A Council America Shouldn't Keep (Anne Bayefsky) | WSJ

This appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Human Rights Voices. 

It's truly a sick joke that Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Pakistan and China should be on the United Nations' Human Rights Council at all. But then to add insult to injury for this Council to bully Israel ceaselessly, and promote the disgusting BDS movement really does it for me. And should also for the United States as Anne Bayefsky argues. 

Please can the US pull out of this disgrace of an organisation. 

Here is the full text:

"How Nationalism Can Solve the Crisis of Islam" - WSJ

Pierre Manent

I found this article by Sohrab Ahmari about French philosopher terribly interesting and Pierre Manent's thesis convincing.  [Related: The Atlantic on Manent}.
Manent's thesis:

• More Nationalism, less multiculturalism, less internationalism
• A grand bargain with French Muslims:
• We lighten up on you (less Laïcité)
• And you Muslims lighten up on us (less... well... you know... jihadi stuff)
• But understand: France is never to be an Islamic state [PF comment: this the toughest sell given Muslims think Islam must be a universal Islamic magisterium].

The above simplifies it crudely. Manent's argument is much more nuanced.

I'm generally pretty pessimistic about Islam in Europe. I tend to think that's it's almost too late. The number of Muslims in Europe mean they affect voting outcomes and strengthen the push for sharia law. I almost think that that's inevitable. And that would be a dire outcome for Europe -- where do you see a state under sharia law that works well? (Think Saudi, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Aceh).
If there's any hope at all, any cause for optimism, then perhaps it's the ideas of the French intellectual Pierre Manent.
And for that they need careful attention.

(The Article is subscription only. But you can often get to it via a google search of the title, as in the headline)

"Nothing to do with Islam" -- the parental warmaking version.

I read somewhere this morning, perhaps in the International New York Times, that one of the motivators of Saman Abedi, the Manchester Mass Murderer, may have been... that he witnessed his father in action in Libya, in the fight to overthrow Col. Gaddafi. Violence normalised violence for him. And that's why he killed 22 random young ones.
But... but.... In that case why wasn't there a mass outbreak of terrorism or random murders after WW2? Plenty of kids saw their parents, fathers mostly, waging violence during that war. And plenty more violent than the Libyan skirmishes, I'd wager.
So I'm going to add this excuse to the growing pantheon that makes up the glorious genre -- "Nothing To Do With Islam". 

Doctors dismiss Islam’s link to terrorism

Hee hee.. even doctors getting into the "nothing-to-do-with-Islam" game.
Or, as they're described by one of the commenters -- which are running pretty much 100% against the good doctors - - calls this submission "Doctors Without Frontal Lobes". I know a number of doctors and most (all?) would not buy into this nonsense of Islam having "nothing to do" with Islam.
The commenters are pasting the doctors.

Manchester attack: It's wrong to say Salman Abedi's actions had 'nothing to do with Islam' | The Independent

Godless Mum.  Good on her

As I've been saying for a long time; perhaps a touch too often. Terrorism by Muslims: it really is to do with Islam. 

And now a left-of-centre paper, the Independent, finally says it.
Will the left start acknowledging it? Rather than saying it "has nothing to do with Islam".

Amir Khan accuses terrorists of "twisting Islam" as he urges people to turn in would-be bombers - Mirror Online

When it comes to the latest jihadist atrocity, one of the variations of the "it's-nothing-to-do-with-Islam" crowd is that the murderous jihadis are "twisting Islam".
So says British boxer Amir Khan.
As usual with such apologists they never say in what way the murdering jihadis are "twisting", or "perverting" or "hijacking" their Religion of Peace™.
Amir Khan says killing of "innocents" is not allowed in the Koran. Problem is, that's not correct. First: if you're an unbeliever, that is not a Muslim I are by definition not innocent. You're fair game.
The one and only verse that mentions innocents (5.32) is qualified. And in any case has a monster loophole -- creating "corruption in the land", renders the innocent guilty, with "corruption" widely defined.

Note the above clip from the images of a google search of 5.32.  It is typical of the way this verse is quoted by apologists. It's the source of the apologia that the Koran does not allow the killing of "innocents".
But note what is left out.  Here's the verse in its entirety (from Sahih Muslim, one of the best interpretations of the Koran) with the ignored parts in blue italics:

Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul [innocent] unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.

So, first up, it's directed at the "Children of Israel" (ie. Jews), not at Muslims! And then you have the verse immediately after, namely 5.33. This one covers what can be done (or must be done) to those who have done corruption. It's pretty bloodthirsty.

Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,

It is very clear that this is not the peaceable verse that apologists would have us believe, when put in its full context.  Indeed the opposite.  Directed at the jews, who, if they cause "corruption" -- which "many of them" have done -- must be dismembered or crucified.
Khan may not know this. Or if he does, he hides it as do many Muslim apologists.
The plain fact of the matter is that the Koran is chock full of verses that tell Muslims to kill infidels. You don't have to cherry pick to find these verses. They are in every page. The cherry picking is to find the peaceable passages. They're few and far between and even then qualified, as is the one mentioned above.
Boxer Amir Khan has another angle: that there are good and bad in every religion. Yes. But. Has he not noticed that it's virtually always it's Muslims?
Just today we hear that 38 Coptic Christians in Egypt were randomly gunned down on a bus. Murdered for being Christian. One guess the religion of the shooters.

[I should give Khan his due: asking fellow Muslims to turn in suspected bombers is good!]

LATER. I just heard the main Imam of Manchester say they the Manchester mass murderer had issues, psychological, familial and so forth. A twist on the "nothingtodowithislam" line.
Why not more self-reflection from a religion that makes such claims for itself. Instead of reflexive defensiveness and deflection.
Also says Salman Abedi "twisted" Islam.  Of course not saying how.

Unfathomable Evil | Comment | The Times & The Sunday Times

Point here being that we readily accept the stated motivations of
abortion clinic bombers; just not that of the jihadis

LETTER TO THE TIMES, UK. 

Your recent leader suggests that "what drives suicide bombers to mass murder may forever be a mystery...". (Unfathomable Evil, 24 May). 

This is nonsense. 

What drives suicide bombers can only be an "unfathomable mystery" if one staunchly refuses to believe what they themselves say drives them. 

ISIS inspires most of this mass murder. It has made it crystal clear why it does so in an article Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You (Dabiq, Issue 15, p.30). Grievance over the west's allegedly anti-Islam foreign policy is one reason.  But even without grievance ISIS will still fight and kill us because we are "... disbelieving enemies of Allah". And if a Muslim is killed in a "martyrdom operation" they will go straight to heaven. 

Pace your claim that ISIS "... distorts religion beyond recognition", many Muslim and non-Muslim scholars admit the sound theological basis of ISIS' actions, brutal as they may be. 

We need to understand that people like Salman Abedi really do believe what they say they believe. Kill unbelievers and go to heaven. Thus is the "mystery" cleared up. 

By the same logic terrorists are not the "nihilists" you charge. Nihilism is defined as the rejection of all religious and moral principles. Clearly they do believe in religious and moral principles. To be sure not the same ones which we in the liberal west hew to; but they are sincerely held. They are thus clear motivators for the sort of carnage carried out last week in Manchester. 

Please let's not be wilfully ignorant of these facts or we shall never be able to overcome the ideology which wants to kill our young ones simply because they don't believe the same god the terrorists do. 

PF, etc...

The Manchester Attack and the Myth of the ‘Lone Wolf’

Jihadis are not "lone wolves". They have their Koran, their internet, their mates.....

This article is spot on: "The Myth of the Lone Wolf" in the Daily Beast. Enough of these sillies who say we just have to "get used" to being bombed by theocratic madmen. (Of course that's not how they put it, but that's what it amounts to).
That attitude reminds me of the satirical beginning of the brilliant movie, Brazil, by Terry Gilliam. A couple with a baby in a pram are walking across the screen. Suddenly the shop behind them explodes. They're unhurt and just continue walking. The new normal.

Trump was right in his call to Muslim countries in Riyadh the other day: "drive them out". Drive out the terrorists. 

That ought to be the call also to Muslims in western countries. Drive them out; drive the terrorists out of your societies. 

Maajid Nawaz's mate says it's not good enough to tackle the fire. Muslim communities must fight the sparks. Those sparks are the ideology of Islam. Islamic ideology: the brilliant destructive meme that Mohammad stole from half-digested parts of Judaism and Christianity and crafted into a uniquely toxic and murderous ideology. 

That's what must be faced and driven out.

A Steady Diet of Anti-Israel Rhetoric

Barghouti the killer arrested.  Western lefties are as fascinated with him
as young women with serial killers.

This article --  A steady diet of Anti-Israel Rhetoric -- by Gilead Ini in the Jerusalem Post has been sitting on my desk since I arrived back from Israel.
While in Israel I saw Barghouti's wife on CNN. She was complaining about torture of her husband, lack of medical attention and illegal detention.  I know people in Israel who have worked in that system, and who deny all of those accusations. From what I've read and seen over the years, I'd give credence to the Israeli views on this, not the Palestinian.  While CNN gave plenty of time to her, it gave a nodding glance to the Israeli position only at the end, and in passing: that Barghouti is a convicted mass killer of innocent civilians.
See an earlier post of mine on how they speak with two tongues: how nice and peaceful they are to Trump and the west; how bloodthirsty to kill jews to their own audience.

