Month: September 2020

A dam has broken and our media are desperate to avert our eyes from it.  I am stunned at the succession of positive developments that has followed the announcement almost a month ago that the United Arab Emirates is normalizing relations with Israel. Momentum is accelerating toward the long dreamed-of goal of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

I have to pinch myself after writing such a thing to remind myself that decade after decade of strenuous effort has failed, frustrating presidents of both parties and stymieing plan after plan put forth by diplomats and NGOs. Yet, improbable as it may seem to the smart set, Donald Trump, denounced as an imminent threat to world peace by almost all the academic, diplomatic, and journalistic elites, may have triggered the process of reconciling the Arab world to peaceful coexistence with Israel.

YouTube screen grab

Among the good news announced just this week:

• The Arab League refused a Palestinian Authority initiative to condemn the AE’s normalization and appears to have pressured the PA into softening its position. The handwriting is on the wall for the PA.
• Chad, an African republic with a majority Muslim population, has announced it will establish diplomatic relations with Israel and will consider putting its embassy in Jerusalem.
• Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have announced that they will allow Israeli airliners to fly over their airspace traveling east toward the Gulf and beyond to Asia. This will cut several hours of flying time off of flights, and vastly enhance the ability of businesses to form new deals and tourists to travel. It makes clear that Saudi Arabia is following the path of the UAE. As does the following:
• The Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca delivered a sermon hinting at normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The New Arab, a London-based, Qatari-funded private media outlet, reported over the weekend that Abdul Rahman al-Sudais used his sermon to emphasize tolerance and cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims.

• Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the UAE has instructed all hotels to offer kosher menus.  In truth, halal food and kosher food are very similar, so if rabbis are brought in to bless the slaughterhouses and food preparation facilities, this can be accomplished at relatively low cost. Nonetheless the symbolic importance is gigantic, as guests will be reminded of normalization every time they see a menu.)
• Greece, Cyprus and Israel just signed a historic military cooperation agreement. This is clearly aimed at Turkey, which is, along with Iran, one of the chief opponents of the normalization between Israel and the UAE.
• And, in a harbinger of much more to come, South Korea is nearing a free trade agreement with Israel, now that it is clear that its extensive trade ties with the Arab world will not be negatively impacted by deepening ties with Israel. This will be hugely important for the two countries but will also signal enterprises in countries all over the world that they are free to invest and trade with Israel without giving up ties to the Arab economies.

These developments and others to come are best understood as a “preference cascade.”

The concept of the Preference Cascade is credited to Turkish economist Timur Kuran. Glenn Reynolds described the idea in a 2002 op-ed, Patriotism and Preferences

In short, average people behave the way they think they ought to, even though that behavior might not reflect their own personal feelings.
Given a sufficient “A-HA!” moment when they discover that their personal feelings are shared by a large portion of the population their behavior may change dramatically. An example of this is the British colonists before and after publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. A year before the Declaration of Independence, America was full of patriotic British convinced that things could be worked out with King George, but on July 4, 1776 the colonies were full of Americans determined that they needed independence.

President Trump has already accomplished a miracle. If he is re-elected, the miracle of Middle East peace may well be among his historic achievements.

 

A dam has broken and our media are desperate to avert our eyes from it.  I am stunned at the succession of positive developments that has followed the announcement almost a month ago that the United Arab Emirates is normalizing relations with Israel. Momentum is accelerating toward the long dreamed-of goal of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

I have to pinch myself after writing such a thing to remind myself that decade after decade of strenuous effort has failed, frustrating presidents of both parties and stymieing plan after plan put forth by diplomats and NGOs. Yet, improbable as it may seem to the smart set, Donald Trump, denounced as an imminent threat to world peace by almost all the academic, diplomatic, and journalistic elites, may have triggered the process of reconciling the Arab world to peaceful coexistence with Israel.

YouTube screen grab

Among the good news announced just this week:

• The Arab League refused a Palestinian Authority initiative to condemn the AE’s normalization and appears to have pressured the PA into softening its position. The handwriting is on the wall for the PA.
• Chad, an African republic with a majority Muslim population, has announced it will establish diplomatic relations with Israel and will consider putting its embassy in Jerusalem.
• Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have announced that they will allow Israeli airliners to fly over their airspace traveling east toward the Gulf and beyond to Asia. This will cut several hours of flying time off of flights, and vastly enhance the ability of businesses to form new deals and tourists to travel. It makes clear that Saudi Arabia is following the path of the UAE. As does the following:
• The Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca delivered a sermon hinting at normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The New Arab, a London-based, Qatari-funded private media outlet, reported over the weekend that Abdul Rahman al-Sudais used his sermon to emphasize tolerance and cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims.

• Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the UAE has instructed all hotels to offer kosher menus.  In truth, halal food and kosher food are very similar, so if rabbis are brought in to bless the slaughterhouses and food preparation facilities, this can be accomplished at relatively low cost. Nonetheless the symbolic importance is gigantic, as guests will be reminded of normalization every time they see a menu.)
• Greece, Cyprus and Israel just signed a historic military cooperation agreement. This is clearly aimed at Turkey, which is, along with Iran, one of the chief opponents of the normalization between Israel and the UAE.
• And, in a harbinger of much more to come, South Korea is nearing a free trade agreement with Israel, now that it is clear that its extensive trade ties with the Arab world will not be negatively impacted by deepening ties with Israel. This will be hugely important for the two countries but will also signal enterprises in countries all over the world that they are free to invest and trade with Israel without giving up ties to the Arab economies.

These developments and others to come are best understood as a “preference cascade.”

