Macdoc wrote:But you waste time opining about something you've not read and want to appear sage ....I see....daft indeed.

Nope. I'm opining on what was presented here, by you, plus what I've googled about the book. I see nothing so far that leads me to think the book itself worth investing time and money in. For starters, apart from misgivings already offered, it doesn't appear, from what I can tell so far, to contain anything I don't already know and/or that isn't already known by many/most experts on the topic.

Macdoc wrote:But you waste time opining about something you've not read and want to appear sage ....I see....daft indeed.

Perhaps a pinch of skepticism may be justified, based on this sentence, lifted from the WSJ review, a few words of which you snipped from behind the pay-wall:

The great defining event of the twenty-first century will occur in three decades, give or take, when the global population starts to decline. Once that decline begins, it will never end.

Let's be clear: The reviewer is quoting from the book.

There's nothing daft about reading such sensationalistic stuff in a book review from a pro-business publication, and wondering who else has an axe to grind besides the editorial board of that publication.

Cito di Pense wrote:Perhaps a pinch of skepticism may be justified, based on this sentence, lifted from the WSJ review, a few words of which you snipped from behind the pay-wall:

The great defining event of the twenty-first century will occur in three decades, give or take, when the global population starts to decline. Once that decline begins, it will never end.

Let's be clear: The reviewer is quoting from the book.

The second part of that sentence you bolded in green, after the comma, is the dubious conclusion (or last line of the review) that I was referring to. And if it's quoting from the book, that's worse than it merely being used by a reviewer, imo.

You can bypass the WSJ's paywall and read the full review by typing "The drivers of global fertility decline are here to stay." (including the quote marks) into google and clicking on the relevant link. Note that the writer of this glowing praise is an Adjunct Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies.

As for the book, based on the WSJ's review I have commented on it here. At that time I was under the mistaken impression that Macdoc's comment about it was dripping with sarcasm that was as subtle as it was intense.

Since then I found a few other things out about the book's authors. To begin with, neither of them are demographers or have any other professional background regarding the topic they wrote about. Bricker is the current Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs. While completing his B.A. studies, he began to specialize in research, polling, and analysis methods. Ibbitson is a playwright/novelist turned journalist. Empty Planet is not the first book they collaborated on in order to predict stuff. They also got together writing a book titled The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means for Our Future. Published in 2013, it prophesied that Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada would win the 2015 election and open up a new political era as a dominant party. The Wikipedia quotes from that book:

We believe that fortune favours the Harper government in the next election. But we don’t believe this is about the next election. We believe it is about the next decade, the next generation, and beyond. We believe that the Conservative Party will be to the twenty-first century what the Liberal party was to the twentieth: the perpetually dominant party, the natural governing party.

One has to wonder about the writers' competence to make longer term prognostications when they got the one concerning the near future so comprehensively wrong.

Scot Dutchy wrote:Still with no regrets. Well there will be a nice prison cell waiting for her.

The more I hear quotes from her the more I'm reminded of Mandy Rice-Davies: "Well, she would say that, wouldn't she." Because she could be in a situation that to say anything that would even suggest that she would have regrets or a change of heart about ISIS and its doctrines, could result in her being killed.

If she is in a safe and secure situation and safe from any ISIS threat or intimidation, and she still fails to show remorse, then let her rot where she is. Her baby (a boy) should be offered for adoption in this country.

Cito di Pense wrote:Here's one we're sure you'll REALLY like:

Shamima Begum, now 19, ran away to Syria from the UK at 15 to be a bride to an IS fighter she didn't know at the time, has lost two babies to malnutrition and disease in refugee camps and is nearly to term with a third child. She wants to come back to the UK where health care is, um, better. Reportedly, she just wants to settle down and "live quietly with her child".

And maybe have several more by the time she's 25, huh? Such a busy girl. Beats working as a clerk in Boots, ringing up shampoo at the register.

Aside from suspicions about having had terrorist or Islamist leanings, she also appears to be terminally stupid, except for seeing the wisdom of accessing better health care. And just in time for Brexit, too! Now there's a project for radical feminism.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47229181

Farage couldn't have put it better, clearly UKIP supporter.