Gilead says:
The idea that Marwan Barghouti is a political prisoner is no less a fantasy than the idea that Abbas accepts Israel’s Jewishness.

The New York Times' decision to publish an article by a convicted killer hasn’t been particularly well received. The author of the op-ed, Marwan Barghouti, is serving multiple life sentences in Israel for his involvement in terrorist attacks targeting Jews. But readers were given no indication that Barghouti has the blood of five innocent people on his hands. Instead, Times opinion editors characterized him merely as “a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.”

This sanitized description, which fit rather too neatly with Barghouti’s attempt to cast himself as a political prisoner, prompted waves of criticism. Even the Times’ own public editor faulted the newspaper for withholding “details that help people make judgments about the opinions they’re reading.” (One such judgment readers might have made, if only they had been properly informed, is whether a man willing to murder Israelis might also be willing to lie about them in a newspaper column.)

Read on...

Israel continues to be unfairly singled out by United Nations and world

Singer means the 2006 establishment of the “Human Rights Council”.
Of which -- scandalously -- Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iraq are members.

Catching up on a letter that covers the issue well...  Yonden Lhatoo is an apologist for Islamic and Palestinian terrorism.  Not sure if he’s a fool or a knave, though. 

Since this article and letter, 100% of US Senators have complained about the UN's unfair and unbalanced treatment of Israel.

Letter in full:

********

Yonden Lhatoo rhetorically asks in his column (“Israel’s perplexing hold over America allows it to treat global opinion with contempt”, December 29), what it is about Israel that entitles it to treat the collective will of the world with contempt and defy the UN.

The answer is that Israel continues to be unfairly singled out by the world and the UN in the most biased fashion.

While the Security Council reprimands Israel, two permanent members of that council, China and Russia, are themselves occupying powers. China occupies Tibet and Russia occupies, just most recently, Crimea.

These are just two of the most brazen examples of UN members that occupy territory.

There are literally 200 disputed territories in the world, including Cyprus, which Turkey partially occupies, and Western Sahara, which Morocco occupies. Yet, the UN singularly decries Israel’s so-called occupation of “Palestinian territories”.

Are these territories in fact “occupied”? The facts are clear. Israel took these lands in a defensive war in 1967 from Jordan, not from the Palestinians. The UN offered the Palestinians a country in 1947, but the Palestinians rejected it. Palestinian land was not taken, because there was not then, nor has there ever been, a sovereign country called Palestine.

Even conceding these lands as “occupied”, it has been Israel, time and time again, that has offered peaceful resolutions to the conflict, including painful territorial concessions. In 2000, Israel offered more than 90 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Yasser Arafat simply rejected the offer.

In 2008, Israel offered nearly 100 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including east Jerusalem, but the Palestinians again rejected it. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. The Palestinian response was to launch more than 10,000 rockets and missiles into Israel over the course of the last 10 years.

Israel deems the UN biased. The UN Human Rights Council is another prime example. Since its founding in 2006, it has condemned Israel more than 60 times, while condemning every country in the entire world collectively only a dozen times. No rational person could possibly believe that Israel is a greater violator of human rights than North Korea and Syria, but the UN seems to think so.

Lhatoo suggests that the US Congress is “Israel-occupied territory”, but it is not the US Congress that is occupied by Israel, it is the UN that is occupied by the Palestinians.

Alan Landau, Mid-Levels

22 Uber drivers arrested in undercover Hong Kong police operation | South China Morning Post

LETTER TO SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Let's get one thing straight: the public loves Uber. 

That's my conclusion from friends and neighbours who have used the service. I'm sure a government consultation would confirm this. 

So why is the government sending the police to entrap Uber drivers?  ("22 Uber drivers arrested in undercover Hong Kong police operation", May 24). What a waste of police time and our public money. 

The civil service is there to serve we the public. Instead of harassing Uber they ought to be working with the company to regularise its popular service. 

Legco's latest workaround of a premium franchised taxi service seems aimed for the fat cats, given the minimum investment of 200 cars, at a cost of at least $HK 60 million. 

The Transport Department has a sorry history with new technologies. It has banned electric bicycles, for example, because it couldn't be bothered to update its antiquated regulations. 

If Hong Kong wants to retain what's left of our increasingly tattered reputation for efficiency and modernity, the government needs to call off the police and work with Uber. We would then join the other 800+ forward-thinking cities who have embraced modern technology. 

Yours, etc,
PF

Palestinian lies sink the “two state solution”.

