Wednesday, August 28, 2024
Deletion
Googe have deleted my post here of 26th. It was very skeptical. It is however still available in my backups:
http://jonjayray.com/pcaug24.html
Australia should heed Robert F Kennedy’s health policy deal with Trump
There is good evidence that ultra processed foods are NOT bad for you:
https://pcwatch.blogspot.com/2024/05/fresh-health-warning-over-ultra.html
But RFK's view is popularly accepted so should win votesWhen Robert F. Kennedy Jr decided to pull out of the US presidential race he approached the Democrats to do a deal. The backing of the great Kennedy name would have probably locked in a Kamala Harris victory.
But the Democrats rejected Kennedy so he turned to Donald Trump and they made an incredible deal that means that if Trump wins, the global food industry and US health will be transformed. Australia will follow.
Kennedy was called a traitor by the Democrats but, according to the opinion polls, the Kennedy support has put Trump back in the presidential race although, as Paul Kelly points, out he has been campaigning badly.
The presidential race in the US is too close for an Australian business commentator to fpredict the outcome. But Down Under we can pick up potentially world changing events in the campaign that get missed in the frenzy of US political reporting.
The Kennedy-Trump deal is one such event.
The Kennedy campaign received high levels of support in some states because he was backed by a massive team of volunteers. Kennedy has agreed to use that team to campaign for Trump in the five key US swing states led by Pennsylvania.
And what makes Kennedy so dangerous to Harris is that his team will concentrate on one issue – the food processing deal Kennedy secured with Trump.
Kennedy has a passion about the health of Americans and believes his Trump deal, if implemented, is a key to improving US health. To illustrate the passion he will take to the electorates I will use his words to describe what is happening on the US health scene and what he will do about it.
Australia has similar problems.
Kennedy: “Today, two-thirds of American adults and half of children suffer chronic health issues. Fifty years ago, the number for children was less than one per cent.
“In America, 74 per cent of adults are now overweight or obese, and close to 50 per cent of children. In Japan, the childhood obesity rate is three per cent.
“Half of Americans now have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.
“There’s been an explosion of neurological diseases that I never saw as a child. ADD, ADHD, speech delay, language delay, Tourette’s, narcolepsy, ASD, and Asperger’s.
“In the year 2000, the autism rate was one in 1,500. Now, autism rates in kids are one in 36 nationally, and 1 in 22 in California. The screening has not changed. Nor has the definition. The incidence has changed.
“About 18 per cent of teens have fatty liver disease, a disease that primarily used to be found only in late-stage alcoholics. Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the young and the old. Young adult cancers are up 79 per cent.
“One in four American women is on an antidepressant medication: 40 per cent of teens have a mental health diagnosis. Today, 15 per cent of high schoolers are on Adderall and half a million children are on SSRIs.
“So what’s causing all this suffering? I’ll name two culprits. First is ultra-processed foods. About 70 per cent of American children’s diet is ultra-processed – industrially manufactured in a factory. These foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains, and seed oils.
“Lab scientists concoct thousands of other ingredients to make these foods more palatable, more addictive. These ingredients didn’t exist 100 years ago, and humans aren’t biologically adapted to eat them. Hundreds of these chemicals are banned in Europe, but ubiquitous in America’s processed foods.
“The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food, medicine, and environment. Pesticides, food additives, pharmaceutical drugs, and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The assault on a child’s cells and hormones is unrelenting.
“It is crippling our nation’s finances. When my uncle was president, our country spent zero dollars on chronic disease. Today, government healthcare spending is mostly for chronic disease, and it is double the military budget. And it is the fastest-growing cost.
“The good news is that we can change all of this, and change it quickly. America can get healthy again. To do that we need to do three things. First, root out the corruption in our health agencies, all of them are controlled by huge for-profit corporations.
“Second, change the incentives of the healthcare system. And third, inspire Americans to get healthy again.
“With President Trump’s backing, I am going to change that. We are going to staff these agencies with honest scientists and doctors free from industry funding. We will make sure that the decisions of consumers, doctors, and patients are informed by unbiased science.”
Back to my words.
If Trump wins and honours the deal (highly likely) allowing Kennedy to transform US food products we will also change because most of the food processors in Australia are foreign owned and follow US patterns.
Like most Australians I am greatly concerned at the health issues that are emerging in our youth. I don’t know whether the Kennedy remedy is the answer but he may be right.
Meanwhile Kennedy will also use his heritage and words skill to add power to his health campaign.
“My uncles and my father both relished debate and prided themselves on their capacity to go toe-to-toe with any opponent in the battle over ideas. They would be astonished to learn of a Democratic Party presidential nominee who, like Vice President Harris, has not appeared for a single interview or unscripted encounter with voters in 35 days,” he said.
“This is profoundly undemocratic. How are people to choose, when they don’t know whom they are choosing? And how can this look to the rest of the world?
“My father and uncle were always conscious of America’s image because of our nation’s role as the template of democracy and the leader of the free world,” Kennedy concludes.
There is lots more to come in this US election campaign.
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Death of the Instagram face: Gen Z embracing unique over perfection
It’s a face that’s become ubiquitous. And it’s at the edge of our fingertips. A quick scroll of social media shows a constant stream of the same face. High cheek bones. Pillowy lips. A dainty nose. A youthful complexion with not a pore, wrinkle or imperfection in sight.
What was once the privilege of an elite few, either by pure luck of the genetic lottery or the financial means to pay for it, is now commonplace. So much so, that it even has a name: Instagram face.
“People don’t even know what a normal person looks like anymore,” says 24-year-old Sydney-based influencer Tilly Whitfeld.
Changing how you look, or age, used to be reserved for celebrities. Getting work done was serious business. It often involved surgery for procedures like breast implants, face lifts or nose jobs. It cost tens of thousands of dollars.
And then came the advent of injectables: anti-wrinkle products can reduce muscle movement, while dermal filler adds volume and can change the shape of facial features.
Kylie Jenner and the power of social media – so those in the industry say – are responsible for popularising such treatments. In 2015 Jenner had her lips injected with dermal filler, aged 17.
It filtered down from celebrity to influencer. And we were taken along for the ride, with our favourite social media stars broadcasting cosmetic injection appointments to their thousands of followers.
Jenner’s famous new features, with the influencers who copied, created a seismic shift, sending droves of young women to their nearest clinic, trying to emulate Instagram face.
It now takes just a lunch break to plump a perfect pout and erase any semblance of the passage of time, sans the price tag or recovery. And without us realising, many women started to resemble each other, asking for the same “work” to be done.
Cosmetic Physicians College of Australasia president Dr David Kosenko says what was once spoken about in whispers has become far more widely accepted thanks to social media.
“There was a trend where people would come in and get their lips done every six months, whether they needed it or not,” Kosenko says.
“And there has certainly been major growth in the younger age groups.”
How many young women are following the trend is unclear, as it’s not a requirement in Australia for clinics to keep a record of demographics.
However, a study conducted last year reports 70 per cent of women aged 18-29 would consider or have had cosmetic treatments.
Whitfeld was one of them. After she appeared as a contestant on Big Brother in 2021, she found herself part of the influencer social scene.
“All of a sudden, the people on my social media were now in my friendship circle. I saw so many people around me doing it (injectables) so I thought I’d do it,” she says.
“I had every second filler company in Sydney sending me messages. To be transparent, I didn’t pay for anything,” Whitfeld reveals.
Instagram was the wild west. Young women, most under 30, were offered hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of work for free. All they needed to do was share their experience.
Nina Vecchio believes she was easily influenced by social media when she started getting anti-wrinkle injections over a decade ago, aged 26. The Sunshine Coast resident estimates she’s spent more than $10,000.
“As soon as I saw a wrinkle, I was straight in getting dermal filler. Not being able to frown was my thing, I didn’t want to frown, “she says. “Social media was just getting big at the time.”
“What I’ve seen mainly over the last 10 years is (social media promotion) gone from information to an entertainment type of advertising,” Kosenko says.
Until now, with the industry in the midst of a shake-up.
Earlier this year, the Therapeutic Goods Administration updated its guidelines so clinics are no longer allowed to use the words dermal filler and anti wrinkle fillers.
In fact, practitioners aren’t even allowed to mention the words “anti-wrinkle” or “dermal filler” without the risk of being fined.
It also means clinics and influencers sharing popular “before and after” photos of their face is a thing of the past. It’s going further with a growing number of young people sharing their journeys of reversing said features on social media.
The #dissolvingfiller has more than 80 million views on TikTok. None of the faces look over 40 and most are women.
Medical professionals are also sharing anecdotes on the rising number of people coming in to have cosmetic treatments reversed as the trend of “cheeks and lips feels mundane”.
