“Harrison Butker Right about Men and Women”| Rich Lowry

I hope I don't get into trouble for this.

Immediate family aside, I've had three long relations with women, two in marriage. All of them had strong and important careers. All are grandmothers now.

I haven't asked them, but I venture to guess that each would say that what they feel most fulfilled by, over their long careers, over their rich, varied and successful lives, what they are happiest about, is the wonderful children they brought up.

And that's all Harrison Butker was saying in his commencement address. Bunker being a famous NFL football star, giving a commencement speech at a Catholic college. 

He did NOT say that women should not aspire to a career. That’s a given. But he also said they should not feel ashamed to enjoy motherhood, even staying at home to bring up kids.

The well-meant movement to "liberate" women from housework has had a lot of downsides. Especially in the Black community where Big Society programs of Lyndon Johnson led to huge increases in single motherhood and fatherless children. (e.g. Liberals: “Please stop helping us” by Jason Riley).

The Left are now attacking Butker for the mere suggestion that women might want to stay at home to raise a family. That the only way a woman can fulfil herself is to spend a life toiling away at a career, even if this means no family (as it increasingly does).

This is yet again the danger of good intentions. Ideologically driven. The road to hell is lined with good intentions. 

Snip:

To judge by the internet reaction, Kansas City Chiefs placekicker Harrison Butker is guilty of a dreaded double doink — a missed field-goal attempt that embarrassingly hits both uprights — with his commencement address the other day.

The NFL has distanced itself from Butker's unadorned socially conservative speech at Benedictine College, a Catholic school in Kansas. He's accused, meanwhile, of potentially driving women away from the NFL and, even worse, perhaps offending Taylor Swift by quoting one of her lyrics.

The first thing to say about this is that Butker is a traditionalist Catholic giving a speech to traditionalist Catholic students graduating from a traditionalist Catholic school. Should we be surprised he sounded like a traditionalist Catholic?

Read on…

The students’ world views on Israel and Gaza

 Let's sum it up:

🤡 Israel is an apartheid state (where 2 million Arabs have full rights)

🤡 The Palestinian genocide has been going on for 76 years (during which their population grew by 400%)

🤡 Israel never wanted peace with the Palestinians (that's why it always offered them peace)

🤡 the Palestinians are willing to accept Israel's right to exist (that's why they always rejected any two state solution) 

🤡 Israel's occupation of Gaza is terrible (especially after Israel left Gaza in 2005)

🤡 Allah loves queers

🤡 Jesus was Palestinian 

🤡 Bin Laden's Letter to America TOTALLY opened my eyes 

🤡 Hamas are freedom fighters 

🤡 Google Cloud is enabling an A.I. driven genocide 

🤡 Hamas didn't rape anyone. Okay, they raped a few women, but it wasn't systematic. Okay, it was systematic, but they were settlers so they deserved it 

🤡 We have nothing against Jews. We just think Zionism is bad (that's why we target synagogues, Holocaust memorials, random Jews in the streets, etc)

🤡 Israelis are white and should go back to Europe. Okay I get it, they're mostly not white, fine, they should go back to wherever they came from. Not our problem that they were massacred everywhere. They deserved it

🤡 October 7th never happened. Okay, it did happen, but only military targets were attacked. Okay, also civilian targets, but by mistake. Okay, it was on purpose, but they are all IDF so that's okay

🤡 35,000 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israel in Gaza. 50,000 of them were women and 1,000,000 were children. The UN certified these numbers 

🤡 There are 1.7 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah that have no place to go. Okay, they all moved to Deir al Balah now. It's still wrong to enter Rafah!

🤡 Here's my diploma from Columbia University. It cost my parents $80,000 a year. I'm ripping it to shreds as protest for the genocide!

It's okay, Biden will cancel my student loan debt

"Welcome to MacDonald's. How may I help you?"

What did I miss?

H/t: Hamas Atrocities 

"Is America dictator-proof?” | The Economist

The Economist tackles a question I’ve been thinking about, and concluding that even if a second President Trump did want to become a dictator it would be difficult. First because of the Constitution. And second, because of the huge array of forces that would oppose him. Not just half the country who voted Democrat would be violently (literally) against him, but also the courts, at least half Democrat and the armed forces, which are fiercely loyal to the Constitution. 

I’d add: I don’t believe that Trump has any intention of even trying to become a dictator, no matter the pearl-clutching of the Dems. I heard him say, when asked “would you try to be a dictator”, answer: “Just for a day”, and the crowd laughing. Also, he had the chance in his first term; Covid gave the perfect chance to be authoritarian. He was not. On Jan 6th he urged his followers “to peacefully and patriotically protest”. He did not call for a violent insurrection; and on the same day, he handed over the keys. But, you know, Orange Man Bad, and he big dictator-would-be. 