This will do as well as any, as a summary of the duplicity on the Palestinian side.
Israel is always the one pressured to make "compromises" and to stop the "occupation".
If the Palestinian side had really embraced the "land for peace deal", there would have been a deal long ago: in 1948 or 1967 or 2000, for example, or at any time in between.
But the Palestinians speak with two tongues.  One in the west, to the likes of Trump. And one to their own people. This is known to observers, but not to those that don't want to know: lefties and fellow travellers in the west.
The thing is that the west and the lefties only know the Palestinians' western tongue.  The Israelis know the tongue to the Palestinians' own people.
How can you give "land", for a "peace" that will never be? Palestinians have made their children blood libellers. Made their children hate jews.  Made their children would-be suicide killers (their "martyrs").
And this is the Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, the so-called "moderates" in contrast to their Hamas brothers.  Hamas don't even bother hiding their jew hatred.

Hijab, Niqab: you say Vogue, I say mask....

Plenty of choice in ways to be subjugated

The normalisation of the hijab, in Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyn

Harsh treatment of women in Mosul, in the WSJ.

Hijab and niqab rooted in patriarchy, in the Toronto Sun

Why did they target women and children?...

The grotesque hedonism of Islam's heaven.  Blessed be the children

Why did the mass murderer choose to kill teens, tweens and their parents, waiting to get home after Arian Grande's concert?
The talking heads on BBC and CNN are saying that it's because they specifically want to instill terror, they want to make people shocked at the barbarity, they want to show up the police as incompetent.  And I'm sure all that's true. But there's more.
What's not noted is this: that the Islamic terrorists consider their targets either innocent or guilty.  And either way is ok.  Innocent go to heaven. Guilty deserve the death that will take them to hell.
The children are innocent. So they will go to heaven, meet Allah and spend eternity in Muhammad's Willy Wonka chocolate factory heaven. And if it's their mums meeting them, well, they are guilty because they're unbelievers -- the very fact of allowing their young'uns to go to a Grande concert is proof.
So, either way, what you're doing is fine by Allah.
ADD: BBC took five hours to mention Islam as the possible source of the terror.  Much earlier were Fox (of course) and CNN.  On Fox, we had the loopy Hannity, but as I've said, he's knowledgeable on Islam.
LATER: David Wood has a better explanation. Pious Jihadis should try not to kill fellow Muslims when they bomb the infidels. And few if any pious Muslims are going to be at a rock concert by a scantily clad girls watched by other scantily clad girls. Watch here. 

Breaking: 19 killed in Manchester concert explosion

The Religion of Peace™ strikes again

Confirmed: the explosion at the end of a concert in Manchester has killed 19, so far, with 50 wounded. A concert attended mainly by young kids, many UM's -- unaccompanied minors. (young infidels, that is). LATER: it was a concert by Ariana Grande, part of her world tour called, with now bitter irony, "Dangerous Woman". (I just looked her up on Wikipedia, and the explosion is *already* there).
A second device found at the scene has just been controlled-exploded. [Later: was maybe just a bundle of clothes].
Confirmed also: by Manchester police that they consider it a terrorist incident.
Not confirmed yet: that it was carried out by adherents of the Religion of Peace™
When it is confirmed as Islamic terrorism (what are the odds?), Idris our Muslim taxi driver will no doubt say that they "misunderstood Islam", that are "not true Muslims". (The "no true Scotsman" fallacy).
He will say that. Because that's what he said in relation to every Islamist attack we asked him about: "Nothing to do with Islam"..
But deep down does he wonder, maybe? Does he wonder why it is that all these "misunderstanders" misunderstand just the one same religion? Does he wonder why there aren't misunderstanding Amish? Or Jains? Or Jews? Or atheists?
Meantime there's news coming that there's been a suicide bomber in the US. Awaiting more on that.
The "nothing to do with Islam" crowd will be clearing their throats just in case.

Saudis and Extremism: ‘Both the Arsonists and the Firefighters’ - The New York Times

Another flip-flop.  Trump said anyone bowing in Saudi would be sent home...

Trump was wrong to praise Saudi and cane Iran.
They're both pretty horrible theocracies.  Both responsible for terrorism.
Iran by its hardware: guns and funds. For Hamas and Hezbollah.
Saudi by its software: money, mosques and madrassas. Across the world including in our own dear west.
As Trump spoke, the Iranians were just coming out of an election where they'd overwhelmingly voted for a "moderate", or what passes for a moderate in the Muslim world.
So, why cane only Iran, and why praise only Saudi.
Why not a bit of grief for Saudi?  Sure, it's hard to criticise a host. But still...
Both of them -- Saudi and Iran -- need carrots and sticks.  They need the US, and the west, more than we need them.