I reached out to an influencer who’s shared several videos on TikTok which illustrates her lips shrinking. She didn’t want her name included in this piece, but told me “we are witnessing the death of Instagram face”.
For Whitfeld, the decision to reverse her treatments came after she went under the knife for breast augmentation surgery in August last year.
She says she started to experience side effects immediately. “It was like my body was rejecting the implant,” she recalls.
Whitfeld had explant surgery last month and, despite not having any issues with her other cosmetic work, she’s made the decision to stop all injectables.
“It’s not just me. Five years ago the trend was getting filler in your lips and cheeks. I feel like that’s all changing. Although I do think people are still getting stuff done, they’re just going for a more natural look now,” she says.
She’s in the process of dissolving her filler.
“I’m on my fifth session of trying to remove the filler. And I still have to go back. People don’t realise, you get told it will last six months but it really lasts years and years,” she says. Kosenko agrees, “There have been studies now that show you can see dermal filler still several years later. And it can move, it can migrate.”
Is that why the face we literally saw everywhere is disappearing?
Another theory is it’s generation Z defying the beauty industry.
While gen X and millennials desired and chased perfection, gen Z is destroying it and embracing being unique. And in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, who can afford to display their wealth on their face anymore?
Vecchio, now 37, says she became more confident in her own skin as she aged.
“I look back at photos from when I was younger and I look ridiculous, what was I thinking? I don’t know where my head was at. I am happy with what I see in the mirror now,” she says.
She’ll never get injectables again because, “I worry about the image I’m setting for my son. I want him to see women who look normal. So, I am trying to be more natural now.”
While some say Instagram face is dead, the allure of anti-wrinkle and dermal filler injections remains strong.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency estimates the non-surgical cosmetic industry was worth $1bn in 2023, and it’s increasing.
People are still using injectables, they’re just making it less noticeable.
“Previously, the most common requests centred around more invasive procedures known for their dramatic results,” a doctor working in the field says.
“However, there has been a significant transition towards more subtle enhancements.”
Whitfeld says she’s getting “so many more compliments now I don’t have anything done. My engagement (on social media) has been far higher now I’m posting the health side of things.
“That’s because you can tell when someone is happy inside, they have a glow about them.’’
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Dark Night of Tyranny Descends on Europe. Could We Be Next?
“The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States, and yet lands only in Europe.”
That was author Tom Wolfe way back in the 1970s. He was talking about this curious dynamic in which we hear repeatedly from left-wing commentators and media that America is on the precipice of fascism—but tyranny ends up coming to Europe instead.
Tyranny appears to be again descending on Europe. Unfortunately, in the globalized, interconnected world of the 21st century, I wouldn’t be quite as sure that it won’t land here, too.
Social media have become a “third wave of journalism” as Titus Techera, the executive director of the American Cinema Foundation, wrote Friday in Law & Liberty. The technology has allowed the average citizen and nontraditional journalists to step around institutions and cover stories that might be buried because they didn’t fit a favored narrative.
But our various, interconnected institutions are fighting back and increasingly using government power in coordination with private sector and nonprofit organizations to crack down on unapproved news and opinions.
That appeared to be the case over the weekend when French authorities arrested Pavel Durov, CEO of the messaging app Telegram, outside a Paris airport on Saturday.
According to NBC News, French prosecutors cited “complicity” in facilitating a whole host of illegal activities. The charges included soliciting fraud and illicit drug sales plus 11 other charges that seem like they could be aimed at most other social media platforms, as well.
French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that there had been a lot of false information spread about Durov’s arrest and that France was still “deeply committed” to freedom of expression, despite the appearance of a political motivation.
“The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation,” Macron said in a statement posted on X—ironically, another social media platform. “It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”
Frankly, when any European leader hollers that they are for free speech it’s about as believable as when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who prosecuted former President Donald Trump for obviously political reasons (while letting all kinds of criminals walk free), claims nobody is “above the law.”
Maybe there is something to the charges against Telegram. Certainly, there have been serious issues with child pornography and other horrible things being facilitated by social media. But it’s hard not to see this as simply an escalation of what we’ve seen from European governments in recent months, in which free speech has been relentlessly attacked in one nation after another.
Earlier this month, the U.K. government began arresting citizens for posting memes on social media.
That was in response to protests and riots that erupted in Southport, Merseyside, after an 17-year-old son of Rwanda immigrants allegedly stabbed and killed three girls and wounded 10 others at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop on July 29.
It wasn’t enough for the U.K. to repress its own citizens, it tried to reach out “across the pond” and silence Americans, too.
London’s Metropolitan Police chief issued a threat to those posting memes abroad.
“We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said in an interview with Sky News.
Thank God for George Washington and the Continental Army, and for the framers of the Constitution, who included the First Amendment to explicitly protect our free speech rights.
While we should be thankful for the patriots of 1776, the European Union and European censorship regimes are nevertheless trying to reach into our country and chill speech anyway.
During the U.K. protests, a former Twitter executive argued in the Guardian that X CEO Elon Musk should be threatened with arrest if he doesn’t control speech on his platform.
EU authorities seemed eager to oblige.
French politician and EU official Thierry Breton—from that land so “deeply committed” to free expression—threatened Musk with siccing the EU Commission on him using the Digital Services Act.
Musk essentially told Breton to get bent. Various free speech groups rebuked Breton, and even other EU officials said that he never received approval to send the letter. Even Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who represents parts of Silicon Valley in California, came out in support of Musk and free speech. Good for him.
But that doesn’t mean the threat wasn’t real.
European countries don’t have the First Amendment, and clearly don’t have much interest in defending free speech. The shallow rhetoric of their politicians means little in the face of authoritarian actions by their governments that increasingly resemble the purer tyrannies of Russia and China.
Unfortunately, many people who hold power in our increasingly ideologically captured American institutions clearly find these European methods of threatening speech in the name of “tolerance” quite appealing.
Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was a witness at the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, also seemed gleeful at the thought of Musk being persecuted.
After Durov was arrested, he warned Musk that he could be next.
“While Durov holds French citizenship, is arrested for violating French law, this has broader implications for other social media, including Twitter,” Vindman wrote on X. “There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous.”
Ah, yes, “accountability.”
When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was thrown into a gulag for questioning the Soviet regime, that was just appeasing the appetite for accountability, right?
Keep in mind that the bureaucratic agencies that represent the real power in Washington are filled with people like Vindman. You don’t think that if they could use the government to stomp on speech they dislike that they would restrain themselves?
If you think it’s improbable that our federal government wouldn’t arrest and imprison someone for posting memes, well, it’s already happened.
Would a Biden-Harris administration use diplomatic pressure to prevent their domestic political opponents from being threatened by censorship from abroad? They seem to be quite happy to use it here.
Western Europe is fast headed toward tyranny and that certainly serves as a dire warning. As thankful as I am for the First Amendment, it remains what founder James Madison called a “parchment barrier” to repression only as strong as the people and institutions willing to defend and maintain it.
The Constitution may buy us time, but the ultimate marriage of American-style wokeness with European-style censorship would mean the end of liberty in the West if it isn’t derailed
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/08/27/how-european-censorship-regime-threatens-american-liberty/
*****************************************************‘Dreams Are Being Crushed’: Gen Z Voter Explains How Biden-Harris Admin Policies Have Caused Young Men To Back Trump
Twenty-two-year-old Gen Z voter Jahmiel Jackson explained Tuesday on Fox News that due to Biden-Harris policies affecting issues like wages and housing, young male voters are shifting toward supporting former President Donald Trump for the November election.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released on Saturday shows men aged 18 to 29 strongly favor Trump over both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. On “The Story With Martha MacCallum,” Jackson, who is a Trump supporter, stated Biden had “crushed one of his biggest dreams” with the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and noted how his friends now struggle to find jobs, earn more money and afford a family and a home.
“My reaction is — well first, when I think about that, I think of when President Biden was first in office when there was a honeymoon period until he tried to pull out of Afghanistan. That’s when he crushed one of my biggest dreams, which was serving in the military right after I graduated college,” Jackson said.
“So then I look at a lot of the friends that I have who are males around my age — they want to have homes, they want to start families, they want to make a lot of money,” Jackson continued. “We all have these individual dreams, and then we start to see that it’s becoming less and less possible. I have guy friends who have finance degrees who are now baristas because they can’t find a job.”
Jackson continued, stating that compared to Trump’s administration, Biden and Harris’ policies have “crushed or hindered” the dreams of many young male voters.
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My my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/ozarc.html (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Harris Plays Coy on Child Gender Transitions, But Far-Left Groups Endorsing Child Sex Changes Have Her Back
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has avoided addressing whether she supports transgender surgeries for minors—a far-left position that most Americans do not support. Yet a number of LGBTQ groups that endorse attempted gender transition procedures for children are eagerly backing Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.
