Mick Hartley

Back to the woods

It's autumn, so more woods and trees. This time I'm in Hadley Wood, just up from High Barnet.

Each wood has its own character...

Click to enlarge for the full autumnal experience.

Trans cycling

What a slanted dishonest BBC article:

A top amateur cyclist says his sport is less inclusive and welcoming than ever after it banned transgender women from competing in the female category.

Josh Jones, 31, from Cambridge, believes British Cycling's new rules "fail the cycling community".

From next year, these athletes will compete in an "open" category with men.

British Cycling said it aimed to "promote equality, diversity and inclusion, whilst prioritising fairness".

Jones, who has been competing for 12 years, has 44 wins across all disciplines and is currently 13th in the British Cycling National Rankings.

He believes he is the first and only openly gay rider to hold a world ranking in any cycling discipline, but recent moves within the sport have left him dismayed.

Nice try: equating trans to gay. We're not fooled. Gays aren't being banned from women's events: men are.

"The three main governing bodies - British Cycling, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and Cycling Time Trials - have all introduced new policies that prevent transgender people from participating in the sport authentically," he said.

In July, the UCI - world cycling's governing body - said anyone who had transitioned after male puberty could compete in a "men/open" category but not in women's events.

Cycling Time Trials said it was "convinced that after undergoing male puberty, a rider will retain strength, stamina and physique which will give them a permanent advantage over someone who has not".

But Jones said: "An open category is essentially just a different label being used for the men's category. It does not respect people's identity. It denies that transgender women are women."

Because they're not women. They're men, with male advantage in sports.

He believes the governing bodies should consider the "social impact of excluding transgender woman from competing authentically".

No concern, of course, for the "social impact" of women not being able to compete against men. The sense of entitlement, and total lack of concern for women, is breathtaking. 

Highly sensitive decision

Meanwhile, in Havering:

A London council has decided not to allow a chanukiah to be erected outside its town hall to commemorate the full eight days of Chanukah over fears it could inflame tensions between local communities.

Jewish News understands the leader of Havering Council in East London made the “highly sensitive” decision not to allow the installation due to the increase in hate crime in the borough following the 7 October Hamas terror attacks....

It is understood that local Chabad Rabbi Aryeh Sufrin had committed to lighting the menorah, while there was also a reception planned at Romford Synagogue on 12 December.

Local Romford MP Andrew Rosindell had written to Havering Council leader Ray Morgon expressing “grave concern” over any move to halt the Chanukah celebration. In a letter seen by Jewish News, he adds: “Should this be true it would be a grave insult to Jewish communities in Romford.”

Will Muslim Eid celebrations be cancelled, I wonder, so as not to inflame tensions? 

You'd think it might be a good time to stand in solidarity with London's Jewish community - but, well, a lot of people wouldn't like it....

Toronto sign of the times

Um...

Spotted at an anti-Israel protest in Toronto

Photo by @BethBaisch pic.twitter.com/w2zUbcVhGE

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 29, 2023

It's getting weird.

Ore cars and smokestack

Russell Lee again, from war-time industrial Montana. September 1942, Deer Lodge County, Montana. "Anaconda smelter. Ore cars and smokestack."

[Photo: Shorpy/Russell Lee for the Office of War Information]

Cowards and traders in blood

From MEMRI, an article by journalist Musa’ad Al-Thobaiti in the Saudi daily Okaz - They Hide in Their Tunnels and Sell Out Their People For a Paltry Price:

"Hamas leaders, along with their children, live in luxury in five-star hotels [in Qatar], and have immeasurable wealth, and at the same time give high-flown speeches about resistance. As for [Hamas] fighters, after bringing death and destruction upon the Gazans, they hid themselves in tunnels and left the Gazans to face their fate [alone], exposed to the cruelest Israeli weapons and to a merciless army.

"When the Israeli forces entered Gaza, they did not have to fight in the streets, as they had expected, for the soldiers of [the Hamas military wing, the Izz Al-Din] Al-Qassam [Brigades], preferred to stay alive and forgot their claim that 'Gaza will become the graveyard of the occupier,' which they had used to drug the Arabs. [Instead] Gaza became the graveyard of the weak Palestinians, and it's quite possible that the members of Hamas left the tunnels and traveled to other countries.