Are there more American atheists than we thought? « Why Evolution Is True

I also like his: "I'm glad god made me an atheist".

Why Evolution is True, reports a recent survey which suggests as many as 30% of Americans may be atheist, in contrast to the more common estimate of 5-10%.

The proposition is that many atheists may "under-report" themselves, because of the hostile anti-atheist culture in the US. The authors of the study use various statistical methodologies to derive their estimate (which they acknowledge may still be out).

Article here.

“I just choose to not listen”: why Trump supporters are tuning out the scandals - Vox

Who of us wants to listen to stuff that contradicts our fixed notions

This is Vox's take.
Yesterday's New York Times also had an article about how Trump supporters are getting little information -- if they stick to their favourite news sites and news channels -- about the whole Russia / Comey "things".
Mind: both sides are guilty here.  Cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias appear to be ingrained in homo sapiens... (ie, homo not so sapiens).  For various good evolutionary reasons.

Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break Into Mar-a-Lago - ProPublica

The hackers bobbed in this dinghy, right outside the "southern white house"

Hmmmm.... and it's not just his "southern White House" that is vulnerable. Everywhere else Trump hangs out is vulnerable. To me, it seems to be way worse than Hillary's email issues.

What Happens When Intelligence Agencies Lose Faith in the President? - The Atlantic

Like so much Trumpism: say something (anything) now, get others to fill
in the details later.  Same as with his "secret plan" to get rid of ISIS....

"... Donald Trump promised to shake up Washington. And what is being shaken is the trust of those who must carry out his orders..."

I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal’ with Trump. His self-sabotage is rooted in his past.

Trump showing off "The Art of the Deal" early in the primary campaign

Well, this article on Trump's character and motivations is absolutely fascinating! 

By Tony Schwartz, the guy that co-wrote Trump's 1985 best-seller, "The Art of the Deal". Or, as Schwartz said in a 2015 Tweet: "I wrote The Art of the Deal. Trump read it". Which is pretty funny. And believable. One of the few books that Trump has read: his own ghost-written autobiography. 

By his own admission Trump doesn't read books. He is profoundly incurious. Why, he doesn't even read his briefing notes: The New York Times International says today "... that "Mr Trump [is] a hasty and indifferent reader of his briefing materials...".  Which is the reason he got into hot water revealing state secrets to the Russians earlier this week. (Trump of course doesn't see that he is in hot water, or if there's any blowback that it's in any way his fault. Schultz's article points out how nothing is ever Trump's fault). 

I came across Tony Schwartz via his interview on CNN this morning. As discussion swirls about the appointment of ex-FBI director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate the "Russia thing" (Trump's words), and issues related -- a lot of which will be about fired NSA director Michael Flynn, his Russian and Turkish connections and why Trump allegedly asked Comey to halt the FBI investigation into Flynn. So much going on. 

And to think that on November 7 I was lamenting that with the election the 8th, all the fun, the twists and turns of the campaign would finish!  It was only just beginning. 

Note in the article how Trump boasts that he's the same now as he was as a six year old:
 “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.” His development essentially ended in early childhood.
Why would one boast about that? Unless one were a... well... an idiot. 

Much is explained by Schwartz's article.

Related: "When the World is Led by a Child". NYT. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/trump-classified-data.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=1

Joan C Williams on Trump, elitism and the white working class

Hope you can read this. (Pasted below the fold).
Interesting. Not your usual "progressive" take.
The WWC (White Working Class): we used to call this the Middle Class I believe. The backbone of America.
If professor Joan Williams is correct, then the Democrats really need to change their tune --- from identity politics, based on race and gender -- to focus on class and especially this group and their dignity. As she says "look at the friggin' New York Times!...". Indeed look at it! I read it daily and almost daily there's an article that makes you want to scream, so far off tune is it.
Joan Williams is a leftie. But a sane and sensible one who's excoriated by the regressive left.

"Ideological necrophilia" in Venezuela... and the Academy.

Moisés Naím got it spot on speaking to Fareed Zakaria's GPS show on CNN this morning: Chavez was and Maduro is in thrall to "ideological necrophilia". That is in passionate love with dead ideologies. In this case socialism. A very vivid phrase which nicely sums up the ideology crippling Venezuela. 

As Naim says: it (socialism) had been tried over and over and always the result is the same: "poverty, inequality and corruption". 

Yet the likes of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn still promote socialism. They ought to know better. And many university students, a distressingly large number, also want to crush capitalism and promote socialism. These kids don't know better because they've never experienced socialism (as I have in China of the 70s) and have been "educated" by hard-left of centre professors. 

Still, they're deceived if they think socialism is the answer to capitalism's shortcomings. It's no more the answer than "Islam is the answer" (as it is according to islamists). Socialism and Islamism: They're both the ideas of ideological necrophiliacs. 

