RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/

Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital has some calm and soothing, matter-of-fact, trust-us-we’re-experts advice for the parents of boys who want to be girls and vice versa (emphasis added):

For others, living in their birth-assigned gender role is extremely distressing. In these cases, it is important for families to discuss with their child or teenager what they need to do to protect their physical and mental wellbeing, and consider seeking professional assistance.

For many transgender children and teenagers, the onset of puberty, with the development of secondary sex characteristics (e.g. breasts, changing voice) that don’t match their gender identity, is a particularly distressing time….

…. Once puberty has started, treatment options include the use of puberty blockers to stop the physical changes of puberty that the adolescent finds distressing.

1/ Known as Stage 1 treatment, puberty blockers are used mostly in early puberty. Stage 1 treatment is reversible.

2/ Stage 2 treatment involves using gender-affirming hormones (oestrogen or testosterone) to change the body to be more consistent with the teenager’s affirmed gender. Depending on the circumstances, this treatment can usually be started around the age of 16.

3/ Stage 3 treatment involves surgery, which is not commonly undertaken before adulthood.

According to US endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, the RCMH isn’t doing those kids any favours. Indeed, by his reckoning they are being made ill:

“I call it a development blocker — it’s actually causing a disease,” Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an endocrinologist associated with Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Rocklin, Calif., told PJ Media. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development.

“We’re talking about what in nature is a rare condition. In the United States, if someone has this condition it’s going to be recognized and treated so the long-term results are unknown,” the doctor explained. “It’s an area that needs to be explored further.”

While endocrinologists — doctors who specialize in hormones and the endocrine system — are familiar with the disease and gladly treat it when a patient has been diagnosed, many of them are effectively causing their patients to contract the same disease in an attempt to affirm gender identity, Laidlaw said. “An endocrinologist might treat a condition where a female’s testosterone levels are going to be outside the normal range. We’ll treat that and we’re aware of metabolic problems. At the same time, an endocrinologist may be giving high levels of testosterone to a female to ‘transition’ her.”

The result, according to Laidlaw:

When people are given far more of the opposite sex hormone than their bodies can handle, they are at “increased risk for cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular death, deep vein thrombosis. They’ve looked at adults taking these hormones and have seen already these cardiovascular risks.”

When these drugs are administered to children, “one would presume it’s the same or even worse, in the long run.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/the-impotence-of-the-g7/

What, at this point, does the high-profile diplomatic summit purport to do?

At this year’s G7 Summit in Biarritz, France, the summit’s host, President Emmanuel Macron, gave each of the other leaders in attendance a watch made of recycled fishing nets and powered by solar energy. The watches, he explained, symbolized the group’s collective commitment to global sustainability and ocean conservation — though actually, they symbolize the summit’s pointlessness.

Was it always so? In 1975, the leaders of the then-G6 — France, West Germany, Japan, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. — met outside of Paris to tackle that year’s oil-related financial crisis. The next year, they became the G7, as Canada joined under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (the father of the country’s current prime minister, Justin Trudeau). Soon after, the president of the European Commission was invited to attend, as were other countries. In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, then general secretary of the U.S.S.R.’s Communist party, came to observe the summit in London, where it was hoped he’d learn a thing or two about democracy, liberty, and how to make friends and influence people.

Of course, the summit never had any real political or legal force behind it. But the idea was that — given the overwhelming economic clout of the G7, which originally made up almost 70 percent of the global economy, at least in nominal terms, though that has now fallen to around 50 percent — greater transparency on macroeconomics would better prepare and coordinate international markets.

Perhaps inevitably, the scope of the enterprise was soon extended beyond economics. It became a political power show, a festival of diplomacy, and a field day for journalists and political cartoonists around the world. In 1998, Bill Clinton allowed Russia into the club, where it remained until 2014, when it was booted for annexing the Crimea from Ukraine. The idea behind this was, presumably, to humiliate President Putin into changing his ways, which he evidently still hasn’t.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/08/aiding-and-comforting-the-wests-enemies/

Had I been born in Australia, the content of Paul Monk’s well-argued article (“Chinese Spies and Our National Interest”) would’ve shocked and amazed me. However, since I was born in the USSR, it came as a bit of an anti-climax.  ‘Someone is surprised that the Soviets and the Chinese spy on Australia? Really? Surprised? You’re kidding, right?’ Of course they spy on us.