The Economist has a look at the question of dictatorship in America. And in their usual way have their two-bob each way, and conclude something along my lines above. That it’d be difficult. They end with a question, like whaddaweknow?  So, three-bob each way.

Still and interesting read, which for the sake of history I copy below in full. The original, May 16, 2024, is here. With thanks to The Economist. 

How has it come to this? After victory in the cold war, the American model seemed unassailable. A generation on, Americans themselves are losing confidence in it. Feckless war-making, a financial crisis and institutional rot have let loose a ferocity in America’s politics that has given presidential contests seemingly existential stakes. Americans have heard their leaders denounce the integrity of their democracy. They have seen fellow citizens try to block the transfer of power from one administration to the next. They have good reason to wonder how much protection their system guarantees them against the authoritarian impulse rising around the world.

“Why the Gaza protests are worrying” - The Spectator World

As a protester from the Vietnam War era I can attest that, at least in Australia where we did our protesting, in a time of conscription, we didn't hate on anyone, or stop anyone from attending classes, or scream abuse at those who didn't agree with us, or were a different ethnicity or another religion. 

And we knew a lot more about the war we were protesting; a lot more than the know-nothing students today know of the Gaza war. Or of Hamas, for that matter. (The “progressive dimwits”)

At my school, Canberra Grammar, in 1967, we held a debate on the Vietnam war, the whole school invited. I still remember the two students who took the opposite sides: both were my classmates. And looking back, I'm a little amazed that the school should do such a thing; remember that was near sixty years ago!

Ross Reid took the pro-America, pro-war side. Steve Padgham took the pro Viet-Cong, anti-war side. Even at that time most of my classmates were anti the war. As was I, in a kind of squishy way. I mean, I didn’t look into it deeply; I’m not sure why. But I guess I generally bought the idea that Ho-Ho Ho Chi-minh was just a nice guy who only wanted to unify his country under a benevolent .... something..., and I went along with that. (Ho turned out to be not that nice of a guy, but that’s another story...). 

I remember thinking Ross was brave to (1) have his own view different from the rest of us and (2) to stand up in front of the whole school, a 17-year old, arguing his (unpopular) case. But there was no cancel culture and Ross never was or never felt threatened. 

Not the case with today's students. Who (1) do not tolerate dissent from the pro-Hamas anti-Israel view and (2) are openly anti-Semitic. I prefer these day to call them “Jew haters”, for that's what they are. As made clear by the article below. And as made clear by the plethora of videos looking at the encampments and talking (when allowed) to the students. Like here .... And Suella Braverman at Cambridge (Mute Morons).

I do hope that one day they feel ashamed of their Jew hatred. They should feel ashamed. And don't give me any of that "we're only criticising Zionism" nonsense! They're not. They specifically hate Jews. 

A good article by the editors of The Spectator. 

Snip:

As the weather has warmed, it's time for that time-honored tradition — protest season. Because everyone knows the plight of the disenfranchised is best solved at 70°F. Setting up winter camp in a college quad seems unpleasant — the revolution will take place at a time, place and temperature that's convenient for America's poetry graduate assistants.

Campus protests are nothing new in America. They've been a feature of university life since at least the Vietnam War and beyond. And sure, it's fun to get wrapped up in a romantic cause you only just learned about and of which you have only a surface-level knowledge. It might give your life meaning at a time when you're trying to figure out what the point of all of this is. Like you're part of something greater than yourself. Plus, it used to be a great way to meet girls. (Nowadays, these girls are all enbies. Ask your teenager.)

 “Why the Gaza protests are worrying” The Spectator May 15, 2024

Discovery Dogs and photobombing dogs

Hannah (back) is our Byron’s girlfriend. 
Labradoodles.
In our park at Discovery Bay, Hong Kong this morning.

And later on our walk Byron invited himself into a group of people we don’t know. Is that a photo bomb? They were happy to have him there. Near the White Chapel in Discovery Bay Park Siena. 

The “White Chapel”

Einat Wilf speaks at UN Briefing on UNRWA

Click above for the video

Einat Wilf is a peace activist, many years working with Labour members of Israeli government. She knows whereof she speaks. And makes the strong case that the UNRWA* is the main stumbling block on the path to peace in the Middle East. Because it is run and owned, essentially, by Hamas. Its existence requires the existence of Palestinian refugees, therefore it does nothing to reduce their numbers. That’s just in the nature of incentives. 