A few of these top LGBTQ groups are the American Civil Liberties Union, GLAAD, Advocates for Trans Equality, and the Human Rights Campaign. These organizations, which did not respond to requests for comment, warn against “anti-LGBTQ” legislation, citing fears that Republican politicians will protect children from transgender procedures, classroom discussions of gender and sexuality, and inappropriate drag performances.
Though Walz, as governor of Minnesota, signed an executive order establishing a “right” to trans hormones, puberty blockers, and surgeries, the Harris campaign has thus far refused to tell The Daily Signal whether it supports transgender surgeries for minors. The White House referred The Daily Signal to the Harris campaign on the matter.
It’s a question fraught with peril for a campaign closely tied to far-left groups, given the fact that most Americans do not support hormonal or surgical transgender interventions for kids.
The White House, which has previously embraced “medical care” for trans-identifying kids, appears to be aware of this. In early July, the White House flip-flopped on the topic, first telling news outlets that the Biden-Harris administration did not support transgender surgeries for children, before reaffirming support for irreversible procedures for minors after “intense pressure” from LGBTQ groups.
The flip-flopping followed reports that the top trans-identifying leader in the Department of Health and Human Services, Rachel Levine, successfully pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to remove age requirements for minors to get irreversible transgender procedures.
Levine’s office has said that “early” transgender surgeries, hormone treatment, and affirmations are “crucial” for the health of kids and teens who identify as transgender, arguing that if these procedures are not made available to trans-identifying youth, they are at risk of self-harm or suicide.
Research has found that, contrary to those activists’ claims, so-called gender-affirming care increases the likelihood that youth will attempt suicide. According to one April study, “Gender-affirming surgery is significantly associated with elevated suicide-attempt risks, underlining the necessity for comprehensive post-procedure psychiatric support.”
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DEI must DIE
The bullet that whacked Donald Trump’s right ear was by no means the first shot in the hotting-up revolt against the current corporate/bureaucratic ‘woke’ fad of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – the scheme, justified by George Floyd’s 2020 murder, that gives priority to disadvantage and ethnicity over merit. But Donald’s ear has given top-level added momentum to Elon Musk’s rallying battle cry: ‘DEI must DIE’, with Musk declaring that DEI’s supposed anti-discrimination initiatives are a form of discrimination and must end. This was part of Musk’s broad attack on political correctness and ‘woke’ culture that is now being partnered by increasing volumes of concentrated fire at DEI’s woke ally, ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) which denies the primacy of shareholder-owners of corporations in favour of ‘stakeholders’.
With leaders of this revolution among some of America’s previously supportive corporate heads, it is not only political conservatives now manning the barricades to oppose DEI’s assault on merit. And the campaign is not confined to America; the Diversity Council of Australia (DCA), the partly government-funded six-million-dollar ‘charity’ (claiming 1,300 members covering 20 per cent of the Australian workforce) that promotes DEI is concerned about the local consequences.
While Trump’s Republican party has long been a warrior against DEI (with many Republican states banning it in their administrations and the US House of Representatives disbanding its Office of Diversity and Inclusion), Donald’s ear has added a new dimension. When he regained his feet (if not his shoes) after falling to the ground, it was clearly established that the short female Secret Service agents were simply unable to provide adequate physical protection for a tall former (and potentially future) president; his head and upper torso remained a potential target. Then the revelation that this security blunder resulted from the Secret Service having imposed a 30-per-cent female requirement on its hiring criteria raised the inevitable backlash against this DEI dogma; the prime criterion should be suitability for the job, not sex, race or religion.
The campaign against DEI got its major boost in last year’s US Supreme Court majority ruling that the use of affirmative action in university admissions was unconstitutional. While not directly addressing corporate diversity programmes, the decision unleashed a wave of legal actions, including from former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Consumer-facing companies such as Target, Kellanova (formerly Kellogg’s) and Starbucks were targeted, resulting in many US companies stepping back from DEI, while major corporations like Amazon and Nike have been cutting back on their DEI executives and others are ‘quietly quitting’.
The Financial Times has reported that accounting firm PwC dropped some of its diversity targets in the US and ended race-based eligibility criteria. Others, including pharma group Pfizer, opened up diversity fellowships to people of all races. It quoted Professor Yoshino at NYU School of Law, saying, ‘It used to be thought that DEI was above the law. But now the law has come crashing down on that entire enterprise, so we have to think of this as a newly regulated space’. This has generated fears from the Society for Human Resource Management, that this new legal landscape – combined with the continued need for companies to comply with laws preventing workplace discrimination – will prompt a retreat from efforts to foster workplace diversity.
Those fears are being realised. Just a couple of weeks before Donald’s ear highlighted DEI, what Forbes magazine described as a ‘firestorm of controversy’ broke out when Tennessee-based Tractor Supply Company, the nation’s largest rural lifestyle retailer, announced it was pulling back its ‘woke’ policies that it said were unpopular with its customers, after facing weeks of backlash on social media. The farm supply retail chain is eliminating all diversity, equity and inclusion roles and ditching its carbon emissions goals as it moves to sharpen focus on rural America priorities like animal welfare and veteran causes, and stop sponsoring Pride festivals and voting campaigns. Forbes, a continuing backer of DEI and critic of Tractor Supply’s actions, lamented that their withdrawal from the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, came just as ‘Pride Month festivities were dialling down’.
Just a few days after Trump’s ear, the groundswell against DEI received yet another boost when farm machinery giant Deere & Company publicly responded to customer criticism by backing away from its diversity policies. Citing a need to ‘prioritise internal policies that more closely align with our business strategy’, the maker of Deere tractors and other equipment said it would no longer take part in ‘social or cultural awareness’ events, and would audit company-mandated training materials ‘to ensure the absence of socially motivated messages’, leaving the company to ‘exclusively’ focus business resource groups for employees on professional development, mentoring and talent recruitment, ‘rather than race or sexual identity’.
Implications for Australia? DEI was never as dominant in Australia as in the US. Earlier this month, its leading supporters here were reported acknowledging that while a large number of Australian companies ‘are advanced in the DEI space and want to go further, some companies are reducing their investment’. They lamented the ‘backsliding, lip service and even a private backlash’ by sections of corporate Australia, with the rejection of the Voice referendum ‘causing some senior managers to tone down their support for diversity and other social issues’. The ‘politicisation and weaponisation’ of DEI in the US has led to a backlash that has ‘emboldened some Australian executives and leaders who didn’t really believe in DEI to begin with, and giving them a platform and more conviction to steer away from it’.
Nevertheless, this month the CEO of DCA, Lisa Annese, told the media that she remained ‘optimistic about the future of diversity and inclusion in Australia’, including the half-a-million dollar RISE (Realise. Inspire. Support. Energise) project fully funded by the Albanese government Office for Women. This is aimed at ‘implementing organisational change interventions that will help address systemic and organisational barriers for culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) women and to assist organisations in supporting women in middle management to reach senior leadership positions within their organisations. ‘We use the term CARM to refer to people who are not white’, says DCA, confirming its assistance is colour-based.
As its critics assert, efficiency, competitiveness and excellence are antithetical to the social engineering of DEI. In a competitive world, DEI must DIE.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/07/business-assassination-etc/
******************************************The Islamists want to silence music the way they have free speech
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday at a festival in Germany that left three people dead and many more wounded. In a statement they said one of their ‘soldiers’ carried out the attack ‘as revenge against Muslims in Palestine and everywhere’.
As soon as news broke of Friday’s attack in the town of Solingen, fifteen miles east of Düsseldorf, seasoned observers of Islamist extremism knew who to blame.
Despite the risible posturing of western governments in recent years that far-right fanatics pose as great a threat to our way of life as Islamic extremists, the people aren’t fooled. It’s not the far-right who have murdered priests, police officers, schoolteachers, journalists and Jewish children. Nor have they targeted music venues which is clearly the new strategy of Islamist terrorists.
It began in 2015, when an Islamic State terror cell massacred 130 people at the Bataclan theatre in Paris, where they had gathered to watch a heavy metal band.
Two years later a suicide bomber killed 22 people, mostly youngsters, in Manchester as they danced to the American singer Ariana Grande.
In March this year, Islamic State gunmen murdered 137 people in Moscow as they attended a concert by the rock band Picnic. In the wake of that attack, some western journalists linked the targeting of Picnic to their support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Islamic State slaughtered 145 people in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall for the same reason they did in the Bataclan and for the same reason they planned to at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna earlier this month.
Acting on information provided by foreign intelligence services, Austrian police arrested three young men described as ‘ISIS sympathisers’, who were preparing to launch a suicide attack during the concert.
