Why I hate Hillary, but...

... why I would still vote for her. (If I were a US citizen, that is).
The reason I've hated her is a time and place: 2012, Benghazi.
That horrid episode revealed a deep character flaw in her. Her primary, no, her *sole* focus during the siege should have been her staff. It wasn't, and four died including the ambassador. That's totally her responsibility. Yet she lied and weaseled out of it. That was a shocking dereliction of duty. She deserves no forgiveness for it.
And the reason I couldn't vote for Trump is an FLA: a five letter acronym.
"TRUMP".
"T" is for Trade, as in he'd wreck it
"R" is for Russia, as in his love affair with an ex KGB bully, arch kleptocrat and serial murderer
"U" is for Uranium, as in Nuclear, as in let 'em all go nuclear, what do we care. And as in "we've got nukes, why can't we use 'em?"
"M" is for Misogyny, as in feel free to grab pussy if you're a reality star. It's also for Muslims as in I hate 'em.
"P" is for populism as in that's the way to get to the White House: pander to the lowest and most ignorant views.
Not fitting in with the FLA is his denial of climate change. This view, especially in view of the recent agreement reached in Paris, is dramatically bad for the globe. 

Robert Manne’s Mind of the Islamic State deserves a wide audience

More evidence against the sloppy theory that "ISIS has nothing to do wither Islam".
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/robert-mannes-mind-of-the-islamic-state-deserves-a-wide-audience/news-story/3c7632f9e74f6d44cf6d1e7b0011b579


Sent from my iPad

Those poor millennials, they have too much choice....

... and they're traumatised by it.
On the BBC radio just now, interviews with a number of millennials (18-30 yo) who are the most difficult demographic to get to the voting station.
Why?  Well, it seems that most of them are traumatised by "too much choice".  They can't differentiate between Trump and Clinton.  They say things like "we're told this, and then we're told that; so how do we know what's true?" and "we just don't have enough information" (really).
Well, look: there's more information now than any time in human history. The problem with you dorky young snowflakes is that you don't know how to discriminate between reliable information and scuttlebutt.   The give away is the use of "told".  They're not comfortable, it seems, unless they're directed this or that way. And when they get two candidates.... woahh, too much choice!
These young sensitive beings, who've been taught that "all cultures are the same" and similar rot, are now quite incapable of knowing where to go on the internet to find sound information.  Did I say "internet"?  Hell, these young cupcakes don't even do that.  As many of them said, they get their info from Social media.
This is disgusting and disturbing. It's pretty easy to find out, for example, if it's true -- as both Trump and Clinton say -- that trade deals lead to a loss of jobs (they don't). Or if climate change is a "hoax" as Trump says (it's not). Or if crime is at an all-time record as Trump says (it's not).  Or if it's wise to let in 65k Syrians per year as Clinton says (It's not).  And so on.
But no, for these essentially illiterate millennials, it's all too hard, all too confusing.
In the UK, they didn't vote in the Brexit referendum and were then upset when the Leavers won.  They should have known and they should have voted. If the millennials had voted in June, Britain would still be in the EU.
They should vote this time, and it should be for the queen of pantsuits. It's simply not that case that Trump and Clinton are equally venal and so one can forget about voting.  And millennials should not be abrogating their right to vote because they're traumatised by choice.

When will HK see the light on solar power? - SCMP. 4 November

My letter published in today's South China Morning Post. 

When will HK see the light on solar power?

"Check out the sweet roof," said Tesla boss Elon Musk, introducing the company's new solar roof tiles to the public ("Now available in other colours", ­November 2).

This brings to mind a question I've long had. Why do we see no solar panels on buildings in Hong Kong? One reason might be that in such a vertical city, ­solar power can deliver only a small fraction of our electricity needs. But surely some is better than none. In my own village of Discovery Bay, we have a lot more medium- and low-rise housing that would benefit from solar power.

In Siena village, we even have exactly the same Tuscan roof tiles that Mr Musk is promoting in California. And yet Hong Kong has no incentive for solar, such as the common provision elsewhere for excess solar power to be sold back to the grid.

How about it, Hong Kong government? Surely promoting solar power is at least one thing that all folk in the fractious ­Legislative Council could agree on?

