"The Islamic Conquest Of Europe & Why It Was COVERED UP" | Raymond Ibrahim

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I first knew of Raymond Ibrahim with his book "The Al-Qaeda Reader" in 2002.

This is the best book to understand the duplicity of the Jihadist narrative. What they tell the West vs what they tell the Muslim world. 

Here he is again, talking to Winston Marshall, so many years later, talking with knowledge and wit, about what really happened in the millenia+ of battles between Islam and Christianity. 

Right down until today. Where in the U.K., in Europe, they will openly say that they are just awaiting their numbers to be right, and they'll take over and that there will be no more opposition, because they will  be dominant and require subjugation by all non-Muslims. Yes, this is said openly. 

00:00 – Introduction 01:37 – Who is Raymond Ibrahim? 02:21 – Personal Background: Egyptian Heritage and Academic Journey 05:00 – From Academia to Writing: A New Path 06:08 – Key Works: Sword and Scimitar and Christian Persecution 07:12 – The Impact of His Work and Public Controversy 10:00 – The Battle of Yarmouk: Turning Point in Islamic Expansion 12:10 – The Expansion of Islam: From Arabia to the Christian World 17:07 – The Battle of Tours: Stopping the Islamic Advance 20:00 – The Dark Ages: How Islam Shaped Europe’s Future 25:00 – Why Was the Muslim Conquest So Successful? 28:50 – The Reconquista: A Slow and Steady Christian Resistance 33:13 – Andalusia: Myths of Peaceful Coexistence 40:00 – The Seljuk Turks and Pre-Crusade Persecutions 44:10 – Pope Urban II and the Call for the First Crusade 50:00 – The Crusades: Misunderstood or Justified? 55:30 – The Battle of Manzikert and the Beginning of the Crusades 1:00:00 – Charlemagne and the Rise of Christian Defensiveness 1:05:00 – Early Relations Between Islam and the West 1:10:30 – The Persecution of Christians in the Middle East 1:15:00 – Crusades: Religious Wars or Defensive Actions? 1:20:00 – The Myths of Islamic Golden Age Contributions 1:25:00 – Crusades and Their Aftermath: The Long-Lasting Impact 1:30:00 – The Religious and Ideological Roots of the Conflict 1:35:00 – Western Misunderstanding of Islamic History 1:40:00 – The Rise of Jihadism and Modern Conflicts 1:45:00 – The Importance of Historical Context in Modern Conflicts 1:50:00 – The Ongoing Persecution of Christians 1:55:00 – Reflections on Western Values and Islamic Influence 2:00:00 – Conclusion: Understanding the Past to Navigate the Future

“How easy to support Israel. It has truth in its side” | Natasha Hausdorff

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I’ve long followed Natasha Hausdorff. Perhaps the preeminent international law expert on the side of Israel. Which, we know, has the truth in its side. Yes, there is a truth in the  idle east mess. And it lies with Israel. Not with the murderous maniacs of Hamas. Or the cancerous Hezbollah. Or the mother squid in Tehran. 

Electric Vehicles are taking over. Yes, they are...

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Not a joke. 

Happening in front of our eyes. In the world-leading car market which is..... [drum roll]... CHINA! Not the United States, which is playing sit down and ignore the rest of the world, as it did in the 80s, when Japan was the up and riser. But China, where EVs are now 25% of new sales and rising quickly. Reason being that EVs are better cars. Faster, nimbler, cheaper to own, and, now, cheaper. 

 Here’s a thing.

I’ve read the Koran, but I’m not a Muslim. I’ve read the Bible, but I’m not a Christian. I’ve read Marx, but I’m not a Marxist. I've read Mao (including in the original Chinese) but I'm not a Maoist. I’ve read Freud, but I’m not a Freudian. I’ve read the Bhagavad Gita but I’m not a Hindu. I’ve even read The Book of Mormon, and I’m most assuredly not a Mormon.

I watch CNN and BBC, but I’m not a liberal*. I watch MSNBC but I’m not a “progressive”…

But, heaven forfend, if I say I’ve watched Fox, the reaction from liberals!

Liberal: “My god, you actually watch Fox! No wonder you’re such a far-right nutter!”

Me: “but I also watch CNN, BBC and ABC.”

Liberal: “Yeah, but you watch Fox! No wonder your views”.

Me: “Have you ever watched Fox?”

Liberal: “No, never. It’s a terrible channel!”

