Davos 2010: George Soros Warns Gold is Now the ‘Ultimate Bubble’
Gold is now “the ultimate bubble”, billionaire investor George Soros has declared, sparking fears that prices for the precious metal may soon suffer a tumble.
Mr Soros, arguably the most famous hedge fund manager in history, warned that with interest rates low around the world, policymakers were risking generating new bubbles which could cause crashes in the future. In comments delivered on the fringe of the World Economic Forum, Mr Soros said: “When interest rates are low we have conditions for asset bubbles to develop, and they are developing at the moment. The ultimate asset bubble is gold.”
Gold prices last month reached a record level of just over $1,225 per ounce, having risen around 40pc last year. Investors are piling into the metal amid fears both of potential inflation and fading faith about the stability of previously-assumed safe assets such as government debt. However, the chairman of Barrick Gold, the world’s biggest producer, Peter Munk, said he expected the metal’s upward march to continue.
Mr Soros added that by proposing imminent “exit strategies” from the unprecedented support handed out to troubled banks and consumers, governments around the world could be in danger of triggering a double-dip in the global economy. In comments which will reinforce Labour’s plan to fight the next election on promises not to start raising taxes or cutting spending too soon, he said that it was still too early to slash budget deficits.
He said: “I think that since the adjustment process to the recession is incomplete, there is a need for additional stimulus. Some countries, like the US and European countries, have plenty of room to increase their deficits. The political resistance to doing so increases the chances of a double dip in the economy in 2011 and after that.”
The Conservatives have pledged to start cutting public spending almost immediately after this year’s election, but their promise was weakened earlier this week by an International Monetary Fund report warning that it may still be too early to begin this process. Mr Soros also came out in favour of Barack Obama’s plan to split up large US banks, but said that proposals to tax the banking system could also endanger the recovery.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Finance Bill’s Devilish Details
Subprime Scandal: Much of the 2,000-page draft of the Democrats’ finance reform bill could have been written by Acorn, and probably was. It has more to do with “civil rights” than consumer protection.
The devil is in the details of the monstrous new regulatory package, which Democrats hope to pass early next month. They reveal plans to reallocate credit and capital to the Democrats’ political base, while empowering race racketeers like Acorn with slush funds and advisory board seats.
The “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010” is, in fact, a massive redistribution scheme camouflaged as reform. Far from reforming easy-credit practices, the bill encourages more of the same reckless, politically mandated lending that brought down the entire financial system in the name of “affordable housing.”
Yes, the bill gives Treasury the power to liquidate banks that pose a threat to financial stability. But it essentially exempts minority-owned banks and those approved by Acorn-style urban organizers.
“The orderly liquidation plan shall take into account actions to avoid or mitigate potential adverse effects on low- income, minority or underserved communities affected by the failure of the covered financial company,” it says.
In other words, zombie banks laden with subprime and near-prime loans may be too PC to fail. Democrats call such immunity from reform “impact protections,” but Republicans aren’t buying it.
Sen. Richard Shelby and other GOP conferees moved to strike the language, arguing that making an exception for minority neighborhoods defeats the whole purpose of reform, which is to protect all consumers against systemic risk.
But Sen. Chris Dodd, who’s running the conference committee with his fellow Democrat, Rep. Barney Frank, shot them down by suggesting that they wanted to deny minorities access to credit.
“The same arguments were made against the Community Reinvestment Act,” Dodd bellowed.
Unfortunately, they weren’t made forcefully enough. Studies show that CRA home loans have much higher failure rates. Such politically mandated lending regardless of creditworthiness is the whole reason we’re in this mess.
Another section of the bill requires the proposed Financial Stability Oversight Council (headed by the Treasury secretary) to consider a zombie institution’s “importance as a source of credit for low-income, minority or underserved communities” before winding it down. So prudent lending is important in the bank exam — unless it conflicts with Democrats’ social goals.
It gets worse. The bill mandates placement of a diversity czar in each federal financial agency — including the Fed and its 12 regional banks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pension Reforms Bring on Strikes in France
A mass strike against the French government’s plan to raise the retirement age disrupted transport and shut down schools on Thursday, with unions saying two million protesters took to the streets.
The government last week unveiled proposals to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 by 2018, increasing the number of working years required for a state pension, as part of efforts to cut France’s big budget deficit.
Nearly one in five civil servants and school staff stayed away from work in protest at the plans which unions says place an unfair burden on workers, forcing schools to close.
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Soros Tells Germany to Step Up to Its Responsibilities, Or Leave EMU
Legendary investor George Soros has called on Germany to leave the euro unless it is willing to embrace a growth strategy, describing Berlin’s austerity doctrine as a threat to democracy and political stability in Europe.
“German policy is becoming a danger that could destroy the European Project. A collapse of the euro cannot be excluded,” he told the German weekly Die Zeit.
“Unless Germany changes policy, its withdrawal from the currency union would be helpful for the rest of Europe. At the moment Germany is pushing its neighbours into deflation: this threatens a long phase of stagnation, leading to nationalism, social unrest, and zenophobia. It endangers democracy,” he said.
Mr Soros saw the political effects of wage cuts first-hand during the Great Depression, and narrowly survived the Holocaust as a Jewish boy in Nazi-controlled Budapest. He has since dedicated much of his wealth to philanthropic works promoting freedom and pluralism across the globe, mostly through Open Society institutes.
His comments reflect growing alarm in influential circles on both sides of the Atlantic over the 1930s-style policies of wage cuts and debt-deflation being imposed up the Club Med bloc, Ireland, and parts of Eastern Europe by the EU authorities, at the behest of Berlin.
President Barack Obama clearly had Germany in mind when he wrote a letter to fellow leaders before the G20 summit in Canada this week that surplus countries should do more to shore up global demand. “Our highest priority must be to safeguard and strengthen the recovery: we cannot let it falter or lose strength now. Should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed,” he wrote.
China has deflected G20 criticism by starting to free the yuan, leaving Germany facing the full wrath of Washington. While the German economy is not in itself large enough to shape global events, US officials fear that Berlin’s dominant influence over the European Central Bank and the fiscal machinery of monetary union is dragging most of Europe into an economic swamp. Germany has raised the bar for every eurozone country by announcing €80bn of belt-tightening from next year.
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman told the German press earlier this week that the country was committing the same error as the United States in 1936-1937, or Japan in the 1990s, by withdrawing stimulus before recovery has taken root.
“I don’t have a problem with trying to balance the budget in five or 10 years. The question is whether one should start when the economy is at 7 or 8 percent below its normal capacity and interest rates are at zero. Now is not the time to be worried about deficits.”
Professor Krugman said there was a risk of a “domino effect” reaching Spain and Italy if Bundesbank chief Axel Weber takes over as head of the ECB and fails to offer enough monetary stimulus to keep these countries afloat.
One analyst said that Mr Weber faces an impossible task. “Either they do more QE (quantitative easing), in which case it will set off inflation in Germany and cause Germany to leave EMU: or they don’t do more QE, in which case it will lead to deflation in Southern Europe and force them out of EMU,” he said.
Mr Soros said Germany was treating the deeply-flawed Maastricht Treaty as it were a “sacred text”, warning that monetary union cannot endure for long as a narrow construct based on debt and deficit ceilings. He said wage rises in Germany are imperative to help lift the whole eurozone, allowing peripheral economies to claw their way out of trouble without fighting the extra headwinds of deflation.
“The truth is that what we have in Europe is not a currency or sovereign debt crisis as many people think, but a banking crisis,” he said. Mr Soros argued that the weaker states cannot easily fund their deficits any longer because somebanks are purchasing fewer bonds as a result of damaged balance-sheets.
Investors are likely to pay close attention to the views of Mr Soros, whose Quantum fund played a key role in the crisis of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. He famously pounced on sterling and the Italian lira after a top Bundesbank official described both currencies as over-valued, an invitation for a speculative attack.
The crisis proved a blessing in disguise for Britain, which was liberated early from a destructive policy of job wastage. Mr Soros yet to receive a a knighthood for his services.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK Budget Cuts as a Lesson
The UK Coalition government has announced its emergency budget today, just a few days before the parliamentary recess kicks off and MPs head home for their summer break. The members of Parliament will head home into the face of special interest decrying the new UK budget. Those who are members of the governing coalition party will be dreading their summer constituency mail-bag.
Those looking for fiscal prudence, like the UK tea party http://bit.ly/bOamx6 rallying near Parliament today, will have much to be pleased about. Although raising VAT to 20% from the previous 17.4% will hurt everyone very hard, there are tax and spending cuts galore. http://bit.ly/aLW0q7
Its hard to believe that the US President and Congress would even suggest freezing government employee wages for the next two years, but the Coalition has done just that. They have announced 25% budget cuts for all government departments which will shock many in government. http://bit.ly/cMg2wo
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Almost Half of Voters See Government as a Threat to Individual Rights
Nearly half of American Adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.
Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.