Islamic extremists consider listening to music a sin. When the Islamic State established its caliphate in Iraq and Syria a decade ago it banned the sale and the playing of music. ‘Stringed instruments and songs are forbidden in Islam because they distract from the evocation of God and the Koran, and are a source of trouble and corruption for the heart,’ they said in a statement.
Claiming that music is illicit is also a means for Islamists to reinforce the ‘them’ and ‘us’ narrative in the west; in taking responsibility for the attack in Paris in November 2015, Islamic State described France as the ‘capital of prostitution and obscenity’.
Their strategy is working. In December last year an extensive survey about French Muslims and their relationship with religion and secularism found that 49 percent of Muslim pupils in French schools absented themselves from music lessons on religious grounds.
Claiming that music is illicit is also a means for Islamists to reinforce the ‘them’ and ‘us’ narrative in the west
What the Islamists hate (and fear) most is music from the mouths of young liberated women who are free to wear and say what they like. Taylor Swift, who has built a huge army of many millions of fans around the world – known as ‘Swifties’ – embodies this emancipation.
In an interview with Elle magazine in 2019, Swift said that the Manchester bombing two years earlier had left her ‘completely terrified to go on tour’. Not just for own safety, but the millions of fans attending her shows.
Austrian police may have averted a catastrophe this month but in a sense the Islamic State can still celebrate a victory; Swift’s three concerts in Vienna were cancelled so they silenced the music.
This is what the Islamists ultimately want, to rid or at least restrict music in Europe. They will be encouraged by the success they have had in restricting freedom of expression in the ten years since they murdered the staff of Charlie Hebdo. ‘Je suis Charlie’, cried Europe as one in the immediate aftermath, but who now has the courage to criticise Islam?
‘We have to live bravely in order to truly feel alive, and that means not being ruled by our greatest fears,’ said Swift in 2019.
The Islamists know that Europe is not a continent brimming with courage. Teachers, journalists and politicians now self-censor to avoid causing offence and endangering themselves. How long before musicians and music teachers pack away their instruments for good?
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Doctors quit British Medical Union over ‘woke’ transgender stance
Doctors are leaving the British Medical Association in revolt at its opposition to the Cass review, amid claims that the union has been taken over by an ideologically driven “vocal minority”.
Hundreds of members, including NHS clinical leaders and former presidents of medical royal colleges, have gone public with their “dismay” at BMA leaders for voting to reject the Cass review into the care of transgender children and reverse a ban on puberty blockers.
Some have resigned from the union after up to 50 years as members, and others said that the BMA’s “abysmal” leadership was “increasingly bonkers” and “ideologically captured”.
The rift began on July 31 when the BMA announced that it would lobby against the implementation of the Cass review, a four-year review which recommended an end to the practice of prescribing sex hormones to children with gender dysphoria on the NHS.
The rest of the medical establishment and the NHS have fully accepted and supported the review by Hilary Cass, a paediatrician, but the BMA has said that it will set up a group to “publicly critique” the review.
The union’s council, an elected policy-forming body of 69 members, was asked to vote on a motion rejecting the Cass review at a meeting described by critics as “secretive and opaque”. The motion passed, making it formal BMA policy, although the breakdown of votes has not been made available and the BMA’s membership base of 195,000 doctors was not consulted.
The motion was tabled at the BMA council by Tom Dolphin, a consultant anaesthetist in London, and Vassili Crispi, a junior doctor in Birmingham who has said that “rejecting the Cass review is one of many steps we need to take”.
It was backed by Emma Runswick, deputy chair of the BMA council, who is the ringleader of a left-wing and pro-strike coalition of junior doctors elected to the leadership body in 2022. Runswick has described the ban on puberty blockers as a “terrible decision” and repeated a debunked claim that it had led to more suicides.
Some other senior members of the BMA council were perplexed that they were being asked to vote on the issue at all and said that it did not reflect the views of the wider membership.
Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist and member of the BMA council who opposed the motion, said: “The BMA council contains a vocal minority who have an anti-Cass agenda. They are driving policy in a direction that the membership have not been consulted on and do not agree with.
“This minority has voted to block the implementation of Cass, an evidence-based review which took four years to put together. They have no evidence for their opposition. The Cass review is not a matter for a trade union. It is not our business as a union to be doing a critique of the Cass review. It is a waste of time and resources.”
Davis said that the motion should have been debated at the BMA’s annual representative meeting in June, rather than being put straight to a vote at the council. “We are a membership organisation and members deserve to be consulted and to know what happens at council. At the moment there is no accountability and transparency about what has gone on,” she said.
Hilary Cass’s recommendations have been accepted by the rest of the medical profession. One member of the BMA council said that the minority who had voted to block implementation of the review had ”no evidence for their opposition”
The Cass review is the biggest ever carried out into the treatment of children struggling with their gender, with a team at the University of York reviewing data from 113,000 children. The BMA has argued that there are “weaknesses in the methodologies” used by Cass and that its recommendations are “unsubstantiated”.
More than 1,400 doctors, 900 of whom are BMA members, have signed an open letter calling for the BMA to drop its opposition to Cass. The letter criticises the union’s leaders for “going against the principles of evidence-based medicine and against ethical practice”. The letter has been signed by high-profile figures, including nearly 70 professors and 23 former or current presidents of medical royal colleges.
Comments left by signatories include dozens saying that they are resigning or considering resigning their membership. Many doctors criticised members of the council, with one calling for a “vote of no confidence in BMA leadership”, another saying that it was “an abysmal failure of leadership” and another commenting that “activists appear to have been allowed to take over”.
Professor Philip Banfield, chairman of the BMA council, said that a “task and finish” group set up to evaluate the Cass review would report on progress at the end of the year. He said: “The process necessitates debate, scrutiny and methodological rigour, and we will go to great lengths to ensure that the BMA task and finish group, taking on this important work, will utilise the expertise of the professional body that has been the cornerstone of the association since its inception in 1832.”
The BMA’s stance has had no impact on the NHS’s commitment to implement the recommendations of the Cass review, including only prescribing puberty blockers in clinical trials. The NHS said that it had “full confidence” in the Cass report.
A spokesman for the Cass review said: “The systematic reviews undertaken by the University of York, which underpin the review’s findings, are the largest and most comprehensive to date. They looked at 237 papers from 18 countries, providing information on a total of 113,269 children and adolescents.
“All of the University of York’s systematic review research papers were subject to peer review, a cornerstone of academic rigour and integrity to ensure that the methods, findings, and interpretation of the findings met the highest standards of quality, validity and impartiality.
“As stated in the final report, while open and constructive debate is needed about the findings of the review and its recommendations, everybody should remember the children and young people trying to live their lives and the families/carers and clinicians doing their best to support them. All should be treated with compassion and respect.”
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My my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/ozarc.html (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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Sunday, August 25, 2024
Does the Bible say that Israel is the land of the Jews?
Dr. Naomi Wolf says not, although she is herself Jewish:
I reproduce her comments below. My rejoinder first:
She has a point. In Genesis 12: 6, later amplified in chapter 15, God (Yahweh) says that Abraham and his descendants ("seed) were given ownership of the land of Israel due to their covenant to worship him and obey his commandments. And that was a "covenant" or contract. They got the land as part of a deal, the deal being that they worship and obey Yahweh, the Hebrew God. There were lots of Gods around at thetime so which one you worshipped was important and significant.
But Ms Wolf is right that other people could become covenanters (part of the deal) by also worshipping Yahweh and doing his bidding. So being a genetic descendant of Abrahan was significant but not crucial to being part of the covenanters and gaining their rights.
So outsiders could become adopted into the covenanted people but that did not in any way reduce the Yahweh-given rights of Abraham's "seed" to the land of the Canaanites.
And even the descendants of Abraham could lose their rights by stopping worship of Yahweh.
But that people could be both kicked out of and adopted into the Abrahamic family still left that family with inherited rights to the land concerned
Ms Wolf is correct in saying that behaviour matters in who is bound by and affected by the covenant but WHICH behavour is the point. And it is worship of Yaweh that is the key, not just generally doing good
And that the descendants of the original covenanters and their "seed" continued to regard the land concerned as theirs we see throughout the rest of the Bible. They continued to live there and returned there after both their sojourn in Egypt and after their Babylonian exile.
So if nothing more, it is an historical fact that the Yahweh-worshipping descendants of the Abrahamic covenanters continued to live in what we now call Israel for many centuries after the original covenant.
But perhaps Ms Wolf does us a favour by noting that the people concerned were NOT racists. Genetic descent was important but others could be welcomed into the tribe by worshipping their god and following his rules. And Israel to this day honours that.
But her saying that ownership of the land is "NOT ABOUT A CONTRACT" is a blatant lie. She must not know the meaning of the word "covenant"
"Okay, so I was challenged below: "Read the Bible! God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people."
