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Greece's latest cycle of talks with its creditors start with a quarrel.]]> |||
Athens - Greece's latest cycle of talks with its creditors started with a quarrel, as officials argued over which up-front commitments the government has yet to implement in order to tap emergency loans next month.
Technical experts from the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Stability Mechanism and the European Commission are in Athens to negotiate with their Greek counterparts. The list of policies that must be legislated over the next three years is in exchange for a lifeline of as much as 86 billion euros ($95 billion).
A so-called Memorandum of Understanding would need to be agreed upon in the next two weeks, so that a bailout can be in place before a payment on bonds held by the ECB comes due on August 20. Failure to do that might force another bridge loan to avert default, which may also come with strings attached.
The latest talks will focus on changes to the Greek pension system, labor market, fiscal policy, and market regulation, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.
"An agreement by the second fortnight of August is possible," EU Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told reporters in Brussels today. "Talks only started yesterday so it's premature to specify any actions or deadline."
Restoring trust
Creditors want Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to restore trust by legislating more belt-tightening measures now, before a disbursement from the new ESM-backed program can be made. In two votes earlier this month on so-called prior actions required for negotiations to begin, about a quarter of his Syriza-party lawmakers defected, stripping the premier of his parliamentary majority and forcing him to rely on opposition support.
A Greek Finance Ministry official on Monday told reporters that Greece has already voted through Parliament all the measures it needed to implement before a deal can be reached.
Creditors disagreed.
"More reforms are expected as part of the statement from the Greek authorities, to allow for a swift disbursement," Andreeva told reporters on Monday. "Continuing the pace of reforms will also help reinforcing the trust between all partners."
Capital controls
Greece imposed capital controls in June following a government decision to hold a referendum on a bailout plan offered by the euro area. After voters delivered a resounding "no" vote to the economic conditions attached, Tsipras, who turned 41 on Tuesday, went on to agree to a plan on similar terms under the threat of financial collapse.
Syriza's political secretariat will convene for a second day on Tuesday, in order to prepare a party congress this fall, after Tsipras asked his backbenchers to clarify their positions.
Demands for further prior actions from creditors, including tax increases for farmers and pension cuts, could add more strains to the governing coalition.
"We proceed in an organised manner and we hope that everything will go well at the end," Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said in a statement on Monday, as talks with creditors started.
Demand for gold slid to its lowest in six years in the second quarter of this year.]]> |||
Manila - Demand for gold slid to its lowest in six years in the second quarter of this year as buyers from top consumer China poured funds into its now troubled equities market, an industry report showed on Tuesday.
Retail investment from China fell by a quarter and jewellery demand by 23 percent in the April to June period as stock markets there soared, GFMS said in a quarterly update.
However, a subsequent plunge in Chinese share prices from mid-June has not helped bullion, it said, as some investors were locked in and others nervous about switching to different asset classes while financial markets are so volatile.
After a 12-year bull run peaked in 2011, global prices of the safe haven metal have struggled to gain traction. Last week, gold sank to $1 077 per ounce, its lowest in 5-1/2 years, after a sudden sell-off in New York and Shanghai, as investors worried about Chinese growth and the prospect of US interest rate rises made the dollar more attractive.
"Gold has certainly moved out of favour in China in recent quarters," GFMS analyst Andrew Leyland said.
"I think Chinese demand was a reaction to weak price performance, rather than a cause. Both the equity market, and the US dollar have promised stronger returns than gold, and this put investors off the yellow metal."
GFMS was cautiously optimistic that both demand and prices could start to pick up in the final quarter of the year.
"Chinese purchasers tend to buy into rallies, so when gold gets some upward momentum Chinese purchasing should support this," Leyland said.
China and India are the world's top gold consumers. Physical demand there has not picked up strongly despite a sell-off last week that knocked global prices to 5-1/2 year lows.
That contrasts to the explosion in physical demand seen after gold prices dropped sharply in the second quarter of 2013.
GFMS, a division of Thomson Reuters, said global demand for gold bars and coins fell 12 percent year-on-year in April-June and was around 63 percent below the peak two years ago.
In the largest consuming sector, jewellery, consumption dropped 9 percent and production declined 6 percent, GFMS said. Overall physical demand stood at 858 tons in the second quarter, down 14.2 percent from a year before.
Central banks remained net buyers of gold, but their purchases fell 62 percent year on year.
That helped push the physical surplus in the gold market to its highest in five years at 196 tons, more than double the total of a year before.
While jewellery consumption in India increased 2.5 percent to 158 tons during the period, gross imports fell 10 percent to the lowest in five quarters, the report said.
China and India consumed almost the same amount of gold in January-June, with China a tad higher at 394 tones against India's 392 tons, it said.
GFMS forecast gold would average $1 135 an ounce in the third quarter against $1 192 in April-June, before recovering to $1 175 in the last quarter of the year.
"It remains our view that a US rate hike this year is already priced into the market and that an increase could well prompt a review of asset allocations that leads to an increase in gold holdings," the report said.
Strong company results and acquisitions announcements lift European shares on Tuesday.]]> |||
London - European shares bounced back on Tuesday, lifted by strong company results and news of acquisitions after falling in the previous five sessions on concerns over China's growth.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was 0.4 percent higher at 1,536.23 points by 08h04 GMT after hitting a two-week low in the previous session. The broader STOXX Europe 600 index also rose 0.4 percent.
Shares in Kering surged 6.6 percent after Gucci, the flagship brand of the French luxury and sportswear group, posted a 4.6 percent rise in underlying second-quarter sales.
RSA Insurance Group surged 11.3 percent after Zurich Insurance said it was weighing up a bid for the British group with a market capitalisation of 4.4 billion pounds ($6.9 billion). Zurich fell 3 percent.
Melrose jumped 10.7 percent after saying it would sell its Elster business to Honeywell for 3.3 billion pounds ($5 billion), while engineering firm GKN gained 7.8 percent after agreeing to acquire Netherlands-based Fokker Technologies for 706 million euros to strengthen its position as a supplier to aeroplane makers.
"The market has been preoccupied with uncertainties related to China in the last couple of days, but those concerns are taking a backseat today and equities are getting some support from company earnings and M&A," Gerhard Schwarz, head of equity strategy at Baader Bank in Munich, said.
In the past five days, concerns about China's growth dominated the market. Shanghai shares fell again on Tuesday even after Beijing pledged to lend support. Stocks sank 8 percent on Monday.
"We are in an environment where you have a lot of volatility in the market and there is a Federal Reserve meeting, which may provide further hints about a US rate hike cycle. The market is still in a wait-and-see attitude," Schwarz said.
Investors awaited the two-day US Federal Reserve meeting beginning later in the day, with some expecting that the central bank will make its case for hiking rates as early as September.
Germany's Gerresheimer jumped nearly 15 percent to a record high after the company said it will buy US pharmaceutical packaging company Centor, expanding its footprint in the largest primary pharma packaging market.
Norwegian oil major Statoil rose 2.3 percent after posting second-quarter adjusted operating profit that was better than forecast and maintained its quarterly dividend.
British power producer Drax, which has converted some of its power plant capacity to run on cleaner biomass, rose 12 percent after saying it has started a strategic review of its business after the government indicated changes to renewable energy subsidies.
Britain's top share index edges higher after falling for five sessions in a row.]]> |||
London - Britain's top share index edged higher on Tuesday after falling for five sessions in a row, with RSA Insurance Group leading the gains on bid interest from a Swiss-based rival.
RSA surged 11 percent after Zurich Insurance said it was weighing up a bid for the British group with a market capitalisation of 4.4 billion pounds ($6.85 billion).
"We have not been keen on the break-up story on RSA due to the pension scheme deficit... However, a bid for the whole group is much more likely and today sees the first indication that such a bid may be on the cards," Shore Capital analyst Eamonn Flanagan said in a note.
In other top gainers, GKN added more than 6 percent after the British engineering company said it had agreed to acquire Netherlands-based Fokker Technologies for 706 million euros ($781 million), including debt, to strengthen its position as a supplier to aeroplane manufacturers.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals was also on the rise, up nearly 6 percent after saying it would buy German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim's US specialty generic drug business for about $2.65 billion in cash and stock to bolster its presence in the United States.