Additionally, most Americans (52%) say it is more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth. Just 31% say promoting economic growth is more important. But again a sizable number (17%) of Adults aren’t sure which is more important…
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BP to Drill in Alaska
“…about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.” (New York Times, Wednesday. Link at URL)
Is oil the new tobacco?
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California Welfare Cards Can be Used in Many Casino ATMs
California welfare recipients are able to use state-issued debit cards to withdraw cash on gaming floors in more than half of the casinos in the state, a Los Angeles Times review of records found.
The cards, provided by the Department of Social Services to help recipients feed and clothe their families, work in automated teller machines at 32 of 58 tribal casinos and 47 of 90 state-licensed poker rooms…
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who learned of the issue when asked to comment for this story, promised to take immediate action.
“We have instructed our vendors to prohibit these cards from being accepted at ATMs located in casinos and card rooms,” Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said Wednesday. “It is reprehensible that anyone would use taxpayer money for anything other than its intended purpose.”
Administration officials said the social services agency contracts with a private ATM network to handle the electronic transfer of benefits to people on welfare, and hadn’t noticed that the taxpayer money was being withdrawn at gambling establishments…
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Chatigny: Devastating Take-Down of an Obscure Nomination
…setting aside the political angle, the biggest problem with Chatigny’s nomination is not the odd extremes to which he went to in order to protect a serial killer from a legally imposed death sentence, nor even his willingness to give light sentences for child pornography offenses and strike down Connecticut’s version of Megan’s Law.
The biggest problem is that Chatigny presided over the Ross serial killer case despite having previously worked for Ross as a lawyer, without making anyone else aware of that fact. In 1992, Chatigny had been asked to request leave to file a motion on Ross’s behalf. He never actually filed the motion, but he reviewed a motion written by another lawyer and “saw to it that it was filed” (his words). It wasn’t a great deal of involvement, but Chatigny himself admits that it was enough that he would have recused himself had he remembered his involvement.
But it’s quite difficult to believe that Chatigny would forget doing anything related to the most infamous case in Connecticut in at least half a century, and the only capital case there in the previous forty years. Moreover, consider his bold remarks on the case. Ross, Chatigny said at one point, should “never have been convicted. Or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death.”
Does that sound like someone who has forgotten he ever worked on the case? It is therefore also difficult to believe that Chatigny was honest with the committee in saying he had forgotten.
Despite the best efforts by Media Matters but Truth Doesn’t to limit the damage, Senate Democrats in tough re-elect fights are not going to be falling all over themselves to vote for this guy.
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Dallas: Fastest Growing U.S. City
The booming Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area added more residents during the past decade than any other city in the United States, according to CNNMoney.com.
According to the latest Census Bureau figures released Tuesday:
The population of the sprawling Texas metro area grew by about 1.3 million people, or 25 percent, between April 1, 2000, and July 1, 2009.
The population is now estimated at 6.5 million residents, but an exact count won’t be available until the 2010 census is complete.
Dallas’s attractions include a very favorable business climate, according to Mayor Tom Leppert. There’s no corporate income tax, building costs are relatively reasonable and regulations are minimal.
“It’s a great place to do business,” he said, “especially for companies from high-tax states.”
Helping to drive growth is the area’s main airport, Dallas/Fort Worth International, the third busiest in the nation. Its location is far enough south to ensure good weather yet central enough to make it easy to fly to the Northeast, the Midwest and the Pacific Coast. It is also well positioned for air traffic with Latin American markets.
“Dallas has no port,” said Leppert. “The airport became a 21st century port.”
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Democrats Attack the First Amendment With the Disclose Act
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has lately taken to saying that the failure to pass the Cap-and-Trade Act would be “immoral.”
I suggest that the White House and the Democrat congressional leadership and members haven’t a clue when it comes to determining the morality of anything. They are so politically corrupt that they are oblivious to what everyone sees in their behavior. Only such people could pass the Healthcare Act in the face of massive opposition by the American people.
[…]
On Thursday, June 24, the “Disclose Act” (H.R. 5175) is likely to be voted upon despite the fact that it is manifestly unconstitutional on its face. Its purpose is to undo the Supreme Court’s decision in January, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that made it clear that corporations, unions, and non-profits like the Tea Party groups, free market advocates, and conservative groups are free to use their funds to express themselves in the run-up to the November elections.
It’s called freedom of speech!
The intent is to saddle groups likely to oppose Democrat Party candidates and issues with so much paperwork that it in effect silences them and deprives them of their First Amendment rights.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
D-FW Ranks 6th in Troubled Commercial Properties, Report Says
Almost $2 billion worth of commercial properties in Dallas-Fort Worth are in distress.
The D-FW area ranks sixth in the country among major metropolitan areas with troubled commercial real estate deals, according to the midyear report released Thursday by analyst Delta Associates.
“The number of distressed properties in the Dallas area continues to rise,” the report says, with office buildings accounting for the largest percentage of struggling real estate deals.
In many cases, the buildings are in financial difficulty because loans are maturing and the owners can’t arrange new debt.
Almost $167 billion in U.S. commercial properties, including offices, shopping centers, hotels and industrial buildings, are considered distressed and facing possible default, the analysts estimate. That’s down about 11 percent from the first quarter.
“We believe that the declining growth of distressed real estate reflects the fact that in many markets commercial property values are no longer falling,” the report said. Lenders are also working harder to refinance projects.
New York City, with more than $14 billion in troubled real estate, tops the country, followed by the Los Angeles area, southern Florida and the Washington, D.C., area.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Editorial: The Golfer-in-Chief
Mr. Obama is well on his way to being the golfingest president in recent memory. He is hitting the links at three times the rate of his predecessor during the first years of his presidency. President George W. Bush gave up golf in 2003 on principle because it would be unseemly for the commander in chief to spend so much time enjoying himself while American troops are fighting and dying overseas. Give W an extra mulligan for being classy.
Marathon golf sessions often with high-roller partners are only one aspect of Mr. Obama’s growing image problem. While America suffers, Mr. Obama is hosting gala events at the White House, hanging out with rock stars, making pro-forma photo ops and then returning to Washington to “clear his mind.” We’re surprised to hear that his mind is cluttered with anything, but he does have a busy travel schedule. Last week, for example, Mr. Obama spent between $500,000 and $1 million of taxpayer money to fly to Ohio to deliver a 10-minute speech touting his purported achievements. Because of the presidential presence, the work site Mr. Obama visited was closed for the day, taking work hours away from the working man. “That’s $200 we are missing out on,” said construction worker George Harrison. “Everybody needs to eat, right?” Eat cake, George.
Vice President Joe Biden took an all-expense-paid trip to South Africa to watch World Cup soccer after kicking off a public-relations campaign called “recovery summer,” which seeks to convince Americans that the Democrats’ almost trillion-dollar stimulus program is solving everyone’s problems. One such project is the “President Barack Obama Parkway” in Orlando, a particularly shameless tribute to a sitting president that’s more befitting an authoritarian regime in some banana republic than our once-serious nation. For comparison, the Ronald Reagan highway in Ohio was named in honor of the former president nine years after he left office; the interstate highway system was named after Dwight D. Eisenhower 21 years after Ike passed away. And, of course, those Republicans were successful presidents — especially compared to the imploding O Force.
Polls show that most Americans aren’t buying the Obama administration’s happy talk. A Pew research center poll from the first week of June showed that only 13 percent of Americans agree with the president that the economy is entering recovery this summer. According to another Pew poll, 60 percent of Americans believe the stimulus has not helped the job situation, and other polls show Mr. Obama’s approval rating on the economy at or below 50 percent. The most recent Gallup daily tracking poll shows that 56 percent of Americans think the economy is getting worse.
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Federal Gov’t Halts Sand Berm Dredging
Nungesser Pleads With President To Allow Work To Continue
The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.
The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the dredging plan, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, pleading for the work to continue.
Nungesser said the government has asked crews to move the dredging site two more miles farther off the coastline.
“Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil,” Nungesser wrote to Obama. “Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil.
Nungesser has asked for the dredging to continue for the next seven days, the amount of time it would take to move the dredging operations two miles and out resume work…
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Homeland Security to Use Drones Along Border
The Homeland Security Department will use unmanned surveillance aircraft and other technological upgrades in its ongoing effort to protect the southern border of the United States.
The department said Wednesday it has obtained Federal Aviation Administration permission to operate unmanned planes along the Texas border and throughout the Gulf Coast region. Customs and Border Protection will base a surveillance drone at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas.
Homeland Security also said it is working with the Office of National Drug Control Policy on “Project Roadrunner,” a license plate recognition system designed to seek out possible drug traffickers.
And the department is collaborating with the Justice Department to improve information sharing between state, local and federal law enforcement agencies…
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Imam Terror Error: Ground Zero Mosque Leader Hedges on Hamas
By Tom Topousis
The imam behind plans to build a controversial Ground Zero mosque yesterday refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.
According to the State Department’s assessment, “Hamas terrorists, especially those in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have conducted many attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilian and military targets.”
Asked if he agreed with the State Department’s assessment, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf told WABC radio, “Look, I’m not a politician.