"So....I may get crucified for this but I have started to say it -- most recently (terrified, trembling) to warm welcome in a synagogue in LA: Actually if you read Genesis Exodus and Deuteronomy in Hebrew -- as I do -- you see that God did not "give" Israel to the Jews/Israelites.
We as Jews are raised with the creed that "God gave us the land of Israel" in Genesis -- and that ethnically 'we are the chosen people." But actually -- and I could not believe my eyes when I saw this, I checked my reading with major scholars and they confirmed it -- actually God's "covenant" in Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy with the Jewish people is NOT ABOUT AN ETHNICITY AND NOT ABOUT A CONTRACT. IT IS ABOUT A WAY OF BEHAVING.
Again and again in the "covenant" language He never says: "I will give you, ethnic Israelites, the land of Israel." Rather He says something far more radical - far more subversive -- far more Godlike in my view. He says: IF you visit those imprisoned...act mercifully to the widow and the orphan...welcome the stranger in your midst...tend the sick...do justice and love mercy ....and perform various other tasks...THEN YOU WILL BE MY PEOPLE AND THIS LAND WILL BE YOUR LAND.
So "my people" is not ethnic -- it is transactional. We are God's people not by birth but by a way of behaving, that is ethical, kind and just. And we STOP being "God's people" when we are not ethical, kind and just. And ANYONE who is ethical, kind and just is, according to God in Genesis, "God's people." And the "contract" to "give" us Israel is conditional -- we can live in God's land IF we are "God's people" in this way -- just, merciful, compassionate. AND -- it never ever says, it is ONLY your land.
Even when passages spell out geographical "boundaries" as if God does such a thing, it never says this is exclusively your land. It never says I will give this land JUST to you. Remember these were homeless nomads who had left slavery in Egypt and were wandering around in the desert; at most these passages say, settle here, but they do not say, settle here exclusively. Indeed again and again it talks about welcoming "zarim" -- translated as "strangers" but can also be translated as "people/tribes who are not you" -- in your midst. Blew my mind, hope it blows yours"
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The procrustean Kamala
Kamala Harris keeps telling us she wants ‘equity’ not ‘equality.’ What does she mean? She is using ‘equality’ to means ‘equality of opportunity’ while (for her) ‘equity’ means ‘equality of outcome’. Harris has said repeatedly that what she wants is for everyone ‘to end up in the same place’. And that means, she says, that some people (the disadvantaged) will need more help (positive discrimination) and others will need less. She sometimes calls this ‘social justice’.
But there’s the problem. Justice normally means unequal outcomes. In most court cases, when justice is done, one side wins and the other side loses. The person charged with a crime is found to be ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’. If the prosecution wins, then the defence has to lose. If a complainant sues a plaintiff in a civil case the court will find for either the complainant or the plaintiff. One side wins and the other loses. They don’t ‘both end up in the same place’.
The justice system provides equality of opportunity (to present evidence, to argue their case, etc.) but never provides equality of outcomes. And ‘equality of outcome’ can only work in a society if some (the hard working, the talented) are cheated, and others (the lazy, the dull) are given an unfair advantage. Society is ‘unjust’ in the same way the 100-metres sprint is unjust—only one person comes first, others come second or third, or fail to finish in a place.
And that outcome is ‘fair’ because they have different abilities. To force them all to ‘end up in the same place’ (all come first, simultaneously) would be unfair. That’s why so-called ‘equity’ (equality of outcome) is a con, a cheat, and damaging to society.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/language-123/
*************************************************UK: Yvette Cooper’s chilling crackdown on ‘harmful’ beliefs
Brendan O'Neill
Why is there not more disquiet over Yvette Cooper’s promise to crack down on ‘harmful’ beliefs? To my mind it ranks as one of the most chilling political pledges of the modern era. The thought of a Labour government, or any government, imperiously decreeing which ideas are ‘harmful’ and which are benign leaves me cold. It’s a first step to tyranny and it needs to be walked back.
A war on ‘harmful’ beliefs would give the government a blank cheque to demonise views that are old-fashioned, possibly unpopular or just not very PC
The Home Secretary has commissioned a rapid review of ‘extremist ideologies’ as part of a new government counter-extremism strategy. She has vowed to come down hard on people who push ‘harmful or hateful beliefs’. The aim is to tackle head-on any online or offline activity that ‘promotes violence or undermines democracy’. Her mission has acquired a new sense of urgency, it seems, following the recent riots, which were in part fuelled by misleading or outright bigoted blather online.
No one aside from a handful of nutters will oppose feeling the collars of people who promote violence. Inciting violence is illegal. If you do it you’re in trouble. But Cooper’s other categories of ‘harmful’ thought are flabbier and more troubling. Consider her promise to tackle ideologies that undermine democracy. What does this mean?
I hate to relitigate the recent past – really, I do – but would it mean that Remainers who tried to block the enactment of the largest democratic vote in the history of these isles might get a knock on the door from Cooper’s crusaders against extremist thought? Perhaps Cooper will pop over to No. 10 itself and have a stern word with her boss, Keir Starmer. After all, as shadow Brexit secretary under Jeremy Corbyn he was forever agitating for a second referendum, which would have entailed voiding the first vote. Was that ‘harmful activity’ that threatened to ‘undermine democracy’?
Of course, Remainers are going to be fine. Cooper is hardly about to crack down on her own dinner-party set, is she? And therein lies the entire problem with censorship, with entrusting officialdom to sort ideas into boxes marked ‘acceptable’ or ‘unutterable’. It gives government the awesome and terrifying power to shape public discourse to its own ideological tastes. Censorship is always dolled up as a heroic effort to protect the public from ‘harmful’ ideas, but in truth it is about ensuring the public is primarily exposed to ideas the government approves of.
I have no doubt that in the eyes of Cooper’s Home Office, ‘undermining democracy’ is when a couple of thousand far-right oafs gather in Whitehall, not when a hundred thousand nice people from leafy suburbs march to say ‘Stop Brexit’. It is a short step from ‘countering extremism’ to countering ideas the government dislikes while signal-boosting ideas it does like. Whatever their lofty social promises, crusades against problematic speech have a terrible tendency to empower official narratives at the expense of dissenting ones.
Ask yourself: what is a ‘harmful’ belief? And more to the point, who gets to decide? It is a mere three years since Starmer thundered that it is ‘not right’ to say only women have a cervix. That is ‘something that shouldn’t be said’, he cried after one of his MPs – the heroic Rosie Duffield – committed that very blasphemy of stating basic biological facts. Are we seriously expected to trust a government led by this man to rule on what is a harmful belief and what is an okay belief? Given he once thought basic biology was ‘something that shouldn’t be said’, who knows what perfectly normal, scientifically correct belief he might rebrand as ‘harmful’ in the near future.
In this era of hyper-fragility, people claim to be ‘harmed’ by words all the time. Say ‘I’m not sure about same-sex marriage’ or ‘I don’t think biological males should box women at the Olympics’ and you will inevitably trigger a million right-on saps crying, ‘Stop erasing me!’ If the government sends the signal that ‘harmful’ beliefs are unacceptable under its watch, we will witness of orgy of grievance-mongering as all sorts of social groups agitate for the crushing of beliefs that make them feel uncomfortable or just sad.
Indeed, I can envision entire belief systems being reimagined as ‘harmful’. Some already have been. Traditional Catholics, for example. They think marriage should only be between a man and a woman, that sex is determined by God not scalpel-wielding gender surgeons, and that only followers of Christ get to Heaven. That’s homophobic, transphobic and Islamophobic, right? In other words: harmful. Shut them down!
A war on ‘harmful’ beliefs would give the government a blank cheque to demonise and shush views that are old-fashioned, possibly unpopular or just not very PC. Labour would do well to remember that one man’s ‘harmful’ belief is another man’s heartfelt moral conviction. To the aloof operators of Yvette Cooper’s Home Office, angry public bristling against mass immigration or impassioned agitation against gender ideology might appear ‘harmful’ – but to many others it is legitimate, important commentary.
The harms of censorship outweigh the supposed harms of controversial speech every single time. I would far rather be exposed to a ‘harmful’ idea than have my eyes and ears covered by Cooper and her fellow paternalists in Whitehall. At least my autonomy and self-respect would remain intact.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/yvette-coopers-chilling-crackdown-on-harmful-beliefs/
*********************************************UK: Top cop's mic grab sets a dreadful example to other police officers
A Sky News reporter having his microphone grabbed and dropped to the ground might seem like a trifling story right now, given everything that’s happening in the country. But when the mic-grabber is none other than Sir Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, it’s a different matter. A very different matter. In a democracy, cops don’t treat journalists in such a dismissive, degrading fashion.
