Author: Blazingcatfur

Iran’s Islamic Leaders Face a Crisis of Faith as Protests Swell

Protesters demand greater freedoms while the leadership’s conservative vision of Islam falters

For decades, Iran’s clerical leaders have striven to make sure their country stays on a conservative, Islamic path. They have expanded religious education. The faithful have been urged to have more children. Those deemed to be exhibiting what the government regards as anti-Islamic behavior risk the full force of the law.

Months long protests in Iran against the core values underpinning the Islamic system suggest the country might be heading the other way.

Teenage girls now share videos of each other stomping on pictures of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, and his successor, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Young Iranians have been filmed knocking turbans off clerics’ heads, with the footage posted online. Thousands of women now walk around the streets of Tehran without the mandatory hijab, or headscarf, in what would have been a rare act of defiance just a few months ago.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inIran

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Parents Were There for FTX’s Rise, and Now Its Fall

Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both professors at Stanford Law, have remained in the Bahamas with their son since his firm’s collapse

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed exchange FTX, always stood apart from other cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and it wasn’t for his baggy shorts or taste in videogames.

Both his parents, as Mr. Bankman-Fried would note in meetings with Washington policy makers, are professors at Stanford Law School. Their reputations were a credential to their son as he grew his crypto empire, even to those inclined to see little value in the industry.

Well connected criminals.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Digital Currency", Crime

Coming to America

REVIEW: ‘The Culture Transplant’ by Garett Jones

Imagine that you are a U.S. immigration officer, handing out green cards to the would-be Americans of the world. You have before you two applicants who look almost completely the same; for some arcane, unspecified bureaucratic reason, you can only approve one of them. They’re both well-educated by American standards, both bringing identical families, both passed their background checks.

The major difference is their nation of origin. One is from a nation with a strong tradition of rule of law, free markets, and democratic pluralism. The other is from a country where kleptocracy, autocracy, and socialism are standard. The difference, in other words, is the character of the society that your two would-be immigrants come from. The question is: Should this difference matter?

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Diversity", "Identity Politics", "Mass Immigration - Follow the money", "Multiculturalism"

Europeans, Qatar’s useful idiots

Behind Qatar’s influence at work in Europe is a mixture of human greed and the self-hatred of the European elites. And it goes deep.

Billions have been spent turning desert sands into soft green grass; futuristic stadiums have been built, as have absurd infrastructure projects that seat hundreds of thousands of spectators, while a billion fans are watching World Cup matches.

Daniel Turgeman, a young boy from southern Israel, would surely be glued to the TV cheering for his hero, Lionel Messi. Daniel wore the shirt of the Argentine icon of world football whenever he could, but he won’t be able to watch his favorite player on the football field. Daniel was only four years old when he was killed by a Hamas rocket: the missile that killed him was paid for by Qatar.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West

The real threat to German democracy

The state’s overreaction to the ‘Reichsbürger’ plot poses a far bigger danger than these reactionary oddballs.

The German state oversaw one of its largest anti-terror operations in its modern history last week. Approximately 3,000 police officers arrested 54 suspects in raids carried out on Wednesday morning. Those arrested were members of the Reichsbürger – one of the oddest and most obnoxious movements to have emerged in Germany in recent years. It is alleged that those arrested were conspiring to overthrow the state and install a shadow government headed by an obscure German nobleman.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany

Biden Convenes Anti-Semitism Summit While Funding Murder of Jews

If the Biden administration wants to fight anti-Semitism, it can stop funding anti-Semitic terrorists.

On December 4th, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stopped by J Street’s annual conference being held at a D.C. hotel owned by a Spanish airline and famous for its haunted ‘ghost suite’. But the real ghosts were those of the murdered Jews whose lives had been taken by the pro-terrorist policies that Blinken and the anti-Israel group he was celebrating had imposed on Israel.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inIsraeli - Islam Conflict

Is America still Europe’s ally?

EU leaders are reconsidering their approach to Russia

Warmer-than-average temperatures may have spared Europe from the worst effects of the energy crisis, but that is about to change: with temperatures predicted to plummet in the coming weeks, heightened demand for dwindling (and very expensive) supplies of natural gas will seriously test Europe’s fragile energy networks — potentially to breaking point.

In Germany, the Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance recently issued a near-apocalyptic advisory telling people what to expect in the event of a blackout: “The telephone is dead, the heating doesn’t come on, there is no warm water, the computer goes on strike, the coffee machine stays off, there is no light.” The agency urged households to stock up on battery-powered flashlights and candles, and even suggested camp stoves to prepare small meals. Elsewhere in Europe, governments are preparing food distribution networks that can function through a blackout.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Europe, NATO, USA

Chinese ‘Police Stations’ in Canada Amounts to the Presence of a Hostile Foreign Power in Our Front Yard

According to popular wisdom, Sir Robert Peel created the first modern municipal police force in London in 1829. Yes, there were other law enforcement-type bodies well before that, but the idea of having an organized body of men (they were all men at first) to patrol the streets and investigate/prevent crime was new for the era.

The notion of the “bobby on the beat”—”bobby” is a take-off on Peel’s first name—is well established. For decades in the Western world the sight of a uniformed officer walking through a community, getting to know the inhabitants, and making a very visible sign of law and order (and hence deterrence) was commonplace. That seems to have changed of late, and I’m not so sure it’s for the better.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Canada's China Class", "China - Communist Slave State", Canada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

People of the Lie

In several previous articles, I addressed what I believe to be the crucial issue of our time, namely, the institutionalization of the lie in culture and politics. The situation shows no sign of abating and indeed grows more alarming with every passing day. The integrity of the information we receive about domestic and world affairs has been degraded almost beyond recognition. Reality has been denatured. For the Lie has become a systemic and indelible part of public and institutional life. The dilemma we now confront, as D. Stephen Long points out in an important book dealing with the relation between relativism and authoritarianism, is speaking truth in a post-truth world.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Oh Oh!"

Trudeau urged to pick a side in imported tribal conflict

Trudeau urged to tell India to stop interfering in Canadian Sikhs’ drive for independent Punjab

A secessionist Sikh group is pressing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to disavow calls from India’s envoy for Canada to crack down on funding of a movement to create a separate state in Punjab.

Sikhs for Justice, an organization headquartered in Washington, has written to Mr. Trudeau, disputing Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma’s recent comments to The Globe and Mail. Sikhs for Justice has been conducting referendums in Canadian cities on Punjab independence as part of a global campaign on the matter.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Diversity", "Identity Politics", "Societally Destructive Immigration Policy", Canada, WTF?

RCMP offers $100,000 reward after 10 months with no leads on violent Coastal GasLink attack

After 10 months without any leads as to who led a violent, coordinated attack on a pipeline work camp last February, the RCMP is hoping that the promise of a $100,000 reward will loosen some local tongues.

“I do believe there are people out there who know something, and I do believe this reward will entice those people,” B.C. RCMP superintendent Jim Elliott said at a Monday press conference.

If this was the work of white supremacist truckers the RCMP would have arrested everyone and have commenced sorting out their undercover agents and informants from the guilty guy.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Terrorism - Domestic, WTF?