Tag Archives: London

After The Damage Has Been Done…

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On Wednesday, Breitbart reported the following:

The UK state broadcaster issued an apology on Wednesday after incorrectly reporting Israeli soldiers were targeting “medical teams as well as Arab speakers” while clearing Hamas terrorists out of a Gaza hospital.

The BBC said its report on the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) taking on Hamas terrorists inside a hospital “fell below our usual editorial standards” after the newsreader stated attacks were targeting medics and Arabic speakers.

According to the Guardian:

Hiram Johnson (1866-1945) – a Progressive Republican senator in California. His actual quote, ‘The first casualty, when war comes, is truth’, was said during World War 1. He died on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

The Breitbart article continues:

The Board of Deputies said they were “absolutely appalled” that the BBC had misreported that the IDF was taking medical teams and Arabic speakers into the hospital to help patients there so catastrophically. “At best”, they said, the misreading of the situation showed a “staggering lack of care” which made a mockery of the BBC’s “oft-stated dedication to professionalism and impartiality”, behind which the Corporation has hidden in the past month to justify not calling the Hamas attack on Israel a terrorist act. The BBC was also criticised for the error by the Israeli Embassy in London.

…The broadcaster issued an apology on Wednesday, and said on air:

And now, an apology from the BBC. BBC News as it covered initial reports that Israeli forces had entered Gaza’s main hospital, we said that medical teams and Arab speakers were being targeted. This was incorrect and misquoted a Reuters report. We should have said IDF forces included medical teams and Arabic speakers for this operation. So we apologise for this error, which fell below our usual editorial standards. The correct version of events was broadcast minutes later.

How many of the people who heard the initial report will hear the apology? This is the sort of sloppy (or biased) reporting that helps terrorists justify their actions (yes, I know there is no justification for terrorism, but in their own minds, the terrorists regard what they are doing as their ticket to paradise).

In general, the media has forgotten the horrors of October 7th and replaced them with criticism of Israel defending its people.

Don’t Know Or Don’t Care?

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On Thursday, The New York Post posted an article about how some of the pro-Hamas protestors in England view recent and current events in the Middle East.

The article includes the following:

Two girls interviewed at one pro-Hamas protest in London were asked what their reaction was when they first learned that Hamas had attacked Israel on October 7.

“I don’t believe they did, did they,” said one.

“Honestly, I think I need to be a bit more clued up on everything that’s going on, so I feel I’m not really qualified to answer that too well,” said the other.

Well, she appeared to feel “qualified” enough to turn up at an anti-Israel demo.

Her friend, holding a banner, actually said, “I mean, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything that shows that that’s actually happened.”

That is frightening.

The article continues:

These two ignoramuses should have come to Israel with me this week.

Specifically, they should have come to the site of the music festival massacre, and seen the remains of that “peace rave” where people their age, and very similar to them, were gunned down and raped just as the party was “coming up.”

Or perhaps they should have come with me to the small community of Nir Oz on the border of Gaza.

I have been to kibbutzim like this many times in the past. The citizens of these small towns and communities are often very left-wing. Often “peaceniks.” They have been accustomed to rockets for years.

Douglas Murray, the author of the article, walked through some of the areas that were attacked on October 7th. The article includes pictures of the destruction. We should not be concerned about the Israeli attack on the military strongholds in Gaza, we need to be concerned about the monsters that attacked innocent civilians and butchered them while celebrating their actions. The people who purposely killed women, young children and babies on October 7th need to be killed themselves. There is no chance of rehabilitation.

Staying Safe While Putting Others In Danger

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On Monday, Fox News reported the following headline:

Hamas terror chief exposed as living in London public housing project, funded by UK taxpayers

The article reports:

A Hamas leader was discovered living in a government-subsidized London home, despite previously running the terrorist group’s operations in the West Bank, U.K. media is reporting. 

Muhammad Qassem Sawalha, 62, is a designated Hamas member, according to Israel’s Ministry of Defense, who has been living in the U.K. for decades, a report from The Sunday Times detailed. Sawalha managed to flee to England in the 1990s and secure a British passport in the early 2000s, but continued working for Hamas, according to the report. 

Sawalha is a wanted man in Israel and would be arrested if he returns to the nation due to his designation as a member of Hamas. 

The report details that he and his wife, identified as Sawsan, 56, were granted a roughly $136,500 discount on a nearly $390,000 two-story state-funded home in London. 

On October 17th, The Boston Globe reported:

Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush issued a blunt demand to Afghanistan’s Islamist dictators, who had long sheltered Al Qaeda’s top officials.

“Turn [Osama bin Laden] over,” the president said. “Turn him over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over, destroy all the terrorist camps. … This is nonnegotiable.”

In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, President Biden should be issuing a similar message to Qatar. The rich Persian Gulf sheikhdom has for years underwritten Hamas’s control of Gaza, funded its killing operations, and shielded its senior leadership. That makes it a key collaborator in what Biden called the “pure, unadulterated evil” of the barbaric Oct. 7 slaughter of at least 1,300 Israelis and the abduction of at least 199 hostages.

Israel was the foremost target of the bloody Hamas rampage, but those killed by the terrorists included 30 US citizens too. As many as 13 Americans may be among the captives held in Gaza. Which means, as Biden said, that the campaign to destroy Hamas is necessary not just for Israel’s welfare but for “the security of the United States.”

The article also notes:

To begin with, Hamas’s main headquarters and top leaders are located in Doha, the Qatari capital. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, resides in Qatar. So does Izzat Al-Risheq, who oversees Hamas’s media operations. Neither the regime in Doha nor Hamas makes any secret of the fact that Qatar harbors some of the worst terrorists on earth. “Footage last week showed Haniyeh, 61, smiling and praying from the comfort of his air-conditioned Doha office to celebrate the slaughter of Israelis,” The Telegraph reported this week. “In the video, Haniyeh and 12 of his henchmen are seen dressed in freshly pressed suits as they watch the horror unfold on a widescreen TV.”