On the downside, Royal Mail fell 3 percent after Britain's postal regulator Ofcom said Royal Mail had breached competition law by proposing wholesale prices that were designed to be more expensive for any firm looking to run a rival mail delivery service.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was up 0.6 percent at 6,544.11 points by 0737 GMT. It closed 1.1 percent lower on Monday, tumbling for the fifth session in a row in its longest losing streak so far in 2015.
The FTSE hit a record 7,122.74 points in April but is now more than 8 percent below that high and down 0.5 percent in the year to date.
Hang Seng Index rises after touching a three-week low early on Tuesday.]]> |||
Hong Kong - Hong Kong blue chip stocks rose on Tuesday, bucking falls for mainland shares, on hopes for a stabilising China market as Beijing hinted at further monetary easing.
The Hang Seng Index, which touched a three-week low early on Tuesday, rose 0.6 percent, its biggest daily gain since July 17, to 24,503.94.
The China Enterprises Index slid 0.5 percent to 11,173.04 points, the lowest close in three weeks.
Hong Kong's growth board GEM gained 0.5 percent.
Mainland stocks declined in Tuesday's volatile session, even as Beijing pledged to lend further support after shares sank 8 percent in the previous session.
China central bank said it would use "various monetary tools" to maintain "appropriate levels of liquidity", a signal that the further monetary easing that many analysts have predicted could be in store.
China Resources Enterprise led gains in the blue chip index, surging 2.9 percent. It was followed by CNOOC Ltd and AIA, which were up 2.7 percent.
New China Life Insurance led the falls in the Chinese enterprises index, sliding 5.3 percent.
China Eastern Airlines' Hong Kong shares dropped 4.4 percent on dilution concerns after Delta Air Lines agreed to buy a 3.55 percent stake for $450 million.
South Africa's rand recovers slightly in early trade on Tuesday after touching a fresh 14-year low the previous session.]]> |||
Johannesburg - South Africa's rand recovered slightly early on Tuesday after touching a fresh 14-year low in the previous session as emerging markets wobble on concerns over China's economy.
At 06h30 GMT the rand edged 0.18 percent firmer to 12.5945 per dollar, recovering from a low of 12.69 on Monday when the unit failed to breach the key 12.70 technical support.
"Worth noting that the last time the rand traded at these levels, the ensuing correction saw us revisit 12.0550 before the bull trend resumed," said Oliver Alwar of Standard Bank.
Chinese equity markets plunged by their most in 8 years on Monday, threatening to drag emerging markets with them as appetite for riskier assets suffered, a day ahead of a US Federal Reserve monetary policy announcement.
Bets that the US central bank will lift rates in September have seen the greenback rally, and in early trade the dollar index had ticked 0.15 percent firmer.
The rand may struggle to hold on to the gains, according to traders, with unemployment, trade and government budget data due in the week posing some downside risks.
Yields on government bonds fell, with the benchmark issue due in 2026 dropping 1 basis point to 8.19 percent.
The dollar recovers slightly against the yen as investors remain on edge after a sharp plunge in Chinese markets.]]> |||
Tokyo - The dollar recovered slightly against the yen on Tuesday, although gains were limited as investors remain on edge after a sharp plunge in Chinese markets hit risk sentiment, but the euro was supported by upbeat German data.
In Tokyo, the greenback fetched 123.55 yen, up from 123.24 yen in New York late on Monday, although it is still off the 123.75 yen earlier in Asia.
The euro changed hands at $1.1076 and 136.79 yen, against $1.1091 and 136.69 yen in US trade, where it rallied thanks to a rise in German business confidence and signs of a pickup in lending in Europe.
Global markets were jolted Monday after Shanghai stocks plunged 8.48 percent - the steepest fall in eight years - as data showing more weakness in the Chinese economy mixed with fears government support measures for the mainland market will not last.
The losses continued Tuesday, with Shanghai losing five percent at one point, despite renewed government vows to boost buying, before ending the morning one percent lower.
The collapse followed almost three weeks of relative calm after Beijing unveiled a series of measures to put an end to a month-long rout that saw Shanghai slump more than 30 percent.
"Yen-buying sentiment was strong as players were trying to avoid risk as the Chinese market slumped," said Minori Uchida, head of Tokyo global markets research at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
The yen is considered a safe investment in times of uncertainty.
However, the dollar ticked up as the morning progressed and Chinese shares pared losses.
Traders are awaiting the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting that starts later on Tuesday.
While the central bank is not expected to raise interest rates, dealers are hoping for some forward guidance, with most analysts tipping a hike in either September or December.
"Players remain cautious ahead of the Fed meeting - they want to see its statement before taking positions," Uchida said.
Oil prices fall further in Asia as plunge in Chinese stocks jolts global markets.]]> |||
Tokyo - Oil prices fell further in Asia on Tuesday after a plunge in Chinese stocks jolted global markets and added to fears about an oversupply of the commodity.
The US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate for September delivery, fell 43 cents to $46.96 and Brent crude for September lost 55 cents to $52.92.
Both contracts closed lower on Monday.
Shanghai dived 8.48 percent on Monday, its biggest fall in more than eight years, on worries the Chinese government will pull back on support measures put in place at the start of the month to prevent a meltdown in the face of a market rout.
The losses continued on Tuesday, falling four percent in the morning despite renewed government pledges of support.
"When the Chinese market drops to such an extent, it sparks a lot of fear among investors. The drop in crude oil prices is because of that fear," said Daniel Ang, an investment analyst with Phillip Futures in Singapore.
"We really have to see how the China market will move going forward," he told AFP.
Analysts fear the turmoil in China's stock market will affect demand in the world's second biggest economy and top energy consuming nation.
"We would be watching the Chinese equity markets closely," said Bernard Aw, market strategist at IG Markets Singapore.
"More specifically, it would be interesting to see what else the Chinese government can roll out to defend the markets."
Oil prices have also been depressed due to a global crude oversupply coming from strong production in the United States and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries led by Saudi Arabia.
Chinese shares sink more than three percent in early trade on Tuesday.]]> |||
Shanghai - Chinese shares sank more than 3 percent on Tuesday, as Beijing scrambled once again to stabilise a stock market whose wild gyrations have heightened fears about the financial stability of the world's second biggest economy.
After a plunge of more than 8 percent in major indexes on Monday, Chinese regulators said they were prepared to buy shares to stabilise the stock market, while the central bank injected cash into money markets and hinted at further monetary easing.
Despite that, the CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell 3.1 percent in early trade on Tuesday, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 3.4 percent.
Monday's dramatic slide shattered three weeks of relative calm for Chinese equities, secured through heavy government intervention in which authorities pumped liquidity into the market while effectively barring many investors from selling.
The rapid sell-off, which saw China's major indexes suffer their biggest one-day loss in more than eight years, may have been partly due to authorities testing the water for withdrawing some of that heavy-handed support.
Three people in the banking industry with direct knowledge told Reuters on Monday that the state-run margin lender had returned ahead of schedule some of the funds it borrowed from commercial banks to stabilise the stock market.
"The authorities picked an inopportune time to float a trial balloon about scaling back market support operations," wrote Tim Condon, head of research Asia for ING Bank in Singapore, in a note on Tuesday.
"Lesson learned: sentiment manifestly remains fragile. We expect a show of force from the authorities today to ensure the market closes higher."
The wild volatility in China's markets has stoked fears among global investors about the broader health of the Chinese economy, hitting prices of growth-sensitive commodities such as copper, which hit a 6-year low on Monday.
The renewed slump helped drag shares elsewhere in Asia to three-week lows on Tuesday, and sent investors scurrying for safe-haven assets such as government bonds and the Japanese yen.
But, while recent stock market weakness will have caught out many Chinese retail investors and companies, the relatively low rate of stock ownership by households and a disconnect between valuations and economic fundamentals mean the impact on the economy is likely to be less than it would be in other markets.
The People's Bank of China said on Tuesday it would inject 50 billion yuan ($8.05 billion) into money markets in its biggest liquidity boost since July 7, near the trough of the last market sell-off.
The central bank also said, in a statement before the stock market opened, that it would use "various monetary tools" to maintain "appropriate levels of liquidity", a signal that the further monetary easing that many analysts have predicted could be in store.
China's main stock indexes had more than doubled over the year to mid-June, when a sudden swoon saw shares lose more than 30 percent of their value in a matter of weeks.
Markets finally began stabilising again in the second week of July after a barrage of official support measures.
China's central bank cut interest rates, brokerages formed stabilisation funds and regulators lifted restrictions on pensions and insurers investing in stocks, an implied combined total verbal commitment of almost $800 billion.