As they say: “make it make sense”

“Fox” here stands for any conservative Podcast as well. Apparently I’m fine if I watch “The Daily” pod, by the New York Times, or The Breakfast Club by Charlemagne Tha God, but if I watch Megyn Kelly, or The Ruthless podcast, I’m going to swallow and regurgitate all sorts of misinformation. Can’t be helped. 

* [Using “liberal” in the American sense, not the U.K., or Australian]

“MAGA” is Democrat policy circa 1990s

Consider how similar the “Make America Great Again” agenda is like Clintonian policies of the late 90s:

• Control illegal immigration. Check
• Deport illegal immigrants. Check. Obama too, in this one.
• Law and Order. Check
• Economic growth. Check. Clinton Dems: “It’s the economy, stupid”.
• Foreign policy, especially support of Israel, bipartisan. Check.
• Free Trade and Level Playing Field. Half check. 
• Social Justice stuff, DEI, etc… Didn’t exist then. But today’s traditional Dems, Clinton, Obama, James Carville, have spoken out against the extremism of the far left Dems, so again on the s,we page as MAGA.

MAGA is smeared as “far-right” by The Squad, Bernie, et. al. precisely because it’s too much like the Old Guard of their own party. Like the policies on an oldie, Bill Clinton, and even Obama, who just happen to be two of the most successful Democratic presidents. 

And so too in Australia, the smear is transferred to our own. Jacinta Nampijimpa Price, a Senator in the Australian Parliament, was going round wearing a MAGA hat, apparently. As in “Make Australia Great Again. Just wait though. She was one of the strongest voices during the 2023 Voice Referendum. She’s moving to the conservative Liberal Party and I predict leadership for her, right up to being our first indigenous Australian Prime Minister. 

"Anti-Israel Host FURIOUS After Douglas Murray Corrects His Lie About Israel" | Douglas Murray

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On the podcast of the "OtherBarak". 

Douglas Murray gives a powerful, clear, knowledgeable statement on the Gaza war and Israel's care in pursuing it. 

Humanoid Robots take over mankind!

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Megyn Kelly talking to half of the smart guys on the All-in podcast. Chamath (Chamath Palihapitiya) is strong. JCal  (Jason Calacanis) less so, the least strong of the four on the AI pod. IMO. 

Talking about the danger of humanoid robots getting out of control. 

Short answer: it's not a trivially small chance. 

Goals vs Systems: Dreaming vs Doing

There’s a big difference between Goals and Systems.

Not that there’s anything wrong with having a goal. But it does become an obstacle to reaching itself, if it’s just “A Goal”, a bright glittery object. With a capital "G". 

Here’s an example of the difference at its starkest.

Let's say the goal is: “Affordable Housing for all”.

The Goal-oriented folks (capital "G") will march on the streets. They'll wave placards plastered with the Goal “Affordable Housing for all”, “We Demand Affordable Housing”, “Affordable Housing is Housing Justice”. 

They will set up a Petition on Move.org, demanding Affordable Housing for all. 

They will give fiery speeches in Congress, write op-Ed’s in the New York Times. You get the picture. 

And the picture is that after a year or two of this, they will still have the "Goal", capital "G", but nothing will have changed and no progress will have been made to the goal (lower case "g"). 

Systems-oriented folks on the other hand, do have the same goal -- Affordable Housing -- but they break it down into Systems.

So, for Affordable Housing they’d go:

1. How much Affordable Housing do we have now?
2. How much do we need?
3. What resources do we need to get from (1) to (2)? Lumber, cement, steel, people. 
4. Where will the finance come from?
5. What regulations stand in our way and what can we do about them?
6. What manpower do we need to reach the goal?
7. Where will that manpower come from?
8. How do we increase it?
9. How do we get the public behind our effort?
10. How do we measure and report our performance?

Again, you get the picture. One side has a Goal with upper case "G" and much huffing and puffing. 

Another side has a goal in lower case, with the Systems, capital “S” -- the more important part of reaching that very same goal.

One side Dreams. The other side Does.

California is a classic case of a state run by Goal-oriented people. What a place like California needs is some Systems-oriented people to actually make some progress toward those goals. 

But it doesn't happen. In city after city and state after state, we see places run by Goal-oriented Dreamers, and the people keep voting in the Dreamers back in! Rather than the Doers. Sad, really. To me, anyways, as I watch previously great American cities fall into despair and disrepair. 