I’ve been banging on about how awful UNRWA is, for at least a decade. The evidence of its harm is right there in front of us. We have the receipts, as we say these days. And yet nothing is done. Because of the powerful pro-Islam lobby in the United Nations. And the reluctance of western governments to be seen as uncaring and uncharitable. It’s easier just to go along with the corrupt UNRWA. At least then you can pretend to be virtuous. 

Donald Trump removed US funding for UNRWA during his presidency. That was a good move. But was excoriated on the Left. And by most countries. He would “lose US power to act as a broker” they claimed. Yet that power increased: he gave us the Abraham Accords, the most significant move towards peace in the middle east in 70 years. 

Of course the minute Joe Biden was in power, he resumed aid to this most corrupt of organisations, the UNRWA.

The above video is very revealing, from someone who’s been inside the beast. 

========================

* UNRWA = the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The only refugee agency in the world that is focussed on one lot of people alone, the Palestinians. It’s been going since 1949, and in that time -- 75 years !! -- the number of Palestinian refugees that it’s overseen has only risen, from under a million to now more than 5 million. As has its employees, now number some 30,000. By rights this should be classified as a major failure and should be disbanded. But it’s not; it’s seen as indispensable and any moves to disband or even restrict it are denounced. 

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, by contrast, looks after refugees from all over the world, has a smaller workforce than UNRWA and has housed and resettled millions of refugees. 

75% of Europeans think there’s too much immigration. So, why aren’t they listened to?

 

Look at the above chart. For some reason, it excludes the UK but I know the figure there is also around 75%. With such high figures, why doesn’t the democratic system do something about it? 

Couple of thoughts: 

1. The actual implementation of any measures to control immigration is in the hands of Civil Servants. I know the Civil service, as I was in it, for Australia for about 20 years. They are all pretty much leftie and don’t like to think that they ought control immigration at all. They do indeed feel virtuous, and if they ever get to know about polls showing figures of 70% percent against too much illegal immigration they just think it’s a bunch of oiks who need to be made understand. By bringing in ever larger numbers of migrants. 

2. In Europe the situation is compounded by the supranational bureaucracy of the EU, in Brussels. They are literally out of touch and untouchable. And very much in favour of more immigration, because it’s “compassionate” and “tolerant” and so on; and to do the opposite is -- horror -- racism.

Meantime, the issue is -- to me, at least -- not so much one of numbers (which it is) but more an issue of the culture of the immigrants. When they are from Mulsim countries, with very different values in terms of how they treat women, gays, non-Muslims and other religions, and they strongly resist integration, while demanding obeisance to their own practices -- like everyone at a workplace, Muslim and non-Muslim alike at a workplace respecting the fast at Ramadan -- then we’ve got a real problem. It’s a problem today at the level of simply giving in. Either we keep giving in, and end up with an Islamic country, run on Sharia law, or we resist and that’s going to lead to confrontation. 

This was the reason I started this blog 15 years ago. I made various predictions then about the Islamisation of Europe. I was wrong on those predictions: it’s happened much faster that I thought, both on the mainland of Europe, in places like Germany, France and Sweden, and in the UK, where whole cities have been Islamised. 

Today is “Nakba Day”

My quick history lesson at the site of the SCMP article. We are supposed to mourn, with Palestinians, the loss of their land, the "Nakba". Their "Holocaust"

I don't. The "catastrophe" — and yes, it was and remains a catastrophe — was entirely self-created. It was, from day one 1947, wrong. And remains wrong. 

History could have been so much kinder if only one side had shown some Grace. I've seen Arab voices saying this. What was needed and what remains needed is Grace. Sadly those voices are rare and muted. 

By the way, today is also holiday in Hong Kong. For us, Buddha's Birthday.

The quick and dirty comment:

1. Two states, side by side, were proposed by the new United Nations in 1946. The Jews accepted; the Arabs rejected.
2. Israel was created as a state by a majority vote in the United Nations in November 1947. (The Yes vote included Australia, which only makes the recent betrayal of Israel at the UN by our Foreign Minister all the more painful).
3. Surrounding Arab countries invaded the new Israel in early 1948.
4. Before attacking, the Arab governments told the Arabs living in the new Israel (which had welcomed them to stay) to leave, so the Arab armies could freely slaughter the Jews.
5. But… The Arab armies lost the war. And some of land that had been set aside for the new Arab state. And lost the right to return for the residents they'd told to leave — by the way, a common and regular outcome of war. (Eg, as evident in the new boundaries drawn at the very recent end of WWII).
6. This is the "Nakba". The Palestinian "Holocaust". A self-created catastrophe. For which they blame Israel. As they have continued to do ever since. It is, however, entirely on their head. As the world should never stop pointing out. (But doesn't). 

The lesson: You don't get to start a war, then demand a do-over when you lose. 