Peter Forsythe, Discovery Bay

Supporting Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Here's a list of the main articles in support of Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the wake of the outrageous "listing" of both of them on a list of allegedly "anti-Muslim extremists" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Latest on top.

• The curious case of the blacklisting of Maajid Nawaz. One one of many monkeys. 7 November. 
• Leftist group: Saying Islam has a problem makes you a terrorist. The Federalist. 3 November 
• SPLC: talk our kind of talk, or we will smear you as a bigot.  Why Evolution is True blog, 2 November.
• Branding moderates as 'anti-Muslim', Wall Street Journal,  Editorial, 1 November.
• SPLC receives backlash after placing activist Maajid Nawaz on 'anti-Muslim extremist' list, Yahoo News, 1 November
• Nick Cohen Adds His Voice to the Defence of Maajid Nawaz, Heather Hastie Heather's Homilies, 1 November
• Jerry Coyne on his blog Why Evolution is True. 1 November; 30 October;  29 October
• The white left has issued its first fatwa, Nick Cohen. The Spectator, 31 October
• Maajid Nawaz himself: I'm A Muslim Reformer. Why Am I Being Smeared as an 'Anti-Muslim Extremist'?, Daily Beast, 29 October
• How did Maajid Nawaz end up on a list of 'anti-Muslim extremists?' David Graham, The Atlantic, 29 October
• Maajid Nawaz an "Anti-Muslim Extremist" according to Southern Poverty Law Center. Homo economicus' blog, 28 October
• The Southern Poverty Law Center and the demand for anti-Muslim Bigotry. Amjad Khan, Sedaa.org, 27 November
• The New Anti-Racist Racists, Douglas Murray, Gatestone Institute, 28 October
• Principles and Politics: The Southern Poverty Law Center Loses The Plot, Sarah Haider, The Ex-Muslim, 27 October 
• Maajid Nawaz an "Anti-Muslim Extremist" according to Southern Poverty Law Center, Harry's Place. 27 October

I would like to have seen more defence of some others on the list. Especially Robert Spencer, who is all to often characterised as an "Islamophobe", but is nothing of the sort in my view, and I've seen him in innumerable videos, and read all his books in the last ten years.  He's done his own defence of the scandalous SPLC listing of him along with 14 others (also here).  I call their list lazy, sloppy, tendentious, vicious, vacuous and, well, just plain horrible.  I can't even bring myself to link to their list.

LATER (3 November 2016): Sam Harris’s talk with Ayaan Hirsi Ali was published just yesterday.  It was done literally on the day of the SPLC slime piece was published, so it does not talk about it, except for Sam as an epilogue in the last five minutes.  

As Sam says, their talk shows just what a thoughtful, empathetic, non-bigot of a person Ayaan is.  But the SPLC just doesn't care.  I guess they care about the fact they got lots of hits and clicks. 

Here's Sam's talk with Ayaan.

My email post to the SPLC (There are other responses to the SPLC on Jerry Coyne’s blog Why Evolution is True):

To Southern Poverty Law Center, 

I've seen your defenses of the now infamous "list" of allegedly "anti-Muslim extremists" and none of what's said in the various boilerplates makes any sense.

Is there anything that would change your mind, especially about Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali?  Anything?  

It's clear from what's in your OP and in subsequent email justifications, that you don't really know anything about Maajid and Ayaan.  So, shame on you for that. 

Perhaps you ought to spend some time to look at what they say. The latest for Maajid is to see the Why Evolution is True blog, their post of 2 November.  And for Ayaan, have a listen to Sam Harriss' talk with her, posted on 2 November, but recorded before all this kerfuffle.   

Mind you, that podcast is nearly an hour long, which may well be longer than your attentions span. (given what I've read of your so-called "reasons" for putting all these folk on a hit-list, reason characterised by lack of serious research, and third-person half-quoted obloquies). 

Forgive me for the ad hominem, but really.... you need to get a head screwed on to your body on this one, and shame on all of SPLC for this travesty. 

Peter Forsythe
Hong Kong

"Now Available in Other Colours", 2 November.

Elon's on the far right, looking like he's auctioning the building. Actually,
it's one of the houses on the set of "Desperate Housewives", and he's
showing off the roof tiles, which are solar!