Here Endeth the Lesson. (Which lesson is: vote for Doers, not Dreamers). 

For heaven’s sake don’t watch that conservative media crap! You’ll get infected!

 Here’s a thing.

I’ve read the Koran, but I’m not a Muslim. I’ve read the Bible, but I’m not a Christian. I’ve read Marx, but I’m not a Marxist. I've read Mao (including in the original Chinese) but I'm not a Maoist. I’ve read Freud, but I’m not a Freudian. I’ve read the Bhagavad Gita but I’m not a Hindu. I’ve even read The Book of Mormon, and I’m most assuredly not a Mormon.

I watch CNN and BBC, but I’m not a liberal*. I watch MSNBC but I’m not a “progressive”…

But, heaven forfend, if I say I’ve watched Fox, the reaction from liberals!

Liberal: “My god, you actually watch Fox! No wonder you’re such a far-right nutter!”

Me: “but I also watch CNN, BBC and ABC.”

Liberal: “Yeah, but you watch Fox! No wonder your views”.

Me: “Have you ever watched Fox?”

Liberal: “No, never. It’s a terrible channel!”

As they say: “make it make sense”

“Fox” here stands for any conservative Podcast as well. Apparently I’m fine if I watch “The Daily” pod, by the New York Times, or The Breakfast Club by Charlemagne Tha God, but if I watch Megyn Kelly, or The Ruthless podcast, I’m going to swallow and regurgitate all sorts of misinformation. Can’t be helped. 

* [Using “liberal” in the American sense, not the U.K., or Australian]

DOGE meeting with Fox

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This is super interesting. Meeting with the guys doing the work of DOGE. Which, to repeat, is to identify (NOT to do anything about itself, but to identify), Waste, Fraud and Abuse. 

Now the recipients of that Waste, Fraud and Abuse, do not like that it's threatened. They do not like it one little bit. And so, they scream all sorts of blue murder. 

Which amounts to saying that DOGE and Elon Musk are only doing it to line their own pockets. They're only doing it to destroy the government. And so on. All nonsense. But most of it believed by the clapping seals in the Democratic party, and by the Aging Boomers (my cohort), who rage about "Hands Off", without knowing what Hands and Off what. 

Crazy Times. Not Interesting Times. CRAZY times. 

Forse and Oz, anti-war protest, Canberra, Australia, November 1971

Steve Osborne (Oz) on the left and me, Forse, today's blogger

Note the pre-printed sign. 

These days, the anti Trump and anti Elon signage (eg for demos like "Hands Off") is also pre-printed. Critics say that's because the demos are not organic, but are paid for. I thinks many are paid for. There's some pretty strong evidence for various left-wing, Soros-funded non-profits (The Tides Foundation) being behind the rash of anti-government demos. 

But having a pre-printed banner is not one of the proofs. After all, we did turn up to the demo above, organically, no-one paid us to come, or forced ust to come. But we went anyway and there was the pile of signs. We picked one up. 

Memories. 

Why did Spain”s grid collapse?

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The reasons are still being studied. 

Above is the case arguing that it was the lack of inertia in the national grid, because of lack of baseload power. 

I’m goimg to wait for the final conclusions. But I’m goimg to ne alive to this fact: that the climate activist side of this argument are going to go to great lengths to make sure the reason does not come down to its being too much of renewables in the grid.

John Papola above talks through the dangers of reducing baseload power. Which, by the way, is what my own Australia is trying to do. To be totally renewable, with no baseload. It knows and acknowledges that there is no developed economy which runs only on renewables. But “no worries”, says our Climate Czar, Chris Bowen. Trust me. She’ll be right. 

American intifada:How the Progressive Left learned to hate Israel and love Hamas

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Think how far we’ve come since October 7th 2023. When I first referred to US campus protests, back then, I was careful to refer to them as “pro-Palestinian”. Careful not to say “pro-Hamas”. 

I could not imagine — in those naive early days of the Gaza war — that anyone in the U.S. would support a designated terrorist organisation! One which is openly genocidal against the Jews, which lives by a Charter that drips with hostility and hatred of Jews and the world domination of Islam, that is murderously homophonic and misogynistic. But I was wrong. It wasn’t too long before the pro-Hamas signs came out, the kids wearing Hamas bandanas proudly, faces hidden by Hamas-style masks.

