RUTHFULLY YOURS

‘The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1788. Changing just one word of this eternal truth renders it even more urgent: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and militant Islam to gain ground.”

From virtually every direction, radical Islam is on the march, spreading havoc and horror in its path. Simultaneously, the civilized world contorts itself nearly beyond recognition to accommodate Muslim fundamentalism. This is a formula for pain.

Just days after Islamic terrorists murdered 17 innocent Parisians in the Charlie Hebdo and kosher-grocery attacks, two militant Muslims in Belgium were killed and a third was injured in a gun battle with police.

The betrayal of Taiwan is a stain on the legacy of Nixon/Kissinger’s vaunted mission to China….culminating with Jimmy Carter’s removal of the American embassy in Taipei to Peking, ducking the American obligation to a growing democracy to kow tow to a Maoist terror state….rsk

In the president’s State of the Union speech, he patted himself on the back for establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba’s dictators — a decision, he said, that has “extend[ed] the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.” Never mind that the Cuban people have no say in the government up to which Mr. Obama is cozying — but if the president is in a friendly mood, there’s a different island nation that could really use American diplomatic ties. One whose government derives its power from the consent of the governed. It’s time we re-recognized Taiwan.

We need a great deal more honesty about the religion, as the “no-go zone” debate reveals.

Footballs are deflating, the president is detached from reality, the Saudi king is deceased, and the sharia state next door, Yemen, is descending into bloody chaos. With mere anarchy loosed upon the world, it would be easy to miss the fact that, in England this week, Bobby Jindal gave as important and compelling a speech as has been delivered in years about America — our leadership role on the world stage, our preservation as a beacon of liberty.

In the birthplace of the Magna Carta, it has nonetheless become legally risky to speak with candor (even when quoting Churchill). Yet Louisiana’s Republican governor became that rarest of modern Anglo or American statesmen. Bobby Jindal told the truth about Islam, specifically about its large radical subset that attacks the West by violent jihad from without and sharia-supremacist subversion from within.

With Western Europe still reeling from the jihadist mass-murders in Paris at Charlie Hebdo magazine and the Hyper Kacher Jewish market, Governor Jindal outlined a bold, Reaganesque vision of American foreign policy guided by three imperatives — freedom, security, and truth. It is on the last one, truth, that our capacity to ensure freedom and security hinges. “You cannot remedy a problem,” Jindal explained, “if you will not name it and define it.”

Too many on the left believe that it’s better to be consistently wrong than inconsistently right.

Dear Reader (Unless you’re sitting in a tub full of Cap’n Crunch, in which case you’re too busy talking to the leader of the free world),

Look, any week where Joe Biden tells the public he prefers “deflated balls” can’t be all bad. Before you go someplace filthy with that, the quote in context is that “as a receiver” Biden likes softer balls.

(“I’m not sure you’re helping.” — the Couch).

Anyway, it was a very long week for me. I am drowning in deadlines and this solo-parenting thing is hard. (My wife is out of town for a family emergency.) Whenever I’m on my own with my kid and dog I marvel at how little time it takes for the house to look like the mob was here searching for its stolen heroin. I’m also amazed at how, when I am alone, I don’t think twice about eating all of my meals over the kitchen sink — and yet I still generate so many dirty dishes. It’s a mystery.

But I also think about how hard it must be to be an actual single parent. It seems to me that this is the ground-floor argument conservatives should build up from when talking about marriage. Raising kids is just easier with two committed parents around. Put aside the moralizing for a second (moralizing I often agree with, by the way) and just talk logistics. It’s very hard to do all the things you want to do for your kids without a wingman (or wing-gal). I’m not even talking about the financial part, which is huge. It’s simply harder to help with homework, show up at games, serve home-cooked meals, and generally participate in your kids’ life if you’re the sole breadwinner and sole parent. (Charles Murray has been making this point for a very long time.)

The golden era for U.S. business schools is over. Gone are the days when a master of business administration degree was essential for a career at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey & Co. Young professionals now balk at the $100,000 price tag and two-year commitment needed for an M.B.A.

The rise of Asian business schools poses another challenge. Although applications from the region are still strong at top U.S. schools, many Asian students and successful entrepreneurs have opted to stay closer to home to hone their skills. Business schools have mushroomed in India and China, offering courses and networking opportunities that are more relevant to their home markets.

Top U.S. business schools have responded by introducing shorter and more specific business programs, and adding international business cases for study.