It was outside the Cabinet Office that Sir Mark outrageously interfered with the property of a reporter. The man from Sky News asked him if he was going to ‘end two-tier policing’. And instead of answering – or not answering, if he wants to be a big baby about it – Sir Mark yanked Sky’s mic and seemed to push it to the ground. As he then arrogantly strutted to his car, the reporter could be heard saying: ‘Did he just do that?’
Yes, he did. And it was beyond inappropriate. For the most powerful cop in the country to manhandle an instrument of journalism, to try to physically prevent a reporter from recording something, sends a terrible message. Will Sir Mark’s lower-downs now behave likewise? Will they take their cue from the big man and grab and discard the kit of any journalist who asks them a pesky question?
It felt like a mask-off moment. It seemed to reveal a haughty disregard on the part of Sir Mark, and perhaps the Met more broadly, for the right of reporters to interrogate people in power. Rowley didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. His lunging for the mic and his puffed-up demeanour said it all: ‘I’m not speaking to a lowlife like you.’
It was the physicality of the encounter that truly rankled. What if Sir Mark had broken that mic? I can see the global headlines now: ‘Chief British Police Officer Smashes Journalist’s Equipment.’ There was a palpable authoritarian undertone to Sir Mark’s gruff behaviour. It felt like more than exasperation – it felt like intolerance. Intolerance for the freedom of the press to ask questions that make officials feel uncomfortable.
In this case, it seems to have been the reporter’s query about ‘two-tier policing’ that pushed the Met boss over the edge. I’ve noticed an extreme defensiveness on this question. Keir Starmer, too, bristled at the suggestion that cops are treating the current rioting mobs more harshly than they did other recent acts of brutish disorder. It’s a ‘non-issue’, he said. Leftists online are as one with Sir Mark and Sir Keir, furiously denouncing all talk of two-tier policing as a ‘conspiracy theory’.
Is it possible they protest too much? To many it seems at least plausible to ask whether the current riots are being policed and condemned more ferociously than the Harehills riot in Leeds last month was. And didn’t Sir Keir take the knee in the fashion of Black Lives Matter in August 2020 when the BLM protests were at their height? Some on the left described the England riots of 2011, with all their arson and looting and death, as an uprising against austerity. Yet now street violence horrifies them. It all has at least the whiff of a double standard, no?
Regardless, the point is that reporters must have the right to ask such questions, even if they irritate the top dog of the armed wing of the state. In recent years, both the political class and the police have too often been disdainful of press freedom. Yet without that freedom, we’re screwed. Reporters holding officialdom’s feet to the fire is what keeps a nation free and informed. Sir Mark must apologise to Sky News and make it clear that none of his officers should ever meddle with the property or the liberty of a journalist.
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My my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/ozarc.html (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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Thursday, August 22, 2024
Eating just two slices of ham per day could raise diabetes risk
Rubbish! Another meta-analysis! You can prove anything you want by a meta-analysis. What you include and exclude is the key. And the "finding" here is totally predictable -- being a confirmation of a popular belief
Journal article here:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(24)00179-7/fulltext
Note that the finding was observed "in North America and in the European and Western Pacific regions" only. And note that the only confounders allowed for appear to have been age, sex, and BMIEating a ham sandwich a day could increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by 15 per cent, a study has found.
The team, from the University of Cambridge, found that processed meat and unprocessed red meat significantly increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next decade.
The researchers found that just 50 grams of processed meat per day - equivalent to two slices of ham - increased the risk by 15 per cent. Consuming red meat every day had a similar effect: those who had just 100 grams, the equivalent of a small steak, had a 10 per cent higher risk of diabetes in the next ten years.
The team also tested whether the consumption of poultry had the same effect, but found that this was minimal when controlling for factors such as age, gender and health-related behaviours, including smoking and drinking alcohol.
Professor Nita Forouhi of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, a senior author on the paper, said: “Our research provides the most comprehensive evidence to date of an association between eating processed meat and unprocessed red meat and a higher future risk of type 2 diabetes.
“It supports recommendations to limit the consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat to reduce type 2 diabetes cases.”
The research, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, used data from 31 different previous studies. Figures came from the InterConnect Project, which meant that researchers could analyse the data of the individual and not the results of the previous research as a whole. Data came from about two million participants across 20 different countries.
Professor Naveed Sattar, from the University of Glasgow, said: “The data suggest cutting red and processed meats from diets may not only protect people from heart disease and stroke but also from type 2 diabetes, a disease on the rise worldwide.
“Furthermore, a considerable part of the latter link may be weight gain but other mechanisms may be possible. Food systems should be adapted accordingly for the benefit of planetary and public health.”
Previous research, published last year, has also found that eating red meat only twice a week significantly increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that those who ate at least two portions of meat each day - such as bacon for breakfast then a ham sandwich for lunch - were 62 per cent more likely to get diabetes than those who limited themselves to two servings of red meat a week.
Diabetes occurs when a person’s blood sugar becomes chronically high as the body stops producing or responding to insulin. Most cases are type 2 which can be linked to poor diet and obesity. Cases have doubled over the past two decades and last year 4.3 million people in Britain were living with a formal diagnosis, while about one million adults are living with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes.
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Scarcity by Decree
Despite recent decreases in overall inflation, grocery prices continue to strain American budgets. Even in Denver, where inflation is a full percentage point lower than the national average, food costs remain a significant concern. As we move deeper into election season, the persistent issue of high grocery prices has thrust price gouging into the spotlight of policy debates.
A recent policy speech by Democratic nominee Kamala Harris suggests her administration would aim to combat price gouging on grocery items at the federal level. While this policy offers a tempting quick fix to voters burdened by high food costs, it risks doing harm in the name of doing good. Such price control measures, however well-intentioned, are unlikely to achieve their desired outcome and may even exacerbate the problem.
You don't need an economics degree to understand why price controls backfire—it's basic Econ 101. Today's rising prices aren't just greedy corporations pulling a fast one. It's not corporate greed emptying our wallets at the checkout counter—it's the government's monetary mismanagement inflating our grocery bills. Despite rising profits, even retail giants like Walmart still have profit margins less than 3%. Rising prices are the result of pandemic policies that pumped more money into people's pockets, coupled with tariffs implemented by the Trump administration and maintained under the Biden-Harris administration. When everyone's spending more, but supplies are constrained, prices naturally go up. That's exactly what we've seen play out over the last few years.
Imagine a world with federal price gouging laws. When demand surges, the government might cap price increases at 5% instead of the market-driven 10%. The result? Demand keeps climbing, but suppliers, constrained by artificial price limits, can’t justify increasing supply. This mismatch leads to shortages—remember the hand sanitizer shortages and rationing during the pandemic? That wasn’t just pandemic panic; it was retailers fearing price gouging penalties. Price controls don’t make goods more affordable; they make them scarce. Some voters might accept occasional shortages for the promise of lower prices. However, price gouging laws don’t eliminate higher costs; they merely shift them. While black markets can emerge, a more common scenario unfolds in plain sight: consumers spend more time and resources hunting for scarce goods.
Imagine your weekly grocery run during a toilet paper shortage. With prices artificially capped, you find empty shelves. You drive across town, perhaps making multiple trips, burning gas and time. Are you really benefiting from that lower sticker price? The extra fuel, wasted hours, and added pollution are real, often overlooked costs. Recent studies show this phenomenon occurs even during temporary, emergency price gouging laws, like those implemented during the pandemic.
Rising grocery prices are undeniably straining American households. However, price control laws are not the solution. They promise relief but deliver shortages, hidden costs, and economic distortions. We should all be wary of policies that sound too good to be true. Often, the most appealing promises can lead to the most disastrous consequences. Instead of embracing quick fixes, we should focus on addressing the root causes of inflation: expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, supply chain disruptions, and trade barriers. By tackling these issues head-on and thinking critically about proposed solutions, we can work towards genuinely affordable groceries without falling prey to well-intentioned but harmful interventions.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=15033&omhide=true&trk=title
**********************************************How Joseph Stiglitz Tried to Legitimize Venezuela’s Dictatorship
Stiglitz again!
Nobel laureate economist Joseph E. Stiglitz is on a mission to smear free market economists as progenitors of “fascism.” After first making this insinuation in his recent book The Road to Freedom, Stiglitz has become even more brazen in charging “neoliberals” with steering the world toward dictatorship. In a new interview, Stiglitz charges:
It is evident today that free and unfettered markets advocated by Hayek and Friedman and so many on the Right have set us on the road to fascism, to a twenty-first-century version of authoritarianism made all the worse by advances in science and technology, an Orwellian authoritarianism where surveillance is the order of the day and truth has been sacrificed to power.
Note that he provides no evidence for his defamatory allegations against Hayek and Friedman, both of whom denounced fascism in their lifetimes. But there’s another problem with Stiglitz’s line of attack: his own lengthy track record of coddling undemocratic regimes and authoritarian dictators.