LETTER TO South China Morning Post (SCMP):

"Check out the sweet roof", said Tesla boss Elon Musk, introducing their new solar roof tiles to the public ("Now Available in Other Colours", 2 November).
This brings to mind a question I've long had. Why do we see no solar panels on buildings in Hong Kong? One reason might be that in such a vertical city solar can deliver only a small fraction of our electricity needs. But surely some is better than none.  In my own village of Discovery Bay we have a lot more medium and low-rise housing that would benefit from solar power.
In Siena village we even have exactly the same Tuscan roof tiles that Mr. Musk is promoting in California: "Tetti dolci"! ("Sweet roofs" in Italian).
And yet Hong Kong has no incentive for solar, such as the elsewhere common provision for excess solar power to be sold back to the grid.
How about it, Hong Kong government?  Surely promoting solar is at least one thing that all folk in the fractious Legco could agree on?
Peter F

***
LATER: SCMP, 3 November 2016: Solar tiles and Powerwall 2.0 to be available in HK next year

"Tesla urges Hong Kong government to keep e-vehicle tax breaks".  Link

How Did Maajid Nawaz End Up on a List of 'Anti-Muslim Extremists'? - The Atlantic

More on the infamy of SPLC putting Maajid on a list of "anti-Muslim extremists".

This one strikes me as a rather tepid defence of Maajid. Going to a strip joint, by a young man is "tasteless"??  Never been to one, writer of this article? 

Anyway note how the SPLJ guy reacts, it's pathetic.

How Did Maajid Nawaz End Up on a List of 'Anti-Muslim Extremists'?

When earlier this week, the Southern Poverty Law Center and three other groups released a list of 15 "anti-Muslim extremists," many of the names came as no surprise. They included Pam Geller, who led the fight against the misleadingly nicknamed Ground Zero mosque, and her ally Frank Gaffney, who has called Barack Obama a crypto-Muslim and assailed Grover Norquist as a Islamist agent.

Huma Abedin worked at Muslim journal that opposed women’s rights | New York Post

This is the woman -- Huma Abedin -- who Hillary Clinton has chosen to keep by her side for the last 20 years. The woman who is now bringing Clinton new grief with emails found on the computer Abadin shared with her disgraced ex-husband Anthony Wiener. 

The main point, however, being that Abedin was deputy editor of a Muslim Journal of Minority Affairs, which her Saudi-based mother published. Huma was on the masthead of the magazine from 1996 to 2008. She has never resiled from the deeply misogynistic articles in the magazine. 

This magazine went against everything that Clinton, and all good liberals, believes about the rights of women. It is deeply conservative and anti-feminist in a way that would offend most women in the west. 

So why would is Hillary hire her? Lack of judgement again, as she's shown over and over, from Benghazi to the email imbroglio. 

Below a quote from the magazine. 

It is true that "Islam goes the farthest in restoring equality across gender", if by "equality" you mean "INequality". 

"Among all systems of belief, Islam goes the farthest in restoring equality across gender," she claimed. "Acknowledging the very central role women play in procreation, child-raising and homemaking, Islam places the economic responsibility of supporting the family primarily on the male members."

LATER: more on Huma's mother's misogynist views, including FGM, stoning to death and the rest of the dreary litany of anti-women hate at the centre of Islam. Remember: this is Hillary Clintons top aid. 

Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops - NYTimes.com

Just to show how "fair and balanced" I am, here is a link to a New York Times article about GMOs. It reports evidence that GMOs are no more productive than non-GM crops. And, secondly that in non-GMO countries (mainly the EU), pesticides and fungicides are used less than in GMO countries (mainly North America). 

I've been advocate of GMOs on this blog, so that news was news to me and sobering. 

Some quick comments:

1.  The article says nothing about the safety of GMOs. Assuming they are indeed safe (which is the preponderance of scientific evidence), what they're saying is that they're simply not effective. That is: don't bother spending your money on them. 

2. Perhaps there other factors at work. For example: would EU production be even higher if it did use GMOs or North American production lower without GMOs?

3.  I did a bit of a fact-check on world cereal production based on World Bank figures derived from the Food and Agricultural Organisation. Over the 53 years to 2014, countries using GMOs were 0.4% more productive per year. That doesn't sound like a lot. But as Warren Buffet is fond of saying, compounding has a magic effect on returns. 

Over the 53 years that 0.4% extra annual growth translates into 24% more cereals produced in GMO countries than in non-GMO countries. And that ain't trivial. 