But first, a little trip down memory lane: the David Combe affair. This ALP functionary was befriended by the well-known Russian intelligence agent Valeriy Ivanov and, socially lubricated, tutored the KGB man about the ALP, the workings of the Australian government and his own political ambitions. Needless to say, Ivanov was all ears. Unsurprisingly, the conversation was taped by ASIO, which had bugged the Russian’s residence. Surprisingly, their exchange was broadcast on national TV some time later. The consequences for our David were to be kicked sideways and more than somewhat down, appointed Australia’s chief salesman of wine to Canada. Mighty powerful slap on the wrist, if you ask me. Kevin must’ve winced at least a couple of times, I bet.

In this sense, I appreciate and share Paul Monk’s frustration, and his politely restrained fury (“Treason Will Go Unpunished“), that those betraying the nation’s interests seem to suffer no stern and genuine consequences. Achievements of the Soviet and the Chinese intelligence services are many, varied and impressive. Monk picked up on the subtle differences which distinguish these predators. The Soviets, for starters, were quite angry with the Russian-speaking diaspora, considering them traitors to the cause. By contrast, the pragmatic China regards its expat populations as inexhaustible sources of intelligence. However, and this is the crucial point, both relied on similar principles. The fundamental, shared principle was and remains the use of liberal democracies’ resources, law, openness and freedoms against these very same democracies. The second common principle is the collaboration of democratic societies in the transfer of technology, know-how and expertise.

One has only to look to the history of Soviet industrialisation, which was promoted with the blessing of US government by the industrial architect Albert Kahn, whose firm kick-started the construction of  Soviet industrial enterprises. The long list includes steel mills that produced howitzers, locomotives factories that churned out T-34 tanks, hydroelectric power stations to supply energy for the aluminum production for planes — the list of the dual-purpose and readily switchable projects goes on and on. Many of those factories were built by prisoners. Foreign specialists knew all about it. How did the impoverished Soviets pay for all this expertise and equipment, you might ask? That is where the socialist principle of communal property came in — the peasants were herded into kolkhozes (collective farms), their grain was seized and, despite the resulting famine, sold overseas. Moscow-sanctioned starvation killed millions in the Ukraine alone.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14772/biarritz-g7-summit

In one of those delicious ironies that add flavor to history, as the G7, which ended up including Russia after the fall of the USSR, saw its real power to affect global trends decline while its ambitions to rule the world spiraled. The group could do nothing about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the disintegration of the USSR, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the seizure of power by the mullahs in Iran, China shifting gears towards a capitalist system, the wars triggered by Saddam Hussein and the rise of international terrorism in the name of religion. More importantly, perhaps, the “global politburo” had no role in the dramatic technological changes that dragged the world into something bigger than the Industrial Revolution.

By the mid-1990s the G8 summit, as it was before Russia was kicked out, had morphed into a talking shop and a photo-op for political leaders in search of relevance in a new world they could no longer control. In one of the summits, hosted in Lyon by France, the participants made “decisions” on almost everything under the sun, knowing all along that they had neither the intention nor the power to act on any of them.

Well, how relevant is the G7 today? The short answer is: not very much.

Journalists across the globe have always regarded this time of the year, the heart of the summer, as the silly season in which nothing of much interest happens, at least on the political front. The silly season is filled with news of the birth of double-headed sheep in New Zealand, the discovery of the remains of Atlantis, the lost continent, in the Algerian Sahara or, to add a bit of spice, the suicide of a pedophile billionaire in a high-security prison in America.

Thus, one might say that the G7 summit in the French resort town of Biarritz, starting Saturday, is an exception to the silly season rule. Or is it?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14766/persecution-of-christians-june

Three men and one woman robbed, beat, and poisoned Sagheer Masih, a 35-year-old Christian auto-rickshaw driver. “He was well-mannered, polite and very friendly. Knowing he had the responsibility of taking care of three younger siblings… he ensured that he always got to work early and left late in order to gather as much money as he could to care for them…. Instead of killing him in on the spot, they forced him to drink poison and acid and left him there to die….” — International Christian Concern, June 20, 2019, Pakistan.

