To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home – only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.
Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture.
Pakistan: After refusing to review evidence from a Christian couple trying to recover their 12-year-old daughter from a married Muslim man accused of kidnapping her and forcing her to convert to Islam and marry him, Muslim judge Sadaqat Ali Khan threw the case out of court on Aug. 18.
When the parents first reported the kidnapping, her kidnapper, Imran Shahzad and his wife Adiba, were brought in for questioning. However, when the 12-year-old girl was produced at court and said that she had converted of her free will and married her Muslim kidnapper, the judge—ignoring the girl’s young age and distraught demeanor—ordered the accused released and the girl returned to him, even though there was massive contrary evidence to indicate that the girl was being coerced to lie under duress.
Aman lies groaning on the path with a red stump where his leg was. Ukrainian recruits run through smoke to kneel behind sandbags and fire at the enemy on a sun-baked hillside.
It looks like a scene from the war in eastern Ukraine, but this is southern England and the casualty an amputee actor, engaged by the British Army to help train Ukrainian civilians in rudimentary soldiering skills to defend their homeland from Russia.
The faces of these raw recruits betray their anxiety as bursts of live machinegun fire crackle overhead — the idea is to “inoculate” them, to familiarise them with the sound so they won’t panic in combat.
#Ukraine: The National Guard of Ukraine took out a Russian BMP-3 IFV with an ATGM strike in the vicinity of Pavlivka, #Donetsk Oblast.pic.twitter.com/LMGYJQZQJF
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 2, 2022
Solidarity means more in Tehran than Washington
Is this it? Could this, finally, be the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran? As huge crowds of women and men surge through the Iranian streets, burning hijabs and calling for “Death to Khamenei!”, is an impossible dream finally about to come true?
The existence of God requires us to temper every assertion of power with a sense of responsibility to the truth.
In his past few podcasts, Jordan Peterson has picked up with greater vigor a theme that has been increasingly among his favorites: the inescapable role of God in life and meaning.
This would not be so noteworthy were Peterson a cleric of some sort. Preachers of every stripe and style regularly speak to their congregants or students, and it usually doesn’t interest anyone beyond a parochial group.
The old world broke this week. It was blown up cynically by someone who thought this would advance their agenda the most.
The act of vandalizing a major piece of physical infrastructure, targeting civilian populations, isn’t unprecedented in history, but it does signal that everything we thought we knew about the rules of the current game was wrong.
Well, for most people anyway.
When I spoke in June at the Ron Paul Institute Conference on Foreign Policy I described the game of geopolitics as a seven-player game of the ancient Chinese game, Go.
Serious Rabbit Hole reading. But I admit that blowing up the pipelines leaves us more questions than answers. Do you trust the Biden government? The EU? The WEF? Russia?
What’s happening in Iran is the biggest women’s rights protest ever in the Islamic world. Yet the response from some of the leading feminists in the United States, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib, has been strikingly muted. Each one has made what can be characterized at best as a tepid, pro forma response, one that contrasts sharply with their statements and actions during the Trump administration. It looks as if each one of these women regards Donald Trump as a far greater threat to women than the Islamic Republic of Iran is.
BROADCAST investigative journalism once had a great tradition. Anyone of my generation, whatever their political perspective, will remember at least a couple of landmark documentaries that shook things up, such as Night and Fog; the Up series; Shoah; Death on the Rock; the belated Channel 5 exposé of the once ‘national treasure’ Jimmy Savile, National Disgrace, and Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror.
But where have the BBC or ITV or any of the main channels been when it has come to Truth and Lies in the War on Covid? Nowhere. Silence.
I used to be liberal. I still am in the sense that I’m a more classic liberal; I believe in free speech, due process, the Constitution and civil rights. But political liberalism seems to have passed me by and, in my opinion, evolved into a very ideological form of leftism. So now, I feel politically homeless. I don’t really subscribe to either of the major political parties.
The world is waking up to the fact the climate-policy goal of achieving “net-zero” CO2 emissions brings crippling economic pain.
Fossil-fuel prices shot up 26% across industrialized economies last year and will rise globally by another 50% this year. Politicians blame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the long-term trend stems mostly from governments demonizing fossil fuels while their societies remain dependent on them. Since the 2015 Paris climate agreement, global fossil-fuel investment has halved, inevitably driving up prices.
As fossil-fuel prices climb, activists believe people will shift painlessly to renewable energy sources. But they’ve made a major miscalculation: Renewables are far from ready to power the world.
Jagmeet Singh has matured into his role as the NDP’s leader — but will that be enough to make it a contender?
OTTAWA—Jagmeet Singh is posing for a selfie. Again.
During a late afternoon walk along the Ottawa River behind Parliament Hill, the NDP leader is approached by an exuberant passerby itching to snap a shot. Singh throws up a peace sign as the shimmering lining of one of his customary three-piece suits flashes bright blue in the wind.
The woman tells Singh she is Filipino. “Salamat po,” he replies instantly, thanking her for saying hello. Filipino is one of about 40 languages, he explains, in which he can greet people and ask how they’re doing.
Wow! Jaggy can sound stupid in 40 languages! This is high-school crush cringe.
h/t Mauser
However much we strive to denounce and scoff at Americans, the simple fact is we need you.
Canadians have a lingering insecurity that most people outside the country aren’t aware of. Unlike the United States, which actively shrugged off its British overlords, Canadians gradually — and legally — evolved into an independent nation. Canada’s steady march towards self-government required constant wrangling, incrementally seeking to prove its worthiness, and therein lies our deepest fear.
THREAD: Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital in Maine has a ‘gender clinic’ which offers puberty blockers to kids, cross-sex hormones, guides for boys on “tucking”, and guides for girls on “chest binding.”
They also promote their services in helping young children fully transition: pic.twitter.com/GH8I5DUnvr
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 2, 2022
The network moves on from its embarrassing partisan past, but can he?
Don Lemon is a dinosaur at CNN — and it shows.
Thanks to the network’s new CEO Chris Licht, who seems to be driven by the radical notion that gaining viewers is more important than virtue-signaling, the pendulum has shifted. There have been small glimpses of CNN’s move back to more straight-news-style programming.
A blood-stained mattress lay in the dank basement of a bombed-out hotel where Russian troops were based until Ukraine’s soldiers forced them out last month. Abandoned army rations and sleeping bags indicated a rapid departure.
Not long ago, Sviati Hory [Holy Mountains] National Park was a popular tourist spot. The war has transformed this once tranquil area in the north of Donetsk region, centred on a 17th monastery, into an apocalyptic landscape littered with the grim detritus of Russia’s failing invasion.
Sensors are everywhere on the battlefield in #Ukraine: including those of the Bayraktar TB-2 UCAV, seen using the Wescam MX-15D sensor turret to observe what appears to be this recent shootdown. https://t.co/wZCgXgAoJo pic.twitter.com/5NRlcNq0by
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 2, 2022
