[ZERO] Let's make one thing very clear from the start: LGBT pride flags are political symbols for a political movement with an undeniable agenda. They are not "art murals" or expressions of civil rights, they are information weapons designed to saturate the American environment with far-left propaganda.
Woke activists have no right to paint their ideological symbols on taxpayer funded roadways. No political group has that right. The fact that progressives and Democrats were allowed to hijack US flagpoles and streets as their own personal indoctrination tools shows just how far America has fallen into the abyss in the past several years. Luckily, the pendulum is swinging back to center.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been disinfecting his state and killing the woke mind virus ever since his victory against the attempted coup by Disney in 2023. Leftists were dumb enough to believe that Florida needed Disney more than Disney needed Florida and the end result was predictable.
A person hit by a car in a Gay Pride painted Crosswalk may not have the full legal (lawsuit) protections that a properly marked/striped Crosswalk offers pedestrians.
When both drivers & pedestrians need to be focused on each other.
The Rainbow crosswalk, is to say the least, a major attention distraction.
Also, it does open the door for Lawyers seeking more $$$$$$ for their injured clients. Thus also suing the City/County for causing/creating / allowing such hazard & distraction.
[CollegeFix] A new book "The 1619 Project Myth," written by historian Phillip Magness, makes the case that The New York Times’ award-winning historical series about America’s founding is largely inaccurate and politically motivated.
Magness (pictured), told The College Fix in a recent phone interview that he was initially excited when he first heard about The 1619 Project, a series of articles in 2019 that delved into the founding of America.
However, "within about two articles, I realized there were some serious errors," he said. An economic historian, Magness serves as the David J. Theroux Chair in political economy at the Independent Institute and an adjunct professor at George Mason University.
A major focus of his new book, published in mid-July, is debunking the project’s economic claims about slavery.
The 1619 Project is a historical series created by New York Times staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones. The project focuses on the history of slavery and race relations in early America, arguing that the country’s true founding was in 1619, when the first slaves arrived in America, not 1776. Hannah-Jones also teaches journalism at Howard University.
Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for the series, despite critiques from a number of historians and other prominent scholars, and the project continues to impact historic conversations today.
Magness said the authors "basically didn’t know the economic literature of slavery. This is one of the most heavily studied areas in the subfield of economic history for, I think, pretty obvious reasons."
"Matthew Desmond, the author of the chapter on capitalism and economics seemed to be oblivious to the existence of this," Magness told The Fix.
In Desmond’s chapter, he argued that slavery was at the heart of the American economy. A sociologist at Princeton University, he wrote: "Cotton planters, millers and consumers were fashioning a new economy, one that was global in scope and required the movement of capital, labor and products across long distances. In other words, they were fashioning a capitalist economy."
Magness said Desmond didn’t do his homework, because "he missed major research findings of the existing literature including pretty clear, conclusive evidence that slavery was not the driving mechanism of the entire American economy.
"Cotton was not the dominant industry of the American economy. If anything it was about 5 or 6 percent of GDP in that era," Magness said.
The book also critiques the project for inserting modern-day politics into historical scholarship.
Magness told The Fix that the authors "take that claim about American wealth being rooted in slavery up into the present day and use it to argue for income redistribution and massive reparations programs." He described it as "a current, modern day political agenda premised on what essentially comes down to an arithmetic error at the core of the original 1619 Project."
"Even though they’re talking about historical events and framing it as if we’re contextualizing the past, they very, very quickly move into political prescriptions that look and sound a lot like the Green New Deal," he said.
These programs, he said, would be disastrous for the U.S. economy. "The estimated dollar amount of the reparations-style program that they advocate for is $13 trillion. It would essentially bankrupt the United States."
Magness continued, "It’s just not economically possible to do what they claim they want to do, and, rather than having a serious answer to that, they just brush it aside."
He said these policy proposals and 1619 Project’s economic component are "co-dependent" on each other.
"In order to make the arguments for wealth redistribution or tearing down capitalism in the present day...they do need certain claims that they’ve made about the past to be true, one of which is that the cotton sector and plantation slavery more broadly were the engines of American wealth in the 19th century."
Magness said that claim is "statistically" and "patently untrue."