“Their tactic is to befriend someone when they come in [to prison]. If they don’t convert, they will then start spreading rumours about them, that the person is a snitch, so that they will be ostracised. Then the beatings follow.” — An inmate, according to a Ministry of Justice report; The Times, June 7, 2019, United Kingdom.

“We cannot allow the Christians… to allege that Jesus is the Son of God,” explained one mosque leader; “this [is] a serious blasphemy to Muslims.” — Morning Star News, June 3, 2019, Uganda.

Slaughter of Christians

Mali: On June 9, Islamic Fulani gunmen massacred at least 95 Christians — including women and children. During their rampage of a Christian village, they it set ablaze before leaving; several of the slain were burned alive. “About 50 heavily armed men arrived on motorbikes and pickups,” a survivor recalled. “They first surrounded the village and then attacked — anyone who tried to escape was killed…. No one was spared — women, children, elderly people.” Security sources confirmed that the raiders also randomly killed domestic animals in the village. It was “virtually wiped out.”

Burkina Faso: Islamic terrorists slaughtered 29 Christians over the course of two separate raids. The first took place on Sunday, June 9, in the town of Arbinda; 19 Christians were slaughtered. The next day, another ten Christians were murdered in a nearby town. An additional 11,000 Christians fled the region and were left displaced; they feared if they were to remain in their villages they would be next. “There is no Christian anymore in this town [Arbinda],” said a local contact. He added that “It’s proven that they [terrorists] were looking for Christians. Families who hide Christians are [also] killed. Arbinda had now lost in total no less than 100 people within six months.” These June attacks follow a string of Islamic terror attacks in the West African nation over the preceding six weeks that left at least another 20 Christians dead.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/trade-wars-the-empire-strikes-back/

Wars happen because the opposing sides have different views of the likely outcome. In the case of wars between Asians and the West, the West chronically underestimates the Asians. The Romanov Dynasty fell in large part because it lost its entire fleet in two catastrophic engagements with Japan’s Imperial Navy, at Port Arthur in 1904 and the Tsushima Strait in 1905. Britain would have lost the whole of its Asian Empire to Japan after the fall of Singapore in February 1942, except for the United States. Just before Singapore fell, Churchill told a journalist (as Andrew Roberts reports in his new Churchill book) that the Japanese were “the wops of Asia” and would fold like the Italians. Never before in the course of human events did such a smart man say anything so stupid.

So at the risk of spending the next month dodging rotten eggs and ripe tomatoes, I’ll say it: The way things stand, we’re going to get our heads handed to us, and President Trump’s chances of re-election will drop considerably. I’m a Trump supporter, and I want him to be re-elected, but I think he’s walking into a Chinese trap. Remember, Xi Jinping doesn’t have an election in 2020.

Today’s announcement of Chinese tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. goods and President Trump’s promise of retaliation may mark a turning point. China has taken the offensive. In fact, it did so August 6 when it allowed the RMB to depreciate to less than 7 RMB per U.S. dollar, as I explained in an Asia Times analysis at the time (below).

China appears to believe that it can win a trade war against the United States. Of course, no-one wins. Both sides lose. The question is how each side deals with the consequences of losing. For the past year, I’ve argued that the time is long past when the U.S. can inflict sufficient pain on China to impose our will. Since the 2008 crisis, China has been shifting its economy toward the home market and away from exports. Only 5% of its manufacturing now goes to the U.S., and most of that is on the low end of the value-added spectrum. When President Trump tweets that we don’t need China, by contrast, he appears unaware of the vast network of specialized manufacturers, skilled engineers and workers, and suppliers that produce the computers and consumer electronics we buy from China. You can’t wave a magic wand and replace twenty years’ worth of investment and training.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/hong-kong-crisis-taiwan-defense/

The future of democracy in the Indo-Pacific depends on our reinforcing Taiwan.

In October 1950 the People’s Liberation Army entered Tibet. The Communists made short work of the Tibetan military. The following year, representatives of the Dalai Lama signed a treaty with the People’s Republic of China (then all of two years old). The “Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet,” or the “Seventeen-Point Agreement” for short, promised that Beijing would uphold Tibetan autonomy, refrain from interfering with Tibetan politics or with the affairs of the Dalai Lama, and respect the religious freedom of Tibetan Buddhists.