“The issue of terrorism is a very complex question,” he told interviewer Aaron Klein. “There was an attempt in the ‘90s to have the UN define what terrorism is and say who was a terrorist. There was no ability to get agreement on that.”
Asked again for his opinion on Hamas, an exasperated Rauf wouldn’t budge.
“I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy,” Rauf said, insisting that he wants to see peace in Israel between Jews and Arabs.
Rauf also would not answer a question about Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. “I have nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood. My father was never a member of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said, disputing a rumor.
Rauf’s position has come under a microscope as he leads an effort to build a $100 million mosque and community center at 45 Park Place, near Ground Zero.
Meanwhile, a pastor on Staten Island who signed off on a controversial plan to sell a former convent to the Muslim American Society has changed his mind.
St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church Pastor Keith Fennessy sent a letter to Archbishop Timothy Dolan saying that, “after careful reflection,” he has withdrawn his support for the convent sale.
But New York Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling told the Web site SI Live, “The contract was signed, and [Fennessy’s withdrawal of support] does not cancel that.”…
| — Hat tip: ACT! For America | [Return to headlines] |
I’ve Been Thinking About the Way the President Takes Care of America
On Hannity the other evening, my colleague Erik Rush nailed it while discussing his new book titled Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal — America’s Racial Obsession. The Democrat Party purposefully misleads people of color by reinforcing their fears, Erik pointed out. And certain pastors in the black community do the same, he noted. Within too many of the sanctuaries of black churches, the congregants are made to feel that the world is against them. From the pulpit, these same pastors will look to government, rather than to God’s instruction for taking personal responsibility. In John 10:10, Christ says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The apostle John writes, “Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2).
We were told throughout Obama’s campaign that if it were possible, he would bring racially-diverse Americans closer together than ever before. I viewed this promise as empty rhetoric because, like my friend Erik, I do not believe for one moment that America is deeply embedded in racial problems. We moved forward a long time ago. Americans intermarry and raise wonderful children together. And anyone can be whatever he or she chooses to be when they are willing to put their mind and effort to it. This is 2010, and we’re not gawking at the color of each others’ skin.
However, ever since the Obamas moved into the White House, we’ve heard — with incessant racial-mindedness — something much different. Americans of all nationalities and ethnicities on the conservative side are not going to tolerate or embrace the progressives’ downtrodden, race-baiting lies being tossed out in the public arena. We’re in touch with the heart of America. The radical liberals are not. Have you seen the recent polls?
Bigotry masquerading as religion
When Rev. Jeremiah Wright first stepped onto the political scene, he opened the door to unabashed bigotry. For the very first time, most Americans were shocked to learn about Black Liberation theology. It had nothing to do with biblical Christianity whatsoever. It was about hatred of others who happened to be of European white descent. Liberation theology also has to do with being anti-Semitic.
There in an ungodly mix is a theology that demands a payback of sorts. It’s about what some white and black people did during the very distant past days of slavery. And sadly, in the minds of some, it does not matter what was accomplished during the Civil War. It does not matter what Martin Luther King, Jr., accomplished in the 60’s as Americans came together for heart-felt healing.
Today, we actually do have open bigotry. Let’s call it out where it exists. It emanates from those who want to continually live off the bygone past. There are race baiters within the worlds of politics, media, and faith. The number of such radicals serving with the president is staggering. We should be more outraged. We need to ask why other politicians continue to give this president and his corrupt cabinet any respect, much less the time of day.
Marxists posing as Christians
Pastors of many denominations are in close contact with Rev. Jim Wallis, an openly avowed socialist/Marxist who is a member of President Obama’s “Faith Council” and is described as a spiritual adviser to the president. These pastors are behind the scenes busily helping the president. They’re defiantly cheering Obama on as he becomes more unbending and aloof in his thoughts. Yes, he is a master at working out a very successful strategy of redistribution of wealth, or what is cleverly called “social justice.” If anyone of importance says one word against the president or his big-government policies, they are demonized.
Americans need to understand the destructive role that churches and pastors of once-conservative denominations are playing. They have allowed progressives into their fold and given them high offices within their churches. They stand ready to help re-elect Obama. They will gladly help him pass his green agenda — Cap and Trade. These denominations are no longer America’s friend. The United Council of Churches consists of little more than progressive ideologues. They neither love their country nor respect the Word of God. They are on the side of tyranny. Any denomination that mirrors their teachings should be viewed with suspicion. “While I pray that God will have mercy on their souls, we must show them no mercy politically. They are but another well-organized group of traitors to this nation” — Erik Rush.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kent State and the Perfect Coup
In May 1970, news was made at Ohio’s Kent State University when campus police and the National Guard attempted to wrest control from out-of-control students. The collective temper-tantrum ignited a full-blown coup that had been some 30 years in the making.
Today, we know a lot more about Kent State than the cult event celebrated in song lyrics, anti-war heroes and angst-filled photos. Nonetheless, recently declassified and previously unpublished reports about Kent State are surprising only to those who ignored the testimonies of whistleblowers already available at the time. Recently declassified accounts point to meticulous pre-planning (three days’ worth, to be exact) that was too sophisticated to have been the work of mere collegiates. It involved “a roving mob of earnest anti-war activists, hard-core radicals … and others [who] smashed bank and store windows, looted a jewelry store and hurled bricks and bottles at police.” At the time, nothing much was published about the injuries sustained by officers — or about a “pre-dawn conversation … between two men overheard inside a campus lounge later [that night, who exulted]: ‘We did it! We got the riot started.’ “
Nor was anything reported concerning a certain ROTC cadet’s interview with FBI agents, during which he gave a “precise first-hand account” with a “credibility not easily dismissed.” Taken together, the heavily redacted FBI documents indicate that the now-infamous shootings by National Guardsmen were not simply “unprovoked attacks.” In fact, they were the natural consequence and outgrowth of a cultural milieu suffused and enamored with revolutionary radicalism.
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The violence at Kent State and the turmoil throughout the nation in the 1960s and early 1970s was an outgrowth of the propaganda spread through the nation’s schools and universities over the previous three decades. This might have been more clearly revealed in the aftermath of the violence, but much was held back and kept under wraps. Just why documents like the FBI investigations from Kent State were held back, and why key passages were overlooked or classified when the media was disseminating the impression that campus violence was spontaneous, impulsive and unprovoked, is unknown. Perhaps the FBI assumed the media was already infiltrated — many employees from the once-highly secretive “psychological warfare branch” of the War Department (G-2) and the Office of War Information (OWI) had already become liberal-socialist media executives once the war was over (among them CBS’ William Paley, Time/Life’s C. D. Jackson, and the editors of high-value publications like Holiday, Look, Fortune, Coronet, Parade, the Saturday Review and Viking Press). Handing over damning material to a “closed club” like that might have been deemed counterproductive.
Yet, not doing so provided a window of opportunity for now-infamous “community activist” groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), founded in the same year as the Kent State incident, and the ever-present ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), formally established in 1920 but by 1970 wreaking havoc. These organizations — mimicking the writings of Marcuse, Counts, and Neill — portrayed themselves as defenders of the helpless, while simultaneously hastening the death of the American Dream.
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Still, at least one publication attempted to get to the bottom of things. Just four years after the Kent State incident, a revealing article by Alan Stang — television writer, producer, best-selling author, consultant and former business editor for Prentice-Hall, Inc. — wrote a piece for American Opinion magazine (the forerunner of The New American) entitled “Proof to Save the Guardsmen.” In it, Stang alluded to much of what has recently been revealed. “Today the phony ‘revolution’ which is trying to destroy America deliberately arranges for its own martyrs by conning victims into serving as cannon fodder,” Stang wrote in the article. He wrote similarly of the “1968 Democrat National Convention, where students got their skulls fractured when their leaders attacked the police.”
Notice he said “their leaders,” not the students themselves. Even from fuzzy 1968 media footage, one could tell that many among the perpetrators were not young college students, but adults. Many were later exposed as a semi-trained mix of foreign radicals and professional agitators.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Majority of Federal Mine Inspectors Did Not Undergo Required Training
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) which falls under the Labor Department, “did not ensure” that all its coal mine inspectors received retraining in the 2006-07 training cycle, according to an audit by the agency’s inspector general. As a result, a majority of inspectors did not undergo their required retraining.
In addition, the MSHA cancelled all retraining of its mine inspectors for 2008, according to the agency’s spokesperson.
In its March 30 report, entitled Journeyman Mine Inspectors Do Not Receive Required Periodic Retraining, the inspector general’s office states: “Specifically, 56 percent of the 102 journeyman inspectors we sampled had not completed this retraining during the FY 2006—2007 training cycle, and three of these journeyman inspectors had not received retraining since the inception of MSHA’s training policy in 1998.”
The periodic retraining is required by the MSHA. The audit noted that the MSHA “lacked controls to track and assure completion of required periodic retraining by journeyman inspectors, and there were no consequences for not attending retraining courses.”