4.  It says nothing about the positive medical effects of some GMOs especially for poorer countries. I'm thinking of golden rice, for example, which provides nutrients not available in non-GM rice. There are others that don't quite come to mind right now. 

Anyway, interesting article, with a number of powerful charts, if one is interested in the topic. (Which really ought to be everyone!).

Canberra Islamic Centre opens its doors for National Mosque Open Day

Whenever you see some outfit offering to "dispel the myths" of Islam or to "correct the stereotypes" of Islam, you should turn around and walk briskly in the opposite direction. 

Take it from me: I've seen innumerable such offers and they are inevitably a mix of obfuscation and outright duplicity. Honey to make the Islamist pill go down smoothly.  

And so it is with this Islamic centre offering from Canberra, a town I spent much of my life in. Shame on the Canberra Times!

"Meet real Muslims!" is the offering here. I'm sure those ordinary Canberran Muslims would all be delightful people. I've met Muslims world wide and nary a one have I found unlovable. The same in the then Soviet Russia of the 80s or the then communist China of the 70s. Fine and peaceable Russians and Chinese. But that says nothing about the nastiness of communism. Same here: the fact of lovely Muslim folk -- your neighbors -- says nothing about the ideology of Islam. Which taken from its core texts of the Loran, the Hadith and the Sirah of Muhammad is irredeemably horrid. 

The imam quoted here says that Jesus is just like Muhammad. Well that's bollocks for a starter. Jesus was the "son of god".  For Muslims that's blasphemy: there's only one god and his name is Allah. To associate others with Allah, Muslims call "shirk". It is the "worst of crimes", punishable by death. Again: Muslims don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus. 

Again: Jesus was a peaceful carpenter. Muhammad was a warlord. 

Need I go on?? It is duplicitous nonsense, a simple plain lie to make such a claim. 

Shame on the Canberra Times for running this islamapologist article. 

And shame on the fellow in the article who is "in the process" of converting to Islam. How could you, man,? Have you not read the doctrines?  They are horrid. 

National Secular Society - Review: The Battle for British Islam, by Sara Khan with Tony McMahon

I heard Sara Khan some months ago, talking to the Godless Spellchecker (IIRC)*. I was impressed. She was sound on Islamic doctrine and also supports Britain's "Prevent" policy, which aims to counter extremism.  Extremist Muslims, of course, attack "Prevent".

Here's a nice review of her book, "The Battle for British Islam".

* actually on BBC's Hard Talk of 1 September 2016. Try this link

Islamic Spain in Middle Ages no paradise for Christians, Jews, women

This is what I have known for some time.  Good to have a new book on the issue.  There are so many myths about "golden ages" of Islam, the "contribution to science" of Islam, and so on.  (eg. this bit of complete nonsense from the Huffpo).

Whereas I think the fair assessment is that the birth and life of Muhammad have been a net big negative to the world.

See, for example, my fact-checking of claims by Muslims of their so-called "contributions to science".

**********

Islamic Spain in Middle Ages no paradise for Christians, Jews, women

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain, by Dario Fernandez-Morera (ISI Books, 336pp, $59.95 hardback)

There is a widely held belief that in Spain, during the European Middle Ages, Islam, Christianity and Judaism co-existed peacefully and fruitfully under a tolerant and enlightened Islamic hegemony. Dario Fernandez-Morera, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University in the US, with a PhD from Harvard, has written a stunning book that upends this myth.

‘I Live in a Lie’: Saudi Women Speak Up - NYTimes.com

Interesting letters from Saudi women to the New York Times about life in the horrid misogynistic Saudi Arabia, America's "most important ally" in the Middle East. And the largest customer of American arms sales. Which it uses to massacre civilians in southern Ethiopia. And prop up its cruel, misogynist dictatorship. 

What a joke. 

Of course the downside of abandoning this "ally", might well be hugely worse: yet another conflagration, then victory of ISIS-like Sunni extremists. 

Still, does the US leadership really have to remain silent about these gross abuses? To those that say "mind your own business" that was not the way of the world when it came to South African apartheid. This is sexual apartheid. Even worse, some might say as women can be freely beaten and are not free even to leave the home without a male guardian.

In Saudi we see Islam in operation. 