It’s time to reassert American energy independence and let the countries in the Middle East go bankrupt. That is one way to exert pressure without bloodshed.

Obviously Guns Are Not The Problem

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Breitbart is reporting today that the murder rate in London has surged to a decade high. Guns are not common in Britain, the increase is due to knife killings.

The article reports:

The number of people murdered in London has reached its highest level in a decade under the leadership of Mayor Sadiq Khan, with 149 people losing their lives in 2019.

The homicide rate in London last year was the highest since 2008 when 154 people were killed in the capital and ten per cent higher than in 2018 when 135 people were murdered. The majority of victims were stabbed to death, with 90 people being killed by knives, up from 55 in 2014.

The article notes:

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Service said in response to the surge in knife crime that “tackling violence that involves knife crime is the number one priority” for the police.

“Stop and search and the use of Section 60 remains an important power in tackling knife crime and protecting the public. This means that following a stabbing, further retaliatory incidents are prevented saving further violence,” the spokesman told The Sun.

“In 2018, it resulted in more than 4,200 arrests for weapon possession alone. Every one of those weapons seized potentially means one less violent incident, injury or death,” the spokesman added.

Maybe it’s time that we started teaching people to respect other people. The problem is not the weapon, the problem is in the heart of the person holding the weapon.

The Human Cost Of Socialized Medicine

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On Thursday, The Daily Signal posted an article which illustrates how thankful Americans should be for the health care we receive. The article tells the story of James Schmitz, a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. Mr. Schmitz suffers from West syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy.

The article reports:

After graduating college, I had an opportunity to work for a think tank in London. There, I’d be just hours away from the wonders of mainland Europe.

Britain is a historian’s paradise, so naturally as a history major, I was soaking it up. The idea of also going to Pompeii or Rome was spectacular.

The only thing standing in my way was a doctor to treat me abroad.

As an epileptic, I needed a steady supply of anti-seizure drugs and visits to the doctor about every three months to make sure everything was working as it should. I also needed a doctor to be available within a week’s time if necessary.

I didn’t know how hard it would be to find a doctor in Britain. I remember having a very difficult conversation with a general practitioner. It was the moment my dream of staying abroad was crushed.

It was a Friday. After work, I walked into an urgent care clinic to set up an appointment with a neurologist.

I knew how easy it is in the United States to see a doctor, so I thought this would be no different. I would go in, get a recommendation, and walk out with a name and number to call on Monday for an appointment possibly in two weeks’ time.

Sadly, that was not the case. The doctor said, verbatim: “I can recommend a neurologist for you. I will say, she’s pretty booked so you won’t see her for at least nine months.”

I was shocked. I felt as if I’d been blindsided. She wasn’t even guessing. She worked at a nearby National Health Service hospital right down the street on the weekends, so she knew.

I asked if there was anything I could do to expedite the waiting process. In response, all I got was: “I’ll call my colleague and see if she could maybe squeeze you in maybe three to four months from now.”

Disheartened by the news, I knew staying in the U.K. was out of the question. I had to return to the U.S. in order to keep accessing the routine medical care that had saved my life so many years before.

A month later, I packed my bags and left for Heathrow Airport having spent less than three months in the country. It’s a shame, because Britain is an amazing country and I would have loved to stay longer. Health care should not be a reason to have to leave a modern, First World country.

And that is how things work under socialized medicine. There may be no cost, but there is also no availability. Healthcare isn’t worth much if you can’t get it.

When The Stories Just Don’t Add Up

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Kimberley Strassel posted an article yesterday about Mr. Downer. Mr Downer is a conservative politician who was Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister (1996-2007) and is also a former Australian ambassador to the U.K. Mr. Downer’s conversation with 28-year-old fourth-tier Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, is supposedly what triggered the mess we know as the Mueller investigation.

There are, however, some serious problems with that premise.

The article lists a few of those problems:

When Mr. Downer ended his service in the U.K. this April, he sat for an interview with the Australian, a national newspaper, and “spoke for the first time” about the Papadopoulos event. Mr. Downer said he officially reported the Papadopoulos meeting back to Australia “the following day or a day or two after,” as it “seemed quite interesting.” The story nonchalantly notes that “after a period of time, Australia’s ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, passed the information on to Washington.”

My reporting indicates otherwise. A diplomatic source tells me Mr. Hockey neither transmitted any information to the FBI nor was approached by the U.S. about the tip. Rather, it was Mr. Downer who at some point decided to convey his information—to the U.S. Embassy in London.

However, that is not the way things are normally done. The article notes that The U.S. is part of Five Eyes, an intelligence network that includes the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The agreement among these countries is that they share intelligence information. Under the Five Eyes agreement, Mr. Downer was obligated to share information with Australia and let them deal with it. Obviously, that is not what he did.

The article explains the significance of that:

So if Australian intelligence did receive the Downer info, it didn’t feel compelled to act on it.

But the Obama State Department did—and its involvement is news. The Downer details landed with the embassy’s then-chargé d’affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton’s State Department.

When did all this happen, and what came next? Did the info go straight to U.S. intelligence? Or did it instead filter to the wider State Department team, who we already know were helping foment Russia-Trump conspiracy theories? Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, has publicly admitted to communicating in the summer of 2016 with his friend Christopher Steele, author of the infamous dossier.

The more we learn, the more questionable this story gets. Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is becoming obvious that the entire Russian investigation had only one purpose–to remove a duly-elected President. That is called sedition.

What Second Amendment?

