RUTHFULLY YOURS

The burkini is rather more than a peculiar bathing costume, being both a test of the Western freedom to dress as one wishes and part of the Islamic campaign to make the misogynist manifestations of sharia law both commonplace and unremarkable
Public nudity or near nudity and outrageously lewd behaviour on Main Street in the cold light of day might bring the constabulary into play. Of course all kinds of questions arise as to how nude or lewd you are allowed to be. These are questions that Western societies have wrestled with for a long time, and it is true to say that what you can get away with now would have shocked our forbears.

On the other side of the coin, I doubt whether in the history of mankind there has ever been a mandate to restrict the extent to which people can cover up when in purely public places. Widow’s weeds never caused a stir. And quite right too, you might concur. In the normal course of daily life the law has no business telling anybody to partially disrobe.

Here’s the rub. If society brings the law into play to restrict the extent to which people can cover up in public it has to be derivative of other broader laws put in place to protect society from serious harm. Overdress laws cannot pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Not in our tolerant and free Western societies they can’t. Thus Nice and other French towns which are attempting to ban the so-called burkini predictably find it tough going.

The argument is made that Muslim women must be protected from a medieval patriarchal oppression which forces them to cover up. Unfortunately, if asked, that Muslim woman on the beach in Nice, forced to partially disrobe by the police, would say that her choice of garb that day was hers and hers alone. Without the benefit of mind-reading how can we insist otherwise?

Of course oppression can be insidious, working its way into the minds of the oppressed so that they come to regard their subservient status as normal. We might believe that this has happened to many women in Islamic societies. If so, little can be done about it short of Muslim women rising up like latter-day suffragettes. There are already laws on the books preventing one person from harassing and threatening another.

By the way, the woman on the beach would also deny that she is a small part of the Islamic campaign to push sharia law; and, in this case, in the very place in July where 86 people were killed and many more injured in the name of Islam. It is shameful on its face, but she would deny having a political motive. Common sense tells us otherwise, but that doesn’t help.

BERLIN—Asylum seekers in Germany received nearly €5.3 billion ($5.91 billion) in welfare benefits last year, more than double the cost in 2014, statistics showed Monday, highlighting the scale of the country’s refugee challenge.

Some 975,000 asylum seekers received benefits last year, more than double the number in 2014, the Federal Statistical Office said. In total, Germany paid asylum seekers €5.27 billion in support, ranging from lodging to food and medical treatments, up from €2.4 billion in 2014.

This is just part of the total amount the German state spent on helping migrants last year since the statistics only include asylum seekers–including rejected applicants who cannot be deported–and not recognized refugees, most of whom are eligible for income support. Only a minute fraction of the roughly 1 million migrants who entered Germany last year have found work.

The statistics are a stark reminder of the financial burden Germany has taken on when it opened its borders to refugees from the Middle-East, Asia and Africa last year. Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended the country’s liberal refugee policy in the face of mounting discontent, particularly among conservative backers of her Christian Democratic Union.

On Sunday, the upstart anti-immigrant party beat Ms. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats for the first time in the latest sign of public disapproval of the chancellor’s refugee policy.

The majority of asylum seekers receiving benefits last year were from Asia, with 308,021 from Syria and 114,543 from Afghanistan, the data showed. Some 67% were men with an average age of 25 years, the statistics show. Some 30% of those receiving aid were minors. CONTINUE AT SITE

With Europe being overrun today with Muslim refugees, and therape of European women by the male migrants becoming a widespread phenomenon, the Glazov Gang is running it special episode joined by Ingrid Carlqvist, the Editor-in-Chief of Dispatch-International.com.

Ingrid discussed Islam’s Rape of Sweden, unveiling the Muslim terror that is maiming her country:http://jamieglazov.com/2016/09/05/islams-rape-of-sweden-on-the-glazov-gang-2/

Since the signing of the nuclear deal on July 14, 2015—now, it turns out, with major secret exemptions for Iran—Iran’s brazenness has only grown. The Obama administration, in its ongoing efforts to coddle and appease, has gone so far as to offer to buy Iran’s heavy water and sell Iran Boeings.

But the reason appeasement doesn’t work is that Iran harbors an intense enmity toward the West and particularly its (still) reigning superpower, America, which it wants to destroy. Anyone still not convinced of that should watch this propaganda video of young Iranians sinking American aircraft carriers.

Lately, with the lame-duck President Obama headed for the finish line as he tightly clutches his “legacy”—the nuclear deal—Iran has further stepped up the brazenness. It has harassed U.S. ships in international waters of the Persian Gulf, forcing one of them to fire warning shots. It has deployed the Russian-made S-300 missile-defense system—one of the most advanced in the world—at its Fordo uranium-enrichment site. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an address to Defense Ministry staff in Tehran, has said Iran must continue its offensive military buildup and “avoid negotiating with the U.S., [as] experience has proven that instead of understanding, the Americans are seeking to impose their will in negotiations.”

The Obama administration, for which the nuclear deal plays a role like the speed of light in Einsteinian relativity—an absolute, immutable principle—reacts to all this solely by expressing “concern.”

A major exposé in the Daily Mail now reveals that, for years, Iran’s military involvement in Syria has been much more extensive and dangerous than many believed.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled opposition group, has passed information to MailOnline that was apparently leaked by senior figures in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Among other things, the activists say Iran now commands about 60,000 Shiite troops in Syria—vastly more than the 16,000 that Western analysts had estimated.

The NCRI, which in 2002 exposed Iran’s then-secret nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak, also says Iran operates a major headquarters near Damascus airport, nicknamed the Glasshouse. About a thousand people work there including Iran’s feared intelligence agencies, and there is also a basement for holding millions of dollars in cash.

The NCRI claims that the total amount Iran has spent on the Syrian war comes to an astounding $100 billion, much of it during years when Tehran was complaining loudly about the ravages of economic sanctions. Western analysts had gauged the sum at only $15 billion.