I have been having extensive email conversations about immigration with ProFlandria, one of our Flemish correspondents.

One of the topics concerns the possibility that Vlaams Belang might favor giving priority to Christian refugees from the Third World, to help compensate for the preference shown so far in Europe for Muslim immigrants.

Many Christian refugees are fleeing for their lives from Muslim countries. One of the unfortunate side effects of the Iraq war has been to increase the persecution of the Christian minority by the Muslim majority, now that the inhibiting hand of the tyrant has been removed from the shoulders of religious zealots. Other Islamic countries, such as Lebanon, Pakistan, and India, are undergoing a drastic reduction in their Christian populations.

Why not give Christians who are escaping from Islam a place at the front of the refugee queue?

Christian immigrants, even from such countries as Nigeria or Pakistan, would be much more likely to assimilate fully and pursue gainful employment in the West than their Muslim counterparts. There is a political advantage to be gained here, since anyone who favors giving them preference could not reasonably be termed a “racist” or a “neo-Nazi”.

Western society would benefit from a modest influx of such people, assuming that Muslim immigration could be simultaneously reduced.

ProFlandria sent us an email last night giving his assessment of the situation, and noting the pernicious role that the UN plays in the refugee industry:

This article by Jerry Gordon in The New English Review relates directly to your idea on favoring immigration from persecuted Christian communities:

Since 1976, more than 2.6 million new citizens have entered America as legal humanitarian refugees according to reports of the US State Department.

[…]

The irony is the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) determines which of the world’s huddled masses comes to the US as humanitarian refugees. UNHCR trends for 2006 indicate that worldwide there were more than 32.9 million ‘persons of concern’ with approximately one third defined as ‘refugees’. […]

[T]he untoward consequence of UN control over the humanitarian refugee program in the US is discrimination against groups like the imperiled half million Christians who have fled Iraq.

More concerning is that the UN control of humanitarian refugee processing has introduced Jihadis among the Somalis from the Horn of Africa, who now number in the tens of thousands throughout America. The Somalis have brought with them strict Islamic Sharia values that violate our Constitution and Civil Rights laws and mock our Judeo Christian values. Still worse, they, and some other refugee groups, have brought with them undetected contagious diseases like TB, Hepatitis and HIV that evaded health screening prior to their entry to America.

The Somali immigrants are a significant proportion of those included in the humanitarian refugee program for Africa. For the Federal Fiscal year ended, September 30, 2007, according to information from the ORR, 7, 500 Somalis entered this country out of a total of 17,000 such refugees allotted to Africa. The aggregate total of Somali refugees as of 2005 was close to 70,000. Given figures for both 2006 and 2007, the current aggregate may approximate 90,000. The concern is what proportion of these received proper medical and security screening before entering this country.

This has caused disruptions in both large and small communities through America. Communities like Minneapolis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Nashville, Emporia, Kansas, Lewiston, Maine and Shelbyville, Tennessee.

These disruptions occurred in American heartland communities as a by-product of conscious refugee policies adopted during the Clinton administration and in a number of instances, local business community interests that took advantage of the change.

– – – – – – – – –

[…]

In late November, a delegation that included former South Carolina Governor Beasley, William Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition, Dr. Keith Roderick, Washington Representative of Christian Solidarity International (CSI), journalist, author and human rights activist Kenneth Timmerman met with Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey, head of the BPRM and her staff about the Iraqi refugee crisis. They reported on their recent fact-finding mission in Jordan and other Middle East locations. What they got was a polite reception and no support to correct the current UNHCR refugee certification effort in the region that discriminates against Iraqi Christians.

According to Dr. Keith Roderick of Christian CSI, Iraqi Christian refugees, even those who would be classified under our Humanitarian Refugee guidelines as Extremely Vulnerable Persons (EVP), are being directed to UNHCR Offices in Amman, Jordan. They are entrapped in a long bureaucratic process. Many have reported that they are discriminated against, files are lost and stories that substantiate their profound fear of persecution including death threats are dismissed. The US Embassy in Amman is virtually impenetrable with Jordanian guards at the initial point of contact for refugees. They are all directed to UNHCR offices, even when they could take advantage of the Direct Access Program or Immigration P-2 Visas for family reunification.

The UNCHR receives tens of millions in compensation from our government for this processing function.

As Ken Timmerman writes in a NewsMax.com article, “Iraq Christian Refugees Ignored by U.N.” on the plight of Iraqi Christian translators, very few of the 500 translators and US Embassy workers eligible to receive emergency relocation have been certified under a Congressional mandate for those facing death threats. This, despite the fact that they had brought with them letters of appreciation from US commanders and the US Embassy in Baghdad. They were not allowed to present them. Why? Because local UNHCR workers discovered that they were Christians and would not process them.

I asked Dr. Roderick what could be done. He indicated that the clearance procedures for these Iraqi Christians who are considered ‘Extremely Vulnerable Persons’ under our humanitarian refugee rules have a problem with the CIS roving teams. The CIS procedures require these Christian applicants to bring evidence of bank records and property deeds. Having fled death threats from both Iraqi Sunni and Shia insurgent groups, these documents are virtually impossible to obtain.

I asked Dr. Roderick what he would recommend.

He indicated that CIS should waive these onerous requirements in lieu of the US Embassy and US commander letters documenting their valued service to America in Iraq. He suggested that perhaps the solution might be in the form of executive waivers and/or Congressional resolutions and legislative amendments. The other possible solution is to create administrative units or provinces for Iraqi Christian minorities in their ancestral homelands on the Nineveh Plain. These administrative units would provide local policing and security for their villages and economic development.

Apparently UNHCR serves as the clearing house for refugees worldwide, with the authority to determine how many from each specific group go to which destination. I would imagine that these determinations are based at least in part on negotiations with the host countries; if so, then a re-negotiation of the terms of refugee immigration would be the first step. That does not address the lack of proper vetting of refugee status, which is apparently also UNHCR’s purview.

As far as Vlaams Belang’s (and other European conservative/counter-jihad parties’) options are concerned, immigration is nominally still a national competency but that will change as soon as the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. I don’t think there is any credible leverage to be applied when national governments have the option of dumping any proposals in the slow-moving machinery of bureaucracy with the hope that the Treaty will be ratified before action is required.

Given the EU’s anti-American stance, the preference will likely be to continue with lopsided proportions of Muslim immigration to reflect the victimhood status resulting from US intervention. In addition, in the postmodern worldview Christianity has the status of an “oppressor” faith, which is not likely to endear its refugee faithful to the current crop of governing elites.

The most Vlaams Belang could hope for is to have a duly recorded proposal “on file”. However, the problem is that the political reality will preclude concrete action. VB’s opponents can therefore spin such a proposal as a cynical attempt to appear “multicultural” while knowing full well that the chance of the proposal becoming reality are exactly zero.

I have said a number of times that what I do here would be illegal in some countries in Europe, and that a European citizen doing what I do can be arrested there.

Britain is such a country. Its recent laws concerning the incitement of racial and religious hatred have made illegal much of what is published in the Counterjihad blogosphere.

And now the first British blogger is about to face the Multicultural perp-walk.

Lionheart is a well-known patriotic blogger in England, and is on our blogroll. He is currently outside the UK, and has been informed that he will be arrested for stirring up racial hatred as soon as he returns home.

Here’s what he has to say about it:

The cultural weapon in the hands of the modern Jihad within Great Britain, silencing the opposition using our own laws against us — The Dumb Filthy Kaffir’s as the Moslem would say to his children behind closed doors.

What has become of my homeland, the land my forefathers fought and died for on the battlefields of the world when one of their children is forced into the position of facing years in prison for standing up for what is right and just within British society.

At least my words of truth have obviously now reached people’s eyes and ears, with the powers that be now intent on silencing me — Third World Tyranny in a supposed 21st Century democracy!

– – – – – – – – –

[…]

Who have I killed, who have I threatened to kill? No one, all I have done is written about my reality on a computer screen, and now I face going to prison in my own country for standing up for myself and others.

What has happened to those who threatened my life or who have killed my friends — NOTHING — This is British justice in the 21st Century — Shove your British Labour justice because it is worthless to the Englishman whose country this is, whose country you have destroyed.

Keep an eye on Lionheart’s blog, because he will be posting there concerning the progress of his case. If you’re a blogger, please post about this to help give him as much publicity as possible.

Writing letters to Her Majesty’s ambassadors might be a good idea. I’m going to look for a comprehensive list of contact emails, phone numbers, fax numbers, and addresses.

Britain’s anti-incitement laws are well-harmonized with the Framework Decision, which means that the rest of the “provinces” of the EU will have the same laws on the books when the Lisbon Treaty goes into effect and the legal systems are standardized.

This is just the beginning.

And don’t think that the United States is immune. There are people working diligently right now to get laws through Congress which are almost identical in wording to those used by the EU.

The First Amendment has become all but meaningless in the last two decades. We are at the mercy of nine old men in black robes who sit in summary judgment on our freedoms.

The election of a Democrat as President along with a Democrat Congress could topple freedom of speech here as surely as it has been toppled in England.

Our Swedish correspondent Carpenter has translated a fascinating article from a Swedish magazine. Here’s his introduction:

I decided to translate an article by ethnology professor Karl-Olov Arnstberg of the University of Stockholm from the 7th issue of Axess — a Swedish magazine and TV channel — even though it’s two months old. The headline is “The Moral Championship”, and it’s about Sweden’s industry of solidarity, the moral elites, and the fact that there is no real debate about our completely insane immigration policies, only various arguments for its maintenance.

There’s no internet version of the article. But it is published in full over at the Swedish blog Robsten.

Why have I translated this? It’s perhaps the most unusual article of 2007 in Sweden, and therefore deserves an English translation. But it also shows that there are very lonely voices of political incorrectness, even in Sweden. And Arnstberg is one of them.

And now Carpenter’s translation of Dr. Arnstberg’s article:

The Moral Championship

By Karl-Olov Arnstberg
7th issue of Axess Magazine, 2007

To the new elite, it is more important to demonstrate its superior morals than to apply responsible economic policies. Critics of existing immigration policies are automatically labelled as prejudiced and racist.

During three months in 1992 buses shuttled between Kosovo and Sweden. Tens of thousands of Kosovo-Albanians were taken in without any restriction. There was peace in Kosovo, so the reason wasn’t that they needed asylum. On the other hand, they needed economic maintenance. There was no political idea behind the reception. It was simply clumsy, particularly since Sweden at the time was going through the biggest economic crisis of the post-war period. The crown [Sweden’s currency] was, for those who remember, in total decay, and government debt increased explosively.

Åke Wedin, an associate professor of history, later wrote a letter to the then responsible Minister of Immigration, Birgit Friggebo, in which he asked a number of questions regarding the refugee policies during her time in charge. Among other things regarding these Kosovo-Albanians, to which she replied: “Thank heavens, I was in a government that didn’t let humanity follow the economic cycle. Economic cycles come and go, but humanity remains”

In other words: To Friggebo, it was more important to demonstrate that she belonged to the moral elite, than to apply responsible economic policies.

Social anthropologist Jonathan Friedman makes the following assessment:

– – – – – – – – –

“The new elites, both the political and cultural, root their identity in series of metaphors related to openness, transnationalism, multiculturalism and globalisation. All of this is collected and made into a yet more confused notion of democracy. The new ‘democrats’ are elites, claiming to be democratic in every regard. In that way, democracy is no longer a description of a political process, but an attribute of individuals”

When it comes to immigration-related issues, the moral elite aims its criticism in two directions. When the representatives themselves are in the same boat, they criticize politicians and authorities for cruel, bureaucratic and insensitive handling of asylum-seekers.