/snip

Most of the responses focused on frustration over guardianship rules that force women to get permission from a male relative — a husband, father, brother or even son — to do things like attend college, travel abroad, marry the partner of their choice or seek medical attention. 

LATER: And French Muslim author Kamel Daoud in his essay, "Saudi Arabia, an ISIS that has made it". He says it all in the first sentence of his article.  For which, of course, he's been labelled as an "Islamophobe".

What a truly horrid country, and what a scandalous shame to call it our "ally".

Yes, Apostasy really is a capital offence in Islam

I know many who simply cannot get their heads around the fact that apostasy from Islam -- that is, leaving it for another religion or none -- is punishable by death.  But it is.
It's in the Koran as well as the Hadith -- the doings and saying of Muhammad.  It's also in the official Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence, the Umdat al-Salik (08.1 et seq).
Some apologists say that the death penalty for apostasy is only pushed by the most extreme of Muslims.  That's also not true. Egypt's highest authority is Dr Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar University in Egypt, Islam's oldest University (The Oxford of Islam, if you will). He is widely viewed as a "moderate Muslim".
Yet during this year's Ramadan, Sheikh al-Tayeb said:

“Those learned in Islam [al-fuqaha] and the imams of the four schools of jurisprudence consider apostasy a crime and agree that the apostate must either renounce his apostasy or else be killed.”

Pretty clear.

LATER (3 November): this is an article about 45 Singapore graduates of Cairo's Al-Azhar university who are going to go back home and talk about the wonders of peaceful Islam. It mentions the grand mufti, al Tayeb, who, as we have seen above, says the punishment for apostasy is death. This is the wonderful peaceful message that these graduates are bringing back, to make sure we know the "true nature of Islam", that it's really a religion of peace.
What a joke. Another in the long line of articles claiming to "dispel the myths" of Islam. Whereas the ideas we have of Islam-- that it's a horrrid and violent cult -- is really pretty much spot on.

Waleed Aly -- out of the box, but not out of the closet...

A friend of mine sent me a link to an Australian ABC Radio talk: Waleed Aly: out of the box with Richard Fidler interviewing, on 28th September 2016. (MP3).
I've known of Aly for some time, known he was the Aussie go-to guy for matters Islamic when a "moderate Muslim" voice was needed. But I'd also had a slight suspicion that he was a bit of a Tariq Ramadan-type: silky smooth, comforting, but at heart an Islamist.  To be sure he didn't come across as oleaginous as the oily Ramadan.  But still, at each new Islamist atrocity, Aly was, like, "nothing to see here", and in some cases critical of the critics.  Critical of those who criticised the terrorist-enabling Islamic ideology, which strikes me as Islamapologist.
Still, I listened to the above talk and found Aly charming, well-spoken, erudite, well read and amusing.
Yet, listen closer: and again there's no discussion at all of matters Islamic, except a quick sliding by, by both Richard and Waleed. I would have liked it if he'd had the guts to acknowledge that Islam does indeed have problematic doctrines.  And say something about that.
I later came across an article by Paul Monk, on the occasion of Waleed Aly's having been honoured with the Voltaire award. (Quite a year for Aly, then!).
Monk makes the same point I do, but rather more elegantly.
"Waleed Aly must step up on Muslim free speech at Voltaire Award", The Weekend Australian, July 13, 2016.
I know many people object to we non-Muslims making such demands.  "Muslims must speak up" "Muslims must criticise extremists", Muslims "must" this and "must" that, and so on.  Isn't that asking too much, for Muslims always having to comment or criticise each new atrocity committed by their co-religionists? But is it really?  There are many Muslim and ex-Muslims out there, bravely making these points.  And they need more support. More support to press for a reading of Islam more congenial to enlightenment values (as hard as that project may be).
Someone with the visibility, charm and credibility of Waleed Aly would be a powerful force for good; a powerful force for the moderation of Islam more compatible with the secular values of free countries like his own home Australia.
So, Waleed Aly may be, as the ABC has it, "out of the box", but on matters of open and honest free speech about Islam, pressing for its reform, Aly is clearly still in the closet.

