Month: May 2023

In Vienna, Muslim students have already been the majority for several years – now this is also the case in Linz. This year, for the first time, more Muslims than Catholics were recorded at the compulsory schools in the Upper Austrian capital.

In Vienna, more Muslim than Roman Catholic pupils were already registered in 2017 – now this is also the case in Linz. 12,952 pupils attend the general compulsory schools in the Upper Austrian capital, 35.75 percent of these children – i.e. 4631 pupils – belong to the Islamic faith community, reports the “Kurier”. The number of pupils with Roman Catholic faith, on the other hand, amounts to 33.13 percent (4291 pupils).

Only 2.4 per cent of the pupils belong to the Protestant denomination.
As the result of the Upper Austria Education Directorate also shows, pupils without a confession also show a significant increase. While five years ago the number was still 1158, it has now already risen to 1821 pupils – this results in an increase of 57.2 per cent.

Pupils of Protestant (315) and Orthodox (790) faiths as well as those of other religious communities (1114) are definitely a minority.

https://exxpress.at/jetzt-auch-in-linz-mehr-muslimische-als-katholische-schueler/

America can have a military that wins wars or plays identity politics. We can either have the best warfighting force possible or a military that, as woke generals and politicians insist, “looks like America.”

Such a military will have drag queens in the Navy, use racial quotas in the Air Force, and pretend that there are no biological differences between men and women.

And when reality intrudes, it’ll be firmly shooed away. But reality doesn’t go away. Ignoring it just means someone pays the price.

Women are at least twice as likely as men to be injured in Army basic training, according to data collected over six years by the service…

During 2022, nearly 30% of female recruits were injured on average each month during Army basic training. The average was 23% per month between 2017 and 2022, the data shows. During those years, about 12% of male recruits were injured each month.

While our woke betters have decided that the difference between men and women is a state of mind, and that changing your sex is as easy as getting some shots, a few nips and tucks, and changing external presentation, the biological differences do not go on and off as easily as putting on a dress.

A military with identity politics as its primary mission is eliminating gender-specifics (no more airmen) and integrating the Marines, but reality can’t be changed with a new directive.

You can change standards and tests, which politicians and the military keep doing.

The ACFT, which replaced the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) earlier this year, was originally designed with gender-neutral standards. However, when only about half of active duty enlisted women passed the test for a Rand study — versus more than 90% of men — those standards were changed…

The congressman cited an essay written last year by Capt. Kristen Greist, one of the first two women to graduate from Ranger School, who worried that separate fitness standards would harm women’s acceptance in male-dominated units.

“Under a gender-based system, women in combat arms have to fight every day to dispel the notion that their presence inherently weakens these previously all-male units,” Greist wrote. “Lower female standards also reinforce the belief that women cannot perform the same job as men, therefore making it difficult for women to earn the trust and confidence of their teammates.”

Women can push themselves to meet a fitness standard, but there are still physical consequences. And no amount of moving the goal posts will change that.

Matthew Vadum wrote about this for Front Page Magazine a while back.

Experts in Great Britain studied what bearing the mixing of the sexes on the battlefield had on 21 factors that affect combat effectiveness. Eleven of those factors were thought to have “negative” effects on combat effectiveness and of those only three “cannot be mitigated by changes to structure or training.” These three unisex categories were “Survivability & Lethality, Deployability, and Morbidity.” (Donnelly describes the latter as “vulnerability to injury or illness.”)

The report notes that “[W]omen have smaller hearts, about 30% less muscle, and a slighter skeleton with wider pelvic bones resulting in less explosive power and upper body strength.” These differences in physiology “disadvantage women by 20 to 40%; so for the same output women have to work harder than men.”

Women are hit disproportionately with injuries, the report says. “[T]he rate of trauma and overuse lower limb MSK (musculoskeletal injury) remains two-fold higher… and the rate of hip and pelvic stress fractures is ten-fold higher in women.”