The report was published just a few days before the April 5 explosion at West Virginia Upper Big Branch coal mine, which left 29 men dead, making it the worst mining accident in the United States in 40 years…
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National Security Agencies Do Not Share Information
President Obama’s national security agencies “do not always share relevant information with their national security partners,” according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
The report shows that more than eight years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, federal agencies were still failing to “connect the dots” on intelligence pointing to security threats to the United States.
The GAO findings come approximately six months after President Obama acknowledged that the intelligence community failed to share information that could have properly identified the attempted Christmas Day bomber as a dangerous extremist, adding he would “insist on accountability at every level” for such a failure.
The June 19 report, prepared for the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations, revealed that “the timely dissemination of information is critical for maintaining national security.”
John Pendleton, director of defense capabilities and management at the GAO and author of the report, said interagency collaboration challenges abound when it comes to national security.
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One Asian Carp Found Beyond Great Lakes Barriers
A single Asian carp has been found for the first time beyond the electric barriers constructed to keep the dreaded invasive species out of the Great Lakes, state and federal officials announced Wednesday.
Commercial fishermen found the 3-foot-long, 20-pound carp in Lake Calumet on Chicago’s South Side, about 6 miles downstream of Lake Michigan, according to the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee.
While officials said they’re concerned about the find, they say they need more information before deciding how significant it is.
“The threat to the Great Lakes depends on how many (carp) have access to the lakes, which depends on how many are in the Chicago waterway right now,” said John Rogner, assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Scientists and fishermen fear that if the carp become established in the Great Lakes, they could starve out popular sport fish and ruin the region’s $7 billion fishing industry. Carp can grow to 100 pounds and 4 feet.
[…]
The carp is the first to be found in a Chicago waterway above the Army Corps of Engineers’ electric barrier system.
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Runaway Census Cost is Frightening Preview of True Obamacare Price Tag
Counting heads is a relatively simple procedure. So if the costs of a relatively simple administrative procedure like taking the decennial census have a history of spiraling wildly out of control, what is the graph of runaway ObamaCare costs going to look like? Imagine the price tag of having the government in charge of keeping Americans healthy — compared to just counting their noses, says playwright Gregg Opelka.
According to Jason Gauthier’s 2002 study entitled “Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses from 1790 to 2000,” the cost to perform the census has risen over the decades at a rate staggeringly higher than the rate of the growth of the population itself. What does this mean?
Simply put, that bureaucracy is obese, says Opelka.
For example:
The census cost was a little more than 60 cents per person in 1950 ($91.4 million).
It is projected to cost nearly $47 per person in 2010 ($14.5 billion), a whopping 7,822 percent increase in cost per person.
During the same time, the population rose by 100 percent (i.e., doubled) from 150 million to over 300 million. But the overall cost of counting it (the census) rose by 15,800 percent.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was used by the Obama administration to lend [its] imprimatur to…incredible claims of lowered health care costs in order to hoodwink legislators into passing and the public into accepting this massive entitlement. If you think ObamaCare looks expensive now, just massage the CBO’s risibly unrealistic projections with a little reality from the census’s actual costs over the decades.
The census cost spiral demonstrates that in no time at all ObamaCare will grow so obese it’ll have to be pushed around in a wheelchair…
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The Deplorable Response to the BP Spill is Not Louisiana’s Fault
For the last two months Louisiana has had to deal with the federal government’s deplorable management of BP’s oil spill, with various federal agencies actively hindering local efforts to protect and clean our shores and to keep our economy going. To add insult to injury, we now have a suggestion from Froma Harrop that we need a federal takeover, making the state of Louisiana a U.S. protectorate.
Considering that the spill is occurring in federal waters, on a site the federal government leased to a company operating under federal permits, federal inspections and which recently received a safety award from the federal government,..It’s also worth mentioning that for decades Louisiana has been denied the same level of federal royalties for offshore drilling that other states enjoy, so drilling here is a real moneymaker for the federal government.
[…]
The economy destroying oil moratorium — which was decidedly not supported by the experts as Obama’s Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar initially claimed — has been temporarily stopped by a judge who suggested the federal government find better reasons than because I said so and noted that it failed to give any consideration to less draconian measures until the President’s commission finally meets in mid-July, three months after the Deepwater Horizon explosion…
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The Problem Isn’t McChrystal’s Bite But That McChrystal (On Administration, Not Afghanistan) Is Right
by Barry Rubin
There are two ways of looking at General Stanley McChrystal’s interviews with Rolling Stone magazine: one is to focus on whether he should have said such things, the other is to analyze the important truths he unveiled. Here, I’m going to look at the latter and, following my usual practice, I’ve actually read the article and will base myself on the text.
But first, think about it: the general pointed out the near-disastrous situation with American leadership today. An increasing number of people know that he’s correct in his assessment. Isn’t that what’s really important?
Incidentally, the Obama Administration has been pretty tight about leaks, so there has been less news about infighting and incompetence than usual, not to mention that much of the media has protected it from exposures and criticisms. So McChrystal hasn’t just given us some blunt-worded reactions but a peek into what’s really happening.
On its cover, Rolling Stone called him, “The Runaway General,” saying he is carefully watching “the wimps in the White House.” Coming from Rolling Stone, this phrase is presumably intended to mock the general. To anyone who cares about U.S. security, however, it rings true, a warning rather than a whining.
Thus, Michael Hastings has written an article important not for back-biting gossip about who doesn’t like who but because it tells a lot about the looming tragedy on the ground in Afghanistan and the loony situation in the government in Washington.
Let me digress for a moment. At a conference in Europe, I heard a pompous Washington type who knew nothing about the military or Afghanistan give a wordy speech about how great things were going there and how the idea of democratizing and stabilizing that country was just a grand idea.
After he finished his boring oration, an Afghan friend of mine, a veteran of the U.S. military and years of analyzing that country for the U.S. government, stood up and tore him apart, citing corruption, incompetence, the reality of warlord rule, and lots more in the greatest detail. My friend certainly wanted to see his country become a modern democratic state with stability and high living standards. But he had no illusions that this was going to happen, especially under American auspices.
One of the most devastating points in Hastings’ article is one whose huge significance the author himself doesn’t seem to notice. In passing, he mocks the Afghan war effort as “the exclusive property of the United States” because all of its allies have opted out. Yet doesn’t this mean that President Barack Obama’s apparent popularity with Europe is meaningless? After all, Obama has made this his war and if he cannot get any ally to support the campaign that is a devastating outcome.
At the other extreme, the most noticed point in the article was Hastings’ quote from one of the general’s top aides saying that in meeting with the generals, Obama seemed ill-prepared and disengaged. Does this surprise you? Do you doubt that it is true? What, then, is the proper reaction, to feel that McChrystal and his staff have big mouths or to be worried about the tininess of the president’s experience, knowledge, interest, focus, and decisiveness?
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Paid More Than $60,000 in Grant to Study Hookah-Smoking Jordanian College Students
Since 2008, U.S. taxpayers have contributed more than $60,000 for research to study the prevalence of water pipe, or “hookah,” smoking is among college students in Jordan.
The research was paid for by the Fogarty International Center and the National Cancer Institute, both of which are elements of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In 2009, NCI awarded a $48,402 grant to Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Thomas Eissenberg, and in 2008, the Fogarty International Center paid him $12,401 for the research, according to NIH records.
The aims of the research, as stated in the NIH grant abstract, were to study, over three years, “changes in waterpipe tobacco smoking prevalence, knowledge and beliefs among Jordanian university students; 2) examine relationships among waterpipe users’ dependence, smoking behavior, and CO (carbon monoxide) exposure; and 3) enhance local and regional tobacco-related research capacity.”…
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A Runoff in Polish Presidential Election
A somber election season in Poland was prolonged by two weeks Sunday when a first round of voting produced no immediate successor to Lech Kaczynski, the president killed more than two months ago in a plane crash.
Results show the interim president and parliament speaker, Bronislaw Komorowski, is leading Kaczynski’s identical twin, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. But Komorowski appeared to fall short of the 50 percent needed for outright victory.
The two leaders must now go head-to-head in a runoff vote on July 4, without eight other candidates who ran Sunday.
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Blindness Reversed Using Adult Stem Cell Therapies
Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells—a stunning success for the burgeoning cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported Wednesday.
The treatment worked completely in 82 of 107 eyes and partially in 14 others, with benefits lasting up to a decade so far. One man whose eyes were severely damaged more than 60 years ago now has near-normal vision.
“This is a roaring success,” said ophthalmologist Dr. Ivan Schwab of the University of California, Davis, who had no role in the study—the longest and largest of its kind.
Stem cell transplants offer hope to the thousands of people worldwide every year who suffer chemical burns on their corneas from heavy-duty cleansers or other substances at work or at home.
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Denmark: Archaeologists Uncover Harald Bluetooth’s Royal Palace
In what they describe as a ‘sensational’ discovery, archaeologists from Århus find the remains of 10th century king’s royal residence
After speculating for centuries about its location, the royal residence of Harald Bluetooth has finally been discovered close to the ancient Jellinge complex with its famous runic stones in southern Jutland.