Britain’s GMO Liberation - WSJ

Hurrah! At last some sanity on Genetically Modified Organisms. "Britain's GMO liberation", WSJ, 28 October 2016. ($).
Britain is going to regulate the growth of the GMO industry with a policy that is "science-based and proportionate".
Good.
Greenies are always saying that we should listen to the science when it comes to global warming. But they resolutely fail to accept the overwhelming science about the safety of GMOs -- which they scorn as "Frankenfoods".
Idiocy.
That idiocy impacts many poorer countries where GMOs could have major positive impacts: in productivity, in health and even in green-ness (e.g. fewer pesticides).

What the China Trade Warriors Get Wrong - WSJ

Free trade is good for the US and the world, not bad. Unemployment in the US is more due to productivity and technology gains than much to do with international trade.
And China is not the bogey-country Trump makes it out to be.
Still it's clear that dislocations of the working classes, the long-term unemployment that is becoming endemic, need better solutions from both parties. I'd expect a Democratic president to do better on that front.

When talking about trade, both presidential candidates have been marching voters down a dead-end street. Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton claim larger imports or trade deficits are associated with weaker economic growth, which is the opposite of the U.S. experience. Before peddling risky solutions to a misunderstood problem—such as threatening huge tariffs on countries or U.S. companies—the candidates might first take more care to understand, define and explain what they are hoping to fix.

What the China Trade Warriors Get Wrong, Wall Street Journal.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Demand for Anti-Muslim Bigotry – SEDAA – Our Voices

I first read, via Sam Harris' Twitter, about the Southern Poverty Law Centre's labeling of Maajid Nawaz as an "anti-Muslim extremist".
This is complete nonsense. Maajid speaks for moderation in Islam, having once been jailed for his own Islamist extremism.
SPLC's listing of Aayan Hirsi Ali is also nonsense. I've read all her books and articles. She is a powerful voice for women's rights in Islam.
I read SPLC's write ups on these two, and found them mean-spirited and tendentious. Clearly dishonest. I was going to do a point by point rebuttal, but now don't need to as it's been done by Mr Khan below.
SPLC is a hard left outfit and on this issue of critics if the ideology of Islam can be safely ignored. Note that they list "hate groups", but not a single one is Islamist or jihadist.
Sedaa gets stuck into them

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Demand for Anti-Muslim Bigotry – SEDAA – Our Voices

I first read, via Sam Harris' Twitter, about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s labelling of Maajid Nawaz as an "anti-Muslim extremist".

This is complete nonsense. Maajid speaks for moderation in Islam, having once been jailed for his own Islamist extremism.

SPLC's listing of Aayan Hirsi Ali is also nonsense. I've read all her books and articles. She is a powerful voice for women's rights in Islam.

I read SPLC's write ups on these two, and found them mean-spirited and tendentious. Clearly dishonest. I was going to do a point-by-point rebuttal, but now don't need to as it's been done by Amjad Khan here: SEDAA gets stuck into SPLC.

SPLC is a hard-Left outfit. On this issue of critics of the ideology of Islam it can safely be ignored. It is Hard-Left biased. 

Note that SPLC list "hate groups", but not a single one is Islamist or jihadist…. As if!

"A poisonous refugee policy", New York Times, 27 October

LETTER TO NEW YORK TIMES 

Waleed Aly accepts, without question, all the criticisms by Amnesty International of Australia's asylum-seeker policy. But he refutes, without evidence, all Australian government rebuttals. ("A poisonous refugee policy", International New York Times, 27 October). 

Amnesty charges that Australia's offshore detention of asylum seekers "amounts to torture". Aly is there to assure us that our government's denial of such torture is just so much farrago. 

I've read the Amnesty report. Am I surprised that the answer to their question of asylum seekers --  "are you being tortured?" -- was "yes"?  

Color me cynical, but no, I'm not surprised. It's been well documented that refugee groups worldwide understand the power of torture charges. 

Still, even Amnesty and Aly accept that the offshoring of would-be asylum seekers to Australia has resulted in a complete stop to human trafficking to Australia and the end of refugee deaths at sea. 

Surely that's a strong positive for our current policy. 

If there's another policy that would maintain these gains and better assist would-be asylum seekers, perhaps Amnesty or Aly would tell us. So far neither Amnesty nor Aly have favored us with their wisdom on such a policy. 

Peter F
****

Challenging China’s Illegal Maritime Baselines - WSJ

The whole "China in the South China Sea" issue has been a subject of some heated debate en famille here in our Hong Kong home. 