No civilized society, except facing total defeat, sends women into combat. But civilized societies also don’t have drag queens perform in front of children or mutilate them. The American people are still civilized, but our elites get their worldview from deranged savages who imagine themselves to be the vanguard of a better world. But leftist insanity still can’t get past the hard wall of reality. No amount of delusions can change the world. All leftist delusions can do is ruin people’s lives.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/1-in-3-female-recruits-injured-in-army-basic-training/

It has become clear that, apart from the mainstream media paying lip service to Kyiv, there is no one left who has any reasonable hope for success in the Ukrainian offensive. What can 200 stone-age tanks do against the Russian BMPT Terminators? What are the old Soviet-era MiG-29s worth up against MiG-35 fighters and fifth-generation Su-57s?

Let’s be serious! After hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed in combat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky now wants to send the ruins of the Ukrainian army into a bloodbath as justification for continued Western assistance. We are long past the time the West — as blind as it is naive — rolled out the red carpet at the feet of the clown Zelensky, turning a blind eye to his outrageousness.

They presented him as a superstar and a providential warlord taking on the Russian bear, which remained the sworn enemy of the Pentagon’s hawks because it could never accept that the Cold War was over. But their efforts have failed horribly, as the half-wits, blinded by their Russophobia, underestimated the power of Putin’s new army and the incredible adaptability of the Russian economy to fend off sanctions.

After 15 months of war, 10 rounds of economic sanctions, and hundreds of billions of euros in state-of-the-art equipment for Kyiv, more and more people in the United States and Europe believe that there has been zero return on their investment.

Putin continues to control a fifth of Ukrainian territory, and Zelensky is losing 100 soldiers a day; frighteningly, one Russian is killed for every eight Ukrainians. When Robert Kennedy Jr. (nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Democratic presidential candidate) talks of 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed, this is a plausible figure in light of the last 15 months of war, taking into account the overwhelming superiority of Russian artillery.

Our French journalists are as simple-minded as they were and refuse to take note of the degraded state of the Ukrainian army, but the Anglo-Saxon press is more sober and aware of the facts. For Zelensky, the party is over.

Russia has the geographical and numerical upper hand: Half a million Russian troops have been deployed to combat Ukraine, at least 300,000 of them on Ukrainian territory, U.S. news outlets report, quoting Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. The “good camp” is no longer fighting to win the war but to decide who will bear the odium of defeat and the consequences of the disaster.

https://rmx.news/commentary/the-party-is-over-for-zelensky-as-supporters-turn-lukewarm-on-ukraine-claims-french-publicist/

By Andrea Widburg

Canada has enthusiastically embraced euthanasia. And maybe that’s not surprising given that socialist countries must inevitably ration treatment, and the best rationing is accomplished by limiting the number of people who need serious care. However, many Canadians are now thinking of euthanasia, not just as a cure for untreated or untreatable illnesses, but also for homelessness and poverty.

These numbers come from a Research Co. poll asking Canadians about their attitudes toward Canada’s expanding Medical Assistance in Dying (or MAID) program:

One third of Canadians are apparently fine with prescribing assisting suicide for no other reason than the fact that the patient is poor or homeless.

The results were contained in a recent Research Co. poll probing just how comfortable Canadians were with the current state of the country’s MAID (medical assistance in dying) regime.

Starting in March 2021, Canada became one of only a handful of countries to legalize assisted suicide even in instances where a patient does not have a terminal illness. Ever since, a Canadian can be approved for MAID simply for having a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”

Research Co. found that 73 per cent of poll respondents favoured the current regime, and only 16 per cent opposed it.

Pollsters also found not-insignificant numbers of Canadians who favoured assisted suicide in cases where no medical condition of any kind was present.

If a Canadian’s only affliction was “poverty,” 27 per cent said they would be fine with legalizing that person’s access to MAID. Another 28 per cent pegged “homelessness” as an appropriate bar to qualify for MAID.