The remains of the ancient wooden buildings were uncovered in the north-eastern corner of the Jellinge complex which consists of royal burial mounds, standing stones in the form of a ship and runic stones.
Harald ruled Denmark between 940 and 985 AD and is reputed to have conquered Norway and converted the country to Christianity. The Bluetooth interface developed by Ericsson for wireless connections — with a logo consisting of the runic letters H and B — is named after him.
Mads Dengsø Jessen, the archaeologist from Århus University who led the dig said four buildings from Harald’s time had been discovered at the site. The buildings are characteristic of those built at round fortresses known as Trelleborg.
‘This tells us that we have uncovered a large complex, and the strict geometrical construction is a typical example of Harald’s work,’ Jessen said.
Archaeologists have yet to identify the remains of Harald’s royal hall, but Jessen believes they can be found under the existing Jellinge Church, where the remains of a large wooden building were discovered on a previous dig.
Archaeologists had speculated that the wooden building was a church but because of its location in relation to the newly uncovered longhouses, Dengsø Jessen thinks that it is almost certainly Harald Bluetooth’s royal hall.
Jellinge is revered as the cradle of the Danish kingdom, and the larger of the two runic stones which is often described as the baptismal certificate of the Danish nation directly refers to Harald Bluetooth and his conversion of the country to Christianity.
The second Jellinge stone includes the first written reference to Denmark in the country.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Standardised Tests Reveal Huge Learning Gaps
Southern German students have come out on top of the country’s first nationwide standardised language tests, according to results presented this week by state education ministers.
Ninth-graders from 1,500 schools across the nation were tested for their English and German skills, and the clear leaders were the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. They were followed by Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate, while the worst performer was the city-state of Bremen.
The tests taken by some 41,000 students were the first measure of new nationwide educational standards set in place after the country’s embarrassing show in the European standardised PISA test performance in 2000.
As with the PISA tests, the Germany-specific assessment conducted by IQB institute for educational development showed a massive difference between northern and southern states.
Bavarian students were on average a whole school year ahead of their peers in Bremen when it came to reading comprehension — considered the most important subject for overall learning. On listening comprehension, they were nearly one-and-a-half years ahead.
The standardised tests mirrored PISA results that showed a strong connection between social background and educational success. An upper-class child with the same intelligence as a child born to skilled labourers has 4.5 times the likelihood of attending a college-preparatory high school, results showed.
Interestingly, on a state level this social difference was greatest in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, the states with the highest test scores. There, children of university-educated parents were respectively 6.6 and 6.5 times more likely to attend an upper-level high school, called a Gymnasium. The state with the most social equality among its students was found to be Berlin, where upper class students were only 1.7 times more likely to attend a Gymnasium.
The IQB tests also measured what proportion of students are from an immigration background, registering a nationwide average of 18 percent. The highest concentration of these students were in the city-states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. The tests showed an enormous difference in the academic capabilities between these students and native Germans, with Turks, the country’s largest immigrant population, performing the worst. Students from Poland and the former Soviet states showed far better results, signalling large differences among individual immigrant groups, the IQB found.
The head of the German teachers’ association (DL) Josef Kraus praised the tests on Thursday as a better way to measure student performance than the PISA tests.
“The new school study is more strongly related to German lesson plans and educational standards than the PISA tests,” he told daily Passauer Neue Presse, adding that looking at both sets of results allowed comparisons on both an international and state level.
“One can see that states like Bavaria are closer to exemplary countries like Finland,” he told the paper. “Other states like Bremen — to put it bluntly — are closer to the level of Brazil or Mexico.”
The success of the southern states comes from longer school hours, Kraus said.
“Within the first eight school years there are easily 300 to 400 more hours of class,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Children’s Stone Attack on Jews Sparks Outrage
Germany’s Jewish community has reacted with shock to a stone-throwing attack by Muslim children as young as 10 on a Jewish dance troupe performing at a Hannover festival, media reported Thursday.
About 30 children and youths, largely of Lebanese, Palestinian and Iranian descent, threw stones at the dancers on Sunday, shouting “Jews out!” daily Berliner Morgenpost reported.
The youths were aged from 10 to 15, the paper reported.
The dance troupe, named Chaverim — Hebrew for “friends” — broke off their performance after one of their members was hit in the leg by a stone and lightly injured.
Lower Saxony Integration Minister Aygül Özkan said through a spokesman she was “deeply shocked” by the incident.
Charlotte Knoblauch, president of the German Jewish Council, said the incident showed “a new social provocation, which already in the past weeks is clearly visible as it hasn’t been before.”
Anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic feelings were evidently simmering among Muslim youths living in Germany, she said, adding that this case “saddens me especially because these anti-Semitic attitudes are encountered already in children and youths with this vehemence.”
The incident follows the recent attack by the Israeli military on an aid flotilla that was attempting to break the Jewish state’s blockade of Gaza, in which nine Turkish members of the flotilla were killed, earning Israel widespread international condemnation.
Hannover Mayor Stephan Weil branded the incident “unacceptable.” The city was meanwhile pursuing charges of incitement and attempted assault. He said at a press conference Wednesday there was “no evidence that the crime was prepared by an organisation or in advance.”
The chairman of the Jewish community in Lower Saxony, Michael Fürst, said however that “the children acted at least with the approval, if not even the direction of their parents.”
According to police, this was the first violent anti-Semitic crime in the Hannover area this year that was not committed by neo-Nazis, though there had been anti-Israeli demonstrations outside of the far-right movement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Jewish Dance Group Stoned in Hanover, Germany
German police are investigating the stoning of a Jewish dance group trying to perform on the street in the city of Hanover.
Youths reportedly shouted “Juden Raus” (Jews Out) as they attacked the dancers of the Chaverim (“Friends” in Hebrew) dance troupe last weekend.
Police said several Muslim immigrant youths were among the attackers and two youths were being questioned.
A German Jewish leader said she feared growing anti-Israeli sentiment.
‘So awful’
The group was trying to perform in Hanover’s Sahlkamp district, which has a large immigrant community.
One of the dancers was injured in the leg and the troupe cancelled the performance after the attack.
Police said one German suspect aged 14 and a 19-year-old of North African origin were being questioned.
Alla Volodarska, of the Progressive Jewish community of Hanover, told Associated Press news agency she had spoken to the dancers involved.
“What happened is just so awful. The teenagers started throwing stones the moment our dance group was announced, even before they started dancing.”
Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the Die Welt newspaper that anti-Semitic feelings were widespread in both far-right and Muslim communities in the country.
“It particularly saddens me that those anti-Semitic views can already be seen with such vehemence among children and youths,” she said.
| — Hat tip: CRM | [Return to headlines] |
Modern Swedes Face Up to the Monarchy Paradox
As republicans sharpen their rhetorical weapons, Peter Vinthagen Simpson ponders why the self-proclaimed most modern country in the world is suffering a bout of introspection over its royal family, long accepted as just part of the national furniture
In a popular Sveriges Television series first broadcast in 2006, charismatic comic and linguist Fredrik Lindström prompted a period of national introspection when he posed the question — Is Sweden the most modern country in the world? — while arguing that Swedes bestride a split mentality of complacency and insecurity.
The Swedish monarchy has long been beyond the pale of criticism in Sweden, at least for foreigners. It is up there with the Systembolaget state monopoly liquour stores and Swedish strawberries — you just don’t go there.
When the engagement of Crown Princess Victoria and commoner Daniel Westling was announced last year it was widely predicted to provide a timely boost for the royal family. But as the world’s press descends on Stockholm for the wedding several polls indicate a waning support for the institution of the monarchy. Could the paradox outlined in Lindström’s programme provide a clue as to why?
While the machinations of the Swedish royals play out on the society pages; while the young, photogenic royal offspring pursue worthy deeds spruced up with a few modest foreign holidays; and while folk-dress clad princesses beam at largely-ignored national day celebrations, the existence of a constitutional monarchy remains just part of the furniture and uncontroversial, and it remains a national affair.
But when foreign eyes turn to Sweden, as they have done this week, the insecurity identified by Lindström is brutally exposed, and what has been regarded by many as “The World’s Most Modern Monarchy”, becomes just another undemocratic anachronism.
In short “The World’s Most Modern Country” cares what supposedly less modern countries think.
New evidence of this emerged only this week with the widespread reporting of a New York Times article proclaiming that “Swedish Fathers Can Have it All”. Sweden is rightly proud of its family policy record, but like anyone else it is always nice to hear outsiders confirm what has always been known.
Many Stockholmers have meanwhile been trying to cash in on the wedding by renting out their apartments for the week of the royal wedding. There is no doubt a purely financial motive for this, but for many this is chance to aloofly announce their departure — a display of disdain for the pomp, the ceremony, and the displays of inherited wealth and title that a royal wedding by definition displays.
The citizens of “The World’s Most Modern Country” might be both equally complacent and insecure, Lindström argued, but we are also wedded to rationalism.
As the media hype reaches its exalted crescendo, Swedes are being forced to take a stand on the issue and many it seems are finding that when pushed they can’t stand up for the decidedly unmodern values that all monarchies, constitutional or otherwise, represent; as well as the decidedly irrational arguments used to defend them.