Beijing also cracked down on "malicious" short-sellers in the futures market, froze IPOs to prevent a liquidity drain and looked the other way as around 40 percent of companies suspended trading in their shares to escape the rout.
Asian stocks fall to three-week lows as a deepening rout in Chinese stocks erases risk appetite.]]> |||
Hong Kong - Asian stocks fell to three-week lows on Tuesday as a deepening rout in Chinese stocks erased risk appetite - sending investors flocking to safe-haven instruments such as government bonds and the Japanese yen.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.8 percent in early deals, its lowest level since July 9 as mainland Chinese indexes opened 2-5 percent lower.
"Volatility is the enemy of investor appetite," said the head of index trading at a US fund. "Any sign of government support to prop up the market will be used by investors to exit the market completely rather than add fresh positions."
Since hitting a peak in early June, Chinese shares have gone through a roller-coaster ride with main China indexes falling by a third in less than a month before rebounding by a quarter, only to stage its biggest one-day fall since 2007.
While broader Asian markets have been initially resilient to the fireworks in Chinese stocks, they have started to move more closely in step with the mainland over recent days in the absence of fresh triggers elsewhere.
Correlations between the MSCI gauge for regional stocks and the Shanghai index has risen to 0.5 - its strongest in nearly a year - indicating the market rout is starting to have a broader regional impact.
Tokyo's Nikkei fell more than 1 percent, with a strong yen accelerating the decline. Australian shares fell 0.9 percent and South Korea's Kospi shed 1 percent.
Investor sentiment was also cautious ahead of a two-day US Federal Reserve meeting beginning later today where some investors believe the Fed's rate-setting Open Market Committee will make its case for hiking rates as early as September.
Overnight, the Dow dropped 0.7 percent and Nasdaq fell 1 percent while share indices in Frankfurt and Paris tumbled more than 2.5 percent.
In currencies, the dollar was on the back foot at 123.12 yen as safe-haven assets were boosted by market jitters, offsetting upbeat U.S. durable good orders data.
The euro was little changed at $1.1091 after surging to a two-week high of $1.1129 overnight thanks to a bullish Ifo survey of German business sentiment.
Bonds were the solitary bright spot in Asia with US Treasuries and Japanese government debt standing tall in a sea of red across stock markets as investors dumped riskier bets.
Ten-year Japanese bond yields held firm at 0.40 percent, from 0.55 percent two weeks earlier, a large move for the markets while 10-year US Treasuries held at 2.2 percent.
Oil struggled at four-month lows after the Chinese stock market crash fuelled worries the world's biggest energy consumer may cut back and as more evidence emerged of a global crude supply glut.
US crude was down nearly a percent at $46.98 a barrel, near $46.91, its lowest since late March.
Copper, heavily influenced by demand from key consumer China, languished near a six-year low of $5,164 a ton on the London Metal Exchange.
The broader Thomson Reuters CRB commodities index also hit a six-year low.


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Jennifer Aniston slips into a bikini on romantic break with tattooed Justin Theroux (and there's no hint of a baby bump)
Jennifer Aniston turned Christmas into a bikini fiesta while in Cabo, Mexico, with her fiance Justin Theroux.
The former Friends star slipped into her swimsuit for a day of tanning with her actor beau, who put his toned and tattooed torso on show in a pair of black trunks.
The 43-year-old has been the subject of pregnancy
rumours in recent weeks, however she showed no hint of a baby bump as relaxed by the pool on Christmas Eve.
Bikini time! Jennifer Aniston spent Christmas Eve sunbathing in Cabo, Mexico
Buff bodies: Jennifer and her fiance Justin Theroux showed off their matching muscles
Jennifer wore two bikinis while soaking up the luxury surrounds of her waterside villa - a pink and black number and later a green costume which featured a bandeau top.
The couple arrived in Mexico via private jet on Sunday.
Of course, a trip to Cabo is an annual
tradition for the actress, who has taken her friends Chelsea Handler and
Courteney Cox with her in previous years.
Cheers to us: The actress had refreshments on hand
Bringing sexy back: Jennifer's love displayed his body art
Romantic getaway: Jennifer took the actor to one of her favourite holiday destinations
The Wanderlust actress, who looked in great shape, recently said she has quit dieting and focused on being happy.
She told Britain's OK magazine in October: 'I stopped dieting when I figured out that you just have to ear regularly and properly within moderation.
'The fads are too much. I think it's really about... being happy and smiling and laughing a lot.'
The pair got engaged in August after Justin, 41, popped the question with an 18-carat engagement ring over dinner at a New York restaurant.
Jennifer was previously married to Brad Pitt, who is now engaged to the mother of his six children, Angelina Jolie.
Tanning time! The pair relaxed in the sun
Fun in the sun: The actress also wore a green bikini during her stay
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- Part 3: Planned Parenthood's baby parts black market exposed
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subset: commoncrawl


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The Consultant-Industrial Complex
This morning I started the day with the great John Oakley on Toronto's AM640. In light of the latest revelations re Donald Trump - he raped at least one of his wives!!! his kids have killed and grilled every single animal on the endangered species list!!!!! - we discussed the way the normal rules of American politics apparently do not apply to the new GOP frontrunner.
Given that the "normal rules" of American politics have delivered America into the hands of a permanent ruling class content to preside over a hyper-regulated, corrupt, cronyist, indebted borderless ruin mitigated according to taste by a deranged hyper-sexualized identity-politics totalitarianism hunting down homophobic bakers and confederate-flag decals, I'm rather relaxed about that. Your mileage may vary. But the fact is that in a two-party system the Democratic Party is relatively effective at delivering to its voters the world they want to live in. The Republican Party not so much. Responding to my attack on the GOP's consultant class, one of its most eminent members, Rick Wilson, responds:
Built what? If the purpose of a political party is to elect officeholders to sit in offices, you're doing great. But that's kind of Trump's point, isn't it?
Whether the Trump bubble can last till the New Hampshire primary is certainly doubtful. But then the conventional wisdom has it that calling Mexicans "rapists" will damage Republican outreach plans for a mariachi arrangement of "Hail To The Chief", while Trump has insisted all along that he's every Hispanic's dream ticket. And whaddaya know?
~John and I also discussed climate change and, to be honest, my preferred Donald - Donald Sutherland, a great actor, albeit one of drearily predictable political bent. Click below to listen:
~Re that book that John mentioned, it's Climate Change: The Facts, and I'm happy to autograph it for you. But don't overlook my new one: it's all the fun of a DC Superior Court brief, but with cartoons. (They're already talking about it at Yahoo!)
~One Canadian who probably skipped this morning's Oakley show chit-chat is reader Ken Baskin, who writes apropos Monday's TV appearance on Hannity:
~On the subject of running long, as one of the few guys not yet dead or in the witness protection program, I'll be speaking at interminable length in Copenhagen on the tenth anniversary of the Danish Mohammed cartoons (unless the Allahu Akbar guy takes the same attitude to my rhetorical style as Mr Baskin does and decides to detonate early). A UK reader writes to say there's really no excuse for you Brits not to be there en masse:
Book early! More details on my Danish foray here.
July 29, 2015 at 10:56 am | Permalink
Clumps, Lies and Videotape
On Monday night I joined Sean Hannity at Fox News to discuss Planned Parenthood and Donald Trump.
Judging from Twitter commentary, many Americans are prepared to defend the harvesting of baby body parts by Cecile Richards and her staff. If so, shame on you. I wrote last week that no other country in the civilized world has a "Planned Parenthood": a billion-dollar abortion conglomerate. One Tweeter said so what? Abortion is only "three per cent" of what Planned Parenthood does. In fact, as I pointed out on the air, they perform a third of a million abortions a year, which is as many as France, Germany and Canada combined.
And, putting aside whether one is "pro-life" or "pro-choice", the nature of the abortions in those other countries is different: again, as I told Sean, in France abortion is legal up to 12 weeks; Italy, 13 weeks; Norway, 18 weeks, but it requires the approval of a government commission. Nowhere else in the western world takes 39-week-old "fetuses", delivers them sufficiently to preserve the commercially valuable parts and then crushes the non-sellable parts in order to preserve a technical denial of infanticide. That is a uniquely American evil, and Americans should be utterly ashamed of it. American liberals ought to understand that in far more left-wing societies (Scandinavia, the Netherlands, France) they do not do this - because it's not a left/right thing, it's a good/bad thing, and Planned Parenthood's abortion-industrial complex is on the wrong side of that divide.