Incidentally, when it comes to euthanasia for poverty (27% support) and for homelessness (28% support), another 11% of respondents really weren’t that sure. The only good news in the poll is that 44% of Canadians still oppose euthanasia for poverty, and 43% oppose it for homelessness. Expect these numbers to decrease in time.

Aside from showing how it’s becoming increasingly acceptable for doctors to kill rather than cure or help people, the study shows something deeply disturbing about the Western mind: We lack mental resilience.

Another study emerged recently, not about Canada but about America, showing that depression among Americans has reached a new high:

More than a quarter of American adults are depressed, a 10% surge from nearly a decade ago, according to the latest Gallup survey.

[snip]

Depression rates have sharply risen among women and Black and Hispanic people in particular. More than 36% of women report that a doctor has diagnosed them with depression in their lives, compared to 20.4% of men, with depression rates among younger people outpacing that of older respondents. While white people historically have reported the highest depression rates, Black and Hispanic adults are now reporting similar figures.

Some of this is going to be situational, given COVID and the terrible economic upheavals Biden’s handlers have wrought. Also, it’s apparent that it’s worst among people who tend to be leftists: women, blacks, and Hispanics. That’s not a surprise because leftism is about existential gloom and doom—and because they’re leftists, there’s no afterlife or resurrection to offset the misery. When you die, you’re dead.

But I also believe some of the depression is tied to the expectations that we have about a “quality” life in the First World. Ironically, in an age in which the First World is becoming increasingly socialist, we are inundated with ever more advertisements and commentary about the material things that will make our lives better. This materialism means we are constantly assured that one can’t find love and happiness in a shack. You need the latest electronics, the finest plumbing, the most fashionable clothes, the biggest, most luxurious house, and so much more. Social media makes creature comforts the standard for happiness.

I happen to love my creature comforts, but I’m old enough to understand that there is more to life than a dishwasher, spiffy shoes, and a hot bath. For young people and other leftists, though, already inundated with propaganda about an existential climate crisis and non-stop racial hatred, happiness is fragile, if not impossible. If you add to that the denial of the creature comforts shilled through non-stop commercialism, you have people who feel that the final straw in a nihilistic existence would be life without a hot bath or designer shoes.

No wonder so many people think it’s a mercy killing to offer someone poor or homeless a sanitized medical death. In the abstract, that’s what they’d want for themselves—although it remains to be seen how they’ll feel in some dystopian future when the mobile euthanasia truck comes for them because they can’t pay their heating bill or just got evicted from their apartment.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/in_canada_many_see_poverty_and_homelessness_as_good_reasons_to_die.html

Seven Syrian men charged with terrorism last month had been regularly posting videos of ISIS and Al-Qaeda leaders on social media, according to documents exhibited in court.

The court hearing against the seven Syrian men continued in court on Thursday before Magistrate Nadine Lia.

Two police sergeants exhibited social media posts in court belonging to the online accounts of the accused.

These posts included videos of Jihadi fighters, ISIS leaders, and Osama bin Laden giving a speech. Other videos glorified terrorist activities, including suicide attacks.

One device analysed by a police sergeant held content on how to make car bombs, pipe bombs and other explosive weapons at home.

Many of the videos would also have Jihadi chants, or nasheeds, playing in the background.

When one of the police sergeants was cross-examined by the defence, he clarified that no explosives were found in the possession of the accused. “But it’s clear that this material was downloaded by the suspects,” he said.

The sergeant pointed out that the content and bomb-making guides made use of materials that one can find easily at home.

Enough evidence to indict the accused

Later in the sitting, the defence and prosecution made their arguments on the indictment of the accused.

Lawyer Jose Herrera, appearing as defence council, argued that the documents exhibited in court on Thursday were not even admissible as proof.

He added that Malta’s terrorism laws are based on EU directives, which specify that there should be specific intention behind the sharing of terrorist material before it can be considered a crime.

“The material shared needs to have a certain level of ‘gravitas’,” he added. “If I’m a fan of Nazism, and I share Mein Kampf on social media, it is not proof enough that I am promoting Nazism in the country.”

Herrera also pointed out that there is no proof of specific intention in the evidence submitted to the court as of yet.

Prosecution lawyer Antoine Agius Bonnici argued that publishing content glorifying terrorism is already a crime in and of itself.

“Intention comes from the type of material and the frequency of shared material. If there’s a pattern, it shows their intention,” he said, citing the EU directive.  

The magistrate then decreed that there is enough evidence prima facie to place the accused under a bill of indictment.

Police inspectors Jeffrey Cutajar and Jean Paul Attard are prosecuting, assisted by lawyers Antoine Agius Bonnici, Francesco Refalo and Rebeca Spiteri from the Office of the Attorney General.

Lawyers Jose Herrera, Alexander Scerri Herrera, Matthew Xuereb, Robert Galea and Alicia Borg are defence counsel.

https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/court_and_police/122981/isis_alqaeda_footage_shared_by_syrian_men_charged_with_terrorism_acts_presented_in_court

by Giulio Meotti

“Two men executed for offending the Koran”. This happened recently in Iran (in the meantime, no eyebrows were raised as Teheran was elected to lead a UN Human Rights Forum), but it could have been in France, Holland, Germany, Sweden or England, given that large parts of Europe are becoming, in the words of Boualem Sansal, “would-be Islamic republics” and the only topic on which an academic today needs armed protection begins with “i” and ends with “m”.

The French anthropologist Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, who was placed under police protection after the publication of her book “Frérisme et ses réseaux, l’enquête”, knows something about it. She was not only threatened with death and had to be put under guard. The Sorbonne canceled one of her conferences for “security reasons”. For threats that justified placing her under protection, a first at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

“That’s why there are no more scholars working on Islamism,” Bergeaud-Blackler tells Charlie Hebdo. The scholar went on TV to say: “There is a taboo on Islamism in the university that makes research almost impossible and since Samuel Paty’s beheading, those who still resisted are so afraid that they have almost given up”.

At the same time, Masih Alinejad, a prominent Iranian dissident, was also placed under police protection in the UK after police received serious threats to her life. “We will be with you and protect you wherever you go. Give us your plans, we need to know everything in advance to prepare for close protection.”

In Europe there are dozens of cases similar to Bergeaud-Blackler.

Gilles Kepel, who wrote the preface to Bergeaud-Blackler’s book, discovers one morning that the jihadist who slaughtered a police officer and his wife in Magnanville, France, had given a speech on Facebook in which he called for the killing of seven public figures. The Home Office called Kepel to tell him that his name was at the top of the list. Since then, Kepel has been under guard.

A professor of Iranian origin, Afshin Ellian, works at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he is protected by bodyguards.

French journalist Zineb El Rhazoui has more bodyguards than many ministers.

An academic from Sciences Po University, Klaus Kinzler, is under protection for violating the taboo of “Islamophobia”.

In Germany there is the sociologist Hamed Abdel Samad: 360 degree surveillance 24 hours a day. Samad told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung: “One day a Berlin police officer came to me and gave me a bulletproof vest and told me that from now on I should wear it during my lessons, because death threats against me have become more concrete and there are plans to put them into practice”.

In England, a teacher who fears for his life after showing pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in a civics lesson has been given a new identity and has remained in hiding for two years, reveals the Mail on Sunday. A family source told the Mail: ‘He lives away from the Batley area and has been given a new identity. He is slowly trying to rebuild his life but it is not easy. It could cost him his life. this area and the fewer people know about it, the better”.

Then another. “A professor was canceled after false accusations of Islamophobia and revealed that he feared that Muslim extremists would kill him”, says the Times.