There are of course several rational arguments for defending a constitutional monarchy — the relative cost of a president, foreign trade, PR and so on — but when the Bernadotte dynasty is displayed, albeit fleetingly, as an ostentatious symbol of national pride and celebration, “The World’s Most Modern People” start to shift uncomfortably in their seats.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Paris Hosts Cyber-Shelter for Battered Bloggers
Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders on Thursday launched a virtual “anti-censorship shelter” to protect bloggers around the world from repressive authorities.
The group (RSF) unveiled a room in its Paris headquarters set aside for fugitive journalists or bloggers from abroad to drop in and blog with secure Internet connections using software that masks their online identity.
The project also offers to provide carefully selected bloggers in other countries with free access to secure, anonymous online connections to make it harder for authorities to pursue them for their work.
“This will allow them to connect to the Internet securely, to help them continue their work as bloggers,” the secretary general of RSF Jean-Francois Julliard told AFP at the launch of what he called the “virtual shelter.”
He admitted that determined governments could find ways round the masked Internet addresses, but said the project could still help responsible bloggers avoid arrest — a trend which RSF says is on the rise.
“If the CIA or other government agencies like that want to get round it they can, but this will make things much more difficult,” Julliard said.
RSF estimates that about 120 people are in jail throughout the world as punishment for blogging and other forms of online journalism, singling out countries such as China, Vietnam and Iran…
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Sharia-Compliant Banking Products a ‘Huge Flop’ In Britain
Junaid Bhatti, part of the team that set up Islamic Bank of Britain, the first Sharia-compliant bank approved by the Financial Services Authority, says that the sector has been a big disappointment.
“As we now approach the sixth anniversary of IBB’s launch, I’m sad to finally have to admit that Islamic finance in the UK has been a huge flop,” he said. “IBB may still be limping on as probably the last bastion of the cause, but it’s difficult to imagine it holding out for much longer…
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Bedouins Strike Back After Egypt Crackdown on Gaza Smuggling
[…]
On June 21, Bedouin gunmen opened fire on a convoy of seven trucks in eastern Sinai. The sources said the convoy was on its way to deliver supplies to Israel.
The sources said the Bedouin attack on the Israel-bound convoy consisted of at least 30 gunmen. They said two people were injured in the convoy.
Hours earlier, Egyptian police raided Bedouin homes in eastern Sinai. The sources said police and security forces have been searching for fugitives among the Bedouins as well as Palestinians who infiltrated from Gaza.
In wake of the attack, the sources said, hundreds of Bedouins have fled their homes for the mountains to avoid an Egyptian arrest campaign. They said the Bedouins have urged authorities to agree to an outside mediator to enable the fugitives to return home.
Bedouin smugglers were said to have expanded their cooperation with the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. The sources said the Bedouins have also been trained by Hamas and other Palestinian elements in operations against Egyptian security forces…
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Noam Shalit in Rome: Europe’s Voice Weak
Father of abducted IDF soldier held by Hamas meets Italian foreign minister, Rome mayor; says Israel gave in to EU pressure
Noam Shalit, father of abducted IDF soldier Gilad, said to Ynet on Thursday that Europe’s call for the release of his son is not enough. “Here and there they make calls like that, feebly and not clearly or unequivocally enough,” he said.
Shalit, currently in Rome, met with Mayor Gianni Alemanno and later with Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. He said he had thanked the mayor for the event in aid of Gilad, for whom the lights of the Colosseum will be turned off Thursday night at the same exact time as the lights on the Old City walls in Jerusalem will be turned off.
“This is a beautiful and moving gesture,” he said. Rome has granted Gilad honorary citizenship.
Shalit also said his hosts wanted to know what was happening with the deal that would lead to Gilad’s release.
“I said things have changed for the worse after Israel gave up the main leverage point it had for securing his release — the civilian blockade (on the Gaza Strip),” he said.
During his meeting with Frattini, Shalit asked the EU to pressure Hamas in the same way it had pressured Israel to lift the blockade after the flotilla affair.
“Israel gave in to international pressure,” he said. “I expect the Europeans to apply the same pressure on Hamas to release Gilad, both directly and indirectly.”
“The Europeans say they have no direct contact with Hamas, but Europe is a central player in the Middle East and it has the ability to apply indirect pressure if it chooses,” Shalit said.
The event in Rome will mark four years since Gilad was abducted.
“This will remind the Italians that keeping Gilad four years in Hamas captivity without seeing his family or Red Cross representatives is a war crime,” Gilad’s father asserted.
On Friday, four years will have passed since Gilad Shalit was abducted.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Kurdish Fighters Back With ‘High-Quality’ Attacks
Officials said the PKK has been conducting the largest operations in more than a decade along the Turkish border with Iraq. They said the PKK was deploying hundreds of fighters in assaults on Turkish military and security outposts.
“The attacks are much more sophisticated and their methods considerably advanced,” an official said. “The question is how did they get this good so fast?”
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Several officials said the PKK skills reflected advanced training from foreign elements. Some of them said the training could have come from elements in Iraq or Israel…
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Turkey’s Military Seeks More Israeli Drones
A Turkish military delegation has arrived in Israel to test four Heron UAVs, manufactured by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries. The delegation arrived in Israel amid threats by the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan to suspend Turkish military cooperation with the Jewish state.
“We have been using Herons in northern Iraq over the last 10 days,” Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug said.
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Mannequins in Tehran Have No Breasts — What Next?
Dangerous serial killers and sex criminals roam the Western world. In the not-too-distant past, such remorseless killers, such as Jack The Ripper, Ted Bundy, and the Green River Killer, targeted mainly vulnerable women, including prostituted women, whom they kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered. Often, breasts and genitalia were savagely mutilated.
Today, these horrific, individual acts pale in comparison to the barbarism of the Islamist world where similar, but legally approved and publicly shared acts of woman-hatred are carried out by national presidents, religious leaders, Vice and Virtue police—and by mobs inflamed by Friday sermons. In 2001, egged on by their imam, hundreds of men in Hassi Messaoud, Algeria physically and sexually attacked any woman they could find, murdering some, sexually mutilating others. Also in Algeria, religious paramilitary troops kidnapped young girls off the streets, forced them into domestic and sexual slavery, then murdered and beheaded them when they became pregnant. In 2006, one thousand men in Cairo, Egypt, went on a post-mosque “wilding” in which they attacked every unveiled, then every veiled, woman in sight.
[…]
The Khomeini- Algerian- and Taliban-era’s hot hatred of women, including Muslim women, and of disobedient Muslim girls and women, got heartbreakingly hotter.
Khomeini began by re-veiling the formerly modern and educated women of Tehran. The 1980s Iranian mullahcracy escalated matters; they stoned women to death—but raped them first so that the rape victim would not be able to enter Paradise. The mullahs also forced women into prostitution, then penalized them (not the Johns or the pimps) for it, all the while restricting womens’ rights at home, on the streets, and on the job.
Afghanistan (which didn’t need much in the way of encouragement) went “native” and adopted some of the worst Arab customs. They also went “Persian,” and came into their medieval own. Thus, the Afghan Taliban also stoned women to death but they did so publicly, in large stadiums, with large, blood-thirsty, cheering male crowds. The Afghan Taliban, and after them, the warlords, refused to allow women to work, even when they were war widows and the mothers of dependent children. This forced women into prostitution for which they were jailed. Girls were prevented from going to school, women could not even run beauty parlors or wear makeup, polygamy flourished as did the sale and forced marriage of female children…
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Pro-Troop Group Urges General McChrystal to Come Clean on Obama Admin Negligence
Sacramento, Calif — Move America Forward the nation’s largest grassroots pro-troop organization, is calling on discharged General McChrystal, formerly in command of the American forces in Afghanistan, to come public with the true extent of the Obama Administration’s disengagement with the war in Afghanistan.
As the Obama administration fumes over General Stanley McChrystal’s comments in the upcoming Rolling Stone article “Runaway General,” the pro-troop group organization is expressing shock that the President of the United States can be disinterested and uninformed on the war against Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China: Tomb Raiders Unearth New Marketplace
ANYANG, China — The old warlord, infamous for backstabbing and bloodletting, can hardly complain. When Chinese state television broadcast a live excavation this month of the tomb of General Cao Cao, the destruction found inside confirmed that tomb robbers had beaten archaeologists to the underground site.
Back in the third century, Cao Cao organized his soldiers into a treasure-hunting, tomb-raiding division. These days, the Chinese government threatens the death penalty for stealing cultural relics, yet this history-obsessed country still struggles to protect its rich historical legacy from a surge in an ancient trade: tomb raiding.
As China grows more prosperous, more Chinese are taking up antique collecting, and the growing demand is often met by fakes or tomb robbing, says antiques expert Wu Shu, 60.