The heaviest criticism, though, is aimed at the citizens who question applied immigration policies. They are only demonstrating their prejudices, and the loudest critics are labelled as racists.

Norwegian social anthropologist and left-wing politician Ottar Brox, in a book released fifteen years ago, discussed how the moral elite of a nation functions when it comes to immigration. He presents the concept of “moral championship” and means that its foundations are the same as a sports event. It’s all about showing one’s moral qualities effectively as contrasted with other opinions. In a moral championship, the one who is most “good” wins.

Using Ottar Brox as the starting point, it’s possible to put together this sliding scale:

The finest are those who say the country must take its responsibility and help those most in need of help. Good people are altruistic. That means they are inaccessible to those who object. If we do not help other people in emergency, neither can we count on any help ourselves if we would be in trouble. The critics reveal themselves as short-sighted egotists.

When the estimated expenses for Sweden’s immigration policies passed three billion kronor [roughly $450 million] Gustav Fridolin of the Green Party said, “If it appears that we need more money, we are willing to listen to the Integration Board.” Kalle Larsson of the Left Party said, “A decent reception of new arrivals during their first time in the country must be funded.”

Second finest are those who talk about cultural diversity. The country ought to be saved from gray homogeneity and boredom, in favor of a diversity of cultural expressions, courses of food, opinions, etc. The country with many immigrants becomes a funnier and nicer country than the country with few immigrants. Diversity is an added value. The reason that this motivation is not listed as being finer than the first is that the goodness has to be motivated. Here, too, it is possible to raise objections. When it comes to consumption, diversity is attractive, it’s true, but when it comes to identity, it doesn’t work that way. It’s unambiguous that we — and any people, for that matter — prefer people of our own kind. With a perspective of identity, diversity isn’t enrichment, but social disintegration.

The demographic argument comes as number three. The country needs immigrants since our own population is getting old. Who will take care of the elderly in the future, unless we take in new people? The promoters have here taken self-interest as their premise, yet based on the recipe that immigrants as well as original citizens will benefit from it.

Number four is the argument that led to Sweden taking in labor immigrants, particularly in the 1960s: that immigrants will take the jobs that citizens of the country consider themselves too fine to do. Without immigrants, the country will cease to function.

It could be wondered: Do countries like Norway and Sweden actually cease to function without immigrants? Will the elderly die from mistreatment? Is it true that nobody will clean workplaces, unless there are immigrants here? Will restaurant kitchens drown in undone dishes?

As Ottar Brix comments: “Of course, it isn’t necessary to have a Nobel Economic prize to realize this is nonsense”

For the representatives of the moral elite, it’s difficult to appear in debates with their opponents and win. After Mona Sahlin had “taken the debate” with Jimmie Åkesson of Sverigedemokraterna, leading politicians seemed to agree that the debate should be a one-off event.

The argument as presented was that any movements that are hostile to foreigners should not be given any space in the media. What they didn’t say as clearly was that parliamentary politicians can’t manage to give satisfying answers to simple but weighty questions.

For instance: Why has Sweden taken in so many more immigrants than other European countries, in relation to its own population? Why hasn’t the extent of immigration been determined in a referendum? To what extent do immigrants in so-called exposed suburbs live on welfare? How well is integration going?

UPDATE: On Pajamas Media, Wretchard has a report and analysis of the farce that was Bali’s UN meeting on climate control and global warming:

Environmentalism has become the political lifeboat into which the survivors of the socialist shipwreck have crammed themselves. The need to “manage the climate” became the new foundation on which to base regulatory structures, impositions, and taxes which were formerly justified by the imperative to manage the “commanding heights of the economy.” Kyoto was the highest expression of the program to “manage the climate” and provided the same new basis for socialistic policies that Marxism once did…

…Reducing “carbon emissions” really meant reducing economic output in a world where poverty is a major problem. They were caught between the Scylla of having to maintain a commitment to environmentalism and the Charybis of recession. So the politicians and celebrities at Bali driven by the need to keep the circus going and uninhibited by the Green equivalent of a Bolshevik Party did the obvious thing: they created a shell game tricked out as an emissions control scheme. Bali would no more reduce “carbon emissions” than Kyoto did, but it would give the impression of doing so. And that would be enough, wouldn’t it?