The scholar of human rights Steven Greer, 66, who went into hiding after students at Bristol University Law School in England accused him of being an ‘Islamophobe.’ Greer grew a beard and carried a screwdriver in case he was was attacked, revealing that he was more afraid for his life than he was during the “Troubles”, the sectarian clashes in Northern Ireland.

“For my own safety, I was forced to behave like a fugitive. ” And again: “The campaign has been vicious and punishing and has put me and my family under intolerable stress. It was scary. To play it safe, my wife and I fled the house to stay in a safer place.”

In Europe, critics of Islam have to move from one “safe house” to another. “This is ‘safe house’ number five…”, said Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who first painted Mohammed. Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician critical of Islam, “is monitored 24 hours a day and lives in a government ‘safe house'”. Also living in a “safe house” is Lars Hedergaard, who is blamed for being the founder of the Danish Free Press Society.

They call them safe houses, but they are the graves of our failed tolerance.

Anthropologist Susanne Schröter, head of the Islamic Research Center, teaches at the University of Frankfurt. “The accusation of Islamophobia becomes an argument against any possible criticism of Islam,” Schröter said. “If freedom of expression is no longer possible, then this is the end of a free democratic society.” Of the ten speakers at her conference, four move with bodyguards. “Because I’m on every radical’s list,” Schröter revealed.

In Germany Ahmad Mansour is also under guard for his criticism of Islam.

Then there are professors who are unknown but who have ended up under guard for criticizing Islam. They live from Montauban to Essonne, France is full of them. As in Marseille, where an academic ended up under guard at the university for criticizing Islam.

Easy to understand why some have chosen to withdraw.

Like Paul Cliteur, the Dutch academic critic of multiculturalism, he self-censored, announcing that he would no longer deal with Islam for fear of reprisals. “After the assassination of Van Gogh, the writer takes certain risks,” said Cliteur. “This is a scary development. What I do is self-censorship, absolutely.”

Europe’s fate?

In Europe critics of Islam need police protection | ערוץ 7 (israelnationalnews.com)

The leader of Austria’s conservative Freedom Party (FPÖ), Herbert Kickl, has criticized President Alexander van der Bellen’s (Greens) proposal to send Austrian mine clearance teams to Ukraine, claiming such a move would be tantamount to Austria joining the war.

Van der Bellen proposed utilizing the Austrian army to clear Russian mines in the war-torn country during a Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik, which ended on Wednesday.

In a statement, the Austrian federal president, who is also the army’s commander-in-chief, said: “I don’t understand why the federal government is still hesitating on the question of de-mining. Support in de-mining civilian areas such as residential buildings, schools, kindergartens or agricultural areas certainly does not contradict Austrian neutrality, but is a humanitarian matter.”

However, a number of politicians from across the political spectrum disagree with van der Bellen’s assessment, not least Kickl, who wrote on his party’s website: “Not so long ago, van der Bellen wanted to abolish our army, now he wants to lend it to a warring country.

“Alexander van der Bellen is treading on dangerous political ice when he says that Austrian soldiers could defuse mines in Ukraine. The devil must have ridden the president with this announcement because to carry out a military operation in a warring country is certainly not compatible with our neutrality,” Kickl added.

Clear violation of neutrality

The FPÖ leader said that the federal president, who should actually act as the guardian of the constitution, was thus completely ignoring Austria’s enshrined perpetual neutrality by now wanting to send soldiers to a country where they could ultimately become involved in acts of war.

“Van der Bellen wanted to abolish our army, and now he and his Green friends like Werner Kogler and co. are acting as warmongers beyond compare,” Kickl said.

Does van der Bellen not care about Austria’s much-priased constitution?

“Our neutrality is not to be shaken. A federal president who questions this and our freedom of alliance is out of place,” the conservative party leader added.

In an interview with Austrian public service broadcaster Ö1, Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner of the ÖVP also spoke out against the president’s idea, saying that Austria should only take part in any such initiative after the end of hostilities in Ukraine.