3 Things You Should Know About Indonesia's Growing Radicalization | Clarion Project Clarion Project

Woman caned in Aceh, according to Sharia law.  She had been in the company of a
man who was not her husband. The Religion of Peace, eh?  From: The Conversation.

The country we're going to. Makes you wonder if we should. Except to support the sane voices at the end.
Meantime: Sharia brings nothing but fear to the citizens of Aceh.
The Religion of Peace^TM
Wonderful!  Cane away....

FBI Agents Worry White House Will Kneecap Russia Probe

The Don and his Goodfellas

From my time at senior levels in government, the take in this piece in the Daily Beast reads spot on.  There are serious concerns here, friends. All those Republicans saying "don't worry, the investigation will go on", are just blowing smoke in our faces, knowingly (knaves) or not (fools):

Betsy Woodruff & Jana Winter:

On Tuesday night, after James Comey got fired, FBI agents tasked with thwarting Russian intelligence operations started drinking.

Two well-connected former FBI employees told The Daily Beast that counterintelligence agents working on the Russian counterintelligence program out of FBI headquarters in downtown Washington met for drinks in the hours after their boss’s firing and shared their concerns: that they would be reassigned elsewhere, and their work on the Russian-Trump associates investigation would come to a grinding halt.

And just in case consistency in Trump's positions were ever in doubt:

 ДО СВИДА́НИЯ!

Where Does France's New President Stand on Radical Islam? | Clarion Project Clarion Project

French Muslims now too big a voting bloc. Macron has to tread carefully,
more carefully than France needs

You see (dear friend who thinks Macron is going to be sound on Islam), French president-elect Macron is naive -- or duplicitous, or forced to be, because Muslims are so large a voting bloc -- about Islam, its place in modern French society, and his relationship with some of its shadier characters. This is not good news: he'll get played by these guys and their plethora of supporters. The result: more Islamist and Jihadi actions in France.

Owning Your Own Future | Thomas L. Friedman | NYT

However you see the future: Ya gottta keep changin'.... 

From Tom Friedman's article in today's New York Times, link below....

The notion that we can go to college for four years and then spend that knowledge for the next 30 is over. If you want to be a lifelong employee anywhere today, you have to be a lifelong learner.

And that means: More is now on you. And that means self-motivation to learn and keep learning becomes the most important life skill.

That's why education-to-work expert Heather E. McGowan likes to say: "Stop asking a young person WHAT you want to be when you grow up. It freezes their identity into a job that may not be there. Ask them HOW you want to be when you grow up. Having an agile learning mind-set will be the new skill set of the 21st century."

Some are up for that, some not; and many want to but don't know how, which is why the College Board has reshaped the PSAT and SAT exams to encourage lifelong learning.

"We analyzed 250,000 students from the high school graduating class of 2017 who took the new PSAT and then the new SAT," College Board president David Coleman told me. "Students who took advantage of their PSAT results to launch their own free personalized improvement practice through Khan Academy advanced dramatically: 20 hours of practice was associated with an average 115-point increase from the PSAT to the SAT — double the average gain among students who did not.

"Practice advances all students without respect to high school G.P.A., gender, race and ethnicity or parental education. And it's free. Our aim is to transform the SAT into an invitation for students to own their future."

So the tough news is that more will be on you. The good news is that systems — like Khan-College Board — are emerging everywhere to enable anyone to accelerate learning for the age of acceleration.

Step back from all of this and it's clear that thriving countries today won't elect a strongman. They'll elect leaders who inspire and equip their citizens to be strong people who can own their own futures.

Some facts about Israel/Palestine | Melanie Phillips at Berkeley

West Bank, aka "Occupied Territories", aka Judea & Samaria

There's an argument about the demographics in Israel at the time of partition in 1947.  Benny Morris is one I've read a fair bit of, and I think he's reasonably straight, though rather critical of Israel, for my taste.  Demographics are not completely neutral.  You can have Jewish or Arabic majorities, depending which part of modern day "Palestine" or which part of historical "Mandatory Palestine", or which part of ancient historic Holy Lands, you take as your base.  My understanding is during the early part of the 20th century, during the time of the Peel Commission, the Balfour Letter and declaration, the League of Nations then United Nations, in the area that is now core Israel (i.e., not including West Bank, Jews were in the slight majority.
Then again if you trace it back -- as the Palestinians are always wont to do -- then the essential point is Melanie's: "we wuz here first".
She also gives UN resolution 242 a bit of an over-fast spin. It doesn't specifically give Israel the right to keep the West Bank; rather that a condition for giving it back had be the recognition of the state of Israel to live in peace. Israel accepted. The Palestinians did not. (As they said at the time, Yasser Arafat never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.)
In any case, a Melanie Phillips gives a useful summary here of the state of play with history. And one that university of Berkeley banned for fear its students would be "triggered" and 'harmed" by ideas. This is a truly scary development. Google "antifa" demos to see how fascist the "antiFascist" left can be...
Melanie's conclusion:

So we all have a choice. We can support the racist, colonialist, anti-democratic Palestinian agenda based on a police state, the oppression of gays and women, the goal of occupying the Jews' own country, antisemitism, racist ethnic cleansing and the expropriation not just of a people's land but their own history.
Or we can support Israel, the only country in the Middle East where Arabs and Muslims, women and gays have political and religious freedom, which stands for upholding democracy, law, justice and human rights and which genuinely wants coexistence rather than conflict.

"A slight whiff of hope for Middle East peace", 8 May

Hamas adores Hitler. They just fault him for not finishing off the job

TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES:

I don't agree with your Leader that Hamas' abandoning its rejectionist stance towards a Palestinian state gives cause for hope ("A slight whiff of hope for Middle East peace", 8 May).

If only.

But all Hamas has done is move from a one-step policy of annihilating Israel to a two-step policy of annihilating Israel: (1) grudgingly accept a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza and (2) *then* annihilate Israel. Meantime Hamas' Charter aims to kill Jews wherever they are remains intact (Article 7).

The fact that it's taken Hamas four years (!) to budge this little ought to be cause for frustration and mockery, not for kudos. If the UN and western media had directed more of its criticism at the Palestinian side, instead of the constant drumbeat at Israel, perhaps the movement might have been more significant: accepting Israel's right to exist, for example.

In the meantime the Hamas document deserves what it got at the hands of Netanyahu : consignment to the dustbin. He will probably be excoriated for that, but it's not Israel which has been rejectionist all these years.

Sincerely,

Pf

Hong Kong

Israeli Arabs view country more positively than Jews, survey finds | The Times of Israel

Muslims voting in Israel

More among Israel's Arab community than its Jewish population are satisfied with life in Israel and slightly over half are proud to be Israeli citizens, according to a recent survey.

The results of the poll, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University Peace Index, were released ahead of Israel's 69th Independence Day that falls on Tuesday. The survey sought an appraisal of life in Israel, asking the question: "How's it going?"

President Janet Morgan Riggs responds to open letter from alums on Robert Spencer | The Gettysburgian.

My comment on this issue is awaiting moderation.
Why are college Presidents becoming such pussies? It may seem the easier option at the outset, to give in to anti free speech bullies. But it's bad for them in the longer term as they implicitly encourage more bullying.
My comment to the President:

I have followed Robert Spencer for many years: his blog, books and videos. Conclusions:
1. He is not a bigot. He makes a clear distinction between Muslims as people and Islam as ideology
2. He is very knowledgeable about Islam.
3. He consistently stresses his aims: to pursue freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the rights of women and minorities.
4. He should be permitted to speak. For those who don't agree with him let them come along and tell him why.
The issue of his alleged bigotry should have been completely irrelevant.
This issue should not have been "extraordinarily complex and difficult" as made out by the President. Her line should have been: "I don't know about Mr Spencer or his views. In the interests of free speech, I will let him speak and you are free to *not* attend his speech or attend and challenge him if you disagree." End of.
Forse in Hong Kong

Is Marine Le Pen really far-right? | Douglas Murray | The Spectator

I too have often wondered why the MSM regularly — pretty much without fail — call Marine Le Pen "far right". Like Murray ("Is Marine Le Pen really far-right?") I assume that it's her statements on the Islamic question in Europe. Which situation is dire, but still can't be addressed by lefties without one's being labelled "Islamophobic", and that's the end of it: you're "far right".
The always reliable Douglas Murray nails it again, in this essay.
Interesting info that I didn't know: majorities of Europeans favour the blocking of immigration from majority Muslim countries.  They're awake, even if their political overlords are asleep, or feigning sleep:

In February, Chatham House released a poll which asked 10,000 Europeans whether they agreed or not with the statement 'All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped'. The majority of the public in eight out of the ten countries surveyed (including France and Germany) agreed with its premise. In only two countries was this a minority opinion. In one of them — the UK — only 47 per cent of the public agreed that all further Muslim immigration should be stopped.
Of course, the habit of the political left and mainstream right continues to be to call all such opinion 'far-right', even when it encompasses the majority of the public. However, doing so ignores political shifts occurring due to events rather than incipient fascism, and scares away mainstream politicians from addressing — rather than merely bloviating around — societal problem voters are asking them to tackle. 