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CBS News reported yesterday that Deerfield, Illinois voted on Monday to ban the possession, sale, and manufacture of assault weapons and large capacity magazines to “increase the public’s sense of safety.” My first reaction to that is, “Exactly what is an assault weapon? What about assault knives, assault baseball bats, assault wasp spray, and maybe assault china?”

The article reports:

CBS Chicago reports, anyone refusing to give up their banned firearm will be fined $1,000 a day until the weapon is handed over or removed from the town’s limits. 

The ordinance states, “The possession, manufacture and sale of assault weapons in the Village of Deerfield is not reasonably necessary to protect an individual’s right of self-defense or the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.”

The law does actually define assault weapons:

So, beginning June 13, banned assault weapons in Deerfield will include semiautomatic rifles with a fixed magazine and a capacity to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, shotguns with revolving cylinders, and conversion kits from which assault weapons can be assembled. And those are just a few of the firearm varieties banned. The list is long and includes all the following models or duplicates thereof: AK, AKM, AKS, AK-47, AK-74, ARM, MAK90, Misr, NHM 90, NHM 91, SA 85, SA 93, VEPR, AR-10, AR-15, Bushmaster XM15, Armalite M15, Olympic Arms PCR, AR70, Calico Liberty, Dragunov SVD Sniper Rifle, Dragunov SVU, Fabrique NationalFN/FAL, FN/LAR, FNC, Hi-Point Carbine, HK-91, Kel-Tec Sub Rifle, SAR-8, Sturm, Ruger Mini-14, and more.

Antique handguns that have been rendered permanently inoperable and weapons designed for Olympic target shooting events are exempt, as are retired police officers.

“We hope that our local decision helps spur state and national leaders to take steps to make our communities safer,” Deerfield Mayor Harriet Rosenthal said in a press release, after the ban on assault weapons passed unanimously.

At this point I should note that there was a federal assault weapons ban in effect from 1994 to 2004. Studies have shown that the ban had little impact on criminal activity. The action taken in Deerfield is in response to the recent school shooting in Florida. The actions in Deerfield do not line up with the facts. In 1990 the law was passed that created gun-free zones in schools. The law has had an effect opposite than what was intended–all but two of the mass shootings in school have taken place after schools were designated as gun-free zones. A gun-free zone simply tells the shooter that he will be unopposed until the police arrive.

So I guess Deerfield believes that guns are the problem and that making some guns illegal will solve the problem. How has that worked in Chicago and Washington, D.C.?

On April 2, ABC News reported:

London’s monthly murder rate has overtaken New York City’s for the first time in modern history, according to new figures from the Metropolitan Police and the New York Police Department.

…London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office said it was “deeply concerned” by the latest figures of knife crime in the capital, but insisted that London “remains one of the safest [cities] in the world.”

New York and London have similar-size populations of around 8.5 million each. But the U.S. city’s murder rate has dropped dramatically, by about 87 percent, since its peak in the 1990s.

London’s murder rate has in contrast risen by 38 percent since 2014 when the city had 94 killings. There were 119 murders in 2015, 109 in 2016 and 134 in 2017.

If Deerfield takes all the guns away from legal gun owners who have committed no crimes, do they honestly believe that criminals will not have access to guns? I hope I never have to shoot a home invader, but if I am ever faced with a home invader, I would rather have a gun than wait for the police to arrive.

Remembering Who Our Friends Are

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Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about a recent foreign policy decision by President Trump.

The article reports:

On Wednesday, Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration has for the first time approved the commercial sale of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated parts and accessories to Ukraine, a sale valued at $41.5 million. The Obama administration had refused to issue export licenses for lethal weapons.

Initial reports, including the Post’s, were that the sales to Ukraine would not encompass heavier weaponry such as Javelin anti-tank missiles. However, today the Post reports that Javelins will also be sold to Ukraine.

The article continues:

Russia denounced Trump’s decision on sales to Ukraine. Its Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said the decision will only make the conflict more deadly and that Russia might be forced to respond. He also said the U.S. can no longer cast itself as a mediator, and is now “an accomplice in fueling the war.” Putin himself has warned that U.S. assistance would escalate the conflict.

In reality, Russia is behind the war. Moreover, mediation has been futile because, as Jenna Lifhits of the Weekly Standard points out, Russia has failed to implement the 2015 Minsk ceasefire agreement. It requires Russian-backed separatists to withdraw heavy weapons from the conflict’s front line and create a buffer zone.

The sale of weapons to Ukraine is a response to the failure of the 2015 cease-fire and to the fact that, according the Trump administration’s envoy for the Ukraine crisis, 2017 was the most violent year in the four year history of this conflict.

The sniper systems Trump approved for sale are needed to address a specific vulnerability of Ukrainian forces fighting Russian-backed separatists.

This is a really smart move on the part of the Trump administration.

As I reminded everyone in May 2015:

A deal was signed on February 5, 1994, by Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, John Major and Leonid Kuchma—the then-leaders of the United States, Russia, United Kingdom and Ukraine—guaranteeing the security of Ukraine in exchange for the return of its ICBMs to Moscow’s control. The last SS-24 missiles moved from Ukrainian territory in June 1996, leaving Kiev defenseless against its nuclear-armed neighbor.

That deal, known as the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, was not a formal treaty but a diplomatic memorandum of understanding. Still, the terms couldn’t be clearer: Russia, the U.S. and U.K. agreed “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine…reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine.”

That agreement was broken by Russia and ignored by Britain and by the Obama administration. It is nice to see President Trump honoring it at least in part by supplying weapons to Ukraine.

The article at Power Line concludes:

The weapon sales can also plausibly be viewed as a means of gaining leverage if Russia wants seriously to negotiate a settlement in Ukraine. Putin has proposed that peacekeepers be deployed but, not surprisingly, there are major disagreements about how and where the peacekeepers would operate. The U.S. and Ukraine want peacekeepers deployed throughout the separatist-controlled regions stretching to the Ukraine-Russia border. Russia, not so much.