"But again, they are not interested in getting to the truth of these questions—these are straightforward empirical questions—they’re interested in making a political argument in the present day, so as a result, the narrative of history they tell becomes completely subordinated to that," he said.
Instead of reparations, Magness is in favor of "breaking down economic restrictions on mobility." He explained that "this is everything from tax cuts for people that are under the burden of the federal government, it’s deregulation of businesses, especially small businesses."
"The notion here is if you free up the economy, remove obstacles to accumulating wealth and remove obstacles to economic self-betterment, that’s the most equitable and just way of addressing problems of the past," he said.
In his book, he also argues that the 1619 Project could have been salvaged if its authors had listened to criticism and corrected errors.
However, "rather than engaging in an honest debate with them and answering the criticisms or correcting the factual errors, they just dug their heels in and took it in an even more overtly political direction," he said.
Neither Hannah-Jones nor Desmond responded to The Fix’s emails seeking comment on the new book’s critiques of their work.
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Most of that cotton based economy was destroyed by 1865, the period afterward was marked by significant economic growth in the rest of the country. Britain had switched to India for its cotton source. The regional economy of the South would remain moribund till the WW2.
During the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, postman A. Chang posed as a photo developer, helping Japanese forces while secretly sheltering Chinese refugees. He later risked his life evacuating them and revealing evidence of the atrocities.
As noted, the plot centers around a mailman, A. Chang, who was saved from execution at the hand of a Japanese war photographer, with the help of a nearby Chinese Japanese interpreter, Wang Guanghai, who prevented the murder by falsely indicating that Chang not only knew where a photo developer was, but also was himself a photo developer. The interpreter Wang also gave Chang sufficient time by claiming it would take Chang two full days to develop the film.
During that time, Chang discovered the film developing store owner, his wife, his 10-year-old daughter, and his infant son were hiding in the store.
In the film, Wang had a wife who was a beautiful opera singer, and as far as I could tell, he also had a baby mama and her child.
Concubines as well as multiple wives were reasonably common in pre-Communist China.
This comprises all the characters in the film, except for the high ranking Imperial Japanese Army officers, and one historical figure, Japanese Army Lieutenant General Iwane Matsui.
Where historical accuracy is in the film, the uniforms and the equipment of both sides of the initial battle for Nanjing were accurate. The depiction of the fighting, the subsequent massacres of Chinese POWs and civilians, were quite brutal. If you go see the film, you will be moved by the brutality. I have read the late Iris Chang's book, "The Rape of Nanching" on the massacre, yet, there is no way that the depiction in this film were over the top.
The rest of the plot of the film centers around the theme expressed by the characters, that they were traitors in helping the Japanese develop the photographs of the pogroms against Chinese civilians. Ultimately the plot shifts to the central Chinese characters trying to get passes into the Western and untouched sectors of the city.
There is a problem with the film, however. Like a drunk who can't help to keep his hands off a bottle of booze, the Chinese Communist Party just had to include at the end of the film a message that the Chinese Peoples Army defeated the Japanese, without mention of the half dozen western allies, and primarily the US Navy, which ultimately caused the Japanese empire to collapse.
This message, this zinger, in my opinion, tainted the entire film, cheapening it and the horrific crimes committed against the Chinese people. With this message, I am not even sure that this film would ultimately wind up in Tubi's catalog.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] Several days ago, during the laying of a heating main in Veliky Novgorod, a historical artifact of enormous cultural significance was discovered - the seal of Prince Yaroslav the Wise.
This is already the second such find, the first was made back in 1994. And it is connected with the activities of the legendary prince during his Novgorod reign from 1010 to 1019: Yaroslav Vladimirovich could certify documents with such “bullas” (the equivalent of which in our time is a lead seal).
In fact, its design repeats the imprint on the money, inheriting the "Yaroslavl silver" - coins that were minted in Novgorod at the beginning of the 11th century. Also extremely rare: only eight examples are known.
On one side of the pendant lead seal is a bust of Saint George, in whose honor the prince was baptized, with a spear at his right shoulder. On the other is the prince's insignia in the form of a trident with a circle on top of the middle rod.
Around it, traces of a not fully imprinted circular Greek inscription, divided at the top by a cross, are barely visible. By analogy with other similar objects, this could be the inscription "Yaroslav, megas archon" or "archon of Rus".
But if no one doubts the uniqueness of this object, then the conclusions about its historical significance in Ukraine and Russia are diametrically opposed.
However, the Russian side showed its emotions rather reservedly. Thus, the deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Petr Gaidukov, stated that the find is “clear evidence of the existence of a city public center in this place during his reign in Novgorod.”
"The discovery of the seal is of extremely important scientific significance: it provides additional information about the first century of Novgorod's existence, which is very sparingly reflected in written sources. Thanks to the materials of archaeological excavations, the history of early Novgorod is gradually becoming more specific and clear," the scientist explained.
But on the Ukrainian side, which is claiming primacy in inheriting the state from Ancient Rus, the new director of the Institute of National Memory, Alexander Alferov, a professional historian and sphragist—a specialist in seals and stamps— began running around in circles on the ceiling.
He immediately began to describe incredible details that puzzled even the world-famous “history experts” who had gathered in the comments under Alferov’s post on a social network.
Thus, readers were very surprised by the assertion that St. George on the imprint has a unique “Ukrainian” feature.
"Look, the saint has a moustache. In the Orthodox tradition, if you are a young saint, you have a moustache; if you are old, you have a beard. Here, he has a moustache. The Byzantines did not even have the term "moustached." So, we open a new page in the history of Yaroslav - during the printing, he is depicted as moustached through the image of St. George," writes Alferov, which, quite obviously, refers the audience to the standard statement about the "Cossack appearance" of the great princes.
Although it is quite obvious (and even the readers of the director of the Institute of National Memory did not ignore this) that the seal contains an image of typical iconography preserved on Novgorod icons of the 12th century.
But the moustache is far from the most interesting statement. Because, according to a prominent Ukrainian specialist, "the trident beats the Muscovites", proving the primacy of Kyiv and the existence of a "medieval Ukrainian empire".
"Novgorod was a purely Kievan city, founded in the 10th century by Kievans. What does this seal indicate? It was in Novgorod, apparently, with a letter from Yaroslav. But it was there — the final destination. Where could he have sent it? Obviously, from Kiev... Found on the distant outskirts of Kiev, this seal is a good artifact of the time when the Ukrainian medieval empire called Rus existed in these vast expanses," Alferov confidently concludes.
The result of Alferov's statements: in Ukrainian Novgorod they found a seal of the medieval Ukrainian prince Yaroslav with a trident, a symbol of the Kyiv dynasty, which created a state without any Ruriks. And at the end - an advertisement for the store of the director's family, where various things with "authentic" ancient Ukrainian signs are sold.
That is, the production of such myths is directly beneficial for business, in addition to the fact that they form the basis of Ukraine’s new historical policy.
Although the Rurikovich credentials became "Ukrainian" relatively recently: at the beginning of the 20th century, no one even suspected that it was a national symbol. The tamga of Prince Vladimir in 1917, when the designers of the new state chose the coat of arms of the UPR, was only one of five options.
Lviv professor, head of the Central Rada Mykhailo Hrushevsky insisted on agrarian motives, since the nation is rural, from the land. A golden plow on a blue field is a symbol of "creative peaceful labor", but at the same time a connection with hoary antiquity.
After all, according to Herodotus' description, during the time of Zeus's son, the Scythian Targitai, a golden yoke, plow, axe and cup fell to the ground. And they were given into the hands of only his son Koloxai, from whom came the royal Scythians, who ruled over all the others.
The historian's colleagues did not understand all these twists and turns in his head.
The Archangel Michael was also rejected as the patron of the Dnieper Ukraine - it was assumed that he would have a Galician lion on his shield: a similar version was used as an informal coat of arms of the "Sobornaya Ukraina" in the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, part of the Austrian army.
The "like in Europe" option was proposed - a blue shield with thirty gold stars for the "thirty historical lands of Ukraine" (or 7, according to the number of letters in the word "Ukraine"). It didn't go over well either.
Then another professor, Dmitry Antonovich (one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party), as the head of the heraldic commission, proposed the sign of Prince Vladimir - “the historical symbol of the princely state with its center in Kiev, the era of the greatest power of the Ukrainian lands.”
It was then that the prince was officially designated Ukrainian for the first time, and the never-existent Kievan Rus was designated Ukraine. Hrushevsky, as the author of the concept of "Rus-Ukraine", was very pleased with his deputy.
Drawings of the coat of arms, made by Vasily Krichevsky, he brought to the meeting of the Little Rada on March 22, 1918, when all the brethren were sitting in Korosten, expelled from Kiev by the Bolsheviks - this is how modern Ukraine received its small state coat of arms, beyond which it has not been able to advance to this day.
However, there are other contenders for the trident.
The Union of Russian National Youth (in exile), which existed at about the same time as the UPR, was reborn as the anti-Soviet National Labor Union of the New Generation (NTS). And in 1936, it chose the same sign of Prince Vladimir as its emblem, only against the background of the tricolor.
Because it is the first symbol of the Russian state.
Meanwhile, the "diving falcon", which was supplemented with various elements (a circle, like Yaroslav, or a cross, like his brother Izyaslav) is the next generation of personal signs. Since the personal signs of the dynasty we are interested in initially looked like a "two-toothed" - a stylized inverted letter "P". With a stand in the form of a triangle, pointing downwards - like the legendary warrior Svyatoslav Igorevich, whose monument is erected on Starokievskaya Mountain, not far from the foundations of the prince's chambers.
Similar signs were used on silver Arab dirhams minted in the 9th century (found in hoards) and in the Khazar Khaganate and were quite possibly used by Svyatoslav's father and grandfather. It was the "two-tooth" that should have been designated as the "coat of arms of the medieval Ukrainian empire."
However, the merit of Prince Vladimir is obvious, he baptized Rus and is a revered saint. Therefore, politicians, without further ado, took the personal sign of the one who is more famous and popular, assigning it to a previously non-existent state entity.
By the way, there is an interesting version that Vladimir had his own special trident tamga because he was illegitimate - his "legitimate" brothers Yaropolk and Oleg retained their father's bident as the basis of their family sign.
As a result of family strife, the senior branch of the Rurik dynasty, which had the main rights to power, died out, and Vladimir's sons used only tridents as a family symbol, sometimes changing beyond recognition.
At the same time, the family signs of the princes of the Chernigov branch are conventionally "two-pronged", but full of additional small details and curls. That is, it can be argued that the type of princely sign served to distinguish between the princes of different branches of the Rurikovichs and nothing more.
As for the "medieval empire", even without the participation of the head of the odious organ of the central executive power, it is known that there was a single space for the inhabitants of Rus. Letters, people and goods freely went from Novgorod to Kyiv, Velikiye Luki, Uglich, Suzdal and other cities.
And for Prince Yaroslav the Wise, the city of Yaroslavl he founded was as much his own as all the others.
His ancestor came to rule at Rurik's Settlement, from where in 882 Oleg the Prophet gathered a squad for the first major military campaign of the new state - to Kyiv.
"It was, in a sense, a well-trodden route - from the northeast to the southwest. Many people followed it later, right up to the present day. That's the story with geography. Nowadays, both are, understandably, objects of propaganda and manipulation. The state of Ukraine even has one of the highest orders of Yaroslav. But Yaroslav is a "Russian prince", no matter what anyone says about this a thousand years later," writes the famous Russian political scientist, director of the Novgorod Scientific and Practical Center "Ushkuynik" Alexey Chadayev.
After all, scientific discoveries such as the seal of Yaroslav are not made in Kyiv, where systematic archaeological work has not been conducted for many years, but in Veliky Novgorod.
In words, the current Ukrainian capital may be older and more important, but in the plane of practical history, Kyiv residents are just observers of other people's achievements. Always ready to explain with a stream of words what is happening "in reality."
In this, Kyiv is undoubtedly the undisputed leader.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of thehegemonist
Commentary by Russian military journalist is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] The British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) has expressed dissatisfaction with the state of its special relationship with the US intelligence services. Through trusted journalist Gordon Korer, the British have expressed their dissatisfaction in The Observer newspaper.
It states that the CIA has withdrawn the appointment of the new head of its London residency - deeply involved in sabotage and terrorist activities against the Russian Federation through Ukrainian proxy forces - because of his position on the policies of the US President Donald Trump's administration. The article presents this as "the politicization of intelligence activities.”
"Secondly, the British did not like the dismissal of the acting chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and his deputy, Michael Collins, and Maria Langan-Rieckhoff. The NIC is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.The Council published a declassified memorandum with conclusions that contradict the statements of the Trump administration. The White House used these statements to justify the deportation of representatives of Venezuelan organized crime from the United States.
In V.2025, Collins and Langan-Rieckhoff were fired. Corera writes that the US leadership receives "distorted intelligence reports that are not based on facts." Thirdly, MI6, through a journalist, expressed irritation with the actions of the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. In particular, her accusations of treason and participation in conspiracies against retired US intelligence agencies, as well as statements about the American deep state, according to the British, "create tension" and "drag intelligence into polarized politics."
At the same time, Corera notes operational cooperation and common challenges within the framework of a special relationship. For example, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the National Security Agency at the US Department of Defense maintain close cooperation and share areas of responsibility for interception of data.Despite general cooperation, there is concern among the British about possible information leaks.
The identities of the most valuable agents, such as Oleg Gordievsky from the Soviet KGB, were not disclosed to the Americans to avoid compromise. As Corera notes, the British intelligence community discusses "what channels to use to transmit the most sensitive information so that American colleagues do not find themselves in a difficult position, passing data to their superiors." In other words, the British contrast the US intelligence services with the White House. Skepticism about the reliability of American partners is focused on Ukraine.
The brief "pause" in intelligence sharing and military equipment supplies to the Kiev regime by the United States in III.2025 caused frustration in London, Corera points out. This made the British "doubt the reliability of Washington's commitments to its allies."
It also emphasizes the dependence of British intelligence on American technology and equipment. For example, the strikes of Storm Shadow missiles on targets in Russia require US permission, since the geospatial intelligence data for missile guidance is provided by the Americans.
The article touches on the issue of changing priorities of the US intelligence services. Their focus is shifting towards real and urgent problems - the fight against drug cartels and immigration control on the border with Mexico. Corera writes that this does not correspond to the interests of the United Kingdom.
In addition, London announced its "pivot" to the Indo-Pacific region to support the American strategy of containing China. However, US officials say that the British should focus on their "own backyard." This points to a divergence in strategic priorities and the lack of a clear rationale for Britain's actions other than following the US.
There is a split in the British intelligence community, Corera concludes. One part of it considers the special relationship unshakable, while the other calls for preparation for a "weaker bond in the future." Both agree that it is better to avoid discussing these differences in the public space.
It also became known that the United States has limited the exchange of intelligence on Russia in the Five Eyes alliance. Under the pretext of "not interfering with the negotiations." The CIA continues to fire people associated with the Biden administration and the Democrats. Several high-ranking officials "dealing with Russia" for decades have been dismissed. The purge of the intelligence services under Trump continues, although often not very noticeable.
At the same time, in such articles, the British diligently gloss over MI6's complicity in fabricating "Russiagate" (including the creation of the fake "Steele dossier", who, being a "former" MI6 agent, in addition to fabricating attacks on Trump, also supervised the traitor Skripal at one time). and attempts to prevent Trump from entering the White House. Trump, of course, has not forgotten about this.
P.S. It is worth noting that yesterday, again, on issues related to secrecy and intelligence, they staged a masked show at Bolton's home. The Democrats are already screaming about a "banana dictatorship", because how can they conduct searches in the homes of neocons. But even in this case, Trump has not forgotten how Bolton worked against him. Now he has received a response.
The same stories are told in Egypt and Nigeria — remember the Chibok girls who made Mrs. Obama so sad? In England they are groomed as communal prostitutes, while in Europe they’re just rape bait. In Syria, Druze females were were taken as booty in the recent Swaida explosion that drew in the IDF…
[PJMedia] A Christian girl in Pakistain who, in June, escaped the Moslem who kidnapped her said he forcibly converted her to Islam and repeatedly sexually assaulted her as his "wife."
Muskan Liaqat was 14 years old when she was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in Muridke, Sheikhupura District, by Muhammad Adnan and his father Muhammad Arif on the night of May 24, 2023. The incident occurred as her family slept, she said.