We should also look at the policies of the late and much admired Lee Kwan-yew, which I read in his Hard Truths.  He was concerned to keep social stability in the face of increasing Islamism by the approx 15% (IIRC) of the Singaporean population that was Muslim. He notes in Hard Truths that his Muslim colleagues and friends were becoming increasingly "fundametalist".  They used to shake his hand, go out and enjoy a lunch together, with beer.  Lately (he's talking of the 90's IIRC), he'd noticed that they would avoid shaking his hand and no longer go out for fun lunches with him. This, remember, is Lee Kwan-yew!  A world-famous figure, and no racist.  In any case, Lee's policies included, the following, that I reckon we should adopt in the west.  There was no blowback to Lee.  Any blowback in the west must therefore be "racist", right?!
Lee Kwan-yew policies, re Singapore's Muslim population:

(1) Close mosques that preach extreme Islamist messages.
(2) Don't allow any foreign funding of mosques.  

This latter policy might need to include foreign funding to churches, synagogues and temples, to give cover.  But it needs to be done for mosques because the majority of mosques in western countries are funded by Saudi Arabia and preach a Salafist/Wahhabi version of extreme, intolerant Islam.  Why should they be allowed to fund mosques that call for the death of their host countries?  To turn them into hellholes like Saudi and Iran?

Lee is pretty much as un-toxic as you can get, and more people who are worried about islamification of the west should read and promote his ideas.

Hamas will kill Jews a bit more slowly. Yay!

The media are falling all over it. (For example). A new "policy paper" from Hamas, four years (!) in the making, says it's not after Jews in particular, but the "Zionist project" (Israel). 

It won't try to kill Jews around the world. It will "accept" a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders which include the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

That is it will call off genocide. At least for now. It'll kill the Jews, oh yes, but slowly now.

That is, it will "accept" a "Two state solution" (TSS).  At least for now. 

But..... but.... wasn't a TSS the solution that was being blocked by the evil Israeli Jew-Zionist state? That's surely why the pro-Palestinian Left has brought pressure non-stop to Israel to make concessions,, to press it to "restart" the "peace process?  Sure sounded like it. But here you have it revealed -- something that was never hidden -- that Hamas, half of the government-to-be in a new Palestine State has only just now -- as of Monday, two days ago -- come on board with the TSS. 

But that's not the end of it. Oh no, not when you're dealing with the loony fringes of Palestinian demands. 

Hamas make clear that they're going to keep on fighting to take over the whole of what they call Palestine -- that is, the whole of Israel. "Palestine will be free. From the river to the sea". 

Now, why on earth would Israel want to start talking to Hamas on that basis?  Yet the pressure is already on from the western media: talk to Hamas now. They've made concessions. Their line is "softer". Like hell. 

Israel of course is not buying it. They say it's a "smokescreen". And of course it is. But many will be blinded by the smoke. 

Thank goodness Israel has the "war smarts". It's not dumb. And it's not suicidal.**

********

For ref: here is a part of Article 7 of the Hamas Charter of 1988. It has not been abrogated (yet) by the new "policy paper", as far as I know. 

Pretty horrid isn't it? 

But rarely is it mentioned by those who so readily find fault with Israel. 

As far as I can tell it's still valid, though the new policy paper may mitigate it. 

Quote:

The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! 

********
** An Israel official said: "Instead of trying to destroy us in one go, they [Hamas/PA] will do it in two goes," and the charter is "cosmetics and nothing more". (Rory Jones in the Wall Street Journal, early May)

Keep ‘one country’ intact to enjoy the benefits of ‘two systems’ | Alex Lo, South China Morning Post

When we had the Occupy movement in 2014, I was worried the Central Government would tromp in to Hong Kong to squash it.  They didn't, but were certainly worried.  They got more worried when we started to see movements for "independence" of Hong Kong.  These are foolish in the extreme, I thought.  If there's one word that freaks Beijing, it's "independence", because it impacts so much more, specifically Taiwan and Tibet.

And if Beijing did indeed take over in Hong Kong, which country would do, or even say, anything?  Trump with his new BFF, Xi Jinping? Certainly not. The UK, tied up with Brexit? Hardly. Europe tied up with Brexit, various elections and huge trade with China?  No way.

And sure enough we now have various spokespeople threatening a termination of "One Country Two Systems", which been so far so good. 

I'd much rather -- and so would the vast majority of Hong Kong -- have a continuation of the status quo.  It's just fine, thanks.

I don't always agree with Alex Lo, in his "My Take" column for the South China Morning Post.  But here in his May 1 post, "Keep 'one country' intact to enjoy the benefits of 'two systems'",  he's spot on: