Walthamstow Wetlands and the Lea this morning:

Joshua Muravchik has a long piece at Quillette on Syria and the new evolving calculus in the region. Iran and Russai are the big losers, of course. The winners? Well, Israel…and Turkey. An extract: Small and outnumbered as Israel is, the aura of its power is what saves it from relentless attack. With a few…

A look back at North Korea's 2024, from Gil-sup Kwak at the Daily NK: The most significant development was Kim Jong Un’s introduction of the “Hostile Two-State Theory” through his speeches at the Party Plenary Meeting on Dec. 30, 2023, and the Supreme People’s Assembly on Jan. 15, 2024. This represented a Copernican revolution in…

What's the point of them? They infantilise; they encourage a narcissistic sense of victimhood; they pretend that art is about therapy rather than about broadening the mind, about struggling to meet the nasty old world rather than facing it head on. When authors themselves add trigger warnings to their books though….well, it's just getting silly.…

If you read Jerry Coyne's blog you'll be aware of his recent dispute with the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), an American atheist organisation. In brief: the FFRF posted a risible article by the "non-binary" Kat Davis, "What is a Woman?". So: the gender binary is an imposition of European colonisers, Terfs claim that transgender…

From MEMRI TV: In his December 13, 2024 Friday sermon, Kent State University professor of Mathematics and Imam of the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent in Ohio, Nader Taha, stated that Gaza had planted the "seed of freedom" for the entire world. He said that in the October 7, 2023 Al-Aqsa Flood, “we have…

The state of our universities. From the Telegraph: When Charlotte Tredgett won a place at King’s College London to study philosophy, the bright, enthusiastic teenager envisaged thoughtful exchanges, intense discussions – even heated debates – about the most pressing moral and ethical questions of the day…. “When classes started, it became abundantly clear that fellow…

Ca. 1900. "Chicago & North-Western Railway locomotive CNW 605 on turntable." [Photo: Shorpy/Louis A. Marre Rail Transportation Photograph Collection]

The Taliban have just announced that women are forbidden from being visible through the windows of their own homes. Refusing to play this match should be the easiest decision these cricketers make in their entire lives. https://t.co/t6SGNF68Uo — Rainy (@rainy101) December 29, 2024 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js It is shameful to see the England cricket team participating in…

Joan Smith at UnHerd on the case being brought against the British Transport Police over their policy of allowing men with a GRC to strip search women (previously): The question that arises is who this policy is meant to benefit, since it’s clearly not women. Many who end up in police stations will have experienced…