This article, "Challenging China's Illegal Maritime Baselines" in the Wall Street Journal, talks about an issue I didn't know about: "straight baselines". 

The U.S. Navy on Friday conducted a freedom of navigation operation (Fonop) near disputed features in the South China Sea, its fourth in the past year. A destroyer, the USS Decatur, sailed "in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands," close to but not within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits of land features in the Paracels. 

In past Fonops, U.S. warships sailed within the 12-nautical-mile zone of land features claimed by China and other countries in the region. Those operations challenged unlawful requirements that a warship seek prior authorization or provide advance notification to exercise innocent passage in territorial waters.

The latest operation was different. It broadened the target of U.S. Fonops in the South China Sea to include China's illegal straight baselines around the Paracels. Straight baselines join the outermost points of an island or a group of islands, and have the effect of enclosing the waters within them as "internal waters."

BBC's Hard Talk with Romanian FM about the Niqab and Burqa

LETTER TO BBC, For Hard Talk's Stephen Sackur. 

Stephen Sackur should read something about what moderate Muslim women and ex-Muslim women say about the Niqab and Burqa before talking again about the "freedom"'for Muslim women in the west to wear the horrid garb. (As he did recently in a Hard Talk with the Romanian Foreign Minister). 

Wearing body bags or masks is nothing to do with freedom and pretty much all to do with the oppression of Islamic patriarchy spreading to female Muslim immigrants in western societies. 

Eiynah, a Pakistani-Canadian ex-Muslim talks about being abandoned by western liberals in the battle of reforming Muslim women to ditch medieval garb. 

She criticises  western liberals for siding with conservative Muslims (those championing the niqab and burqa) as opposed to supporting reformist Muslims who want to do away with an oppressive uniform. 

Quote from her article, via Professor Jerry Coyne of Chicago Uni's blog in which she decries the championing of niqab/burqa by well meaning western liberals (link below):

During last year's federal election and the controversy surrounding Stephen Harper's veil ban, Tabatha Southey of the Globe and Mail tweeted, "By fighting a veil ban, Ms. Ishaq schools us on how to be Canadian" with very little regard for what the face veil represents to many other Muslim women – like those who are forced into veils and are fighting to be free of them. Around the same time, The Huffington Post Canada declared, "someone made a 'Niqabs of Canada' Tumblr and it's Great, comparing them to hockey masks, helmets, scarves and hoods shielding from the cold – all of which have other purposes than to shame women into modesty.

The Guardian touts headlines like "My hijab has nothing to do with oppression, it's a feminist statement" with seemingly no appreciation for what kinds of strict modesty guidelines lay behind the wearing of hijabs. Yes, some women in the west have the privilege of choice, but many, many of the women wearing face veils or headscarves in the Muslim world do not have such a choice, especially when it is mandated by the state. Even in the west, there lies the threat of being shunned by your family if you reject religious dress code. Articles glorifying this are doing women in vulnerable positions no favours at all. Yes, we must oppose anti-Muslim bigotry, but we must keep in mind that this doesn't mean glorification of modesty codes that target women.

My social media feeds are inundated with well-meaning liberal friends sharing article upon article praising, celebrating, glorifying religious garments like the hijab/niqab. But it's a garment used exclusively in its original form to ensure women cover up lest they provoke the lust of men. Ironically, even Playboy has jumped on this trend. The Muslim girls who want to be ballerinas, athletes or models and aren't hijabis simply aren't given very much coverage. All this achieves, is that it synonymizes Muslim with "conservative Muslim," which is incredibly unhelpful to our community in this political climate.

As someone who immigrated to Canada from Saudi Arabia, who was forced by morality police to cover her hair, threatened with a cane, I cannot stomach the fetishization and praise surrounding these practices that are primarily used to control and hold women back.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/eiynah-decries-the-glorification-of-hijabs-in-now-magazine/

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"The Lesser Evil", Sam Harris on the election

Another great talk by and with Sam Harris

Renewables overtake coal as world’s largest source of power capacity

A bit of light in the tunnel, from the Financial Times.

I didn't know that renewables had hit this mark already: overtaking coal in electricity production capacity. 

But note the difference between capacity and production. Fossil fuels still produce more electricity than renewables because they generate continuously, as opposed to renewables generating only when the sun shines or wind blows. 