Which Hamas is trying for now. What else is a "permanent ceasefire" and withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza, but the demand that Israel surrender.  Hamas want a do-over. And in this they are being supported by nitwits at western colleges. And nitwits in the Biden Administration. Blinken, Sullivan, Austin and the rest of that tawdry gang. 

Sigh…

I stand with Douglas Murray. I stand with Israel

 

Click above for the video

Yes, even if life is not perfect, even if there are deaths of innocent children, I still stand with Israel. I stand with decency and democracy and against the Death Cult of Hamas, who are out to kill all Jews. And in the process kill their own children. They say so. They say it clearly. They say “we have babies so that they can be martyred. So they can kill Jews.” They do say that, Hamas and the Fatah. They pay lifetime pensions to the families of “martyrs”. They do that. 

And so, I with Israel. Which stands for life. And for living babies. 

Hamas, a Death Cult? Why, yes, they are. They say so. Often: “We love Death more than you love life”. They do say that. And we must believe them. Because they act exactly according to what they say. And if they take over Israel, “from the River to the Sea”, they will most assuredly slaughter all the Jews. And will then move on to taking over the rest of the world, to bring Islam to the whole of humankind, because that’s what their prophet Muhammad told them to do. And in process they will happily, willingly, gloriously die. While they kill us. 

crackdown

From crackdown

“Has America Finally Had It With Joe Biden?” | Victor Davis Hanson

Professor Victor Davis Hanson in full throat. On X. Wow!

Joe Biden’s personal approval rating is at historic lows; almost all his policies do not poll fifty percent. He is behind Trump in almost all the swing states. And now he lies serially even to sympathetic interviewers. In short, finally Biden has been exposed for what he always was and represented.

Senator and Vice President Joe Biden was always sort of a buffoon. He is by nature a grandstander who handsomely profited from his office while posing as good ole Joe from Scranton.

He is a blowhard meddler, one who proverbially has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades (Robert Gates),” from dissenting on the Bin Laden raid to his trisection of Iraq scheme.

Anjem Choudary’s explanation of Islam

	Amy Mek ⁦‪@AmyMek‬⁩ I have always appreciated Anjem Choudary's honesty... Muhammad says M*slims in a position of strength should impose three choices on non-M*slims: 1. Become a M*slim (conversion) 2. Pay protection money (jizya) for the right to live as a second-class citizen (dhimma pact of… pic.twitter.com/XgnB1KXavq   14/5/2024, 3:45 AM

I've quoted Anjem Choudary before. He does set out, very clearly, if scarily, the basics of Islam when it comes into contact with non-Muslim countries. As it is doing now in the west, has been for decades, but will over time convert to Islamic societies. 

If we don't stop it. 

=========================

ADDED: Osama bin Laden, in his writings to the Muslim world (but not to westerners)* makes these three choices crystal clear. And that that’s why his Al Qaeda was (and still is) attacking the west, as on 911. 

Sure there are grievances, like the Palestine question, but even absent that, even with not a single grievance, Islam has to keep fighting, has to keep attacking the west for they (we) are infidels, unbelievers, despised kuffars. And they (we) should be offered only the three choices: (1) Submit to Islam and become a Muslim (the word “Islam” means submission) (2) Pay the Jizya tax owed by non-Muslims in Muslim lands or (3) be killed. 

Thus, in a very real sense, OBL and his mujahideen attacked us on 911 because they hate our freedoms. Hate our freedom not to be Muslim. W. Bush was right about that. And yet, in the west, the likes of Noam Chomsky, and Glenn Greenwald, buy the idea that the only reason they attack is because of grievances. They conclude, therefore, that we must try to address the grievances. By surrendering to the Palestinians, for example. 

No. No matter what we do, Islam will still be after us in the west. In the shape of a new Osama bin Laden, or in the shape of Hamas, or Hezbollah, or Fatah, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Boko Haram, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or any of the rest of the theocratic-fascist groups around the world, now living deep in our western societies. Which will be western no more if we succumb to “suicidal empathy” (eg, for “refugees” for “chain migration”, for family reunions. For taking in Gazan refugees, FFS, when not a single surrounding Arab state will take them because they cause chaos). 

One man who has got this, and very clearly, is Sam Harris. I’ve rather made fun of Sam and his Trump Derangement Syndrome; but on Islam he’s rock solid. Sound. Based.

*The Al-Qaeda Reader by Raymond Ibrahim

Byron & Arlene

“The best is yet to come” | Doc Rich

Click above for the video (Doc Rich)

The Black vote in America has long been locked up by the Dems. This demographic reliably voted 90%-plus Democrat. Now they’re shifting to GOP, with a 20 point swing to the Republicans.