The whole essay is done in Wretchard’s inimitable style. Besides that, you get to find out where the term “moonbat” originated.

This is China’s part in the global smog:

In 2004 the total greenhouse gas emissions from the People’s Republic of China were about 54% of the USA emissions. However, China is now building on average one coal-fired power plant every week, and plans to continue doing so for years. Various predictions see China overtaking the US in total greenhouse emissions between late 2007 and 2010, and according to many other estimates, this already occurred in 2006.

The Chinese government insists that the gas emissions level of any given country is a multiplication of its per capita emission and its population. Because China has put into place population control measures while maintaining low emissions per capita, it claims it should therefore in both of the above aspects be considered a contributor to the world’s environment. In addition, the country’s energy intensity – measured as energy consumption per unit of GDP – was lowered by 47 per cent between 1991 and 2005; from 1950 to 2002, China’s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil sources accounted for only 9.33% of the global total in the same period, and in 2004, its per-capita emission of carbon dioxide from fossil sources was 3.65 tons, which is 87% of the world average and 33 per cent of that of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

In June of 2007, China unveiled a 62-page climate change plan and promised to put climate change at the heart of its energy policies but insisted that developed countries had an “unshirkable responsibility” to take the lead on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and that the “common but differentiated responsibility” principle, as agreed up in the UNFCCC should be applied.

In response to critics of the nation’s energy policy, China responded that those criticisms were unjust, while studies of carbon leakage suggest that nearly a quarter of China’s emissions result from exports for consumption by developed countries.

In other words, says China, “you can’t criticize us because we’re just making stuff for you.” How unselfish of them.

To gauge by the level of smog in Beijing, it may not have been the best place to have the Olympics.

[end of post]

Our Flemish correspondent VH sends another roundup of the latest news on Muslim riots and terror plots in Belgium and the Netherlands:

On New Year’s Eve in Amsterdam Slotervaart — where the Jihad Riots recently took place — Moroccans put the police station under siege, smashed windows, and set fire to three Police cars and two others.

When the Mobile Unit (Mobiele Eeenheid) of the police appeared to help release their colleagues, the Moroccans disappeared in the neighborhood. Again, as during the Jihad Riots, no one got chased, caught, or arrested.

Elsewhere in Amsterdam two ambulances on their way to an emergency were blocked — really nasty; that’s been happening more often last couple of years. One had a narrow escape and another got its windows smashed. They both returned; what happened to the emergency situation they where heading for is unclear.

In the neighborhoods of Leiden and the Hague there have been similar events. During riots in those places eight police officers were wounded, dozens of cars torched, and 188 people were arrested.

In Vlaardingen — part of Eastern Rotterdam — the traditional Christmas tree burning is also not what it used to be and blasted the windows out of eighty houses (video link).

Update on the terror alerts

– – – – – – – – –

The three Muslims who were arrested by heavily armed teams of the Special Intervention Service on December 31 in Rotterdam on terrorism charges were ready to execute a bloodbath on the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam that same evening.

A true disaster and a massacre of immense proportions has been prevented by the last-minute arrests. That evening, about 15,000 people were expected to crowd together on and around the Erasmus bridge (also called “The Swan”, a contemporary landmark of Rotterdam) for the New Year’s Eve party. A mass of people that would be almost impossible to secure.

As a precautionary measure, that evening no one was allowed on the bridge.

The two Moroccans both have a dual nationality (Moroccan and Dutch); the Sudanese is illegally in the Netherlands.

It is not clear yet if there’s a connection between these terrorists and the fourteen who were arrested (and have already been released) in Belgium. The Belgian suspects were also planning a bloodbath on New Years eve.

I have reported several times on last month’s murder of Fuat Deniz; see the links at the bottom of this post for previous articles on this topic.

Dr. Deniz was an Assyrian Christian university professor the University of Örebro in Sweden, and there are strong indications that he was murdered as a result of his public declarations about the Assyrian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks early in the 20th century.

The Swedish authorities seem less than zealous in their attempts to find the culprit who slit Dr. Deniz’ throat. Paul Green of Greenspiece has been following the case. Exasperated with the performance of Swedish law enforcement, he wrote a letter to Jonas Hafstrom, Sweden’s ambassador to the United States, and has posted it on his blog. Below is an excerpt:

In all candor, Mr. Hafstrom, this does not speak well of either the competence or the motivation of Swedish law enforcement. At best, it bespeaks a police corps so suffused with bureaucratic torpor that its personnel couldn’t be bothered to interrupt their holiday revelries and relaxation with anything so trifling as the assassination of an internationally known genocide researcher. At worst, it suggests that the investigation into the murder of Professor Fuat Deniz has been neglected due to some squalid raison d’état.

I realize that as a diplomat, this police matter is outside your area of responsibility. All the same, I urge you to convey to the relevant organs of your government my outrage over Fuat Deniz’s assassination — and my concern that said organs have not been doing all they should to see justice done. Kindly advise them also that, as an independent journalist, I intend to do what I can to publicize this case in the United States.

The embassy’s response was not one to inspire confidence:

Dear Mr Green,

Thank you for your letter. We have forwarded it to the desk officer for Turkey at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm.

Sincerely,

Embassy of Sweden

The investigative journalist Nuri Kino has been relentless in his coverage of this story. His latest article was posted yesterday by the Eastern Star News Agency:
– – – – – – – – –

Örebro police force makes new mistakes!

On the morning of Friday 28th December the confirmation came that the National Criminal Corps would be helping the Örebro police force in their hunt for university lecturer, Fuat Deniz’s, murderer.

It has been over three weeks since Dr. Deniz was stabbed on campus at the university of Örebro. It is, as I am aware, the first time that a lecturer has been killed at a university anywhere in Sweden. When I travelled to Örebro two days after the murder, I took for granted that the Örebro police force had contacted the National Criminal Police Corps, if for nothing else than to create a profile of the perpetrator. But they had not.

Today I spoke at length to one of the National Criminal Corps superiors. He wants to remain anonymous due to his desire to stay out of any political debate. In his opinion the Örebro police force didn’t contact the National Criminal Police Corps due to the fact that they believed they would catch the murderer without any help. The police chief was shocked at the mistakes that have been made during the murder investigation.

I have spoken to over fifty people close to Fuat Deniz, which is why I have also been very close to the case, and as a result the work of the police. In a debate article in Aftonbladet on 21st December I discussed several of the mistakes the police had made. Several. There are more. One example is one of Dr. Deniz’s best friends of the last twenty years, who was asked to wait before making a statement, due to the fact that he lives too far away. It took the police ten days to travel to Stockholm. Another friend travelled to Sweden from the United States after hearing about the murder. He volunteered to make a statement to the police and left the interview, shocked that they were more interested in Dr. Deniz’s girlfriends in the late eighties, than in any information he had to volunteer.

There are many leads the police should be following up, and maybe they are following up on them, but overall the police force’s priorities are mystifying.

The National Criminal Corps have a unit named ‘the perpetrator group’ Four policemen, a psychiatrist, and a medical examiner have, as their task, to work from known information regarding where, when and how a crime takes place, to attempt to describe possible personality traits of the perpetrator. The reasoning behind this is to narrow down the total number of possible suspects and hopefully lead the investigation towards a specific person. The investigators, in this case, the Örebro police force, contact the National Criminal Corps when they need help. The standard method is that the group sends one of their investigators, a technician, and sometimes also the group’s medical examiner.

The Örebro police force will, from today, Wednesday, and onwards receive help from one of the National Criminal Corps units, the murder commission. But in the words of the perpetrator group’s chief Paul Johansson, they haven’t been asked for help. This means that there is still no idea of potential murder suspects.