She insisted it is currently impossible to “distinguish between humanitarian and military mine clearance” in Ukraine, and highlighted that the Austrian army’s mine clearance units are currently deployed in the Western Balkans.

“There must be no security risk for Austrian soldiers. The situation in Ukraine is unstable and unpredictable,” added ÖVP military spokesman Friedrich Ofenauer, who is also against the proposal.

https://rmx.news/austria/austrian-conservatives-slam-presidents-call-to-use-army-for-ukrainian-mine-clearing/

Panic at Anheuser-Busch: One Beer Vendor Is PAYING People to Drink Bud Light https://t.co/CrEFJGrKki pic.twitter.com/NWjnJZNOvD

— Robert Spencer (@jihadwatchRS) May 19, 2023

By Eric Utter

Facebook flagged with a warning—and then deleted—a post that simply read, “Jesus died so you could live” due to a “hate speech” violation, or so alleges Billy Hallowell, a former writer for Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.

FaceBook considers “Jesus died so you could live” hate speech? It is just the opposite. It is, literally, the ultimate in love speech. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Hate speech? Goes against FaceBook’s community code? That tells you everything you need to know about Meta, Zuckerberg…and the “values” and agenda of the Left.

This is simply part of a broader war on Christianity, one now being fought in the West. Remarkably, even allegedly Christian institutions are aiding and abetting progressives in their attacks on Christianity. As just one of countless examples, a professor at Fordham, a purportedly Catholic university, believes that Christianity, going back to St. Paul the Apostle, is to blame for racism and antisemitism…to this day. Professor Magda Teter’s new book, titled “Christian Supremacy,” was recently published. A description of the book says it offers “a profound reckoning with history that traces the roots of the modern rejection of Jewish and Black equality to an enduring Christian heritage of exclusion, intolerance, and persecution.”

Teter states, “What I argue in the book is that white Christian supremacy becomes white supremacy. It never discards the Christian sense of domination and superiority that emerges from its early relationship with Jews and Judaism.”

She goes on to say,

“In the United States, Black people serve as contrast figures to whiteness, in the law and in the culture. You cannot have whiteness without Blackness. For Christians, Jews serve as that contrast figure.” 

Really? Contrast? How about complementarity? Oh, that’s right, you folks don’t believe in that.

And then there’s Wendy Ashby, a former Waterloo Catholic District School Board trustee, who recently resigned after a tweet surfaced in which Ashby called white Christian males “the most dangerous creature on the planet.” Ashby’s vile and preposterous anti-Christian tweets prompted more than 3,000 parents to complain.

Police in Loudoun County, Virginia, recently launched an investigation after a whistleblower revealed allegedly violent online threats against parents who dared to oppose radical curricula during school board meetings. The Loudon County sheriff characterized the threats as “disturbing and almost demonic.” Demonic.

Though it doesn’t get much coverage by the mainstream media, many know that Christians are being persecuted and slaughtered— and their places of worship destroyed—in the Middle East and parts of Africa. But scores of Christian churches have been vandalized or even firebombed in the United States and Canada in recent months.

Detect a pattern?

The Left is attacking anything and everything that a majority has traditionally done or believed. Objective truths are to be discredited and thrown onto the proverbial ash-heap of history along with historical notions of morality, the idea of merit, and the capitalist economic system…all to be replaced by Communism and the most perverse forms of secularism/humanism/paganism.

Sadly, ever fewer Americans identify as Christians while ever more identify as non-believers. This goes a long way towards explaining the dramatic rise in crime, depression, hopelessness, suicide rates—and gender confusion—occurring in the country in the past few years. (The Biden administration has had a deleterious effect on these, too.)

Tolerance? Progress? Wokeness? Are we on the way to a collective utopia?

The Left’s utter intolerance for dissent leads to regression, not progression. If we don’t wake up from our woke nightmare soon, we will soon find ourselves living in a collective dystopia…from which we may never escape or recover.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/the_undeclared_war_on_christians.html