The videos are devastating to the central evasion of American abortion advocates: Why, they're not like the rubes; they know the difference between a human being - and a zygote, "a clump of cells", or "a pile of goop", in the words of the sitcom actor Lucas Neff. Of course, if the kid were merely a zygote, a clump of cells or a pile of goop, you would not be able to operate a lucrative business selling the brain, lungs, liver, heart, etc, because a zygote, clump of cells or pile of goop does not have any of those things. In that sense, "Dr" Nucatola's breezy laundry list of what she's able to cannibalize for parts gets to the heart of the lie American abortionists tell.
The only pile of goop in this debate is Lucas Neff, a very characteristic exemplar of contemporary depravity and stupidity. The defense of Planned Parenthood in light of what has been revealed is almost as disturbing as the mound of body parts - because a moral vacuum can never be contained to the one little corner of life you don't mind it in; it always expands.
Meanwhile, another undercover video was released this morning, in which Planned Parenthood "medical" staff airily pick baby legs and spinal cords and other body parts out of a pie plate. Planned Parenthood huffs that this video could violate "medical privacy". Does the "pile of goop" sign the HIPAA form? Does "medical waste" in a pie dish have any privacy rights?
~Sean and I also discussed Donald Trump's disruption of the Republican presidential race, and the foolish response of the GOP establishment - both to Trump and to a large slice of their own base:
~As to the book Sean mentioned at the top of the segment, that's Climate Change: The Facts. I'm proud to be part of the book along with Willie Soon, Richard Lindzen, Ian Plimer and other eminent scientists. It's doing great business at Amazon, but if you'd like a copy personally autographed by yours truly, we can do that right here at SteynOnline. On the other hand, if you'd rather be reading it within 90 seconds, it's available in eBook via Kindle, Nook at Barnes & Noble, or Kobo at Indigo-Chapters in Canada and around the world.
Oh, and don't forget my brand new book.
~In my native land, the malign alliance of thought-crime commissars and the legal establishment is coming after my doughty comrade Ezra Levant yet again - on the shameless proposition that it is now illegal to describe the Alberta "Human Rights" Commission as "crazy". I wrote about it here. Kate McMillan has started a petition to give a big up-yours to the "Human Rights" Commission and the Alberta "Law" Society. You can sign it here. I did.
~Speaking of the deranged Dominion, tomorrow, Wednesday, I'll be starting the day with Toronto's Number One morning man, John Oakley, live on AM640 at 8.30am Eastern. Hope you can tune in.
July 28, 2015 at 8:48 am | Permalink
A Se'nnight of Steyn, July 20-26
Mark will be starting the week with Sean Hannity, coast to coast tomorrow, Monday, on Fox News at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific. And don't forget his new book is now available for exclusive pre-order.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it, here's how the last seven days looked to Steyn:
The week began with news that the Hillary campaign is now calling the cops on non-supporters, while the Republican establishment continues to flounder cluelessly as it struggles to deal with Donald Trump: Mark's piece on the latter proved to be our most popular piece of the week.
~Monday saw the death of Wayne Carson Thompson, who wrote "Always On My Mind" and one of Mark's favorite songs of urgency.
~Tuesday brought two other additions to the SteynOnline obituaries department: Theodore Bikel, the man who introduced Rodgers & Hammerstein's last song "Edelweiss", and E L Doctorow, the novelist who gave us in Ragtime a sprawling panorama of the dawn of the American century.
~On Wednesday Mark considered the beleaguered state of free speech, following the news that Charlie Hebdo is out of the Mohammed business. In a further setback for free speech from Steyn's native land, it's apparently now a hate crime in Canada to call the totalitarian and disgusting Alberta "Human Rights" Commission "crazy". Nonetheless, if you do think they're crazy, there's a petition you can sign.
~On Thursday Mark addressed the grimmest news of the week on the domestic front: the revelation that Planned Parenthood is harvesting babies' body parts, and the mainstream media won't even cover it: Steyn's column was our most-liked on Facebook this week. On the foreign policy front, Mark joined Congressman John Campbell to examine the Obama Administration's relaxed attitude to the Iranian nuclear program versus their hard line on the Canadian pipeline. On the other hand, Forbes thought the big news of the week was that "Iran Is Not Nazi Germany And Mark Steyn Is Not Winston Churchill".
~Friday brought things full circle: Mark started the week with the last song of Frank Sinatra's mid-life career slump and he ended it with the first song of his amazing comeback.
For our Saturday movie date, Steyn celebrated the work of Ernest Lehman, who gave us the world's all-time greatest train scene.
It was a relatively quiet week in the climate wars, save for the news that Dr John Cook, promoter of the "97% consensus" that Obama and Kerry like to quote so much, has been trying to bump it up to 99.99% by trying to pass himself off on the Internet as skeptical Czech scientist Luboš Motl. If you want an alternative to the creepy freaks of the "consensus" enforcers, try Climate Change: The Facts, which this week got a thumb's up from the Conservative Book Club. You can order Climate Change: The Facts, personally autographed by Mark, direct from the SteynOnline bookstore - and, if you need it in the next 90 seconds, it's out in eBook via Kindle, Nook at Barnes & Noble, or Kobo at Indigo-Chapters in Canada and around the world.
This September sees the 10th anniversary of the Danish Mohammed cartoons. Steyn will be joining the editor who commissioned them and other freespeechers at a special event in Copenhagen. If you're in the vicinity, we hope to see you there. For tickets and more information, please see here.
A new week at SteynOnline begins tonight with our Song of the Week.
July 26, 2015 at 8:05 am | Permalink
Top Billing
Breaking news from Forbes:
~Hard to follow a headline like that but we'll do our best. Reacting to news that Charlie Hebdo is out of the Motoon business, Douglas Murray writes in The Spectator:
This September Douglas and I will be in Copenhagen to join Flemming Rose, the commissioning editor of the original Mohammed cartoons, in marking their tenth anniversary. Douglas observes:
Thanks for that, er, reassuring note.
Indeed. This is one of those specialty genres where your name in lights is a mixed blessing. Nevertheless, Douglas and I will be in Copenhagen going, "But I thought you were top of the bill!" "No, no, it's definitely you, old boy..."
To go back to that Forbes headline, I don't know whether Douglas Murray is Winston Churchill, either. I think we're both trying to keep certain important topics of discussion alive until the Winston de nos jours shows up. But the way things are going, he may already have been killed or forced into hiding. More details on the Copenhagen event here.
~I still get asked why I'm funding my pushback against climate mullah Michael E Mann by selling books, souvenir mugs and gift certificates. Why oh why, moan readers, don't I just set up a legal defense fund or some such? Well, the short answer is this headline from a couple of days ago:
Americans seem to be less shocked than a wee little foreigner such as I that this republic has a corrupt tax collection agency that torments its ideological opponents. I must say the original revelations about the IRS - what is it now? two, three years ago? - did shock me, and the fact that all those people are still in place carrying on as usual shocks me even more. I'm old-fashioned enough to regard a nonpartisan civil service as a basic building block of a civilized society.
But the relevance of this to my own situation isn't hard to follow: Michael E Fraudpants' lawyers have already asked for my "donor list". Mann's fellow scientist Dr Peter Gleick burrowed his way into the Heartland Institute and leaked their donor list, and, when that didn't quite do the trick for his purposes, he faked up his own Heartland top-secret document. (Like Mann, Dr Gleick remains a respected figure in the world of climate science.)
So I could set up a 501(c)79(f) and have Mann demanding I cough up the names so that Lois Lerner's chums can audit them, and, if I stonewalled, I'd have to stay up all night to check whether that weird noise at three in the morning is Dr Gleick crawling down the ventilation shaft.
So I'd rather do things the old-fashioned way and sell our exclusive range of DC Superior Court trialwear.
~Now we have the additional problem of Dr John Cook, the Aussie alarmist and tireless promoter of that phony-baloney 97 per cent consensus, showing up on the front door and pretending to be the plumber. The Czech scientist and supposed "climate denier" Dr Luboš Motl recently discovered that John Cook had been passing himself off on the Internet as "Lubos Motl" (Cook's keyboard evidently doesn't do those groovy Czech accents). Hence, weird exchanges in the bowels of the "Skeptical Science" website like this:
Why is John Cook, a notorious scourge of "deniers" such as Dr Motl, pretending to be Dr Motl all over the Internet? My old comrade James Delingpole gets out Occam's razor:
By the way, speaking of ways to help prop up my end of Mann vs Steyn, Dr Motl is quoted in my forthcoming book. I'm pretty sure it's the real Dr Motl, unless John Cook has secreted himself in the false bottom of my hard drive.
~Over at the Conservative Book Club, Marc Fitch is reviewing Climate Change: The Facts. He seems to like it:
You can order Climate Change: The Facts, personally autographed, direct from the SteynOnline bookstore - and, if you need it in the next 90 seconds, it's out in eBook via Kindle, Nook at Barnes & Noble, or Kobo at Indigo-Chapters in Canada and around the world.
~A quick update re my friend Ezra Levant being hauled up before the Alberta "Law" Society for calling the Alberta "Human Rights" Commission "crazy": Kate McMillan has an entertaining petition, which you can sign here.
~On Monday I'll be joining Sean Hannity on Fox News, coast to coast at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific. I hope you'll consider tuning in.
July 25, 2015 at 8:05 am | Permalink
Centrifuges, Sure. Pipelines, No.
Congressman John Campbell was guest-hosting for Hugh Hewitt when Mark kept his weekly date with the show. They discussed Iran:
As for the nuclear program and its inspections regime...
Mark was also asked to comment on Mrs Clinton's observation about "young black men in hoodies", and as a final thought offered a word of advice for the GOP establishment's reaction to their improbable frontrunner:
You can find the full interview here.
July 24, 2015 at 9:04 am | Permalink
Gunfire at the Cold-Call Corral
Democrat presidential candidate Martin O'Malley went to the Netroots confab over the weekend and ran into a spot of bother. The incident itself, however, is not as remarkable as this CNN headline:
That's as good a summation of contemporary "liberalism" as anything.
Hillary Clinton, who otherwise hasn't put a foot right this entire campaign, made the shrewd decision to steer clear of this crowd.
~Speaking of not putting a foot right, here's a cautionary tale from Candia - no, not Canada, that's a large expanse north of here, but a town called Candia, way down in southern New Hampshire:
So just being canvassed by the Hillary campaign is enough to make the guy cry "Aaaargh!" and blow his brains out? Well, I can understand that.
No, no, wait, I've got the wrong end of the stick:
It seems the screams and gunshots came from this mechanical apparatus that some people apparently have in their living rooms called "a television set". Presumably they were watching reruns of Hillary landing at Tuzla.
But let that be a lesson to you Bernie supporters: Tell the Hillary campaign that you're "not interested", and within minutes five different police agencies surround your house. Other campaigns use robocalls, Hillary uses robocops.
~Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry Tweets:
But the cancer of Trumpism appears to be metastasizing!
Trump is at 24 per cent, which is quite something in a 16-man race. He's nearly double that of the second-place candidate, Scott Walker, at 13 per cent. Rick Perry is at four per cent.
We've had a lot of mail, pro and con, about yesterday's Trump/McCain column, and we'll get to some of it in the days ahead. The con mail was mostly concerned that Trump had slandered all prisoners of war, or even all those in uniform. I think anyone who watches the video would have to acknowledge that there was nothing on Trump's mind at that point other than his contempt for McCain. But even so. What's more damaging to the military? Trump taking a cheap shot over a war America lost two generations ago? Or the sitting president's weirdly relaxed attitude to five men in uniform dead on the ground in the war we're currently in who died defenseless because of a stupid, anachronistic government policy?
And what's more "disrespectful"? A Trump crack? Or Obama having to be kicked and dragged to lower the flags on the White House and other federal buildings? So that what took a few hours after the Aurora movie shooting and the Connecticut school shooting takes five days, because four dead marines and a dead sailor doesn't fit his "narrative"
Trump is Trump, and mouthing off and shooting from the hip is part of who he is. Obama's chilly, calculated, bloodless indifference to victims of Islamic supremacism is part of who he is. Which, honestly, is more disturbing?
~In Monday's Song of the Week, I mentioned that Joseph McCarthy Sr ("Alice Blue Gown") and Joseph McCarthy Jr ("Why Try To Change Me Now?") were the only father and son lyricists who can both claim to have had their songs sung by Frank Sinatra. Gary Perlman writes from Tokyo to object:
Well, I know "(This is the end of) A Beautiful Friendship", and I knew the late Donald Kahn, who was a lovely man. And I always thought it was cute that "Beautiful Friendship" has music by Donald Kahn, son of Gus, and words by Stanley Styne, son of Jule Styne. So lyricist Gus Kahn sired a composer son, and composer Jule Styne sired a lyricist son.
Which means that, if you're correct, then Jule Styne and Stanley Styne would be yet another father and son to be recorded by Sinatra. At this rate, they might as well book a convention center: Sinatra sang not only "I've Got You Under My Skin" by Cole Porter but also "Ooh, Baby, You So Skanky" by his son Nigel Porter. Who knew?
The only flaw in the theory is that I can't recall ever hearing Frank sing "A Beautiful Friendship". I know Ella's record and Nat Cole's and a handful of others. Did Sinatra sing it on TV in the Fifties? If so, it's eluded my mental Rolodex. I know he did "Just Friends (lovers no more)" which is the same theme as "Beautiful Friendship" but inverted. But, if he ever did sing Donald Kahn's song, I'd love to hear it.
July 21, 2015 at 1:51 pm | Permalink
A Se'nnight of Steyn, July 13-19
It was a mostly grim week, at home and abroad. But, in case you missed it, here's how the last seven days looked to Mark:
The week began with a federal judge called Richard M Berman ordering conservative film-maker Dinesh D'Souza to undergo psychological counseling. Steyn regarded this as an appalling exercise in Soviet-style medicalization of dissent.
~Tuesday was Bastille Day in France. Mark celebrated with a song and a film for the season. The festivities in Paris were in marked contrast to the ongoing fallout from the July Fourth fiasco in his own backyard.
~The big news midweek was the P5+1's "deal" with Iran. Steyn joined Hannity on Fox News to argue that Sean's comparison of Obama to Neville Chamberlain was unfair to Chamberlain. He also discussed crime and illegal immigrants. On Wednesday Mark checked in with Toronto's Number One morning John Oakley for more Iran talk, plus a little bit of climate change.
~On Thursday the latest attack by a card-carrying member of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves claimed the lives of five US military personnel. Shortly after, Mark and Hugh Hewitt offered some instant analysis, which we hope was more insightful than that of Tom Fuentes of CNN, who cautioned that we don't know whether Muhammad is a Muslim name. As the hours went by and the usual predictable profile of the killer emerged, Steyn was disturbed by the lack of righteous anger.
~On Friday our Sinatra Century countdown continued with a quartet of songs from The King And I.
For our Saturday movie date, Steyn opted for a Hitchcock classic, Strangers On A Train. Also for your weekend enjoyment, the Aussie Spectator offered a rave review by James Allan of Mark's most recent book The [Un]documented Mark Steyn, which he calls "beautifully written and funny". (If you'd like a copy personally autographed by Mark, all you have to do is click here - where you can also find a preview of his forthcoming book.)
This September sees the 10th anniversary of the Danish Mohammed cartoons. Mark will be joining the editor who commissioned them and other freespeechers at a special event in Copenhagen. If you're in the vicinity, we hope to see you there. For tickets and more information, please see here.
A new week at SteynOnline begins tonight with our Song of the Week.
July 19, 2015 at 8:05 am | Permalink
Senselessness and Sensibility
A fifth victim of the Chattanooga jihad boy has died: Petty Officer Randall Smith, US Navy.
I'm afraid the makeshift memorials of flags and other patriotic memorabilia that have sprung up on the edge of the police tape depress the hell out of me. A no doubt sincere veneration for the military apparently can only express itself with a feeble passivity that is a large part of the problem. This isn't a time for the bumper-sticker bromides of "We salute our heroes/Thank you for your service/We support our troops". Among the dead are men who waged a bloody and hard-fought battle to retake Fallujah ...only to come home and die unarmed in a crappy shopping mall at the hands of a halfwit fanatic whose family had been under the leisurely money-no-object scrutiny of the bloated security apparatus for years.
A Chinese-made teddy bear from Wal-Mart is not an appropriate reaction. Righteous anger is. And there's not a lot of evidence of that. At that parking-lot memorial, the public seems to discern that such anger is no longer an approved sensibility - whereas a teary generalized sadness gets plenty of media coverage. This is the same media, by the way, that, after a couple of perfunctory questions about Chattanooga, asked Josh Earnest for more details about the "father-daughter weekend" President Obama is currently enjoying in New York. Golly, you'd almost get the impression they're really not that sad at all.
Screw the cakes and balloons. We who did not know them cannot mourn them: That is for their friends and family. The nation's duty is to avenge them - so that they did not die in vain.
~When I first saw this spelling - in yesterday's column - of the name of this week's murderous Mohammedan, I did a double-take and assumed I must have mistranscribed it and corrected it to one of the usual iterations. But no, apparently we have a new variant of everybody's favorite boy's name:
Mohammod? Great. Just what we need: another spelling of Mohammed/Muhammad/Mohamad/Mahmoud to bugger up the intelligence databases.
~Defense Secretary Ash Carter has released an official Pentagon statement on the mass murder of US servicemen:
On the other hand, Her Excellency El Presidenta-in-waiting Hillary Clinton insists it was not a "senseless act of violence" but "an act of senseless violence":
Where do the Republicans come down? Tennessee Congressman Scott DesJarlais:
And, alas, even one of my favorite representatives, the great Marsha Blackburn:
And Senator Lamar Alexander, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini, Tennessee AFL-CIO president Gary Moore...
Is there an app for this rote incantation? Oh, wait, here's Florida senators Bill Nelson (Dem) and Marco Rubio (Rep):
Which one's the Dem? Which one's the Rep? And does it matter?
What happened on Thursday isn't "senseless" at all. It shows great strategic purpose - as I've said so often before, including the last time unarmed soldiers were gunned down by "lone wolves":
If you seriously think this is a senseless act of senselessly senseless violence, then you're the one who's senseless. This isn't a harmless banality one can forgive in the stress of the moment. It's part of the reason we're losing.
~In this week's Aussie Spectator, James Allan reviews my book The [Un]documented Mark Steyn. It's already had a rave from the peerless Julie Burchill in the London Speccie, but this is the view from Down Under:
James Allan is too kind. In these awful times, an honest joke is a small act of defiance. But we will need much larger ones.
~Speaking of defiant jests, the new editor of Charlie Hebdo has announced there will be no more Mohammed cartoons. So another non-senseless act has paid off bigtime for the Islamic enforcers. I regret the decision, although I understand it.
For what it's worth, I'll be speaking in Copenhagen on the tenth anniversary of the original Danish Motoons. If you're in the general area - Scandinavia, Europe, the Northern Hemisphere - you can get tickets and more information by emailing here.
July 18, 2015 at 10:49 am | Permalink
The Enemy Within
On Thursday my weekly date on The Hugh Hewitt Show fell just a couple of hours after the murder of four US Marines by yet another member of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves. It was a victory for the jihad, no question about it. One should be especially careful about what one says in the immediate aftermath of mass murder, but Hugh asked me and here's what I said:
As I said, all the stories are different, but they're all the same. In the case of the Pantybomber, his father fingered him to the CIA - who then did nothing with the information. In the case of this man - Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez - it was (according to The New York Times) his father, an employee of the Chattanooga Public Works Department, who had come under scrutiny by the vast federal terrorism apparatus, who eventually let their investigation lapse. Other than that intergenerational wrinkle, the perpetrator (about whom not much was known when Hugh and I spoke) was a familiar figure: a young man with a university degree in engineering, living in a nice middle-class residence in a nice middle-class neighborhood.
To Marie Harf and her colleagues in the Administration, he's obviously a victim of economic deprivation whose urge to blow up America would be mitigated by a decent economic-stimulus package. In fact, the poverty is all on our side: a poverty of imagination, the inability of Marie Harf and others to understand that not everyone thinks like you do. And until we respect our enemy sufficiently to stop assuming he's just Marie Harf with a beard and a scimitar, we will keep losing. In a further jest on posterity, and a reminder that no good deed goes unpunished, the perpetrator was born in Kuwait in 1990, the year Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied the country ...prompting the first President Bush to send American troops, kick him out and liberate the Abdulazeez family's native land. If you expected them to be grateful for the sacrifice of American blood and treasure, well, that's part of that Marie Harf poverty of imagination, too.
But don't worry, this attack like all the other attacks is an isolated incident of no broader significance:
In my bestselling but unheeded book America Alone, I wrote:
Indeed. But don't be drawing any conclusions from that. Yesterday, after CNN had informed its viewers that the killer's name was Muhammad, a genius called Tom Fuentes was anxious to clarify:
That may be, literally, true. Thanks to the enforcers of political correctness, there may indeed be millions and millions of people in America who don't know that Muhammad's a Muslim name.
Hugh, very carefully, drew the Iran connection:
Hugh's correct in the basic sense that the reappearance of Islamic terror on the home front two days after Obama's strategic realignment with Iran is not, as they say, helpful. But it also bolsters, again in a very basic sense, the other narrative of the hour: the Donald Trump line on immigration - in that the Abdulazeez family were graciously admitted to this country and then repaid their new "homeland" by murdering Americans. So, if you're not interested in the clash-of-civilizations angle, it works in Kate Steinle terms, too. The appeal of Big Government is that it offers security - economic security (in terms of welfare), medical security (in terms of health care), social security (in terms of massive regulation to protect you from the vicissitudes of life); that's its seductive appeal: security. But in its perverse final stage Big Government in the western world has decided to make you less secure and throw its doors open to large numbers of people who want to kill you. So Big Government's contradictory pitch is we can't let you hold a Fourth of July parade because that would be totally unsafe but we've got no plans to stop importing fanatics and career criminals and letting them gun you down at the shopping mall.
So it's a nanny state run by a nanny who's a mobsters' moll. That suits both the jihad and the Mexican druglords just fine - so expect the Trump narrative to gain a bit more traction as a result of this. But, even in purely jihadist terms, the response is that we're just gonna have to put up with it. Bo Dietl said on Fox News last night that Americans are going to have to give up freedom for security. Aside from its unwitting evocation of Ben Franklin, wouldn't it be easier maybe to restrict the freedom of our enemies instead? By, say, reining in mass Muslim immigration to the west? Or outlawing the foreign funding of mosques? Or any one of half-a-dozen other policies so obvious they will never happen.
Instead, we'll trade more and more freedom - and get less and less safety. As I said to Hugh:
So four Marines, some of whom survived the bloody battle for Fallujah, came home to die unarmed at the hands of a "lone wolf".
We also discussed Iran, where I somewhat dissented from the idea that the American hostages in Iran should have been, formally, part of the grand bargain between Teheran and Washington:
Hugh and I also pondered the wretched behavior of the press corps in front of both the President and his designated successor. You can find the full interview here.
July 17, 2015 at 8:13 am | Permalink
The Competing Merits of Saudis, Iranians and Canadians
Some reader commentary on Obama's Iran deal. Craig Austin writes re the Chamberlain comparisons:
That last point is well taken: the Keystone pipeline has been subjected to a more rigorous inspections regime than the Iranian nuclear program. Because what matters to Obama is preventing Canada getting a pipeline, not Iran getting a bomb.
John Lord writes:
If you mean that the Shah's Iran was a more advanced and civilized place than Saudi Arabia, there's no question that's correct. In geopolitical terms, arguing whether the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran is less worse than the House of Saud is one of those Samuel Johnson questions about the precedence of a louse and a flea. But four years ago in my book After America I characterized Saudi Arabia/Iran as a good cop/bad cop routine:
The House of Saud has advanced quite a long way toward the goal. Nevertheless, the idea that de facto acceptance of Iranian nukes plus giving them money, arms, technology and global legitimacy will assist Teheran to "change for the better" is stupid. As I said to John Oakley, Iran has spent 35 years declining to accept the most basic norms of state-to-state relations and using all means at its disposal to act extra-territorially. We have just substantially enhanced their means to act extra-territorially and cemented the regime in place.
Besides, Obama isn't thinking about any of that. He isn't weighing who's more likely to moderate their particular virulent strain of Islamic imperialism - any more than he cares whether what replaced Mubarak was better or worse. He was opposed to Mubarak because Mubarak was a designated American ally, just as he was opposed to Gaddafi because George W Bush turned him. That's why, in a choice between a pro-American theocratic dump and an anti-American theocratic dump, he instinctively favors the latter. The "student radical" here isn't me, it's Obama - aided by the quintessential superannuated "student radical" John Kerry.
~Speaking of Islamic imperialism's varied strategies, ten years ago this September an obscure Jutland newspaper published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, and opened up a new front in the clash of civilizations: free speech and jokes. The inarticulate goon imams threatened to rain down death hither and yon, and then began actually doing so. Given that the media are incessantly congratulating themselves on their courage, I carelessly assumed they would welcome the opportunity to show some, and would reprint those cartoons as part of a legitimate news story. In fact, only my magazine in Canada, Ezra Levant's Western Standard, and a satirical weekly in France, Charlie Hebdo, dared to show readers what all the fuss was about. Ezra was prosecuted by the disgusting Alberta "Human Rights" Commission and lost a six-figure sum. The Charlie Hebdo guys lost their lives.
On the fifth anniversary, I had the honor to appear in Copenhagen with a handful of friends from Scandinavia, the Netherlands and elsewhere at a conference to consider the question of Islam and comedy. There were six of us on stage that day: our host Lars Hedegaard, the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, the pseudonymous Dutch cartoonist Nekschot, the comedians Shabana Rehman and Farshad Kholghi, and me. Nekschot, for security reasons, was obliged to appear disguised in a burqa, and has since been forced to abandon his identity and the cartooning life entirely; Lars Hedegaard dodged a shot at point blank range by a man at his front door who subsequently fled to Turkey, where they're refusing to extradite. Lars Vilks was the target of the jihadist attack on a free-speech event in Copenhagen this Valentine's Day in which a Danish film-maker and a synagogue security guard were killed, and so he too has been obliged to retire from public life. Shabana Rehman has had her family restaurant firebombed. So, of the six of us, that's an impressive 67 per cent hit rate for Islam.
But I'm still here and I love my beleaguered Scandinavian friends, and so I will be in Copenhagen for the tenth anniversary of the Danish cartoons. I will miss those who can't be there, either because they're dead or have had their public lives erased, but I will salute those who will be, including the editor who commissioned and published those pictures, Flemming Rose. It's important to keep the flame of free speech burning in Europe, and in Denmark in particular. Because all you can do as the weasels and cowards of the fin de civilisation west trade away freedom of expression incrementally day by day is to stand up and use yours as loudly as you can. Copenhagen's a nifty 20-minute high-speed train ride across the Øresund Bridge from Sweden and a short flight from Paris and London, so, if you're minded to swing by, I'd love to see you there. It's the afternoon of September 26th.
~Speaking of free speech, as readers may know, I'm being sued for "the high seven figures" by climate mullah Michael E Mann. Were Mann to win, it would be the worst setback for the First Amendment in half-a-century, which is why the ACLU, NBC, The Chicago Tribune and various other unlikely figures have filed amicus briefs against Mann. So I fight on, and I fight to win - even though, as I always say about these things, the process is the punishment. When you have a filthy choked toilet of a justice system such as the District of Columbia's, just being lowered into it for a leisurely half-decade renders any eventual verdict largely irrelevant. Mann is backed by so-called "climate science defense funds", even though I'm the defendant here and he's a serial plaintiff.
I'm profoundly grateful to readers for helping keep me in the game this last year-and-a-half: as I've explained, I'm reluctant to set up a formal "legal defense fund" because I don't trust a corrupt, depraved and politically partisan Obama revenue agency not to demand donor information and then punish them. So I'm fighting a seven-figure lawsuit as best I can. But, if you are overcome by an urge to help out, we do have a new way you can do that. I think you'll enjoy it.
If I were looking at it objectively, the week after Mann filed suit I would have emptied my bank account, driven across the border and got on with my life somewhere else. But I've never ducked a free-speech fight, and here I will make my stand. Had I been in the situation of Dinesh D'Souza, however, I think I would definitely have scrammed. He was the target of a politically motivated prosecution and, bearing in mind that process-is-the-punishment shtick, he knew he couldn't win, so he cut a deal. Under the appalling hacks who pass for jurists in this system, D'Souza is now discovering that, when you cut a deal with the feds, the terms have a way of subtly evolving. For example, a man called Richard M Berman, who purports to be a US district judge, has just ordered D'Souza to undergo psychological counseling.
I should say, as I always do, that I have no use for Dinesh D'Souza. Nevertheless, he is the victim here of an abusive prosecutocracy and an out-of-control judge who disgraces his office:
The guy who needs psychological counseling here is Richard M Berman. It is a common tool of totalitarian societies to classify any opposition as mental illness. You don't have to like D'Souza to be utterly revolted when a thug operator posing as a judge starts using the medicalization of dissent with the enthusiasm of any old Soviet commissar.
D'Souza is in the horrible situation of having to weigh objecting to Berman against his urge to see family back in India and being denied freedom to travel - all for a campaign finance offense that is a barely discernible fraction next to what the Clinton Foundation, Lois Lerner's IRS and Obama's tax-exempt brother are pulling every hour of the day. The fact that d'Souza's freedom to see his family is even at issue testifies to what a vile system federal "justice" is.
~Please join me on the radio this afternoon to chew over a lively week in world affairs with Hugh Hewitt, coast to coast at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific.
July 16, 2015 at 8:27 am | Permalink
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Auction price: Register or sign-in to see quarterly averages
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Drink between: 2008 - 2012 (Add My Dates)
Beautifully, distinctive pinot noir bouquet with a hint of sur maturité to go with lovely bright cherry, loam, a kiss of vanilla, and stemmy notes. The palate is light, lithe, and seriously tangy. Simple but nice. Very easy to drink, very nice.
Pure cherry lozenge. Nice stuff, if you like cherries. Expressive nose, smooth palate, lots of acidity, refreshing, good length. A classy, authentic pinot, but all cherries (no complexity).
All about red berry aromas and flavors with floral hints alongside some sweet spice. Very good balance. Tasted alongside WS 2005 RRV which was fascinating. I clearly preferred the Sonoma Coast, but i think that largely reflects my general preference for the appellation.
A little thin, although overall pleasant. needed time to open up in the glass which added a little body. Hard to say if this will get better.
Gorgeous balance right now. Lovely cool cherry/spice/tar/roses on the palate. Velvety texture, medium finish. All around, fantastic QPR.


text:
|Name: _________________________
|Period: ___________________
This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What did Jessica's father threaten would happen if she did not return from Spain to England?
(a) Esmond would go to prison.
(b) Esmond would be abandoned by his family.
(c) Jessica's father would marry her off to an old man.
(d) Jessica would be disinherited.
2. Who helped Jessica and Esmond translate news from the radio?
(a) Their hotel's owner.
(b) Their neighbor.
(c) Jessica translated herself.
(d) A local schoolteacher.
3. How long did Jessica and Esmond stay together in America?
(a) Five years.
(b) Six months.
(c) Two years.
(d) Three and a half years.
4. What did Jessica do while Esmond was selling his wares in Washington?
(a) Took care of their son at home.
(b) Worked at a shoe shop.
(c) Worked in a library.
(d) Worked as his assistant.
5. Where did Jessica attend a protest meeting held by the Communist Party?
(a) Oxford.
(b) Kent.
(c) Southampton.
(d) Manchester.
Short Answer Questions
1. What made Esmond and Jessica decide to get their American tour started?
2. Who informed Jessica and Esmond of some American idioms?
3. What did the Durrs ask Jessica and Esmond about at dinner?
4. What did Esmond plan to do in New Orleans?
5. Who owned the business for which Esmond worked?
Short Essay Questions
1. In the time after they left New York, what would Jessica and Esmond discuss with many of the people they met?
2. Why did Jessica and Esmond leave Spain?
3. Where did Esmond find employment, and how was the pay?
4. With whom did Jessica and Esmond stay in Martha's Vineyard? What types of people did they meet in Martha's Vineyard?
5. What did Jessica realize differed between she and Kay Graham?
6. What did Jessica and Esmond decide to do after Esmond lost his job?
7. With whom did Jessica find a new job in 1939?
8. What idea did Esmond come up with to make money in America?
9. What did Jessica think of the protest meeting held by the Communists that she attended?
10. What was the situation in Europe in 1939?
This section contains 827 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)


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Renai's other site: Sci-fi + fantasy book news and reviews
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Analysis, Internet - Written by External Contributor on Wednesday, April 3, 2013 13:43 - 8 Comments
Senate run must be more than a get-out-of-jail card for Assange
This article is by Jane Andrew, associate professor, and Max Baker, lecturer, both at the University of Sydney Business School It first appeared on The Conversation and is replicated here with permission.
analysis Julian Assange's WikiLeaks Party is gathering momentum ahead of this year's federal election. Prominent barrister and political figure Greg Barns has been announced as the party's national campaign director, while it has secured a Melbourne-based headquarters and attracted donations of up to A$100,000.