In an earlier interview with Ulf Åsgård, previously a member of ‘the perpetrator group’, he stated that without a profile of the perpetrator, no crime is solved.

“It is impossible to begin a search without first having an idea of what kind of criminal is being looked for,” stated Ulf Åsgård.

Update: One of my Danish contacts emails to say that the photo is most definitely not photoshopped. The poster is right outside his workplace, so he has firsthand knowledge of the photo’s accuracy.

Go over to Steen’s place to see a larger version.

[nothing more]

I knew Dymphna was asking for trouble last night when she posted about the honor killings in Texas.

Some of our commenters think I should pressure my wife not to post certain opinions. That would not only be a foolish thing for a husband to do, it would be inconsistent with Gates of Vienna policy. If I let Fjordman, Paul Weston, Mr. Smith, Kepiblanc, and others contribute pieces for this blog with which I do not entirely agree, how can I justify suppressing my own wife?

Which I couldn’t do anyway, even if I tried.

For the record: I don’t consider “honor killing” to be a crime of passion; it’s cold-blooded premeditated murder.

As for the possible prevalence until recently of the same practice within European culture, I can’t venture an opinion, since I lack data on it. If any more knowledgeable readers want to weigh in on the topic, please feel free to do so. Leave links, if you can, to help people investigate further on their own.

However, I think it’s important to recognize that honor killing is not specifically a Muslim phenomenon. It is widespread in other tribal cultures as well. Take, for example, the recent Hindu honor killings in the Chicago area as pointed out by Esther:

The Hindu caste system was outlawed in India years ago, but prosecutors say that system played a role in the mind of the man who set the fire that killed his own pregnant daughter, 3-year-old grandson and the son-in-law prosecutors say he didn’t like.

– – – – – – – – –

[…]

In a hearing at the Markham courthouse Tuesday morning, Cook County Judge Martin McDonough ordered Oak Forest’s Subhash Chander, 57, held without bond in connection with the arson and killing of Chander’s pregnant daughter Monika Rani, 22; her husband Rajesh Kumar, 30; and their son Vansh.

This was the third Chicago-area case in one year involving an Indian family, domestic violence and fire. NBC 5 asked counselors who serve the Indian community about that on Wednesday.

Other barbaric customs that are practiced by Muslims are not specifically Islamic. Female genital mutilation, for example, is an African tribal practice which has gained Islamic sanction over the centuries. But it’s not universal in Muslim countries, nor does it find its origins in the Koran.

Islam’s role in these barbaric atavisms is to fix them in place for all time. When any given culture is taken over by Islam, its prevalent customs — provided they do not directly contradict the basic tenets of Islam — are absorbed into sharia and given Koranic sanction.

Once that happens, they cannot be changed. The legitimacy of the Prophet’s words is laid upon them, and restricting them becomes a crime against Islam.

This is one of the characteristics that makes Islam so dangerous to the rest of us — it preserves as if in amber the repugnant practices of a thousand years ago. Slavery, mutilation, murder, pillage: all are justified by scripture, and any modification by mere human beings is heresy.

Hindus living in this country can, one assumes, be eventually assimilated to our way of life and deterred from such barbarous behavior, just as Mormon men learned to make do with a maximum of one wife apiece.

But Muslims have a built-in command structure that requires them to resist such changes, and the barbaric ideology known as “Multiculturalism” requires us to tolerate their ways.

It’s a circle that can’t be squared.

There are news reports of the “honor killings” in Texas of two adolescent girls by their father:

Area police continue to search for a man who they believe killed his two teenage daughters and left their bodies in a taxi at an Irving hotel.

Police sealed off a street and surrounded the man’s home in Lewisville for more than five hours Wednesday but found that Yaser Abdel Said, 50, a cabdriver, was not inside.

He is being sought in connection with the deaths of Amina Yaser Said, 18, and Sarah Yaser Said, 17.