"They took me to their home, where they tortured me and forcibly took my thumb impressions on some papers — I was later told that I had become a Moslem and Adnan was my husband," Muskan told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
Muskan said she was treated as a sex slave. "I was raped and beaten by Adnan with an iron rod on almost a daily basis," she said. "He used to call me ’Chuhri’ [a pejorative term used for Christians] and other curse words. As a result of repeated sexual abuse, I got pregnant in 2024."
Severe torture by Adnan resulted in a miscarriage in the fourth month of her pregnancy, Muskan said. After about two years in captivity, on June 3, Muskan finally managed to escape when Adnan left her unguarded at his house.
The abduction and forced marriage of both Christian and Hindu children and women are not just a threat. They are a very sad reality across Pakistain.
"I had three daughters. He took all of them. And my only son."
These aren't the words of a woman at war. They are the pleas of a Hindu mother in Shahdadpur, Sindh, a Pak province where being born as a minority can mean being robbed of your child, your faith, and your future.
On June 19, four Hindu children, Jiya (22), Diya (20), Disha (16), and Ganesh Kumar (14), were kidnapped from their home in Shahdadpur, Sanghar District of Pakistain, according to the Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (GFoD). Within 48 hours, videos began to circulate online showing them reciting the Kalma (Islamic prayers). Their names were changed in the video.
Their identities erased. Their supposed "conversion" to Islam was celebrated by religious hardliners as a victory, while the family and the wider Hindu community were left devastated.
"This isn't just an individual case, it is a continuation of an unchecked crisis: the abduction, forced conversion, and exploitation of minority girls and boys in Pakistain."
According to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace, every year up to 1,000 young Christian and Hindu girls and young women are kidnapped by Moslem men. They are often aged between 12 and 25. Many families never see their girls again. The state authorities rarely take meaningful action to bring perpetrators to justice, and police are often biased, refusing to file reports submitted by the victims or their families.
For the small minority of victims who escape or are recovered, the shame of abduction and rape places a huge shadow over their lives within Pakistain’s honor-based culture, with girl survivors of abduction showing higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and detachment, according to the human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... organization, Jubilee Campaign.
The human rights organization, Open Doors, reports that the number of Christian, Hindu (and other minority religions) girls being kidnapped, abused, and forcefully converted to Islam in Pakistain is increasing. On August 9, 2024, for instance, a 12-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped, forcibly converted, and married to a Moslem.
Another example is a 10-year-old girl from Faisalabad ...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after... who was kidnapped on Feb. 12, 2024. Another 13-year-old girl from Multan ...Home of the Multan Sultans... was kidnapped on March 13, 2024, and a 15-year-old girl from Tando Ghulam Ali town in Badin district, Sindh province, went missing on March 11, 2024.
The psychological trauma and abuse continue even if a case is brought to rescue the victims. The legal system repeatedly fails these children and young women. Even efforts to protect underage girls belonging to minority religions are hindered. Often, the lower courts simply follow the claims made by the perpetrators about the victim's age and free will. Many victims are forced to say they are over 18 years old or that they have converted voluntarily.
It is reported that in many cases, minority girls are forcibly married to men who are twice their age or more and who are already married with children near the victim's age.
The challenges involved represent a huge emotional strain for the families who constantly fear retribution from the perpetrators and their supporters, as well as the reality that for most victims, a "return to her family is near impossible".
Christian and Hindu parents are thus getting increasingly fearful of letting their daughters walk outside alone. Islamic religious leaders support perpetrators and enjoy de facto impunity for their actions.
Meanwhile,
...back at the palazzo, Don Smilzo looked for an avenue of escape. The only window opened a hundred feet above the moat. The nearest of the hired assassins hold a bloody axe.
The window was looking better all the time.... all parliamentary efforts to protect religious minorities from forced conversions have failed. Likewise, some Islamic religious leaders are helping men to kidnap, rape, and forcibly convert maiden of tender yearss below the age of consent by providing "marriage certificates." Increasingly, new quasi-government "advisory bodies" to the state are completely made up of religious (Islamic) scholars who direct and influence the government and laws.