Tomb raiding is “the worst in 20 years, when the antique collection market started” in China, he says. Government figures suggest that from 200,000 to 300,000 ancient tombs have been raided in the past two decades, “but the reality far exceeds that number,” says Wu, who agrees with a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimate that tomb robbers number more than 100,000. “When I speak to the leaders of archaeological teams, they tell me, ‘Of 10 tombs, nine are empty,’ “ Wu says.
Aboveboard antiquing
From 2,000-year-old porridge pots to 3,000-year-old wine jars, farmer Long Zhenshan knows well what history lurks beneath the dusty soil of Yuyang village, close to the site of Cao’s tomb.
Since he dug up some old pottery when planting trees in 1974, the farmer, now an antiques enthusiast, has collected more than 3,000 pieces from the fields, but never from a tomb, he says.
“These pieces show that people have been living here continuously for 6,000 years,” he says.
Long’s pride in his collection is clear. So is his frustration at the government’s response to tomb raiding. In 2003, he says, he alerted officials to robberies at a tomb that he guessed — correctly, as it turned out — was Cao’s. Long says it was raided several times before police responded four years later.
The state Administration of Cultural Heritage says crackdowns are hampered sometimes by a lack of local cooperation.
Since 2007, five gangs have targeted the tomb, and the region’s poverty is the main driver, Long says. His yearly earnings from wheat and maize fields rarely top 5,000 yuan — a little more than $700.
“Peaceful Harvest” is the translation of Anfeng township, the area that includes Cao’s tomb. Some villages there, such as Muchangtun, have a reputation for harvesting more than just wheat and other crops.
Wheat farmer Li Haichao, 30, says several villagers were arrested last year in raids to recover items stolen from Cao’s tomb.
“There are many people with money here, but they don’t dare show it as it came from tombs and they fear being fined,” Li says.
‘New currency of bribery’
Raiders are growing bolder. In January, a gang used bulldozers to smash into more than 10 ancient tombs in Jiangsu province.
“Ancient-tomb robbery is rampant in China,” Xu Weihong, excavation team leader at Xian’s famous Teracotta Army, told the Global Times newspaper. “Sometimes our archaeologists’ job is like that of a firefighter. We rush here and there to rescue robbed, ancient tombs.”
In May, a court in Hunan province dealt death penalties to four men dressed as soldiers who used explosives and earth movers to raid a dozen tombs, finding treasures that included a 2,000-year-old royal seal, the Legal Weekend newspaper reported.
Robbers combine techniques old and new, analyst Wu Shu says. To find tomb sites, they are guided by traditional divination and feng shui beliefs about how tombs and other things should be situated for spiritual balance. They use modern prospecting equipment, classic archaeological spades and a knowledge of explosives to gain access, usually in a single night’s work…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Australian Prime Minister Rudd Ditched in Favor of Left-Wing Deputy
In a stunning collapse for a once-popular leader, an emotional Kevin Rudd resigned as prime minister of Australia on Thursday, after losing the support of party leaders who are anxious to avoid defeat in upcoming elections.
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The gathered MPs and Senators then quickly elected Gillard, a politician from the party’s left-wing who becomes the country’s first woman prime minister. Wayne Swan, the Australian Treasurer and a Gillard loyalist, was elected as deputy prime minister.
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Rudd, a committed Christian with conservative social views, makes way for a politician who confesses no religious faith and is a member of Emily’s List, an organization with similar goals to its namesake in the United States — to elect “pro-choice women” to office.
Gillard’s past includes a leadership position in a left-wing organization, the Socialist Forum, which campaigned among other things for an end to Australia’s defense treaty with the U.S.
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Mexico Drug Gang Threatens Arizona Police
PHOENIX (Reuters) — Police in an Arizona border city are on heightened alert after receiving a warning from a Mexican drug cartel that officers may be targeted if they carry out off-duty drug busts, authorities said on Tuesday.
Nogales Police Chief Jeff Kirkham said the department received the threat through an informant after two off-duty policemen seized 400 pounds (182 kg) of marijuana while horseback riding outside the city in early June.
“The warning was … that the officers, if they are off duty, are to look the other way and ignore any drug trafficking loads that are coming across the border, otherwise they will be targeted,” Kirkham told Reuters.
Arizona straddles a major corridor for Mexican smugglers who haul illegal immigrants and drugs north to the United States in a illicit trade worth billions of dollars a year.
Cartel turf wars and attacks on police have killed more than 25,000 people across Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on drug gangs in late 2006.
In recent years, U.S. authorities have become increasingly concerned about drug violence spilling over the border and taking hold in the United States.
Kirkham said he took the threats against Nogales police “very seriously.” He said he had asked the Border Patrol for additional support, and had ordered officers to carry communications equipment and guns at all times.
In late April, Arizona passed a tough state law in an effort to stop the state serving as a key corridor for smuggling.
The law, which comes into effect next month, requires state and local police officers to investigate the immigration status of people they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally during a lawful stop.
Critics, including top officials in President Barack
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mexico Files Court Brief Against Arizona Immigration Law
(CNN) — Mexico on Tuesday filed a brief in federal court in Arizona supporting a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a tough new immigration law, Mexico’s foreign ministry said.
The lawsuit seeks to overturn SB 1070, a recently passed law due to go into effect late next month, which stipulates that police can ask the residency status of people being investigated for a crime.
“The government of Mexico has requested the court that SB 1070 be declared unconstitutional and that it does not enter into force,” the foreign ministry said in a written statement.
The Mexican government gave its support to the lawsuit filed by a group of civil rights organizations, including the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, the National Immigration Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In its brief, Mexico “underscored that it is fundamental and imperative that the human and civil rights of its citizens are duly respected while present in Arizona or in any other state of the United States,” the foreign ministry said.
In filing the brief, Mexico said it was upholding its duty to protect its nationals in the United States and ensure that they are not discriminated against based on their ethnicity.
The case is Friendly House, et al v. Michael B. Whiting, et al.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Napolitano: State and Local Police May Deploy to Border
[…]
In a major policy speech in which she took aim at what she called “bumper sticker” slogans and said the Obama administration has made huge strides on security, Miss Napolitano said the border can be made still more secure and said administration officials are in the middle of “surging” more boots on the ground.
“We are not satisfied. There is more work to do,” said Miss Napolitano, a former Arizona governor.
The remarks signal a change in tone for the secretary, who late last year said she believed enough had been done on the border that Congress could turn its attention to legalizing illegal immigrants already in the U.S. The remarks come as President Obama is trying to apply moderate pressure to Congress to pass such an immigration bill this year.
Nearly a month ago, Mr. Obama announced he would deploy up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the southwest border and would request $500 million from Congress to boost law enforcement personnel and infrastructure there, too.
But as of this week, no plan for the Guard deployment has been submitted and it wasn’t until Tuesday that the president actually sent details of his $500 million request to Congress…
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UK: Immigrant Baby Boom Sees British Population Soar by Double Rate of Previous Decade
Britain’s fast-rising population is now close to 62million, the latest count showed yesterday.
Numbers of people in the country went up by 394,000 to reach 61,792,000 by the middle of last year, the Office for National Statistics said.
The increase of 0.6 per cent on the previous year means the population has been rising at the same rapid rate since the Millennium, mainly driven by high levels of immigration.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Abortion ‘Triples Breast Cancer Risk’: Fourth Study Finds Terminations Linked to Disease
An abortion can triple a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer in later life, researchers say.
A team of scientists made the claim while carrying out research into how breastfeeding can protect women from developing the killer disease.
While concluding that breastfeeding offered significant protection from cancer, they also noted that the highest reported risk factor in developing the disease was abortion.
Other factors included the onset of the menopause and smoking.
The findings, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, are the latest research to show a link between abortion and breast cancer.
The research was carried out by scientists at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka.
It is the fourth epidemiological study to report such a link in the past 14 months, with research in China, Turkey and the U.S. showing similar conclusions.
But Cancer Research UK questioned the accuracy of the figures and said women should not be unduly worried.
Dr Kat Arney, the charity’s science information manager, said: ‘This is a very small study of only 300 women, so there are likely to be statistical errors in a sample of this size.
‘Much larger studies involving tens of thousands of women have shown no significant links.’
But the findings prompted accusations that women in Britain are not being properly informed of the dangers of abortion.
Professor Jack Scarisbrick, the chairman of Life, a pregnancy counselling charity, said: ‘This is devastating new evidence of the abortion-breast cancer link.
‘We have encountered from the pro-abortion lobby manipulation of the evidence on a truly disgraceful scale. This study is further evidence that has been gathering from all around the world that abortion is a major risk factor for breast cancer.
‘When will the (medical) establishment face up to this fact and pull its head out of the sand?
‘It is betraying women by failing to warn that what they are doing to their bodies — the quick fix of abortion — can do grave harm.’
Although the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has acknowledged the possibility of an abortion-breast cancer link, most medical professionals in Britain remain unconvinced.
This is because an international study led by Oxford University concluded in 2004 that having an abortion does not heighten a woman’s risk.
Some scientists say, however, that the Oxford research was flawed because many of the women studied were too young to have developed the disease.
Those who believe there is a link say breast cancer is caused by high levels of oestradiol, a hormone that stimulates breast growth during pregnancy.