This clip above -- from a Black podcast of Doc Rich -- is interesting  for the guests Trump asks on stage. The first is Ottis Anderson and the second Lawrence Taylor. Both famous NFL players. Both lifetime Dem voters, now voting for Trump. They’ve got a presence, right?

The 100,000 figure was not Trump’s, but from the township of Wildwood, New Jersey. It’s Jersey Shore. New Jersey is a solid long-time Blue state, so getting that sort of crowd is quite something and surely covering the Biden camp. 

ADDED: I follow a number of Black podcasts, both left and right. Here are some, with their general leaning, Dem or Rep:

• Doc Rich (R);
• The Conservative Black Perspective (R);
• Nate the Lawyer (R);
• Charlemagne The God (D);
• The Breakfast Club (D);
• Stephen A. Smith (D);
• Coach Colin (R). 

The Black vote is critical. And Black podcasts help to understand the Black vote. 

I reckon I’ve got a bit of a feel for what’s grinding the Black community through these and one of those is most certainly that they’re really, really pissed off that illegal immigrants are coming into their communities and being given lodgings at their community centres, given free smart phones, given monthly allowances, given food and clothing. While their own Black communities still suffer. 

They don’t like that, not one little bit. 

BTW: “Illegal immigrants” were first renamed “undocumented migrants” and now, most recently they’re being called “newcomers”. So nice sounding. But no, let’s not buy into that. They remain illegal. Just as I would be if I didn’t have a visa and avoided the customs people. Sure, there’s the “refugee” thing, but that’s just gaming a system that’s no longer fit for purpose. 

Trump Cope

Straws in the wind:

Fareed Zacharia, says, on CNN that Trump did better on the border issue, that he’s far more popular on handling the economy and that the current spate of legal cases said t Trump are Lawfare, that is, they are politically motivated. This from Zacharia, an anti Trumper, a major contributor on CNN, itself a huge Biden supporter. Also criticises Biden handling of Gaza. 

House Rep Eric Swallwell, a major league Trump-hater, posts on X that his local DAs and judges are “too soft on crime”. Other Dems in CA are getting angry at Governor Gavin Newsom for “losing” $20 billion spent on unsuccessfully tackling the  homeless problem.

James Carville, Democrat uber-strategist, the genius who came up with Bill Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid” winner-zinger in 1992, says on YouTube that Democrat propaganda is “not working”.

Talking of Bill Clinton, he recently said that the whole “tribalising” thing the Dems are obsessed by — DEI, CRT, ESG…i.e. everything is race and gender, all the woke stuff  — is not only divisive, but will ruin the country.

Bill Maher says that people have to understand that Trump is not Hitler. That if he wins the skies won’t collapse. He even acknowledges that things were “pretty good” during the Trump presidency. 

MSNBC has journalist who push back against Biden in interviews. Something never done before.

CNN these days reports (some) negatives on Biden; again, never done before. Eg, Dem strategist David Axelrod saying it was “not a good idea” for Biden to be telling the voters “you’re wrong” when they say they don’t feel as well off as before. 

It’s almost like some Dems are starting to rearrange their brains in case of a Trump win. Which polls are showing very likely. Thus: the Big Cope. 

“10 Most Common Pro-Hamas Lies About Israel” | Victor Davis Hanson

I've been meaning to do my own list for a while, but as usual, being lazy works out well.

For good old history professor, polymath and all-round genius Victor Davis Hanson, aka VDH, does a list for me. 

You might quibble with this or that, but you can be sure that it will be well based. 

We see many, many, many of these falsehoods being touted around top universities in the U.S.  

“Biden’s Using Your Tax Dollars To Turn Out Democrat Votes” | The Federalist

Wow!

People have been wondering: given the Trump lead in the polls what could the Dems do to trip him up.

Maybe this is it. “Biden’s Using Your Tax Dollars To Turn Out Democrat Votes” by Dan Weingarten.

Note that voting by post is one aspect of this . Before Covid there was no postal voting. After it was used to great effect by the Dems during the 2020 Covid election, there's no way the Dems will ever allow the system to go back to pre Covid in-person voting only (though there are good reasons for doing so).

One to watch. Don't count on the Reps to be in top of this one. They were well behind the 8-ball on the postal voting in 2020. 

“I am not a Jew with trembling knees.”

This is not a protest against a faceless, nameless monolith. We’re standing right here, and you’re calling for our destruction.