Still it's nice to see some good news on the fighting global warming front. 

It follows an interesting article in the latest Spectator by Matt Ridley, that the world is getting greener, literally. ("Climate of ignorance ", 22 October). [*]

That is, satellite photos apparently show that there are 14% *more* trees and grasses on the globe now than 30 years ago. This is because of "fertilization" by CO2. 

If that's true (and I presume it's confirmable one way or the other, scientifically), then you wouldn't know it from announcements by Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace. 

"Driverless cars will make your life worse", Toby Young, Spectator, 22 October

LETTER TO SPECTATOR:
I suspect Toby Young's prediction ("Driverless cars will make your life worse", 22 October) will be viewed in future with the same amusement as we now view Tom Watson's in 1943: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers".
Toby says "Driverless cars will be slower, more expensive and socially divisive". Really? On the basis of a couple of his dubious speculations about "algorithms"?
Meantime, my daughters in Australia have sold their cars because they find it easier, faster and cheaper (yes, faster and cheaper) to use Uber.
Probably In their lifetime, and certainly in that of their children, we shall have fleets of autonomous vehicles in our cities, faster, cheaper and cleaner than any human-based ones we have now.
Toby's call to "nip this technology in the bud" has about as much chance of happening as Dr Lardner's in 1830, when he called for the abandonment of fast railways because passengers would be asphyxiated.
Peter F.
***

The Myth of the Racist Cop - WSJ

I've written about this before. 

Basic fact: cops in America kill blacks at a lower rate than they kill whites. A major study showing this was done by a Harvard professor, himself a person of color. The article below mentions a couple of other studies than come to the same conclusion. 

Another basic fact: because of the myth of cops being black-killers, many more cops are now being killed than before. Courtesy of the myth propagated by the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Yet another basic fact: Obama has clearly bought into the BLM myth. 

No government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police. If the next administration continues to disregard that truth in favor of a false narrative about systemic law-enforcement racism, the next four years will see more urban violence and race riots, and more dead cops.

Read the rest in the Wall Street Journal 

Is Islam compatible with Australian values? » The Spectator Australia

In a word, "No". It's not.
Waleed Ali also mentioned here, as disingenuous.  I wonder about Ali.  Well spoken and often in the media, as a moderate, but I wonder abou this true leanings.

Charlie Hebdo Survivor: ‘The “Islamophobia Ruse” is Driven by “Great Ignorance”’ | Creeping Sharia

We must admit that Islamism today is applied Islam," El Rhazoui — who describes herself as an "atheist of Muslim culture" – writes, responding to politicians, religious figures, Islamophobia opponents and media commentators who claim after every jihadist attack that "real Islam" has nothing to do with such terror.

"When we apply Islam to the letter it gives Islamism, and when we apply Islamism to the letter it gives terrorism. So we need to stop saying Islam is a religion of peace and love. What is a moderate Islamist? An Islamist who doesn't kill?"

The rest here.

The Freethinker - The voice of atheism since 1881 » Islam’s Non-Believers

The "Religion of Peace". Kill those that leave it....

I remember saying to my mum, 'I don't think I believe in God anymore,' And her saying, 'You can't tell anybody else because they'll kill you, we are obliged to kill ex-Muslims,' and that it would put me at extreme risk if anybody else was to find out, so that conversation ended there.

The Roots of America’s Mideast Delusion - WSJ

Just after his election, and on taking office in 2009...

Mr. Obama did almost everything liberal critics of the policies of George W. Bush wished him to do. And he failed. Or rather, he found that the Arab world was afflicted with pathologies that placed it beyond the reach of his words and deeds.

I still remember his Cairo Speech on June 4, 2009. The media loved it. I was appalled. 

It was a shocking surrender to multi- culti moral relativism and everything was the fault of the United States. The MSM loved the speech. The blogosphere I follow, the counter/jihadi blogosphere, skewered it. And guess who was right? That horridly Islamophobic blogosphere, of course. 

As the article below shows, America can never be in the right side of Arab opinion. No matter what it does it'll be wrong. So better it follow hard headed self interest, which includes, or should, the self interest of the west. 

James Traub writing below in the WSJ, concludes that the United States should not "trust appealing strangers", should not "try to be too clever", and should "lower expectations". 

Now, read on....