These were words on a page. Before long, the Chinese Communists began to exert pressure over the Tibetan people. Occupation forces spread throughout the region. The authorities collectivized agriculture and broke down institutions of civil society. Farmers and militia rebelled. The resistance was quashed, and the Dalai Lama began an exile that continues today. Tibet, like Xinjiang province to its north, is a cantonment of the People’s Republic.

The Seventeen-Point Agreement is the model for Chinese territorial acquisitions. Verbal pledges of freedom are meaningless. What matters is the correlation of forces and facts on the ground. Communists have no trouble speaking of autonomy and local control. Until the moment Beijing dominates the councils of government and independent power centers have been crushed.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14568/muslims-against-antisemitism

It is important… to note that, in recent years, many Muslims have openly and firmly come out to oppose all forms of Jewish hatred and anti-Zionism.

In the West, they are the best integrated, and therefore and should be given the greatest support from social agencies and governments.

On April 24, 2014, thirty French imams signed an open letter in Le Monde, in which they denounced antisemitism and terrorism… Similarly, [in] May 18, 2018, a group of prominent British Muslims placed an open letter… in the Daily Telegraph to urge other Muslims to come out against antisemitism whenever it can be seen.

“[W]e also admit and have to be honest that there is a substantial set of people within Muslim communities who circulate anti-Semitic tropes and who use the Palestinians and their quest for statehood, as a means of targeting Jewish communities. This is not acceptable….” — ‘Muslims Against Antisemitism’ website (United Kingdom).

These reform-minded individuals and groups deserve our full support.

It is no secret that Muslims have for centuries found ways to follow an anti-Jewish ideology embedded within holy books. In the Qur’an, for instance, one verse says:

Say (O Muhammad SAW to the people of the Scripture): “Shall I inform you of something worse than that, regarding the recompense from Allah: those (Jews) who incurred the Curse of Allah and His Wrath, those of whom (some) He transformed into monkeys and swines, those who worshipped Taghut (false deities); such are worse in rank (on the Day of Resurrection in the Hell­fire), and far more astray from the Right Path (in the life of this world).” — (Qur’an 5:60; Mohsin Khan translation]

A hadith promises:

“That on Judgment Day, the Muslims will fight the Jews, and the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and the trees will speak, calling upon the Muslims: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill them.'”

Islamic antisemitism is not just a matter of history; it still continues in surprisingly large proportions across the Muslim world as well as the United States and Europe.

A 2014 survey of antisemitism by the US Anti-Defamation League (ADL) covered 100 countries. It found that all the nations in the top 10 most antisemitic locations were in the Middle East or North Africa region, with an overall figure of 73%. The West Bank and Gaza came at the top, with 93% of Palestinians expressing antisemitic views.

https://quadrant.org.au/

Much has been written since 9.30am on Wednesday, when two members of a three-judge panel decided the uncorroborated and highly improbable account of cathedral choir boys being molested in an open, unlocked room after Sunday Mass by Cardinal George Pell was sufficiently convincing to see him returned to prison. Where close friends fear he will leave in a coffin, for at 78 such is the parlous state of his health.

Of all the tens of thousands of words, however, none paint such a damning picture of the forces arrayed against an innocent man as the magisterial overview pulled together by the poster Currency Lad (CL)  at the Catallaxy Files blog.

A small taste:

And so [ABC journalist Louise] Milligan proceeds to the allegations that led, albeit haltingly, to an infamous prosecution. Needless to say, she leaves out the corrupt “trawling” operation conducted by a vengeful Victoria Police to find somebody – anybody – who wanted to make accusations against one George Pell. Again, this mirrored what British police did at the behest of Carl Beech, the paedophile recently convicted of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice (inter alia).

I by no means thought Pell himself was an abuser until early 2016. From February that year, I began to meet men who made extremely concerning allegations about the Cardinal, going back decades.

She “began to meet men” who made accusations about the Cardinal? How? Where? Who facilitated this exordium of her enlightenment? If a third party made the introductions, what interest might they have had in cultivating an ABC journalist? She won’t say.

And again:

There was nothing in the men whom I began to meet (and whose stories I told in my book, Cardinal, The Rise and Fall of George Pell) that made me think that any of them were not telling the truth.

Let’s emphasise her key assertion: that every single one of them was telling the truth.