From HeyAlma

Based on the famous retort by Israel PM Menachem Begin to then Senator Joe Biden, way back in 1982:

I would be tempted to say that our present circumstances call for a proud Jew to tell that to Joe Biden, but the fact is that he’s already been told — by Begin himself. In 1982, at a closed-door meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden had threatened Begin with cutting off military aid for Israel’s offensive campaign in Lebanon. As Tevi Troy noted in the Wall Street Journal, the story went that Begin responded in fiery outrage:

Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles. I’m not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.

Forty-two years later, Joe Biden has learned nothing.

Joe Biden: real good at Betrayal, something learned in his long career as a civil servant. By the way, we knew about this from the book by Justice Clarence Thomas. He tells the story of how he’s going to Senate confirmation hearing the next day, and is worried about how the issue of Anita Hill is going to hurt him. Joe assures him that there’s no problem. The next day, leading the Senate questions, Joe the Betrayer leads off by attacking Thomas over the Anita Hill issue (of which, for the record, he was found innocent). 

Joe has only honed his betrayal over the years. He now does it on a bigger stage. Afghanistan. Ukraine. Israel. 

BREAKING: US Intelligence Offer to Israel Sparks Debate Over Strategy in Rafah

The offer is to give Israel specific actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of the Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas. And on tunnels and on where the hostages are. If they kill Sinwar and save the hostages, it's all over. 

If this is true I find it extraordinary. Revolting, in fact. That the U.S. would withhold such critical info from its major ally in the region. For what reason one can't fathom. Unless it be a simple as pique at Netanyahu. ie a Biden hissy fit? Surely not. But maybe so…. 

If you think about it, it's pretty much literally — and I mean "literally" literally — breathtaking. Surely this is malpractice. 

I mean, boggles the brain. What's Biden and Blinken and Sullivan and Austin and the rest of the ratty gang up to? Especially when they bang on and on about keeping Gazan civilians safe. Which this intel could have done if given to Israel sooner.

Sigh…

Gaza Palestinians

Letter to BBC. RE: story on Palestinians fleeing Rafah to seaside camps where, says BBC, they have no facilities:

They could have NOT voted for Hamas. 

They could have demanded Hamas surrender. 

They could have demanded Hamas hand back the hostages it illegally captured.  

They could have said they want to recognize their neighbours. 

They could have said they want to live in peace with their neighbours.

And their neighbours would have gladly helped them prosper.

But no…

They chose Hamas. And thus they chose Terror. They chose genocide. They chose tunnels and rockets. They chose rape and plunder. They chose murder and Go-pro braggadocio. 

And now they moan and complain. Because their neighbours defend themselves. And are determined to exterminate Hamas. 

Too bad. 

This is all on the Palestinians and Hamas. 

It was all in their power to build a prosperous Gaza. 

They chose Jew-hatred instead, Jew-killing instead, Jew-genocide instead.

Peter Forsythe

Hong Kong

John Forsythe, Juris Doctor (J.D.)

 

UCLA Class of 2024
(Pro-Hamas Tent-city year)

The official photo

For the record: “The Truth Behind the UCLA Protests” | Dr Phil

 

Click above for the video

Our very own are studying at UCLA. Soon to graduate, protestors permitting. That’s to say: the administration of UCLA permitting, because they’ve allowed the Tent-city to stay there, despite being against multiple College rules.... (It is not a free speech issue because the encampments violate multiple college rules on time, place and method).

The above video is a good piece of reportage by Dr Phil, a guy who I’ve known about, of course, but never really followed. He’s now got his own show.

The situation on the quad at UCLA is a microcosm of the Middle East. The Jewish students go the protesters saying they'd like to talk; they want peace. The pro-Hamas student demonstrators tell them to fuck off and they want to kill them. The Israel/Gaza thing in a nutshell on one quad.

ADDED: 400 Jewish students at UCLA cleaned up the quad on 5th May. Story on X by Amy Alkon. Apparently the damage, the graffiti, etc, will cost in the millions to fix. I don’t doubt it. 

Giving “The State of Palestine” more rights at the United Nations: the spoils of violent terrorism.

Ambassador Erdan does the dirty

Speaking during the debate on the now passed United Nations Resolution to grant more rights to The State of Palestine, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan held up a tiny shredder and shredded a tiny version of the U.N. Charter. (See above vid).

Is that a smart thing to do? asks an Occasional Reader.

Yes, say I. Because it’s true. The United Nations General Assembly is shredding its own Charter. 

And I know it’s true because what the ambassador did made me go to the Resolution itself,  which says: 

Recalling that membership in the United Nations is open to all peace-loving States which accept the obligations contained in the Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations:

1. Determines that the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations in accordance with Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations; ... [Reference] [Text]

 And what is Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations? 

1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.

2. The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

[Reference]

There’s the catch: “peace-loving” and “peace-loving”.  You can’t get away from that loving of peace. 