We are not taking them back. Our foreign secretary announced yesterday. Trump just wants to annoy Europe again.

This kid was radicalised in the UK, not the Middle East. Her views were problematic before she left. Running off to Syria didn't suddenly make her dangerous.

Alan B wrote:If she is in a safe and secure situation and safe from any ISIS threat or intimidation, and she still fails to show remorse, then let her rot where she is. Her baby (a boy) should be offered for adoption in this country.

I have no idea under what laws this would be possible. If she loses custody of the kid (she won't just as she didn't with her previous children) it becomes a ward of the state she and it are in. If the UK wants her child, they have to take her back first, find her unfit to care for a child, then seize custody of it.

It's actually a bit of a non-issue. As a matter of law she is a British citizen and entitled to enter the country. International law prohibits making people stateless by stripping them of their only nationality, and she's not a dual citizen.

That international law is rather a reasonable one at that. We can't dump our problems (and she's clearly a problem rather than an asset) on other less wealthy, less stable countries, there's no justice in that.

After she comes back, one supposes, she will be investigated to see if she's broken the law, and to see if she can provide a fit environment for her child. If she can't (and I believe, although I haven't checked, that intent to radicalise would count against her) then the child will be taken from her custody. Normally in those circumstances if there are family who are able and willing to bring the child up it would go to them. It is the case that she has numerous family members who are ostensibly normal, decent hardworking British folk, who indeed were pleading with her to come back to Britain and reject ISIS for a long time.

To get back here she would have to go to a consulate somewhere but on arrival here only one thing waits for her.

I don't know if intent to radicalise is considered child abuse. Unless it can be demonstrated that she intends to encourage her child (or anyone else) to harm themself or others, I think she's good to teach them the same fucked up values she upholds.

She's right. No one can prove she's engaged in any terrorist activity. All she did to anyone's knowledge was marry a member of IS and have some babies die on her. Being an IS sympathiser isn't enough to chuck someone in prison, is it? Keep an eye on them, of course but I can't see her going into custody for it. She may be a truly awful person but I don't think there's a legal basis to charge her with anything though.

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:I don't know if intent to radicalise is considered child abuse. Unless it can be demonstrated that she intends to encourage her child (or anyone else) to harm themself or others, I think she's good to teach them the same fucked up values she upholds.

She's right. No one can prove she's engaged in any terrorist activity. All she did to anyone's knowledge was marry a member of IS and have some babies die on her. Being an IS sympathiser isn't enough to chuck someone in prison, is it? Keep an eye on them, of course but I can't see her going into custody for it. She may be a truly awful person but I don't think there's a legal basis to charge her with anything though.

I don't think this scans with current British law, it might be true in Canada, but I think you'd need to check UK legislation.

A similar (although the children had been born in the UK in that case) incident from a couple of years ago which went to the high court:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... p-children

She breaks Dutch law by pure and simply going there. I thought the UK is the same.

Those kids were taken from their mother because she intended to take them somewhere their risk of death skyrocketed. I have trouble believing "they were at risk of radicalisation" alone would have been sufficient to take her kids away, here or in the UK.

EDIT: Everything I'm finding points to UK family courts being pretty cautious with respect to removing kids of convicted terrorists and/or extremists. The cases in which it does happen seem to be people taking or trying to take their children to war zones.

Maybe. We might well find out in due course.

Breaking news report on the BBC:

IS teen to lose UK citizenship, says family
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47299907

Well, if that's true, I guess it shows what I know.

I can't quite wrap my head around how that can be legal though.

It's not been officially announced yet. It's the family lawyer who said it.

Wiki says:

"In January 2014, the Immigration Bill 2013–14 was introduced to extend the powers of the Home Secretary to declare certain terrorism suspects stateless. The bill was initially blocked by the House of Lords in April 2014. However, the Lords reconsidered their decision in May 2014, and the bill returned to the House of Commons before being set into UK law.[citation needed].

On Tuesday the 19th February 2019 Shamima Begum, had her British citizenship revoked by Home Secretary Sajid Javid."

Statelessness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateless ... ed_Kingdom