In any event, it’s clear that President Trump has moved boldly to advance Ukraine’s interests at the expense of Russia’s, to the displeasure of Putin. I don’t see how this move can be squared with the extreme anti-Trump rhetoric of the foolish Clapper and others who peddle a similarly hysterical line.

What Will Be The Impact Of This In Twenty Years?

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Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail reported that sixty percent of babies born in London are born to foreign mothers. That means six out of ten will be raised by people who have not been part of British culture. We need to think about what this means to the future of Britain.

The article explains some of the reasons for the high number of babies born to immigrants:

The new statistics on babies born to foreign-born mothers come after earlier figures from the ONS which showed that in some areas of London they account for more than three-quarters of births.

In the East London borough of Newham in 2014 more than three quarters of babies – 77 per cent – were born to mothers who were themselves born outside Britain.

In that year most of the foreign-born mothers who gave birth in the UK were from Poland, followed by Pakistan and India.

The 2014 figures showed immigrant mothers are more likely to be married than those born in Britain. Some 72 per cent of immigrant mothers were married that year, compared with 45 per cent of UK-born mothers. The ONS said this ‘reflects different expectations between cultures’.

The rise in the number of babies with foreign-born mothers has partly come because fertility rates among immigrants are higher than those of British-born women.

Although fertility rates among foreign-born women fell in 2015, an immigrant could expect to have 2.08 children. For UK-born women, the rate was 1.76.

 In the early days of the country of America, the population was made up of people who were not born here. Those immigrants formed the culture that eventually became the American culture. The shared values of those immigrants formed the basis of that culture–many had fled religious persecution–their faith was important to them and their freedom was important to them. They had a pioneering spirit that allowed them to journey through hardships for the chance to be free and reap the rewards of their efforts. America continued to take in immigrants, but screened them at Ellis Island to make sure they were willing to work and contribute to America. Originally there was no welfare system–an immigrant either worked hard and was successful or went home. Things have changed in America and in other places. Now immigrants are not necessarily encouraged to assimilate, learn the language, or work hard. The are not encouraged to become part of the culture or to help preserve the culture. When sixty percent of mothers in London are foreign born and may not be part of western culture, where will the country be in twenty years? Will Britain still be part of western civilization?

The Consequences Of Uncontrolled Immigration

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Immigration can be a very good thing. When people come to a country legally because they want to assimilate and contribute to the welfare of the country, that helps the country grow. However, when people choose not to assimilate, it creates problems in the present and in the future. London is experiencing some present problems that will probably lead to future problems.

The Gatestone Institute posted an article today about some recent statistics from London.

The article reports:

  • British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Muslims do not need to become the majority in the UK; they just need gradually to Islamize the most important cities. The change is already taking place.
  • British personalities keep opening the door to introducing Islamic sharia law. One of the leading British judges, Sir James Munby, said that Christianity no longer influences the courts and these must be multicultural, which means more Islamic. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Justice Lord Phillips, also suggested that the English law should “incorporate” elements of sharia law.
  • British universities are also advancing Islamic law. The academic guidelines, “External speakers in higher education institutions”, provide that “orthodox religious groups” may separate men and women during events. At the Queen Mary University of London, women have had to use a separate entrance and were forced to sit in a room without being able to ask questions or raise their hands, just as in Riyadh or Tehran.

The British are quickly reaching (or may have already reached) a tipping point. I realize that Britain does not have a First Amendment that protects free speech, but do they realize that under Sharia Law the punishment for saying anything even slightly negative about Mohammad is jail or death? Do they understand that Sharia Law totally ends the rights of women? Will liberal women in England put up with this?

The article further reports:

Since 2001, 500 London churches of all denominations have been turned into private homes. During the same period, British mosques have been proliferating. Between 2012 and 2014, the proportion of Britons who identify themselves as Anglicans fell from 21% to 17%, a decrease of 1.7 million people, while, according to a survey conducted by the respected NatCen Social Research Institute, the number of Muslims has grown by almost a million. Churchgoers are declining at a rate that within a generation, their number will be three times lower than that of Muslims who go regularly to mosque on Friday.

Demographically, Britain has been acquiring an increasingly an Islamic face, in places such as Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets. In 2015, an analysis of the most common name in England showed it was Mohammed, including spelling variations such as Muhammad and Mohammad.

Most important cities have huge Muslim populations: Manchester (15.8%), Birmingham (21.8%) and Bradford (24.7%). In Birmingham, the police just dismantled a terrorist cell; there is also a greater probability that a child will be born into a Muslim family than into a Christian one. In Bradford and Leicester, half the children are Muslim. Muslims do not need to become the majority in the UK; they just need gradually to Islamize the most important cities. The change is already taking place. “Londonistan” is not a Muslim majority nightmare; it is a cultural, demographic and religious hybrid in which Christianity declines and Islam advances.

America, are you listening?

The Consequences of Brexit

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Investor’s Business Daily posted an article yesterday about the results of the Brexit election. Media predictions claimed that if Britain exited the European Union, awful things would happen. Well, they were wrong.

The article reports the facts:

Sovereignty: It’s hard to remember, but in the run-up and immediate aftermath of Britain’s Brexit vote on June 23, the prophets of doom were everywhere. They predicted everything from an end to London as a financial capital to the meltdown of the British economy to a disaster for the U.S. Sorry, didn’t happen.

Yes, here in the U.S. the stock market sold off immediately after Brexit, just as the doom-and-gloomers predicted. But then something funny happened: The markets snapped smartly back, with the benchmark S&P 500 Index up almost 3% since the day of the vote.

As for Britain, the predicted disaster never occurred. As Britain’s Express wrote in a Wednesday headline: “Remainers were WRONG! Wages up and unemployment down as Brexit Britain booms”.