BUT, the Palestinian State, run by the Palestinian Authority’ where the U.N. recognised the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as the leaders, and ruled de facto by Hamas in the Gaza strip, is most assuredly NOT “peace-loving”. 

The parties above, all Jihadist to more or even more extent, still hold to the “Three no’s policy” of Khartoum Resolution, one of which is “no peace with Israel”. 

The Charter of Hamas says that it will not recognise Israel, nor does it seek peace. It seeks the destruction of Israel, and the killing of all Jews. Everywhere in the world.

And then the procedural issue: any resolution regarding membership is to be recommended by the Security Council to the General Assembly, not the other way around. 

Thus: the United Nations, and 143 of its members, have voted:

• To reward the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th 2023, the worst killing of Jews since the holocaust.
• To reward a defined terrorist organisation bent on the genocide of its neighbour and a United Nations member. 
• To reward the Hamas tactics of using human shields, often children or even babies, to protect their cowardly “fighters”. 
• Thoroughly ignored the very UN Charter clauses that it quotes to justify the resolution. Specifically Article 4, requiring members to be peace-loving.
• Ignored the requirement for a “State” to have (1) a single recognised government (2) clearly defined borders (3) operate according to the rule of law.*
• Ignored the procedural requirements of the United Nations Charter. 

Australia supported the resolution. The likes of PM Anthony Albanese and FM Penny Wong seem proud that they managed to go against our oldest ally the United States. They should instead be ashamed. For how they’ve betrayed two staunch allies and rewarded naked terrorism. And helped along the destruction of Israel, the only home of the Jews in the world, and which the new-born United Nations voted into existence in 1947. 

This all after some tawdry grandstanding by Wong, the armchair general, lecturing Israel on how it should be conduction the war. And then demanding to send an “investigator” to look into the friendly fire deaths of the food truck convoy. Stick a sock in it, Penny!

ADDED: By the way, try to find anything like the above analysis anywhere on BBC, CNN or the ABC. Nothing. Just signalling how virtuous we all are, because we care for Palestine. Ugh.

ADDED (2): Penny Wong disgraces Australia. Note that one of Wong's excuses for the awful decision to push recognition of Palestine State is that this is done against the interests of Hamas.  This was immediacy belied the very next day, when Hamas sent out a statement “Hamas welcomes the UN resolution”. Of course. They will pocket the concessions and then go on to doing what they do so well badly horribly: killing jews. 

==========================================

*What is a State? Definition from the Brittanica:

The state is a form of human association distinguished from other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of order and security; its methods, the laws and their enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or geographic boundaries; and finally by its sovereignty. The state consists, most broadly, of the agreement of the individuals on the means whereby disputes are settled in the form of laws. [Reference]

 How does “The State of Palestine” stack up?

1. “Order and security”: clearly there is none. And the responsibility for that is Hamas in Gaza and the PA on the West Bank. The “governments” of the West Bank and Gaza, such as they may be, spend their time building tunnels and trying to kill Jews. Sad but true

2. Laws and their enforcement. The State of Palestine gets a fail here too. Laws, if applied at all, are arbitrary, confiscatory and pernicious. Sharia law, sometimes: which suppresses rights of women, minorities, and non-believers. 

3. The “geographic boundary”: this is not settled because none of the peace proposals, the proposals to hand land to the Palestinians, in return for peace and recognition, has been accepted by the Palestinians. 

4. Sovereignty: The “ultimate overseer” of state power. Yet we have warring factions. Hamas, Fatah, the PLO, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Enough to say there is no real sovereignty over all the lands claimed under The State of Palestine. 

In short: a fail. There cannot be a “state” of Palestine, if only, but at the very least, because the preconditions for a state do not exist. 

But that doesn’t bother the UNGA. Or the poodles like our Penny, who happily trot along behind, tongues out, panting for their little doggie treats of virtue points. Ad hominem, I know, but I can’t resist. 

ADDED: Just look at this lot of scoundrels and ratbags who drafted this wretched Resolution, which we, Australia, have said “yes” to. I doubt there’s a single anti-anti-Semitic place amongst them:

Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Colombia, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gambia, Guyana, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Yemen and State of Palestine

"This time, we are the horses: the disruption of labor by humanoid robots” | Tony Seba

One car in 1900. One horse in 1913

In fifteen years, between 1900 and 1915, horses went from providing 95% of transport in the United States, to just 10%. 

That was the disruption of the motor vehicle. 

The disruption of humanoid robots will have the same effect. Except that this time we are the horses. 

Tony Seba has a long history of spot-on predictions. 

From his blog post “This time we are the horses”:

The changes, the disruption coming up because the rapid development of humanoid robots, combined with the power of AI, will be the biggest opportunity and also the biggest challenge of humankind. 