In 2007, Stiglitz traveled to Caracas, where he gushed over Venezuela’s Marxist leader Hugo Chavez, crediting him with poverty alleviation and economic reform. In reality, the Chavez regime ushered in a collapse of the Venezuelan economy that persists to this day.
Chavez’s handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro, refuses to leave office after losing reelection in a landslide last month. Maduro concocted his own forged election results to declare himself the victor and is now waging a brutal campaign of military suppression and arrests in a desperate bid to remain in power.
Although Stiglitz has been more cautious about Maduro in recent years, he left no doubt of his appreciation for the Chavez regime. Shortly after meeting with the Venezuelan dictator, Stiglitz became a vocal media advocate for Chavez’s proposed “Bank of the South.” Chavez created this initiative in an effort to induce other Latin American countries to withdraw from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Chavez’s speeches about his scheme sound eerily similar to Stiglitz’s arguments in his new book. They rant and rave about an “economic order dominated by the Neoliberalism” and present the Bank of the South as an “alternative” to free-market capitalism. Blending an overt socialist political agenda with economic development funding, he pledged to seed the project with Venezuela’s vast oil wealth.
Stiglitz previously served as the World Bank’s senior vice president and chief economist. By publicly endorsing Chavez’s competitor to the World Bank, he gave it credibility in the eyes of foreign governments and the international media. At its launch in late 2007, it became clear that Chavez intended to use the “bank” to prop up other regional leftist governments. Chavez recruited his counterparts Lula de Silva of Brazil, Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, and Evo Morales of Bolivia to the effort and rolled it out as a tool to inaugurate socialism across the continent.
In practice, the Stiglitz-backed scheme amounted to naught. Venezuela’s economy soon collapsed under the weight of Chavez’s policies, including its state-run oil sector. After over a decade of delays, the Bank of the South has yet to deliver on any of its promised development loans and appears to have settled into dormancy. Venezuela’s state-controlled media still touts it as an “accomplishment” of Chavez’s economics. Still, in practice, it has amounted to little more than another corrupt shell entity for cronies of the Marxist regime.
As of this writing, Stiglitz has gone silent about the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. He never mentions his own role in propagandizing Chavez’s economic schemes to the world or his visits to Caracas to advise Nicolas Maduro’s predecessor and personal mentor. Instead of projecting complicity in authoritarian regimes onto Friedman and Hayek, Stiglitz would be well-served to take a gaze in the mirror.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=15028&omhide=true&trk=rm
************************************************Democrats ramp up the gender politics in pursuit of the White House
“Donald Trump is going to find out the power of women in 2024,” Joe Biden roared earlier this week during his handover address at the Democratic National Convention.
If Kamala Harris becomes the 47th US president after the election in November, he won’t be wrong. But he could have been a bit more specific.
It might have been a nasty quip but Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance’s now notorious claim that “childless cat ladies” were running the country wasn’t far wrong, setting pet preferences to one side. The Democrats are in power and their strongest backers undeniably are women who have never married. If this large and growing group didn’t vote, the US electoral map would be a sea of Republican red.
Single women have become a powerful voting cohort, increasingly targeted by Democrats as they embrace sexual politics to maintain control of the White House. It is conventional wisdom in the US that men lean Republican and women lean Democrat – but not all women.
While clear majorities of men and married women favour the Republican Party, according to a survey of Americans by Pew Research, 72 per cent of never-married women back the Democrats.
And that’s before Harris – who’s being sold as a feisty “girl boss” one step away from breaking what Hillary Clinton in her convention speech called the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” – replaced the ancient Biden.
By the way, that ceiling would be news to most Americans, around 95 per cent of whom have told Gallup since 1999 they would readily elect a well-qualified woman, black or white, as president (up from below 60 per cent in the late 1950s). But sustaining or even fuelling the perception of massive and increasing sexism and racism has become essential to modern Democrat party politics.
Indeed, Vance’s 2021 comment was catnip, so to speak, for Democrat strategists seeking to manufacture outrage among women.
The Democratic National Convention was exhibit A. Practically every one of the 60-plus speakers at the party’s nominating convention on day one dwelled on the Democrats’ plans to “protect reproductive rights” – what some may consider a niche issue set against a generational, inflation-induced plunge in living standards, rampant illegal immigration, corporate cronyism and the prospect of World War III.
Democrat-aligned Planned Parenthood was spruiking offering DNC attendees free vasectomies and abortions, courtesy of a mobile health clinic parked nearby for the first two days of the convention.
The party has only one concrete policy: legislating abortion rights along the lines of Roe V Wade, the overturned Supreme Court decision that has become the motivating event of the party’s 2024 campaign.
Still, unmarried women aren’t the only group propping up the Democrats. The provision of gender-neutral bathrooms, and even a gender-neutral prayer room, should provide a clue to the other. Gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans have an ever greater preference for the Democratic Party: 83 per cent to 17 per cent, according to Pew.
From a strictly economic point of view, the Democratic Party platform would appeal to young single women, offering them greater choice: more taxpayer funded childcare; free healthcare, including of course the right to abortions; and welfare to support the rearing of children should they decide to have any.
“Aside from mass immigration, the most striking demographic development of the past decade is the large cohort of American women who have embraced the helping hand of the state in place of the increasingly suspect protections of fathers, brothers, boyfriends and husbands,” American journalist David Samuels recently wrote in a lengthy piece, The March of Kamala’s Brides: Miserable Young Women are the Democrats’ Foot-soldiers. Brides of the State, he calls them.
Whether such policies have made women happier is less clear. “A startling 56 per cent of liberal American women aged 18-29 have been diagnosed with a mental-health condition (the percentage for conservative women is 21 per cent),” Samuels writes.
Mental health problems have skyrocketed among young women, a trend typically blamed on social media, which doesn’t appear to have had the same impact on young men.
Understanding why the so-called LGBT community favours Democrats over Republicans is harder to explain. Often high income and childless, gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans shoulder a disproportionate tax burden and receive little in return, which might make them less inclined to support parties in favour of increased taxation to fund a cradle-to-grave social welfare system.
But politics is increasingly about values rather than policy, the vibe rather than facts. And Democrats talk the talk when it comes to LGBT and women’s rights, creating the perception they are under permanent assault by Republicans.
Democrat leaders are fond of invoking a unified America in their rhetoric, but in practice their strategy increasingly has been to divide by sex and race for political advantage.
The share of black Americans who say relations between whites and blacks are “very” or “somewhat” good has fallen steadily from 66 per cent in 2013 to 33 per cent last year, according to Pew Research.
And the #MeToo movement has clobbered gender relations too, as half of the population are unfairly cast as predators rather than a hugely diverse group of individuals.
More recently, Democrats and parties of the left throughout the West have even pushing for the creation of new groups, evidenced by recent obsession with the “trans community”, a group that has exploded from essentially zero to about 5 per cent of the US population according to another 2022 survey by Pew.
Political discourse has become so dominant and powerful, perhaps it can create groups as much as cater to them – and not necessarily for their benefit.
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My my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/ozarc.html (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Homosexual adoption
Like most conservatives, the adoption of chilren by male homosexual couples disturbs me. I have a strong feeling that all children deserve both a mother and father.
But that is to a degree ignoring rather a lot of reality. Many children grow up to be normal adults even though they have grown up with one parent only. And who is to say that a homosexual parent cannot be loving?
I was discussing that matter with a woman much younger than I am and found that she had no difficulty with children being brought up by homosexual parents. Her basic point is that anything can be bought these days, includng good childcare.
And I was reminded of the fact that the British aristocracy traditionally did not bring up their own children... that was dedicated to a nanny. And strong affectionate ties developed and remained between the children concerned and their nanny,
Winston Churchill was one of those. He was very supportive of his nanny into her old age and she had a lifelong devotion to him.
And step-parents and their stepchildren have often been known to develop and retain strong affectionate feelings beween them. I was such a stepfather myself to three children who grew up to be very well-functioning adults.
So I think we have to let rule us the big conservative principle that each case depends on its individual merits. It is only where there is evidence of some distress in the child that we are warranted to intervene. Parenting can be succesful under many different parental arrangements -- and excludng one arrangeent is dogmatic and can be tyrannical. -- JR
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‘Retaliation’: Nurse Who Blew the Whistle on Child Sex-Change Program Says Texas Children’s Fired Her
Former Texas Children’s Hospital nurse Vanessa Sivadge says that she has been terminated after blowing the whistle on the hospital’s alleged use of Texas Medicaid to cover attempted sex changes for children.
Texas Children’s has denied that it used Texas Medicaid to cover cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for minors, as Sivadge has alleged. The hospital did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s multiple requests for comment about the alleged termination on Monday afternoon.