The article continues:

The online Express, citing new government data, reports that unemployment plunged 52,000 between April and June, leaving the unemployment rate at 4.9% — the lowest level since 2005. The total employment rate now stands at 74.5% of the population — the highest ever. Meanwhile, the number of unemployment claims dropped 8,600 in July — the month after the Brexit vote — to 768,600, the first decline since February.

Oh yes, and workers’ average earnings jumped 2.4% in the first six months of the year, showing that if businesses were worried about Brexit, it sure wasn’t showing in how much they were paying workers.

We need to remember that much of the fear was media-driven. We also need to remember that the voters in Great Britain were smart enough to ignore the media–even after the election when the media tried to find ways to invalidate the election results.

The article concludes:

Countries in the EU have lived with a demographic death spiral, out of control spending and debt, absurd regulations that enrich no one and a regional economy that, as hard as it may be to believe, grows even more slowly than ours. From 2008, the peak year of the financial crisis, through 2015, EU GDP grew 2%, according to U.S. government data. No, that’s not 2% a year — 2% total. It’s been an utter disaster, and the EU’s clueless bureaucrats seem helpless to do anything about it other than blaming their own citizens.

Britain saved itself from decades of stagnation and decline by Brexiting the EU. As such, Britain may have given the other troubled members of the EU the greatest gift of all — a way to leave the dysfunctional EU and rediscover their lost sovereignty and growth.

Let’s compare that to the current election cycle in America. The media has already declared Hillary Clinton the winner. She is up by a million points (it makes you wonder who they actually talk to). If the polls are accurate, how come Donald Trump draws overflow crowds and Hillary can’t fill someone’s living room? As we get closer to the election, the pollsters will rediscover some form of honesty and the polls will become more accurate, but right now they are like the Brexit polls–a total joke. Take heart, there are less than three months to go!

Next There Will Be A Dress Code

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The New York Post is reporting today that London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a ban on ‘body-shaming‘ ads. The move is praised by gender equality groups (what does that even mean?).

The article reports:

Transport For London , which runs the British capital’s subways, buses, trams and taxi cabs, will work up new policies designed to remove what Khan sees as dangerous images used in everyday ads.

“As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies,” Khan said Monday. “It is high time it came to an end.”

I have a few questions about this. Who decides what is allowed? Do gender equality groups (whatever they are) understand what they are supporting? I don’t particularly appreciate advertising that takes the average man five minutes to notice the product because of the scantily-dressed model selling it, but I don’t want to see these images become illegal.

I have been in London. At one point when visiting, I saw two men dressed in g-strings walking down the street holding hands. Is that going to be addressed? Is there going to be a city dress code? Is London going to have modesty police like Iran?

This is a step down a road that should not be traveled. I wonder if there is a City Council of some sort that should have voted on this.

I Guess Reality Is Optional

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about some recent statements President Obama made while visiting Britain.

The article reports:

“Saving the world economy from a Great Depression — that was pretty good,” Obama bragged when asked by a student in London what he wanted his legacy to be.

He recalled that when he visited London in 2009, the world economy was in a “freefall” because of irresponsible behavior of financial institutions around the world.

“For us to be able to mobilize the world’s community, to take rapid action, to stabilize the financial markets, and then in the United States to pass Wall Streets reforms that make it much less likely that a crisis like that can happen again, I’m proud of that,” he said.

Obama also touted his Iran nuclear deal as “something I’m very proud of” asserting that he successfully stopped their nuclear weapons program without going to war.

He griped that everybody forgot about his efforts in stopping the Ebola crisis, saving “hundreds of thousands of lives.”

“I think that I have been true to myself during this process,” Obama said, insisting that the things he said while running for office “matched up” with his presidency.

“I’ll look at a scorecard in the end,” he concluded. “Change takes time. Oftentimes what you start has then to be picked up by your successors or the next generation.”

He added that the fight for change was like a relay race and that he was prepared to pass the baton to his successor.

“Hopefully they’re running in the right direction,” he joked.

I don’t know what to say, but I will attempt to deal with one comment at a time.

President Obama did not save the world from a Great Depression, and the financial crisis was not caused by the behavior of the financial institutions. The financial crisis was caused by Congressional action that encouraged bad lending policies. Reforming Wall Street does nothing that is related to the financial meltdown–the reforms only make it more complicated for the people who work on Wall Street to do their jobs.

This is an old video, but it needs to be shared everywhere:

The Iran nuclear deal is a disaster. Use the search engine at the top of the blog to see what I have written about it in the past. It represents a shift in American policy from fighting terrorism to funding it.

The Ebola crisis was stopped–by the Center for Disease Control working closely with doctors. The President had very little to do with it.

I guess in the final year of the Obama Administration, reality will be optional.

The Political Left Has Finally Found A War It Wants To Fight–And Even Include A Draft

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Yes, it has happened. The political left has finally found a war it is wholeheartedly willing to fight–no holds barred–they even want to draft Americans to fight it. So what is that war?

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article today about a war the political left wants to fight.

The article reports:

The political left is ready to go to war, but not against any real threat. It wants to fight global warming — and of course that will require Americans to make sacrifices that just happen to align with the left’s objectives.

Al Gore popularized the phrase “fighting global warming” to underscore what he thinks is the seriousness of the matter. Though profoundly childish, the expression caught on and apparently inspired a Seattle-based writer to lay out in the Atlantic a plan for war.

According to Venkatesh Rao, “solving global warming” is going to be “like mobilizing for war.” And of course, war requires us to give up some things in the name of the effort.

…Rao says that “for ordinary Americans, austerities might include an end to expansive suburban lifestyles and budget air travel, and an accelerated return to high-density urban living and train travel.”