Just as internal combustion engines gave automobiles the capability to disrupt horses, a convergence of technologies that together create what we call a labor engine is what gives humanoid robots the capability to disrupt human labor. The critical disruptive components of the new labor engine include:

• Sensors (cameras, tilt sensors, pressure sensors, microphones, accelerometers, etc.) to take in sensory data
• Computer hardware and software to process sensory data with powerful AI
• Actuators to move and interact with objects in the environment
• Batteries and power electronics to provide energy for hours of sensing, computing, and moving

Each of these technologies has gotten dramatically cheaper and more powerful in recent years, setting the stage for the disruption of labor.
Over the next 15-20 years, humanoid robots will disrupt human labor throughout hundreds of industries across every major sector of the global economy. The disruption of labor will be among the most profound transformations in human history, and therefore simultaneously represents one of the greatest opportunities and greatest challenges our civilization has ever faced.

Videos about this:

• The Electric Viking 
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Latest poll election 2024

If the election were held tomorrow. The result would be a wave of Red. A Trump landslide. 

“Does Biden’s Sabotage of Israel Remind You of Anything?” | Andrew McCarthy

Impeach Biden!

The GOP might want to hold back on the grounds that "we're not going to do tit-for-tat". That it's not good for the country to launch spurious impeachment cases just because your opponents did. Very well.

But at least they ought to make some noise about it. That the Dems sought to impeach Trump for exactly the same thing that Joe Biden is doing now to Israel. 

This point about Biden doing exactly what they accused Trump of doing was made on CNN last night! Amazing. 

Snip, from the great, the reliable Andy McCarthy: 

I

‘m old enough to remember when House Democrats impeached and Senate Democrats voted unanimously (though unsuccessfully) to convict and remove a president for withholding congressionally approved, taxpayer-funded aid from an allied country — one that desperately needed the aid while fighting a defensive war against a barbaric enemy — in order to pressure that desperate ally to help the president get reelected.

You're old enough, too — this happened less than five years ago.

And the Democrats who impeached and sought to convict and remove then-president Donald Trump are pretty much the same Democrats now holding House and Senate seats. Read on...

ADDED: Senator Ted Cruz on the Biden Betrayal.  At the end of the Trump presidency, Iran had around $4 billion in their coffers, according to the IMF. In country terms that’s like being on your uppers. After Biden had been in power for three years, Iran had over $100 billion, according to the IMF. That has allowed Iran to fund the terrorism by Hamas, by Hezbollah and by the Houthis. And for Iran to strike Israel with over 300 missiles. That’s what the Biden administration enabled. Facts. 

Israel, 16 April 2017, near Red Sea

Yonathan, Jing, Razi the camel driver. West Bank, Israel, 16 April 2017

THE PATTERN OF BIBI’S DESPERATE PROPOSALS | Seymore Hersh

I pay money to Seymore Hersh for his Substack articles. He’s the guy who broke the Pentagon Papers. And I thought his article on Who Bombed the Nordstream pipelines was very good (his take: America). But I thought the latest pretty bad. My comment at the site of the article: 

Forse

8 mins ago

What a dog’s breakfast of an article. “Analysis” by anecdote. The IDF soldiers are “grievously wounded” and thus, we are to assume, more insightful. Telling us that Bibi is “afraid of his own shadow” (and thus presumably should have been more forceful in Gaza), yet is somehow, and at the same time, to be negotiating with “Arab neighbours”. 

No mention of Hamas. No mention of the perfidy of Joe Biden. No mention of the severe constraint put on Bibi’s War Cabinet by the Biden gang. 

In one breath Bibi should resign or be ousted and in another breath it’s admitted there is noone capable of leadership. 

And yet, somehow, yet again the “two-state solution” lurches into view, the zombie, the Walking Dead, lall tattered raiments and blood-soaked bandages. Oh dear. 

And yet again, we have the comparison with Vientmam, Enough already. (Where the South Vietnamese are repeatedly described as “corrupt”, but not the North or the Viet Cong, equally corrupt, yet more venal, as they slaughtered their enemies, including baby Amerasians in orphanages, after America’s ignominious surrender. I know. I was there. 

And as for the war in Gaza being a defeat, that’s only if the Biden administration forces it. Had they not constrained Bibi, the cabinet and the IDF, it would all be over. 

There’s plenty of blame already to go around and a shitload of it is on Joe’s empty head. 

I’m a paying subscriber because of the excellent Seymour Hersh acticle on the Gazprom pipeline explosions. 

But I gotta say, Sy, this is a lazy and ill-thought out piece.

Disappointing.

Here.