"Sadly, these are the people whom the [Islamic] nation praises. A group of cowards and traders in blood, who are the root of the disaster of this region. A genuine, brave and devoted commander stands with his followers and leads them. These guys are interested [only] in the vanities of this world, yet there are people who are deceived by them, people who have lost their minds and are fighting for nothing and losing their lives for leaders who have sold them out for a paltry price – and behind them is a nation that has become addicted to shouting and warnings and is hanging on to anyone who sells it illusions."

There are of course the usual figures across the Arab Middle East keeping to the party line, but it's notable how many voices, as here, are disgusted with Hamas and disgusted by the mindless adulation of their savagery.

As I've said before, if a major aim of the Oct 7th pogrom was to bring the Arab world together in condemnation of the inevitable Israeli response, it doesn't seem to have worked out. On the other hand what they can't have expected - what no one expected - was the extraordinary outpouring of antisemitism and adulation of Hamas that we've seen across the western world.

At Oakland City Council

Last night the Oakland City Council voted on a resolution to call for a ceasefire.

A city council member tried to insert language condemning Hamas.

This was the reaction… pic.twitter.com/r7aTb2mkrQ

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 28, 2023

Hamas "news"

As horror stories emerged of how the Israeli hostages were treated by Hamas, the Palestinian media ("Pallywood") quickly got to work to even things out. From the Palestine Chronicle:

30 Palestinian child detainees were released on Tuesday morning, as part of the prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli government.

Mohammed Nazzal, from the city of Qabatiya, was one of them. Soon after his release, he was moved to the emergency room of the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city of Jenin.

Mohammed was severely injured in both his hands due to the beating by Israeli soldiers in the Negev prison, one week ago. The hand fractures were deliberately neglected by the Israeli Prison Service, which led to complications to the child’s right hand.

According to the Palestinian doctors who examined him following his release, Mohammed now needs a platinum implant to facilitate the fracture healing.

Strangely the same lad was pictured leaving his captivity in Israel, where he was servicing a sentence for terror-related offenses, looking just fine. Shortly after, he was interviewed with his arms in slings, alleging that prison guards used hammers to break his arms and he was left in excruciating pain for 8 days with no medical attention:

1/4🧵Hamas Propaganda Exposed:

Mohammed Nazal was released from Ofer jail in Israel where he was servicing a sentence for terror-related offenses in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.

Palestinians are alleging he had both his arms broken and smashed with hammers by… pic.twitter.com/EnX5xyG1YH

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) November 28, 2023

1/4🧵Hamas Propaganda Exposed:

Palestine history

On Nov. 29 1947, the United Nations voted for the partition of Palestine and the creation of the independent Jewish state of Israel.

One of the biggest and lesser known stories of Nov 29 is that the lands allocated to a Jewish state (two color map) were essentially those the Zionists reclaimed from malaria through land purchase, science and education (blue map).
Moreover, the sudden and extremely rapid… pic.twitter.com/BS8wbZ0Bdw

— Dr. Einat Wilf (@EinatWilf) November 29, 2023

Full text:

One of the biggest and lesser known stories of Nov 29 is that the lands allocated to a Jewish state (two color map) were essentially those the Zionists reclaimed from malaria through land purchase, science and education (blue map).
Moreover, the sudden and extremely rapid increase of the Arab population in the 1920’s and 1930’s in this barely populated backwater region (this was the highest population increase rate in the world in 1931/2) was only in part due to immigration spurred by Zionist development of the land. The major share of the massive Arab population increase was thanks to Malaria eradication, which was the work of the Galician born famed microbiologist and ardent Zionist Dr. Israel Kligler (credit to the great historical work of Anton Alexander).
With this knowledge it remains even a greater tragedy that the now much more numerous Arabs of the land directed their efforts towards brutally fighting Zionism rather than choosing to live side by side with an emerging Jewish state.
In the shadow of the Oct 7 massacre we mark once more the Nov 29 moment when the Jews said yes to the UNGA plan of partition (having prioritized having a state, even if tiny and mostly desert and lands reclaimed from malaria and no Zion and no Judea) and the Arabs said no and proceeded to wage a brutal war to the present day (having prioritized - still - the goal of the Jews not having a state at all and of any size).