At the same time, businesses might need to rethink “entire supply chains, as high-emissions sectors become unviable under new emissions regimes.”

In this wartime, Rao is also demanding trust in “academic and energy-sector public institutions” as well as in “the integrity and declared intentions of institutions” that understand “the intricacies” of climate science.

Nevermind the false data that has been used to show climate change, never mind the growing ice caps that contradict the panicked claims of global warming. We have become so arrogant that we believe that we can control the climate outside and inside. Wow.

I would like to point out at this point that I support efforts made to make air and water cleaner. I support efforts to maintain the earth and correct previous mistakes made that had a negative impact on the environment,. However, I also believe that crippling the free market system (or what is left of it) in the world will simply cause more poverty, more pollution, and more misery. That is something I simply cannot support.

A Chilling Description

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Politichicks posted an article today about socialism. The article was written by Dr. Sarah Condor.

This is her biography:

Sarah P. Condor-Fisher, Ph.D., Esq., LL.M. grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. When she was 17, she was apprehended crossing the border, cross-interrogated by the Secret Police (KGB) and jailed. She studied MA in philosophy at University College London, she holds BA and MA in English and Ph.D. in American Literature and Literary Criticism. She is also a practicing California attorney with her own law firm. Dr. Condor-Fisher published over 50 books of non-fiction, fiction and poetry. She is also a former Olympic swimmer, Miss World and Miss USA in natural bodybuilding (INBA).

Here are some of the highlights of the article:

Socialism consists of:

1) censorship, total control of speech, political correctness regulated by the government,
2) central planning, by design from above, based not on the needs of the people but on what the demagogue in power says that (his) people need,
3) limited freedom of movement,
4) limited ability to achieve and prosper (speak of Pursuit of Happiness, ha!), and
5) regulated market, thus limited economy and ability of the state (GDP, prosperity) to grow.

…Let me tell you about the “state of equality.” Socialism desires equality. Equality consists of a state of equal outcome, where everything is based on the NEED for an equal outcome. If you are a doctor and work twelve hours a day, your salary is the same as that of a shop assistant who works eight hours a day. As a shop assistant once told my mother (a physician who spent seven years of her life working shifts as a nurse while studying medicine at night): “We all have one mouth and two hands, why should you get paid more than I?” Teach that to two generations of people and it will take four generations to alter their (children’s children’s) thinking – if ever.

…The free healthcare you get in socialism is worth precisely what everything else you get “for free” is worth. You had better study medicine yourself or have a doctor in the family – else, in any case, just hope that you never need socialist healthcare. I did have an advantage, as I say, my mother being a physician, but we still had to bring bribes to the office and they could only do so much in terms of the communist market cures and medication…

The article concludes:

In a two party representative government, the danger of democracy turning into a totalitarian regime is much greater than in a multi-party parliamentarian system, where all powers and factions are kept in check by all the other powers and factions. As freedom is indispensable to democracy and it is also “to a faction as air is to fire” (as James Madison says in Federalist 10), we must treat democracy not as a stable system, a huge majestic animal without any natural enemies, but as a fragile, beautiful creature, a gentle lady, who can be swayed and lured, led astray and – violated – by a mob.

A mob is what people become in the hands of a socialist demagogue. There is no more “We the People.” People do not matter. Mottoes and icons matter, banners and slogans which you must shout too – or else…

I shiver when I see it, I can smell it a thousand miles away. When you have seen the Heart of Darkness, it alters you forever. “We the Mob, We the Mob!” is ringing in my ears. Ah, but that was not the old communist T.V. – that was NBC. Really? Just think in silence, do not let it out; for If you refuse to be subdued, suppressed, refuse to conform and give away your rights and liberties for some larger abstract “good,” off to the mine with you! Make no mistake about it: an individual “makes no difference!”

That is what socialism is about. Believe me, I have been there before – and I am not going back.

This is the road many of our young people want to take. They have no concept of history or of the values that created America. Our schools and colleges have not taught them what they need to know to become diligent citizens, protecting their nation from the evil that socialism represents. God help us.

Another Obama Lie

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The shooting in Charleston last night was tragic. An obviously disturbed person sat through part of a prayer meeting in a black church and then opened fire. That is a tragedy. Unfortunately President Obama has already decided to make the tragedy into an issue about gun control. Has it occurred to him that if anyone in the church other than the gunman had been armed, a lot fewer people would have been killed?

The Washington Examiner quoted the President’s statement today:

“Now is the time for mourning and healing, but to be clear, some at time we have to reckon as a country that this type of mass violence doesn’t happen in other countries…,” he said. “It doesn’t happen with this type of frequency in other countries…and it’s within our power to do something about it.”

With all due respect, Mr. President, guns are not the problem. This type of violence does happen in other countries. In February 2010, I posted an article about a violence problem in the United Kingdom. Guns are not allowed in the United Kingdom–their violence problem was related to beer glasses in pubs.

The article explained the British response to broken pint glass attacks:

“According to British Home Secretary Alan Johnson, there are about 87,000 of these (glass) attacks every year, some very serious. We even read a story about a bloodbath in a London bar in which 50 pint glasses were smashed in a minute and one person’s eye popped out. Sounds more like a horror movie than a night out at the pub.”

As a result of this problem, neither pubs nor ale glasses were outlawed or controlled. The glasses were redesigned so that they were harder to break and use as weapons, but it is still possible to hit someone on the head with one.

The point is this–the violence is the problem–not the weapon. Until we begin to teach  all Americans respect for all life–from the womb to the grave, violence will continue to be a problem

 

Why In The World Should We Support These People???

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Today’s New York Post posted an article about a recent beheading by the Syrian rebels.

The article reports:

A group of Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels beheaded a fighter then triumphantly waved his head in the air as a trophy — only to discover the poor guy was actually one of their own, London’s The Telegraph reports.

