dar al Islam vs the dar al Gay. The good news is that the dar al Gay now has a national flag.

This weekend, the gate-delay channel CNN had an “exclusive” revealing that the black flag of ISIS had been spotted at London’s Gay Pride parade, and so they quickly rustled up Peter Berger and other crack national-security analysts to provide insight on this unexpected convergence of the jihad and the gayhad.

Unfortunately for CNN, the black flag of ISIS turned out to be a black flag showing various sex aids. The CNN reporter had assumed that the attractive arrangements of, er, dildos and, um, butt plugs was, in fact, Arabic script – an easy mistake to make, no doubt, but not one you’d want to have to explain to the Cultural Sensitivity Disciplinary Committee.

Today, American red lines exist only in the blood-drenched lung matter of Syria’s forgotten dead, felled by chlorine gas. And American diplomatic deadlines never die.

For the umpteenth time, the deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran has lapsed. It’s ludicrous. Now the key concern is what will happen over the second half of 2015, given that Iran and the P5+1 remain likely to strike a deal by July 7 (the new deadline). For President Obama, a deal is an alternative to tougher sanctions or a military showdown: Even if he believes the deal is flawed, he’ll probably sign on the dotted line and spin any failure later. Likewise, Iran will probably sign. After all, while rejecting a deal would mean new sanctions, signing a deal would give Iran months to fracture the P5+ 1 and weaken its sanctions regime. Iran knows that the Europeans and Russians are salivating at the prospect of lucrative Iranian contracts.

MADISON, Wis. – Nearly 10,000 supporters delivered a jolt of momentum to Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign Wednesday night at a supersize rally where the senator from Vermont asked his backers to help him create a political revolution.

Mr. Sanders, the upstart Democratic presidential candidate who has steadily been gaining ground in the polls but remains a distinct underdog, outlined an unabashedly liberal agenda for the raucous Wisconsin crowd, advocating a $15-an-hour minimum wage, a single-payer health-care system and free tuition at public universities.

In Madison, Mr. Sanders was greeted by a roaring crowd that filled a 10,000 seat arena to the rafters. He told supporters that this was the largest rally yet for any candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Obama Announces Renewed Diplomatic Ties With Cuba President calls for Congress to lift embargo, says U.S. will continue to raise human-rights concerns
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama formally announced that the U.S. is renewing diplomatic relations with Cuba and called on Congress to lift the long-standing embargo, setting in motion what is likely to be a longer and more uncertain battle on Capitol Hill to dismantle laws keeping the trade and travel bans in place.

With embassies re-established as of July 20, the U.S. and Cuba will work to expand bilateral cooperation and talks, including those that already have begun on telecommunications and human rights.

Since Edward Snowden leaked details of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance program two years ago, the controversy over privacy and domestic spying has crossed party lines, embarrassed senior officials and launched presidential campaigns. The political furor led to passage of the USA Freedom Act in early June. It will stop the NSA from collecting information on millions of American citizens’ phone calls.

A Pew survey in May showed bipartisan majority disapproval of the NSA program—including 56% of Republicans, 48% of Democrats and 57% of independents. Yet the NSA at least was trying to protect Americans from terrorism. Another, far more pernicious data-collection program run by another huge, secretive and unaccountable government bureaucracy exists instead for the purpose of limiting Americans’ freedom.

Islamic Hate for the Christian Cross — on The Glazov Gang

[The Glazov Gang is a fan-generated program so please Donate to keep it alive, Subscribe to its YouTube Channel and LIKE it on Facebook.]

This episode of the Glazov Gang was joined by Raymond Ibrahim, Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He came on the show to discuss Islamic Hate for the Christian Cross, unveiling what really lies behind Muslim hatred of the Crucifix:

To watch the video, click here.http://jamieglazov.com/2015/07/01/islamic-hate-for-the-christian-cross-on-the-glazov-gang/

Denounced by useful idiots, Australian novelist Peter Carey loudly in their vanguard, the author and Muslim apostate was accused of ‘Islamophobia”. This was ridiculous, as phobias are irrational fears and there is nothing unhinged in opposing the world’s most troublesome, aggressive and intolerant creed
Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali HarperCollins, 2015, 320 pages, $29.99

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book makes the case that the world is caught up in a conflagration comparable to the Cold War. As was the case during the Soviet-US showdown, this global confrontation will not be won my military means alone, since America “cannot afford to continue a war of ideals solely by military means”. Moreover, by averting our eyes to “the ideas that give rise to Islamist violence”, all we do is “ignore the root of the problem”. Heretic, then, constitutes Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s latest shot at addressing the ultimate hitch to world peace—Islamic jihadism.

In April last year, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, rescinded an offer to the Somali-born feminist to address a commencement ceremony and receive an honorary degree. Brandeis’s Muslim Students Association had ignited a social media firestorm, accusing Hirsi Ali of “Islamophobia” and the powers-that-be at Brandeis crumpled.

That wind farms are ugly is the least of the problems their heavily subsidised, rent-seeking promoters are inflicting on the rest of us. Quite apart from their damage to avian populations, the very process of manufacturing them generates a vast tonnage of toxic waste
Recently, Tony Abbott caused a stir with his entirely rational and reasonable observation that wind turbines are ugly — an opinion that further disturbed Fairfax opinion-page fixture Elizabeth Farelly, who countered that she likes ‘their whiteness and grandeur, and how they catch the morning light like so many celestial beings beamed across the landscape’. The obvious response, once one has recovered from exposure to such fly-blown prose, is that, while beauty will always be in the eye of the beholder, the bottom-line cost of extracting volts from zephyrs presents an irredeemably ugly mess of red ink.

Anthony Dillon identifies as a part-Aboriginal Australian who is proud of both his Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestries. Originally from Queensland, he now lives in Sydney and is a researcher at the University of Western Sydney

The first and saddest reaction of far too many Indigenous activists and spokesmen is to see the past as a crushing burden, one that can only be lifted by profuse apologies and, the most recent demand, a re-written Constitution. It is an attitude no less destructive than delusional.

Many people have asserted that the problems Aborigines experience today are largely due to the influence of the past. Specifically, colonisation is assumed to be the cause of much of the suffering as James Cook University Associate Professor Gracelyn Smallwood has stated . Aboriginal people, she says, remain buirdened by “the trans-generational scourge of violent colonisation”. The Creative Spirits website takes up the same theme, blaming colonisation for causing “all the known social disadvantages and trauma.” Interestingly, despite a past said to be causing such havoc today, there are many Aboriginal people — many thousands in fact — who not only survive but thrive.

It was Palestinian who hurt themselves: When Israelis were not able to hire Palestinian workers, they simply turned to foreign workers, prefabricated construction and other industrial innovations.

If the boycott of goods made in the settlements is successful, thousands, if not tens of thousands of Palestinians will find themselves unemployed, hungry, and ripe for radicalization.

The world will never give up its computing, medical, agricultural and start-up products for us. The Israelis will continue to prosper. They have already found other markets.

Mahmoud Abbas is afraid of Hamas and afraid to enter the Gaza Strip. As a result of rumors that Hamas was working privately to reach a cease-fire agreement with Israel, Abbas is threatening to dissolve the national unity government.

We Palestinians continue to miss one opportunity after the other. Now, we are about to miss yet another opportunity for peace.