Indian-born Nitin Nohria, the first Asian dean of Harvard Business School, talked to The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong about the new environment of business education. Edited excerpts:

Waterloo marked the end of more than two decades of fighting on land and at sea, nearly as exhausting for those who remained at home as for those who fought Napoleon

On a recent visit to Belgium, I found myself on top of “La Butte du Lion,” a man-made hill overlooking the fields of Waterloo. Here, on a hot day in June 1815, tens of thousands of soldiers marched to their deaths; many were barefoot, having lost their boots to the mud churned up by gun carriages. The Duke of Wellington reportedly grieved the “immense” loss of life rather than celebrating his crowning victory over Napoleon’s armies. For days after, the lanes around the battlefield were slippery with grease draining from the great corpse-pyres built to stop the spread of disease in the hot weather.

I find battlefield tourism eerie and discomfiting—but civilian fascination at the site of bloodshed is by no means a new phenomenon. Tourism began at Waterloo a few days after the battle, and Wellington himself subsequently guided parties of the well-to-do from England and its allies. For years after the battle, there was a trade in trinkets and souvenirs from that gruesome field—everything from buttons and bullets and standards (Sir Walter Scott collected four of them) to bits of bone and even skulls. A former soldier ran an inn nearby to accommodate tourists.

The White House made clear today that it’s accpetable for British Prime Minister David Cameron to lobby Congress against passing Iran sanctions legislation, but it’s not all right for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do so because he doesn’t agree with the administration’s position.

In the fallout of the latest administration fight with Israel, press secretary Josh Earnest today highlighted Cameron’s visit a week ago in which President Obama and his British counterpart tried to discourage congressional action.

“On Iran, we remain absolutely committed to ensuring that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon,” Cameron said then. “The best way to achieve that now is to create the space for negotiations to succeed. We should not impose further sanctions now; that would be counterproductive and it could put at risk the valuable international unity that has been so crucial to our approach.”

NOT JUST THE FLAGS ARE LOWERED BUT ALL SHREDS OF BRITISH HONOR…..RSK

Except here in Ireland, where they still have six counties, just for spite. Otherwise, get a load of this:

London (AFP) – The government’s decision on Friday to lower British flags following the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has stirred controversy, with critics pointing to the kingdom’s poor human rights record. Tributes from world leaders have poured in for the late monarch, seen by some as a cautious moderniser in a turbulent region, but criticised by others as not having done enough to reform an absolute monarchy adhering to a severe form of Islam.

Saudi law, which forbids women from driving and punishes apostasy with death, is derived from Wahhabi Islam, an ultraconservative sect whose clergy have provided Saudi rulers with religious legitimacy.

“Your flag flying insults every woman in the United Kingdom, HOW DARE YOU,” tweeted former Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch. Lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted: “UK orders flags flown at half-mast for King Abdullah. Will return to lecturing the world about democracy tomorrow.”

And remember — prime minister to the Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha monarchy, David Cameron, is a “conservative.”

In Norway’s educational system, history is not a valued subject. It is included under either “Social Studies” or “Norwegian.” Many Norwegians are therefore unaware how their society and democracy were formed, or of the enormous prices paid to attain them. Recent generations seem to take them for granted.

Norway’s education system is also permeated with an idealistic vision of equality and a belief in cultural relativism: that everyone, every culture and every religion are of the same value. Schools and even preschools are obliged to work to wipe out class differences. The majority of teachers are idealists who believe in the idealism they are obliged to preach. Islam is presented in schoolbooks as “just another religion” — attractive, and portrayed as if has already been reformed, a situation just not the case.

“Even though I was committed to the idea of jihad, I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Conley said Friday. “It was all about defending Muslims.” (HUH???)

Conley, a 19-year-old suburban Denver woman, was sentenced to four years in prison for trying to help the so-called Islamic State militant group in Syria, under a plea deal that requires her to help authorities find others with the same intentions. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)DENVER (AP) – A 19-year-old suburban Denver woman who tried to go to Syria to help Islamic State militants was sentenced to four years in prison Friday, even as she tearfully told a judge that she never wanted to hurt anyone and has disavowed jihad.

Shannon Conley told the judge she was misled while pursuing Islam and learned only after her arrest about atrocities committed by the extremists she was taught to respect.
“I am glad I have learned of their true identity here and not on the front lines,” said Conley, whose black and tan headscarf clashed against her striped jail uniform. “I disavow these radical views I’ve come to know and I now believe in the true Islam in which peace is encouraged.”