The philosopher Michel Foucault, a beacon of today’s “woke” ideology, has become the latest prominent French figure to face a retrospective reckoning for sexually abusing children.
A fellow intellectual, Guy Sorman, has unleashed a storm among Parisian “intellos” with his claim that Foucault, who died in 1984 aged 57, was a paedophile rapist who had sex with Arab children while living in Tunisia in the late 1960s.
h/t DZ
Chinese diplomats’ actions at last week’s summit in Alaska suggest that Xi Jinping will treat the Biden administration like Obama 2.0.
Many in the West were surprised when top Chinese diplomats lashed out against the United States publicly during the first high-level meeting between the Biden and Xi Jinping administrations last week in Anchorage, Alaska. Though smaller powers like Australia and Sweden have experienced Beijing’s “wolf-warrior” diplomacy before, rarely have Chinese diplomats displayed such open condescension toward the U.S. Yet if one understands the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party, the performance in Alaska comes as no surprise.
Chinese e-commerce platforms selling accessories of testy exchange with US officials in Alaska
“It was a very special day, July 24 [2020],” said France’s leading expert on Islam, Gilles Kepel.
“It was pilgrimage time to Mecca and, due to the pandemic, no one was there! It was the anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne, the origin of modern Turkey within its current borders. Erdogan was about to twist the arm of the secular Ataturk, who had turned the old Hagia Sophia basilica into a museum that he had donated ‘to humanity’. Erdogan… turned it back into a mosque”.
This was the moment, remarked Kepel – who just published a new book, “Le Prophète et la Pandémie” [“The Prophet and the Pandemic“] — that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the new leader of the umma, or global Islamic community. “Erdogan is trying to appear as the champion of Islam, just like Ayatollah Khomenei in 1989″.
Ontario’s new budget shows revenue from tobacco taxes continues to fall like a stone, not because more smokers have quit but because the contraband cigarette trade continues to expand unabated.
When COVID-19 shut down the smoke shacks on Ontario’s reserves, for example, the sale of legitimate cigarettes spiked, proof that quitters played little role in falling cigarette tax revenues.
Florida lawmakers are weighing a bill that would cut state-funded scholarship money for college students pursuing degrees with low employment prospects.
SB-86, sponsored by Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed the Senate Education Committee earlier this month and is on its way to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, which will consider the measure next week.
Piers Morgan has launched an impassioned attack on cancel culture and a defence of free speech in recounting his departure from Good Morning Britain for what he said was not believing the Duchess of Sussex.
As the end of a five-page diarised article in the Mail on Sunday, in which he said his doubting of Meghan was condemned as “a racist hate crime”, the controversial media figure said it is time to “cancel the cancel culture before it kills our culture”.
While also rounding on the Duke Of Sussex for his part in a “disgraceful betrayal” of the Queen, Morgan said the intense fallout from his voicing disbelief of Meghan in her interview with Oprah Winfrey was “outrageous”.
Big news story at the end of this week: Canada’s vaccination effort finally reaches 10% of the adult population!
Parents are livid that their young children — as young as 10 — were asked about their gender identity and sexual orientation in a survey that was supposed to be about COVID wellness.
Scholastic pulls popular children’s book from ‘Captain Underpants’ author for ‘passive racism’
TORONTO — Scholastic says it has ceased publication of an illustrated children’s book from the author of “Captain Underpants” due to themes of “passive racism.”
The graphic novel, originally published in 2010 and called “The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future,” will no longer be distributed, according to a statement released by Scholastic.
“On Monday, March 22, 2021, with the full support of Dav Pilkey, Scholastic halted distribution of the 2010 book ‘The Adventures of Ook and Gluk.’ Together, we recognize that this book perpetuates passive racism,” the publisher said in the statement.
h/t DM
The United States has the 13th highest COVID-19 death rate relative to population. Many different factors shaped death rates in the pandemic. But there’s one uncomfortable reason that the U.S. likely experienced more COVID-19 deaths that has largely been ignored because it’s politically incorrect.
Out-of-control obesity rates and the “body positivity” movement predating the pandemic have left the U.S. population disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19 compared to other countries. The U.S. ranks No. 12 in obesity worldwide, one of the highest rates among developed countries. One study found that 90% of worldwide COVID-19 deaths occurred in countries with high obesity rates.
Far from the memory of the too numerous wars that have marked the Middle East, the temptation is strong to think that diplomacy should replace force, and that a good negotiation, even if it means coming out a loser, is better than a conflict. This is more or less the philosophy that seems to inspire the “not so new” American administration, such as that for former US President Barack Obama.
Former President Donald J. Trump, for his part, had no doubt learned some lessons from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and more from the miserable double-cross offered by Hitler to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, which would lead, a year later, to the Second World War. Daladier and Chamberlain were so opposed to the use of force that they preferred to sacrifice Czechoslovakia to Nazi appetites rather than stand firm while there was still time. The rest, unfortunately, is well known.
Take a look at a couple of sentences about climate change that appeared Thursday concerning the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on the carbon tax.
Here’s one: “It is a threat of the highest order to the country, and indeed to the world.” And here’s another: “The undisputed existence of a threat to the future of humanity cannot be ignored.”
Tsk… “Judicial Activism” is just a right wing conspiracy theory!
OTTAWA — The federal environment minister says this week’s Supreme Court ruling deeming a national price on pollution constitutional will not lead to federal overreach in areas of provincial jurisdiction.
In an interview on CTV’s Question Period airing Sunday, Jonathan Wilkinson dismissed concerns among some provincial leaders and dissenting opinions from the court, who argue that such a move hands over too much power to the federal government to encroach on provincial taxation laws, in this situation specifically, and may lead to further impositions.
White teacher interrupts anti-racism talk to argue, swear at Black presenter in front of students
…On Thursday, Newton had reached the part of his workshop that dealt with a book by author Pierre Vallières, the title of which contains the N-word. Vallières was a leader within the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) who committed acts of terror.
Vallières’ book drew parallels between the plight of French-speaking Quebecers and the civil rights struggle of African Americans.
According to Newton, he started explaining to students that the parallel was not a fair and valid one, and that’s when he says the white teacher cut him off and began to argue.
The CBC is a culture of woke self flagellants which they attempt to force on tax payers.
h/t DM
A desire for business as normal with Beijing is coming up hard against the ugly reality of Xi’s swaggering authoritarianism
… Outraged by tweets from Lu Shaye, China’s “wolf warrior” ambassador in Paris, in which he described a respected French academic as a “crazed hyena” and “small-time hoodlum”, Clément Beaune, France’s Europe minister, summoned the wayward diplomat for a customary dressing-down.
Imagine his horror when Lu, ignoring protocol, said he was too busy to come. The French were aghast. “This is not how things are done,” Beaune spluttered. “Neither France nor Europe is a doormat.”
Yet this increasingly appears to be how Xi Jinping, China’s bullish president, and the Communist party view the EU. Or if not exactly a doormat, then a decidedly second-rate, fractious power bloc whose business and goodwill are dispensable.
If Meng were not held Justin would be lecturing us on the need to respect China.
Even now he refuses to say the word “genocide.”
Our political, corporate and academic classes have done well in the thrall of Beijing.
A return to business as usual with China’s tyrannical regime is the goal of the West’s China class.