…The rebel group apologized for the gruesome case of mistaken identity on Thursday , asking for “understanding and forgiveness.”

There was no remorse at all about beheading someone–the remorse was that they beheaded one of their own. Is this the level of civilization that we need to encourage or fund?

 

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From A Friend On Facebook

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Michael Yon, my favorite war correspondent, posted this:

A MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except North Dakota, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

———————–

1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’ Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).

————————

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ”like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the elimination of ‘-ize.’

——————-

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

—————–

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.

———————-

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

———————-

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

——————–

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

——————-

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

——————-

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

———————

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.

———————

11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

———————

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

——————–

13.. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.

—————–

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

—————

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

 

A message from Michael Yon: The author(s) of this hilarious message is unknown.  It has been attributed to John Cleese.  If Snopes is to be believed, this is untrue.  The message appears to have evolved from numerous authors over time.  It went viral on my Facebook with about 1 million viewers so far.  Please join my Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage

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Governments Run Amok

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CNN posted an article today about the detention of David Miranda at London’s Heathrow Airport when Mr. Miranda was returning to his home in Brazil. Mr. Miranda lives and works with Glenn Greenwald, the man who released the information Edward Snowden collected regarding government surveillance in America and England.

The article reports:

Greenwald’s partner, 28-year-old David Miranda, was held for nearly nine hours. He was reportedly passing through the airport on his way home to Brazil after leaving Berlin. Authorities seized his laptop, phone, and other materials.

The White House knew the move was coming.

“There was a heads up that was provided by the British government,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday.

So the United States knew it “was likely to occur, but it’s not something that we’ve requested and it’s something that was done specifically by the British law enforcement officials there,” he said.

He would not comment on whether the United States has obtained material from Miranda’s laptop — and would not say whether President Obama condemns the detention.

The Guardian also posted this story today. Their article stated:

David Miranda‘s detention should be seen in the context of the implicit acceptance by the Home Office, which is bringing forward the current changes, that parts of the law are too sweeping. But Mr Miranda’s detention is extraordinary nevertheless. It raises important new issues that parliament cannot now ignore and will have to debate if its terrorism law reform bill is to be in any way meaningful, just or proportionate.

Part of this is because there is not the slightest suggestion that Mr Miranda is a terrorist. But Mr Miranda does live with and work with Mr Greenwald, who has broken most of the stories about US and UK state surveillance based on leaks from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. None of that work involves committing, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism, or anything that could reasonably fall within even the most capacious definition of such activities. Yet anyone who imagines that Mr Miranda was detained at random at Heathrow is not living in the real world.

This is alarming. Whether you see Edward Snowden as a hero or a traitor, there was no reason to detain Mr. Miranda. There was also no reason to seize his computer, cell phone, and other possessions. There was no suspicion that Mr. Miranda was a terrorist–he was simply guilty of partnering with Glenn Greenwald. The government needs expanded power to deal with terrorists at border locations–airports, etc.–but it needs to use those powers carefully. This is not the way free societies should act.

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Does Your Right To Free Speech Depend On What You Have To Say?

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The U. S. Constitution includes the right of free speech for Americans. That allows anyone to say pretty much anything no matter how popular or unpopular it is (short of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater). Theoretically the government cannot punish you for your opinion or voicing your opinion. But we need to remember that the First Amendment is not universal. Most countries in the world do not grant their populations the right to speak freely.

Tommy Robinson is a British activist who speaks out against the goals of radical Islamists to bring Sharia Law to Britain. He is the leader of the English Defence League (EDL) whose website defines it as an inclusive movement dedicated to peacefully protesting against Islamic extremism. Although he tells the truth about what is going on around him, he is definitely not appreciated by the British government. Yesterday Channel 4 News (British Channel 4 I presume) reported that Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll were arrested during a planned walk to commemorate Lee Rigby, the soldier hacked to death in Woolwich.

The story at Channel 4 reports:

As well as laying flowers in memory of Drummer Rigby in Woolwich, Mr Robinson and his co-leader Kevin Carroll had planned to walk to raise money for a young girl fighting against neuroblastoma.

Reacting to the Met’s decision to impose restrictions, Mr Robinson said: “The police are enforcing no-go zones for non-Muslims. It’s a charity walk with two people taking part.

“When has a Muslim charity walk ever been made to have conditions?”

The police force said the conditions were imposed due to fears that both the march and gathering would “result in serious public disorder and serious disruption to the life of the community” and a breach of the conditions would be a criminal offence.

Pamela Geller and Robert Specer, two American authors who routinely speak out against Islamic radicalism, were barred from entering Britain to take part in the walk. An article at Townhall.com on Friday pointed out that Britain had no problem letting in Che Guevara’s daughter, Aleida.

The article at Townhall states:

“The UK should never become a stage for inflammatory speakers who promote hate,” is how the British Home office explains its recent barring of Geller and Spencer.

Townhall reminds us of the history of Che Guevara and recent statements by his daughter Aleida:

In an interview with the Guardian Aleida Guevara boasted: “I want to be like Che and fight until final victory, then you feel elated. It is preferable to sink in the sea than to betray the glory that once lived!”

And what was this glory? Her father was 2nd in command of a regime that murdered more Cubans in its first three years in power than Hitler’s regime murdered Germans during in its first six, jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror, and came closest of anyone in history to starting a worldwide nuclear war.

There seems to be a bit of a double standard here. Why? Fear. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are not likely to blow people up if they are denied admittance to England. On the other hand, the area of Woolwich seems to be something of a ‘no go zone’ in Britain where the British authorities have ceded control of an area to Muslims who want to practice Sharia Law.