In a written statement to journalist Chris Rufo, Sivadge shared that she submitted a religious accommodation request to her supervisor at the hospital on May 31, asking to be transferred out of the endocrinology clinic.
The day after Rufo had published Sivadge’s allegations against the hospital, in early June, the hospital allegedly called Sivadge and put her on leave citing “things shared publicly”—which she believes was a reference to the story—and her request to transfer.
“This past Friday on August 16, TCH fired me effective immediately,” she shared. “This is unlawful for two reasons: it is retaliation for my coming forward with information on TCH’s egregious pattern of deception and Medicaid fraud, and this action also illegally disregarded my request to transfer due to my belief that these procedures bring irreversible harm and lifelong regret to children confused about their sex.”
“I would like to challenge this in court, but my legal fees are mounting,” she added. “I am relying on the public who is generously supporting my legal defense through donations to my Give Send Go. Thank you for your continued support telling my story, which is saving children’s lives, and encouraging other whistleblowers like me to come forward.”
Rufo shared the letter in an “X” post, where he linked to Sivadge’s “Give Send Go” campaign. The campaign, which appears to have been started about 12 days ago, had reached about $23,000 as of 2 p.m. on Monday.
In a June statement, Texas Children’s emphasized that it “never condones any criminal act.”
“We welcome additional information that may help our internal investigation,” the hospital added in the statement. “It goes without saying that if we uncover any rogue or unauthorized criminal activity, we will take swift action to correct the issue.”
“To reiterate,” the statement continued, “our internal investigation to-date has found no basis to substantiate any allegations of Medicaid fraud. All services provided by Texas Children’s were permitted according to Medicaid billing and payment guidelines that were in effect at the time care was provided.”
Texas Children’s has also drawn increasing attention in recent weeks as the Justice Department targets whistleblower Eithan Haim, who exposed the hospital allegedly secretly performing attempted gender-transition procedures on children.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas announced in mid-June that it had indicted 34-year-old Haim for “obtaining protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without authorization.” If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine.
Texas Children’s had publicly said in March 2022 that it would no longer perform attempted gender-transition procedures on kids. In May 2023, Haim provided Rufo with documents showing that Texas Children’s was “lying to the public about the existence of its transgender-medicine program,” as Haim later revealed in an explosive piece in January of this year.
“I worked at the hospital as a surgery resident, and I knew that these interventions didn’t stop,” Haim wrote. “Three days after the announcement, a surgeon implanted a hormone device in a healthy 11-year-old girl for gender dysphoria. Over the next year, the frequency of these procedures increased, and potentially hundreds more children received hormone interventions for gender dysphoria.”
Haim told The Free Press that before he gave Rufo any of the documents, he made sure that the patients’ names and identifying information were redacted (to protect himself from violating federal laws and to protect the patients’ privacy).
The very next day after Rufo published Haim’s (then anonymous) May 2023 expose, the Texas Legislature banned these experimental gender-transition attempts for minors.
A month later, two federal agents came to Haim’s home to speak with him. They told him that he was a “potential target” of an investigation into federal criminal violations related to medical records.
“It was clear to me that this was a political investigation. I refused to submit to an interview without an attorney,” he wrote in City Journal.
After that, Haim went public with his story.
“To these agents, the prosecutor, and their political handlers, I was a criminal because I had told the truth,” he wrote.
“None of this mattered, I believe, because I had exposed a truth that threatened their ideology,” Haim added. “This was the reason for their frightening show of force. The intent was to intimidate me. If I agreed to stay silent, though, I would be legitimizing their lies and sacrificing the truth. Instead, I decided to fight back.
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I’m a Palestinian American. Here’s Why I Can’t Support the Anti-Israel Protesters
Walking past Union Station in the nation’s capital, I recently was met with a heartbreaking sight. Vandals had defaced the Columbus Memorial Fountain with spray paint, writing the words “Hamas is coming” in big red letters.
Trash and signs discarded by anti-Israel protesters littered the ground. A burnt shopping cart stood off to one side with piles of ash beneath it.
Most depressing, however, were the three bare flag poles that had been robbed of their American flags. Protesters had burned the flags, the only remnant a charred piece of fabric atop another pile of ash.
This was the aftermath of the July 24 “pro-Palestinian” protests in Washington, D.C., organized in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address that day to a joint meeting of Congress.
As an American of Palestinian heritage, some expect me to cheer on these people. They expect me to condemn the U.S., hate Israel, and support Hamas, a terrorist organization dedicated to wiping out the Jewish state.
But these expectations don’t represent me, nor my family.
I inherit my Palestinian background from my mother’s side of the family; her parents emigrated to America from the Middle East. My grandma was born in Israel and later moved to Ramallah in the West Bank and eventually to Jordan.
After arriving in America in her 20s, my grandma worked hard to become a U.S. citizen. She learned the English language while raising my mother and uncle. She opened a restaurant with my grandpa, lovingly named the Chicken Pantry, in Hamtramck, Michigan. When that business closed, my grandma worked as a real estate agent before eventually retiring in the land of prosperity.
America brought my family prosperity. My grandparents taught my mother to “kiss the ground you walk on” because they knew what a blessing America is.
They passed this lesson on to me.
Although many seem to think that my Palestinian heritage should cause me to align with protests that supposedly are “pro-Palestinian,” it’s precisely because of my heritage that I cannot do that.
Israel went to war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip only after Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,200 and kidnapped about 250 in a rampage of rape, torture, and murder Oct. 7 in southern Israel.
About 10 months later, as pro-Hamas protesters march in this country to “free Palestine,” they call for the death of America. As they burn the American flag, they burn all that my family has worked to achieve.
As the protesters pledge their allegiance to Hamas, they encourage a group that my grandmother wouldn’t hesitate to call a terrorist organization that operates with a strategy of human sacrifice.
Think about it. Why are there no Hamas military bases in the Gaza Strip adjoining Israel? Because the terrorists hide behind their own people.
They dress like noncombatants in Gaza. They establish bunkers in hospitals. They commandeer ambulances for transportation.
These actions are all in direct violation of Article 18 of the Geneva Conventions, the international pacts that set minimum standards during armed conflict for the treatment of civilians, soldiers, and prisoners of war.
One example is Hamas’ use of Gaza’s most important hospital, Al-Shifa. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hamas uses a bunker under the hospital as a base for military operations. This not only makes the hospital a target, but takes medical resources needed for the sick.
In contrast, the Israel Defense Forces have given civilians in Gaza opportunities to evacuate and warned of impending attacks. No other nation goes this far to protect enemy civilians.
How can I support pro-Hamas demonstrators who wish to end the nation that brought my family so much? How can I back a terrorist group that uses its own people as human shields? How can I hate Israel, when the IDF has worked to keep Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way?
I believe it’s important to point out that, contrary to popular belief, not all Arabs think the same. Some of us do see this conflict differently. And our thoughts and beliefs should not be snuffed out because they go against the “narrative.”
To some, perhaps our stance makes us walking oxymorons. But we are proud ones, nonetheless.
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Australia: Huge dispute erupts over plan to give a massive plot of land to a black minority
It's sheer racism to give to one racial group something that is not given to all
The future of a major open-cut gold mine in western NSW has been thrown into doubt after its owner said the project had been rendered unviable by a federal protection order.
ASX-listed Regis Resources said a decision by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to protect Indigenous heritage at the McPhillamys Gold Project, central-west NSW, would stop the mine going ahead.
The NSW Independent Planning Commission in March approved Regis's application to mine gold in the area despite opposition from some in the local Aboriginal community.
Regis chief executive Jim Beyer said the company was 'extremely surprised and disappointed' that, after nearly four years of assessment, Ms Plibersek had decided to effectively block the development.
'(This) declaration shatters any confidence that development proponents Australia-wide (both private and public) can have in project approval timelines and outcomes,' he said in a statement.
The minister's Indigenous-heritage protection declaration covers part of the Belubula River, which falls within the footprint for a proposed storage facility for cast-off material.
Regis has argued there are no other viable options for the facility and developing alternatives would require it to restart the lengthy assessments process.
'This decision does impact a critical area of the project development site and means the project is not viable,' it said.
Under the Regis proposal, an 11-year open cut mining operation would be set up in the Blayney-Kings Plains district, near Bathurst.
The project would create almost 1,000 jobs in the region, the company said.
The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies, an industry lobby group, said the government order 'lacks reason and commonsense'.
'(It) sets a truly terrible precedent for investment risk in Australia,' association chief executive Warren Pearce said in a statement.
Ms Plibersek had ignored the views of local traditional owners, the Orange Local Aboriginal Corporation, who did not oppose the project, he said.
'They could see the value and future prosperity that this project could bring to their people,' Mr Pearce said.
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My my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/ozarc.html (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See