But what could a man like Julian Assange achieve within the orthodox structures of parliament?
When Professor John Keane spent the day with Assange recently, Assange briefly discussed his plans to run for the Senate. He predicts that if successful, the US will drop its grand jury espionage investigation in order to avoid a diplomatic row. He might still be extradited to Sweden, but winning a Senate seat in September could secure his freedom from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. It is probably his best chance.
Through WikiLeaks, Assange built his reputation as an outsider, using technologically enabled anonymous leaks to "speak truth to power". But as a senator, Assange will find himself working within formal democratic structures. For many, this will make him an insider, privy to the world he has sought to expose. There is no certainty that Assange's presence in the Senate would improve public accountability, but the presence of his radical ideas in our highest political forum will force us all to have a conversation about what we think we should and shouldn't know.
As a senator, Assange is likely to experience a profound conflict of interest. He will have a duty to his country and its security, and this may require privacy. On the other hand, he will have a sustained commitment to WikiLeaks, and this may require him to reveal state secrets. Such a tension puts at risk his credibility to his constituents and supporters.
To function effectively, Assange will need alliances. He will need to make trade-offs and build relationships, especially if he wants to make his political agenda "real" through legislative change. But in the context of the Senate, the WikiLeaks Party's commitment to openness through radical transparency could isolate them from other senators who are fearful of betrayed confidences. If they are isolated, the functional benefits of the WikiLeaks Party within Senate may be limited.
This may not prove to be a problem. Assange may have no intention of working as a traditional senator, even one from a minor party. If he intends to maintain his status as an outsider, uncontaminated by associations with other politicians, he may still prove effective. As a senator with an international profile, he could use his position to solicit public sector and parliamentary leaks and promote the benefits of transparent and open government. As a result, Australians may be keener than ever to blow the whistle on organisational behaviour.
In fact, we may all be better served if Assange refuses deals and focuses on what he does best – high profile whistleblowing. This would allow him the freedom to continue his work at WikiLeaks, free from exile. It would also sustain his identity as an agitator, unsatisfied with emergent forms of transparency that are dictated by government and corporate power.
But it would be wise for the electorate to consider whether the work of Assange should be advanced in Senate. It is not our job to elect him in order to free him. He needs a clear political platform.
On this, we've still heard little from Assange. All he has really said is that the WikiLeaks Party will demonstrate "ideological unity" around a collective belief in public accountability mobilised by radical forms of transparency.
To this aim, he intends to allow constituents to have a direct say in the policy decision-making process through a Wikipedia style website. This could prove an exciting new experiment in participatory democracy and if successful may silence those who have criticised "the one man Julian Assange show".
Interestingly, Professor Keane flinched when Assange mentioned an ideological commitment to perfect transparency – even the most hyper-democratic arrangements need some privacy in order to manage sensitivities in the governing process. In addition, much political negotiation happens in private in order to speed up the business of government.
It also should be recognised that as an ideology, "transparency" only describes half of the process – it is only the revelation. Once wrongdoing is exposed, we still need action to produce meaningful change. Transparency in itself is not enough. It is one thing to reveal truths and another to act on them.
Prior to Assange's arrest, the survival of WikiLeaks depended on its organisational form. The work of WikiLeaks could be picked up at a moment's notice and reassembled anywhere. This mobility allowed Assange to meet with various informants, reporters and to spread his vision of a world "laid bare" by WikiLeaks. It was both untethered and tiring work.
Assange may now be tethered inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, but he remains tireless, his attention now turned to the federal election in September. Members of the WikiLeaks Party now need to articulate their political platform and give Victorians a reason to vote for them – and this needs to be a vote for more than Assange's freedom.
The authors do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. They also have no relevant affiliations. This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article. Image credit: Snapperjack, Creative Commons
8 Comments
The interesting thing will be if Assange is elected he will have access to parliamentary privilege to protect his disclosures.
"Members of the WikiLeaks Party now need to articulate their political platform and give Victorians a reason to vote for them"
I dunno. Not articulating policy seems to be working very well for the coalition, is there any reason why WikiLeaks cannot do the same? I mean rather than have anything substantial all they really need to to is poke holes in Labor and Liberal party policies…
Interesting in that they wonder how Assange could operate in such an environment as the Parliament, when all they say he could have issues with are a daily occurrence with the Rabble we have in there now.
I am all for as many Independents and Parties as possible in the House (or should I call it t The Asylum). I would adore to see Proportional Representation become the norm for the Lower House as it works fantastically in the Upper House. It would stop the excesses of absolute rule we have suffered, that really has served them and their mates well, but as we see today, not most Australian's. Do you want to work for $2 a day?
So, someone like Assange is another face of Australia in the Senate. Good! We need more of the different faces and parts of the Community in there, instead of the bunch of so many dumbed-down sycophants we see there now as rubber stamps and nothing more.
Bring it on. Plus, at least he understands Technology. I would love to watch some dumb idiot try to pull a fast one past him on Technology! That would be very entertaining. :{P
"Members of the WikiLeaks Party now need to articulate their political platform and give Victorians a reason to vote for them"
Crikey WikiLeaks is a better option than the Greens right now. There are your preferences options right there. You know what Wikileaks stands for, we all do. That message has been loud and clear since the original Wikileaks site was created. The party represents the same. If Julian just keeps doing what he has been over the last decade then thats exactly why I will vote for him. That pasty white man has changed the balance of power and effected more change globally than any other senator we have had in living memory. Frankly we would be lucky to have him. The real crime here is he has to become federal politician to enjoy the protections of his home country.
"As a senator, Assange is likely to experience a profound conflict of interest. He will have a duty to his country and its security, and this may require privacy."
Actually there's no conflict of interest. On thing party based politicians appear to forget, they have a duty to represent their constituents, not their party. Secrecy, which is often dressed up as privacy, usually does not serve the vested interests of constituents. Open Government does.
"Members of the WikiLeaks Party now need to articulate their political platform and give Victorians a reason to vote for them – and this needs to be a vote for more than Assange's freedom."
Actually I suspect people will be delighted to be part of a Big Brother reality show, where they can vote Mr Assange his freedom.
I'm moving to Victoria, so I can help vote Julian into the Senate.
I might have no choice but to join you in moving to Victoria, the way the LNP is sending QLD into deep recessive austerity, for no other reason than political expediency.
No jobs left, no one to buy the House and property prices will slump due to the exodus. But I might get to vote in Julian. At least something good might happen from the CAN'T Campbell. That would be a change.
Or he will just do what other protesters have done when joining politics (Peter Garrett) and go legit. Of course, he'd end up looking as stupid as Peter Garrett does nowadays, but he'd have a job.
Featured, News, Policy + Politics - Jul 28, 2015 14:17 - 0 Comments
Labor unveils strong Digital Economy push with top political support
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Analysis, Enterprise IT - Jul 28, 2015 16:20 - 2 Comments
Microsoft wants to win you back with Windows 10
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Industry, News - Jul 28, 2015 12:37 - 0 Comments
ICAC to investigate NSW TAFE ICT manager
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Analysis, Consumer Tech - Jul 28, 2015 15:59 - 0 Comments
Older Australians embracing video games
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Signed English for the...
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Little Poems for Little People
Count and Color
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Police Officer Jones
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Be Careful
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The Pet Shop
My Toy Book
Jack and the Beanstalk
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The Gingerbread Man
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Functional Signs: A New...
The Three Little Kittens
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The Night Before Christmas in...
This is an excellent reference book for those who are learning signed English in order to teach a deaf child to communicate with the world at large as well as with the ASL-speaking deaf community. Read More
Our family and friends are learning ASL to help our deaf toddler granddaughter. I have struggled with ASL, since it is a complete language. Learning the nursery rhymes has helped me learn signed ... Read More
Fruits and Vegetables
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30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years
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Signing Illustrated: The Complete Learning Guide
The Signed English Starter
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A Journey Into the Deaf-World
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