The concept of the Preference Cascade is credited to Turkish economist Timur Kuran. Glenn Reynolds described the idea in a 2002 op-ed, Patriotism and Preferences

In short, average people behave the way they think they ought to, even though that behavior might not reflect their own personal feelings.
Given a sufficient “A-HA!” moment when they discover that their personal feelings are shared by a large portion of the population their behavior may change dramatically. An example of this is the British colonists before and after publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. A year before the Declaration of Independence, America was full of patriotic British convinced that things could be worked out with King George, but on July 4, 1776 the colonies were full of Americans determined that they needed independence.

President Trump has already accomplished a miracle. If he is re-elected, the miracle of Middle East peace may well be among his historic achievements.

 

The NFL had high hopes for its long awaited return on Thursday night. Though, the league’s social justice themed season opener was evidently deemed non-essential as fans chose to quarantine themselves on other channels.

According to Deadline, “…the Kansas City Chiefs pummeled the Houston Texans 34-20, and the ratings were down — a lot. In early numbers, the primetime NBC game scored a 5.2 among adults 18-49 and 16.4 million viewers between 8-11 p.m. ET.

“Now, those numbers for the 8:25-11:30 p.m. ET game will certainly be adjusted upward later, but right now they mark a 16.1% drop over the spectacle of the September 5, 2019 season opener in the advertiser-rich demographic. In an America and a NFL still adjusting to the new normal of live sports in the era of COVID-19, last night’s game also fell 16.1% in total sets of eyeballs from last year’s fast affiliate results.”

This is a breaking story, check back for updates…

Burger King has launched a new advertising campaign in Finland featuring its eponymous mascot sharing a deep kiss with Ronald McDonald, along with the English slogan ‘Love Conquers All’.

The image is front and centre on the landing page of the fast food chain’s Finnish website, with various outlets with a focus on advertising showing physical posters at locations such as public bus stops as well.

The campaign appears to be in aid of Helsinki Pride Week, which was moved to September from its usual slot due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. It also appears to have been influenced by the race politics of the Black Lives Matter movement, featuring the new version of the Pride flag topped with a black and brown stripe in order to “represent” non-white non-heterosexuals specifically.

“Burger King has always stood for equality, love and everyone’s right to be just the way they are,” claimed the burger-selling franchise’s brand manager in Finland, Kaisa Kasila.

“The only instance where it might not seem so, is when we’re bantering with our competitor. But we want to be clear – it all stems from the respect we have for them. And we know McDonald’s stands for the values we stand for, too,” Kasila added.

“We thought, what a better way to convey our values than by portraying an all-encompassing kiss between Burger King and McDonald. We wanted to show that in the end, love always wins.”

Burger King is by no means the only multi-national enterprises to indulge in advertising campaigns which have much to do with politics and social justice causes and little to do with their core business in recent years.

Just this August, for example, Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry’s launched into a tirade against the British government on social media for his rhetoric — but not action — against the steadily worsening Channel migrant crisis, which has seen waves of up to 416 migrants a day crossing to England from France in small boats daily.

“[W]e think the real crisis is our lack of humanity for people fleeing war, climate change and torture,” the ice-cream sellers lectured in a lengthy Twitter thread — heedless of the fact that illegal aliens are not facing war or torture in France, and that climate change, such as it is, is the same on both sides of the English Channel.

This fashion for mammoth corporate interests indulging in divisive left-wing political activism has been dubbed “woke capitalism” by critics.

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A Michigan county has passed a resolution urging residents to ignore Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) copious coronavirus executive orders and “live again.”

The Alcona County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution in August citing the Declaration of Independence and likening its actions to the Boston Tea Party.

“The Declaration of Independence does not guarantee the protection to stay safe or healthy, that is an individual responsibility,” the resolution noted, before criticizing the regions Whitmer’s administration created to handle restrictions differently, based on the severity of the disease locally.

“The opening regional map drawn make absolutely no sense. The county north of us has higher urban areas, more cases and is on the least restrictive path to opening where we are lumped in with counties with mass populations (nothing in common geographically),” the county, which borders Lake Huron, said, referring to Alpena County.

The commissioners argue there was no “control group” used on which to base the statewide mask mandate.

“When making the statement ‘Masks Save Lives’ there was no control group to make the case. I believe we serve as said control group and disprove that statement

The commissioners wrote Whitmer has evolved her purpose of the lockdown. Originally, it was to “flatten the curve.”

Now, it is to “keep people from getting the disease. That is an unrealistic and unachievable goal. The orders have gone beyond the original intent,” they said.

Citing the Declaration’s section about the people’s right to alter or abolish their government, commissioners wrote:

Whereas, we are not advocating to over-throw or abolishment, but if these practices continue, civil disobedience and ignoring the over-reaching and oppressive Executive Orders that have been afflicted on our citizens, akin to the “Boston Tea Party”, which was respectful to the cargo vessels but not to the cargo itself.

Commissioners asked Whitmer to “cease issuing any more executive orders concerning matter,” and rely on them to make decisions for their local residents, along with the health resource officer due to Whitmer’s “lack of knowledge of our local area.”

They also requested Whitmer “work with the elected legislative body on this matter, since they were elected to represent us in all matters and not be dictated by one branch which is supposed to be checked” by the legislature.

“We just don’t have the same similarities that you would have to Bay City or Saginaw,” resolution author Commissioner Gary Wnuk told Mlive. “Most properties are minimum 10-20 acres. We’re not exactly squeezed in. When you take a one-size fits all solution, it just doesn’t work.”

Alcona County has had 23 confirmed cases of coronavirus and two deaths.

“People’s lives are dying, because we’re afraid,” Wnuk said. “I think people just need to live again.”

Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays. Listen to segments on YouTube or download full podcast episodes. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Parler.