Its effects are minimised in women who take pregnancy to full term but it remains at dangerous levels in those who have abortions.
There has been an 80 per cent increase in the rate of breast cancer since 1971, when in the wake of the Abortion Act, the number of abortions rose from 18,000 to nearly 200,000 a year.
Earlier this year, Dr Louise Brinton, a senior researcher with the U.S. National Cancer Institute who did not accept the link, reversed her position to say she was now convinced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer by about 40 per cent.
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Boy Scouts Win “Gay Battle” In Court
Philadelphia jury has ruled in favor of the Boy Scouts, meaning they will not be evicted from their home or forced to pay rent, at least for now.
Outside the courthouse, a lawyer for the Boy Scouts, Jason Gosselin, told Fox News the Scouts won on the most important issue, that of First Amendment rights. The jury found the city posed an unconstitutional condition on the organization by asking it to pay $200,000 annual rent on property it was leasing for a dollar a year, in a building the Scouts built and paid for themselves, all because the city felt the Scouts were in violation of Philadelphia’s anti-discrimination laws.
“What we really want is to sit down with the city and resolve this matter once and for all” Gosselin says.
Philadelphia’s response: “We are disappointed that the jury did not appreciate the City’s obligation to deploy municipal resources in a manner that protects the rights of all of Philadelphia’s citizens. While the good work of the Boy Scouts cannot be disputed, the City remains steadfast in its commitment to prevent its facilities from being used to disadvantage certain groups. In the meantime, we will review the trial record to determine our legal options.”
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Children’s Workshops ‘In Midst of Loud and Boisterous Homosexual Activities’
Is Home Depot seeking to introduce children to the homosexual lifestyle?
The home-improvement giant has sponsored yet another “gay” pride event and provided children’s craft workshops “in the midst of loud and boisterous gay activities” at the 2010 Southern Maine Pride Festival in Portland, Maine, according to the American Family Association.
“The worst offense is that Home Depot has set up kids’ workshops at these gay pride festivals,” explains AFA’s director of special projects. “These are events that have loud, boisterous homosexual activists making their voices heard — and Home Depot is putting money behind setting up kids’ booths at these kinds of events.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Gay’-Pride Parade Features 10-Year-Old Grand Marshal
A 10-year-old boy has been named grand marshal for a gay pride parade this weekend — prompting a family advocacy group to call the decision “child abuse” and urge the local mayor to withdraw city support for the event.
The American Family Association spoke out against Will Phillips’ scheduled participation Saturday in the Northwest Arkansas Pride parade in Fayetteville, Ark.
“It’s shameful that adults would abuse a brain-washed child in this way,” AFA President Tim Wildmon wrote in a press release. “He’s obviously just parroting the nonsense he’s been told by manipulative adults. For gay activists to trot out this child and make him the poster child for promoting unnatural sexual expression is a form of child abuse.”
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The boy made headlines in 2009 when the fifth-grader publicly refused to pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag until gays and lesbian have “equal” rights and are allowed to marry.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Central Fallacy of Public Schooling
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Proponents of public schooling argue against the complete privatization of schooling on the grounds that the poor would not be able to afford tuition and that some parents would not provide schooling for their children, leaving them “uneducated.” However, the rampant levels of ignorance, subliteracy, and hostility to learning that characterize tax-funded schools argue that the present system is itself not serving the best interests of students.
Instead it is clear whose interests are being advanced. Fifty-four years ago the writer in Young America was moved to emphasize in italics that era’s apparently high tax rates. Since then the average tax burden has doubled. Yet, as one of my acquaintances has commented, “Americans today are in a stupor.” In other words, the tax-supported school system has triumphed. Americans are behaving exactly the way those who govern desire them to behave.
Children who are turned over to the state become molded by the state. Most parents cannot conceive of a totally privatized alternative because they themselves have been indoctrinated by public schooling to believe in its alleged necessity. However, it is fallacious for parents to think that children can escape government schooling without having their traditions and beliefs subverted. “Free” schooling is seductively attractive in the short run, but it has long-term costs. The dismantling of tax-funded schooling will not be accomplished until more and more parents say, “My child does not belong to the state.”
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Climate Change: The IPCC in the Age of Speculation
Judge Lance Ito lost control of the O. J. Simpson trial when he allowed speculation without a shred of evidence. Defense counsel Johnny Cochrane was able to sow seeds of doubt by his speculations and it found fertile ground in the jury’s mind. The entire Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) structure and work was designed to convince the public either with no facts or falsely created ones. Once these were established the speculation of impending doom could begin.
Structure of the IPCC begins with Working Group I outlining an unproven speculation that academics call a hypothesis, which is defined as, “a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.” In this case they proposed that CO2 is a gas that causes global temperature to rise and it will continue to increase in volume in the atmosphere because human activity, particularly energy production, will continue to expand.
As evidence accumulated it showed the hypothesis was not proven. Indeed, nobody has produced a record that shows a CO2 increase preceding a temperature increase.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Maurice Strong Advises Folk to Ignore Glenn Beck
Interesting that Maurice Strong would send FoxNews’ Glenn Beck a message today via Britain’s guardian.co.uk.
Maurice Strong: Ignore Glenn Beck—I don’t want to rule the world was Chairman Mo’s message in newspaper headlines.
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In his own words, Strong told hundreds of thousands at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, “The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful.”
[…]
Nor did Strong show much sympathy for the middle class while addressing the Rio Earth Summit: “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class—involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air conditioning and suburban housing—are not sustainable. A shift is necessary which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Veiled Truths: The Rise of Political Islam in the West
by Marc Lynch
This spring, Tariq Ramadan arrived in the United States nearly six years after being denied a visa by the Bush administration. The U.S. government had previously refused Ramadan entry on the grounds that he had donated to a French charity with ties to Hamas. Then, last January, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Ramadan was welcome. His appearance in the United States seemed to manifest the White House’s changing rhetoric about the Muslim world. In June 2009, President Barack Obama spoke in Cairo of reaching out to Muslims with “mutual interest and mutual respect.” Figures such as Ramadan — symbols of a nonviolent Islamism long shunned as enablers of extremism — may now represent a bridge across previously intractable divides.
Paul Berman will have none of this. His book The Flight of the Intellectuals, based on a 28,000-word essay published three years ago in The New Republic, mounts a furious counterattack from the bygone days of the Bush administration. Too many in the United States and Europe, Berman argues, are confronting the wrong enemy. Violent Islamists do not pose the greatest danger; instead, it is their so-called moderate cousins, who are able to draw well-meaning liberals into a poisonous embrace. Their rejection of violence is both partial — not extending to Israel or to U.S. troops in Iraq — and misleading. In Berman’s telling, the Islamist project of societal transformation from below does profound violence to the individual Muslims who are forced to live in an increasingly constricted milieu. The only defensible response is to repel the stealth Islamism of putative moderates with a morally pure vision of liberalism.
But such a polemic, in fact, poorly serves those concerned about the rise of political Islam in the West. Berman does flag important debates about Islam’s impact on Europe and the world, but he is an exceedingly poor guide to navigating them. His reading of Islamism, based on a narrow selection of sources read in translation and only a sliver of the vast scholarship on the subject, fails to grasp its political and intellectual context. He is blind to the dramatic variation and competition across and within groups — above all, to the fierce war between the Salafi purists who call for a literalistic Islam insulated from modernity and the modernizing pragmatists who seek to adapt Islam to the modern world. This blindness feeds the worst instincts of those hard-liners who are fomenting an avoidable clash between Islam and the West. His obsession with Nazism is distracting, and his dissection of Ramadan approaches the pathological. His caustic rhetoric toward writers such as Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash does not suggest the liberal or tolerant ethos to which he claims allegiance.
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The most helpful strategic victory in the struggle against Islamist radicalism would be to undermine the narrative that the West is at war with Islam. There should be no tolerance for Islamist extremists who threaten writers, intimidate women, or support al Qaeda’s terrorism. But defending Hirsi Ali from death threats should not necessarily mean embracing her diagnosis of Islam. Berman’s culture war would marginalize the pragmatists and empower the extremists. Muslim communities are more likely to reject such extremists when they do not feel that their faith is being attacked as fascist or that they can only be accepted if they embrace Israel and the policy preferences of American conservatives.
The Muslims in the West are not going away. It is therefore imperative to find a way for these communities to become full partners in the security and prosperity offered by Western societies. If democracy has any meaning, it must be able to allow Muslims to peacefully pursue their interests and advance their ideas — even as the liberals who defend the right of Muslims to do so are also free to oppose them. Ramadan may not present the only path to such an end — but he does present one. And that is why his liberal proponents in the West, who so infuriate Berman for promoting Ramadan, emerge as more compelling guides to a productive future.
[JP note: Lynch’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood advocacy would appear to have significant traction in the places where it matters: the Whitehouse, Whitehall, etc. Unfortunately for all concerned Lynch’s bridge is more likely to disappoint than otherwise, and it should, therefore, more correctly be designated a pier.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
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