The Gates of Vienna reports:

Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, the leaders of the English Defence League, were arrested today in Tower Hamlets during their walk to Woolwich. Their crime? Entering a shariah-controlled area of London, where they were considered persona non grata by the Muslim inhabitants, who were expected to respond with violence.

There is now at least one official Islamic no-go zone in Britain. Presumably there are numerous others — in Birmingham, Bradford, Dewsbury, and all those other places where Muslims have claimed ownership of “their” areas. The Metropolitan police have now taken on the responsibility of enforcing the borders of these shariah-controlled zones, applying the rules laid down by the Islamic inhabitants.

No-go zones are rather common in France and certain other European countries. They are areas where a Jewish person or a woman dressed in western-style clothing may be assaulted or even killed for entering the area. They are not something we would like to see in America, but they will come here eventually if they are allowed to thrive elsewhere. One of the main causes of no-go zones is the failure of a segment of the immigrant population to assimilate. As we are talking about immigration reform, we need to ask that the people who want to settle in America also want to be Americans. There is nothing wrong with keeping alive the traditions of the country you left, but when you immigrate to a new country, you need to live under the laws and customs of that country.  That is a lesson that European countries are learning the hard way.

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Disturbing News From London

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CNN reported today on an attack on a man whose attackers assumed was a British soldier in London. The attackers first ran over the victim with their car and then hacked him to death.

The U. K. Daily Mail reports:

Throughout the frenzied attack they shouted ‘Allah Akbar’ – Arabic for ‘God is great’ – then demanded horrified witnesses film them as they ranted over the  crumpled body.

The two black men in their 20s, waited calmly for armed police to arrive before charging at officers brandishing a rusty revolver, knives and meat cleavers.

I am purposely not including a link to the U. K. Daily Mail article because of the graphic nature of the article. This blog is rated G. A bystander with a gun might have been able to save the life of the victim, but Britain does not allow civilians to own guns.

People with little regard for the lives of others come in all sizes, shapes, and religious beliefs, but the fact that they were shouting “Allah Akbar” gives us a clue as to their motive. There is, unfortunately, a percentage of the Muslim population that takes the Koran seriously when it says “kill the infidel wherever you may find him.” Until Muslims who do not believe that are willing to denounce those who do, we can expect to see more of what happened in London today.

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Voting With Your Feet

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CBN News is reporting today that when the British government changed the tax rate on millionaires to 50 percent, wealth left the country. Wow! What a surprise.

The article reports:

The London Telegraph reports that 16,000 British citizens declared an annual income of more than a million pounds in the 2009-2010 tax year.

That number fell to just 6,000 after the government introduced the new top tax rate of 50 percent.

Analysts believe many Brits simply moved out of the country to avoid the high taxes. Others found ways to cut their taxable income.

The article further reports:

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, a member of the new Conservative Party majority, announced the top tax rate will be reduced to 45 percent next year for those with annual incomes of 150,000 pounds.

Since that announcement, the number of people making a million pounds a year has gone back up.

Tax revenue in the United States generally averages between 18 and 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. When you increase the taxes on the rich, tax revenue in the United States generally averages between 18 and 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. There is a lesson here. Attempting to ‘punish’ the rich for their success does not work. Aside from the fact that envy is not a particularly desirable trait in anyone, it does not make good economic policy. Our budget problems in America are not the result of low revenue–they are the result of high spending. Traditionally government spending has averaged between 18 and 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Under President Obama it has averaged closer to 25 percent. That has created a problem. The solution to the problem is less spending–not more taxes.

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The Impact Of High Taxes On Athletic Competition

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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal posted an article about the impact of Britain’s tax policies on athletic competition in that country.

The article reports:

…After Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt won his third gold in London last week, reporters asked him why he doesn’t compete in the U.K. more often. “As soon as the law changes I’ll be here all the time,” he said.

What aspect of British tax policy causes this sort or reaction?

The article explains:

The British government has granted an exemption to income linked to Olympic and Paralympic competition. But normally Britain takes a cut of an athlete’s worldwide endorsement earnings—that means overseas sponsors in addition to those in the U.K.—proportional to the time spent in Britain. By comparison, the U.S. only taxes nonresident athletes on endorsement fees paid by American sponsors. France does the same.

The article explains that since Mr. Bolt‘s contract with Puma is worth $9 million, any time spent competing in Britain could cost Mr. Bolt a very large sum of money. Because of these tax laws, many top athletes simply do not compete in Britain.

For example:

…Rafael Nadal excused himself from this year’s Aegon Championships, the traditional warm-up to Wimbledon, on fiscal grounds: “I am playing in the U.K. and losing money. I did a lot more for the last four years, but it is more and more difficult to play in the U.K.” Mr. Nadal competed in the Gerry Weber Open in Germany instead.

Because of the tax policies, the quality of athletic competition has suffered in Britain, the fans are less likely to attend, and there is less economic activity in the area of sports competition for the country to tax. Everybody loses.

Pay attention, American Congress!

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Sometimes Things Happen That Restore My Faith In Humanity

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Oddly enough, the article that has (at least temporarily) restored my faith in humanity was posted at the Huffington Post. The article reports on two things that happened at the Olympic Games that made me smile.

Fabien Gilot, a member of the French freestyle relay team (swimming), after the team won the gold, raised his arm to reveal a tattoo. The tattoo was in Hebrew:
אני כלום בלעדיהם, meaning “I am nothing without them.” The swimmer stated that it was a tribute to his grandfather, Max Goldschmidt, an Auschwitz survivor, who died earlier this year.

The article also reports:

This is not the only moving tribute to a Jewish figure at this year’s Olympic Games in London. The same day that Gilot revealed his Hebrew tattoo, the Italian delegation to the Olympics held a minute of silence with the Israeli team to commemorate the 11 victims of the 1972 Munich massacre.

Sometimes, when organizations do the wrong thing, people do the right thing.

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