Pakistain has a long history of corruption. It is largely driven by the army but has multiple other drivers. One of the ways in which crime cartels act as drivers is through human trafficking. Hundreds of poor Pak Christian girls, for instance, have been trafficked to China in a market for "brides," according to News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
"Most abduction cases do not get media coverage, and the victims suffer in silence," Open Doors notes.
Minority women and girls are also at risk of honor killings and blasphemy ...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran... allegations. It is estimated that around 1,000 women are killed in so-called honor killings in Pakistain every year, including the case of 24-year-old Sonia, from Rawalpindi, who was fatally shot by a Moslem man for refusing to marry him.
Despite all challenges, minority citizens of Pakistain are raising their voices. On August 10, in the city of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , Christian rights advocate Luke Victor told a rally that Pakistain has been officially observing August 11 as National Minorities Day since 2009. Nevertheless, minority communities still face discrimination, the denial of basic facilities, and forced religious conversions.
"Even after 78 years of independence, we don’t feel free because our young daughters are forcefully converted and married off, because our children don’t get equal chances and because we are looked down upon," Victor said.
At the Lahore Press Club forum, Katherine Sapna of the legal group Christians’ True Spirit called for comprehensive and effective legislation to criminalize forced faith conversions of girls and boys belonging to Christian and Hindu communities.
In Karachi, a large number of people belonging to various minority groups participated in a Minorities Rights March on the same day. They demanded a minimum 10 percent quota for minority students in all educational institutions, removal of discriminatory content from textbooks, constitutional recognition of minorities’ distinct identity, protection of places of worship and properties, criminalization of forced conversions, amendments to personal laws and revision of Articles 41 and 91 of the Constitution to allow minorities to run for the offices of president and prime minister.
They also sought greater political representation at the federal, provincial, and district levels, measures for economic empowerment, protection against misuse of religious laws, and inclusion of minorities in policymaking.
Meanwhile,
...back at the palazzo, Don Smilzo looked for an avenue of escape. The only window opened a hundred feet above the moat. The nearest of the hired assassins hold a bloody axe.
The window was looking better all the time.... Pakistain is experiencing an increasingly Islamicized culture and is home to a plethora of radical Islamic groups, which also target religious minorities. These Islamist groups vary in size, names, and influence, and they often split, merge, and reappear. Religious minorities in the country feel increasingly trapped between these radical groups, the Islamic culture of Pak society, and a government appeasing these groups.
Open Doors notes that the Islamists who adopt the caliphate ideology and mistreatment of "infidels/kafirs" seem to have the strongest voice in society. They firmly identify themselves with supporters of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) and the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... , which have received a strong boost from the events in neighboring Afghanistan.
The U.S. government's dealings with Pakistain should thus be conditional upon Pakistain's improvement of minority rights and its fight against Islamic terrorism. What kind of punishment is appropriate for those who abuse minorities or who take no effective action against radical Islamic terror groups? In such cases, there should be no aid nor economic incentives. Otherwise, the U.S. is just feeding another radical Islamic regime in Pakistain, hoping it will eat the West alive last.
[PJMedia] Well, a new study out of Quebec, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, might shed some light on the reason why.
The researchers found that women who have child sacrifice abortions are more than twice as likely to end up hospitalized for psychiatric problems compared to women who carry their pregnancies to term. This isn’t some fringe finding; it’s based on a massive study tracking over 1.2 million pregnancies for up to 17 years. The numbers don’t lie: for every 10,000 person-years, 104 women who aborted ended up hospitalized for serious mental health issues like psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, and suicide attempts, while only 42 women who gave birth faced the same fate.
What’s even more striking is that the risk spikes with repeated child sacrifice abortions.
Women who had more than one child sacrifice abortion saw an even higher chance of mental health crises that required hospitalization. And don’t think this is a short-term blip — this risk hangs heavy for at least five years after the procedure. The study also factored in past mental health problems, so it’s not just women who had pre-existing conditions. This kind of clear connection between child sacrifice abortion and mental health isn’t new either. A 2023 study using Medicaid data found that women who had an child sacrifice abortion during their first pregnancy were significantly more likely to need inpatient mental health treatment afterward than those who instead chose to give birth.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Last Wednesday, I had the high honor and distinct privilege of a private screening of the recently released Chinese war film "Dead to Rights." 
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