(Note on map titles: for twenty centuries, before a campaign of denial was underway, it was well understood that the name “Palestine” merely denoted the geographic region where the Land of Israel was and was therefore deeply associated with Jews and the their continuous connection to the land. Hence the League of Nation in establishing the mandate recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" as the "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” and which is why the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra of Jewish musicians became the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra…)

Flues and smokestack

More Russell Lee, still at the Anaconda Mining Co. in Deer Lodge County, Montana, September 1942:

"Smelter of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. Flues atop the battery of roasting furnaces; sulphurous and arsenic gases are carried to the large smokestack."

"Anaconda Smelter of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. The smokestack is the largest in the world: 585 feet in height with a diameter at base of seventy-five feet and at top of sixty feet. Flue gases are discharged at the rate of three to four million cubic feet per minute. The arsenic plant and flue gas cleaning apparatus are seen at the base of the stack."
[Photos: Shorpy/Photo by Russell Lee, Office of War Information]

China tearing down Islam

An FT report - How China is tearing down Islam - "Thousands of mosques have been altered or destroyed as Beijing’s suppression of Islamic culture spreads".

Mosque demolitions and modifications have been documented in Xinjiang, the northwestern region where hundreds of thousands of Turkic Muslims have been detained, and there has been some evidence of architectural changes elsewhere.

But the Financial Times has now found that Beijing’s crackdown on Islam has spread to almost every region of the country.

🚨 EXC: Thousands of mosques in China have been altered or destroyed as Beijing’s suppression of Islam spreads to almost every region of the country.

W/ @YuanfenYang @upyorkshire @peterjandringa @evawxiao @inari_ta @maxharlow @leahyjoseph @sunyu1117

👉 https://t.co/E6NFJxdyOH pic.twitter.com/vnNy7y4To6

— Sam Joiner (@samjoiner) November 27, 2023

Of course no one cares - and certainly no Muslim countries, nor the crowds chanting for Free Palestine and calling out the supposed "genocide" in Gaza. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is still there, still in use, in Jerusalem. But....well, Jews....it's different.

Freezing UNRWA support

Someone's noticed at last:

#Breaking: Germany halts UNRWA Gaza aid following an internal review.

Widespread German support for the funding freeze arose from discoveries that Palestinian educational materials were employed to propagate hate, glorify jihad, and promote antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/BDKQESV6Ga

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) November 28, 2023

On the Heath

Hampstead this morning:

The national debating champions

A debating tournament last month, hosted by the US’s National Speech and Debate Association - Omar Loubak Mohamed at Spiked:

During the final round, participants were charged with debating the costs and benefits of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But Team A informed Team B that they would not discuss the topic. Why? Because trans people are being ‘genocided’ by ‘MAGA Republicans’. While these wild claims had nothing to do with the IMF, the debaters were still keen to use the competition to make a political point about gender.

Team A then proudly declared that ‘misgendering’ is a form of violence, and that those who do it should face an automatic loss in debate competitions. It was a blatant call for censorship. They then pledged to ‘occupy the debate space until trans debaters can participate safely’, and invited the judges and the other team to ‘affirm’ their ‘performance’.

And so they did. Team B immediately conceded the round, probably because they didn’t want to dispute that trans ‘genocide’ is real and thus be labelled as transphobic. For their part, the judges incessantly praised Team A for their bravery and courage, crowning them the national debating champions.

Genocide slurs at the BBC

The host for this Friday's Have I Got News For You  - a man who's been posting relentlessly on social media about Israel's "ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians" and claiming "It's a textbook genocide".

A comedian who has accused Israel of 'ethnic cleansing' and 'genocide' in Gaza has been booked to host BBC panel show Have I Got News for You.

Guz Khan, who is best known for his BBC Three comedy Man Like Mobeen, has prolifically posted on social media in support of Palestine since the Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel on October 7.

On his X account (formerly known as Twitter), the 37-year-old has accused Israel of 'war crimes' in its response to the sneak assault by the terrorist group and has accused the Jewish state of 'occupying' the Palestinian territory for years.

The Coventry-born comic has been chosen to take charge of this week's version of Have I Got News for You, which will be aired on BBC One on Friday, December 1.

However, the decision has been criticised by one BBC staffer, who told the Times they were 'lost for words' he had been booked given the high probability the conflict in Gaza will be mentioned on satirical current affairs show.

File next to Gary "worth 13 minutes of anyone’s time" Lineker.