Jonathan Tobin speaks to guest Uri Kaufman. They offer this simple explanation to answer the headline above. That the progressives on campus, in American universities, in the liberal media, view the Gaza war through a racial lens. The Gazans are “people of colour”. The Israelis are white. Whites are alway the oppressors. POC are always the oppressed. The “white” jews are “colonial settlers”, the Palestinians the people of colour driven cruelly from their ancestral lands.

Of course, none of this is true. It’s simple, sure. But not the truth.  Half of Israelis are what the Left itself would call people of colour, Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East and Africa. And they’ve always lived in this land, right back to a known specific date, which story Kaufman tells us.

But as with so much in the world, when you’ve got a fixed prism, an ideology, truth be damned. 

Kaufman mentions Jimmy Carter”s book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid”. I read this book when it came out in 2006. I remember being shocked at its blatant anti-Israel tone. Kaufman gives it a good going over. “There’s a factual inaccuracy on virtually every page!”, he says. The harm Carter did to peace in the region carries on to this day. Including in Gaza. 

From the intro:

Why do so many Americans side with Palestinian Arab terrorists against Israelis? JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin believes the answer to that question lies in an understanding of how progressive ideologues have largely taken over American education and culture. They have helped indoctrinate a generation with false ideas that cause them to view the conflict in the Middle East through the prism of American race relations. That led them to wrongly believe that Israelis and Jews are “white” oppressors rather than the objects of a Palestinian Arab obsession with destroying the Jewish state and the genocide of the Jews.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Uri Kaufman, author of the new book, American Intifada: How the ProgressiveLeft learned to hate Israel and love Hamas.  According to Kaufman, the problem lies in the cognitive dissonance experienced by many Americans who are prepared to see the world through their distorted ideas about “privilege” and race even if it requires them to ignore the facts about Israel, the Palestinians and what happened on Oct. 7, 2023.

Siena Park, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong

 

Looking west over Discovery College. Tiger Head mountains 

The automotive future: top 10 automakers will be Tesla and 9 Chinese companies

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Watch car guy Brian White visit Chinese auto dealerships in Shanghai and show us the truly mind-blowing vehicles they’re now making. To think I was in China in the 70s when the best they could produce was a clunky old Red Flag. 

Today China is making the European and Japanese car company killers. Tesla remains ahead just by its best Self Driving AI.

Brian talks with Tesla expert Herbert Ong. Truly fascinating. 

Celebrating Elon Musk

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This is May Day, International Labour Day. 

Elon Musk has created jobs for 100s of 1,000s of people, most of them high end, high skill jobs, with an average salary of $100,000 much higher than the average of $55,000 for the rest of America. 

He has also disrupted every industry he's entered. Made them more efficient. Like his SpaceX. Like his Tesla. Like his Boring Company. Like his Solar City. Like his Neuralink. Like his Battery company. 

All of them. He has disrupted and made better. 

This goes right back to his very first company, Zip2, for which he coded the maps himself. Zip2 brought us the maps we use online today, where if you zoom in you get more detail. To then, maps online had been just photocopies of paper maps.

Musk is the Leonardo da Vinci of the 21st Century. The man is a hero. And I'm his fan boy. 

The video above goes through the man's many companies. He's never created a company that's failed. His total wealth creation, for mankind, not just for himself, is well over ONE TRILLION dollar. Thnk on't. Especially the Senators Sanders and Warren, who have lived a life in the government and created not a single thing. Not a sausage. Not a nada. Though they do love to hate on Elon. 

hijab

 

targets

DOGE: “Tech support” for the government.

	Department of Government Efficiency ⁦‪@DOGE‬⁩ Last week, Treasury went live with its first automated payment verification system. In total, $334 million in improper payment requests were identified and rejected due to: -Missing budget codes -Invalid budget codes (i.e. the payment was not linked to the budget) -Budget codes   29/4/2025, 10:25 pm

Until DOGE, the payment systems of the government were in a shambles. Such that if they'd been a private company its senior officials would have been arrested. DOGE have fixed that. 

But, you know, "DOGE = Bad". To certain people. 

DOGE is trying to squeeze out fraud from the Security system, Medicare and Medicaid, so that genuine recipients are guaranteed their cheques. The opposite of the hallucinatory "Hands Off" people claiming Musk & Co are about destroying SocSec and Medicaid. Sheesh. DOGE ARE doing the opposite — working to ensure its long-term viability. Fixing the various payment systems is part of that. 

DOGE have not cut a dime from Social Security. 

Cowboys, Indians and butterflies