Both victims died of multiple gunshot wounds, the Dallas County medical examiner’s office ruled Wednesday…

Most of the reports I’ve read focus on the names and ages of the father and daughters. I wasn’t going to report on it, but I realized this is just going to be labeled another Islamic “honor killing” – which hardly does the tragedy the justice it deserves.

If you look at the picture on My Space you can see two cute teenagers mugging for the camera. This is a snapshot of girls who have assimilated to American culture.

Mr. Said’s picture in the news reports shows a Middle East native, a guy driving a cab in the Dallas area. In fact, he killed his daughters in his cab. No doubt it came as a total surprise, but you know there must have been months of arguments and disagreements between father and daughters.

No mother is mentioned. Just an empty house and an “armed and dangerous individual.” No context, no information beyond the two deaths…
– – – – – – – – –
There is lots of outrage to go around on this, but I can’t go there anymore. It’s not Islamic, it’s tribal. Not too long ago, this was going on in European countries, too – especially Catholic ones. A girl’s “honor” came before everything else.

So this family moves to a new country – Texas is definitely “new” if you’re not a native – and the kids assimilate but how about the grown-ups? They’re out there making a living while the kids are rapidly trying to fit in, to belong. Generational clashes are inevitable, especially in immigrant families.

However, this kind of behavior is not new to Texas. The legislature may have taken the law off the books by now but not too long ago, the killing of wives caught in the act of adultery was a “crime of passion“ that was dealt with more leniently than other kinds of murder:

crime of passion n. a defendant’s excuse for committing a crime due to sudden anger or heartbreak, in order to eliminate the element of “premeditation.” This usually arises in murder or attempted murder cases, when a spouse or sweetheart finds his/her “beloved” having sexual intercourse with another and shoots or stabs one or both of the coupled pair. To make this claim the defendant must have acted immediately upon the rise of passion, without the time for contemplation or allowing for “a cooling of the blood.” It is sometimes called the “Law of Texas” since juries in that state are supposedly lenient to cuckolded lovers who wreak their own vengeance. The benefit of eliminating premeditation is to lessen the provable homicide to manslaughter with no death penalty and limited prison terms. An emotionally charged jury may even acquit the impassioned defendant.

In other words, this is not Islam…or it is not just Muslims who murder family members. This is not “instant jihad”; it’s a family tragedy.

I found one reference (scroll down) on the web to a song I used to hear on the radio as I got ready for school. The lyrics didn’t mean anything to me then; just a bouncing country tune while I ate breakfast:

Slap her down again, Pa… Slap her down again…
Make her tell us more, Pa… Tell us where she’s been…
Oh how they slapped, slapped, slapped my sister Betsy…
Slapped her on the chin…
Make her tell us more, Pa… Tell us where she’s been.

And that was America in the early ‘50’s.

We don’t have too much room to judge on this one.

There are about two hundred bloggers in Saudi Arabia. The biggest one has been “detained”:

Mr. Farhan, 32, of Jidda, was arrested Dec. 10 at his office, local news sources reported. Two weeks before his arrest, he wrote a letter to friends warning them that it was imminent.

“I was told that there is an official order from a high-ranking official in the Ministry of the Interior to investigate me,” read the letter, which is now posted in English and Arabic on Mr. Farhan’s blog.

You can see the letter on his blog, with a copy in English (scroll down). The blog header has a picture of Mr. Farahan with the inscription “Free Fouad.” His blog friends are keeping post entries up-to-date.

[Hmm…I wonder if that means we should appoint someone ahead of time to be our administrator ex-officio when if we’re hauled off to the hoosegow for our chronic lack of political correctness?/joke: America still has a healthy Jacksonian strain running through the gene pool. It’s not yet time for pinching lowly bloggers]

The story continuees:

“The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia, and they think I’m running an online campaign promoting their issue,” the letter continued, saying that Mr.Farhan had been asked to sign a statement of apology.

“I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that,” he wrote. “An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is a liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?”

A fellow blogger says that his arrest detention has caused anxiety among his confreres. Duh…when they come for Glenn Reynolds, let me know – I’ll head to the bunker with the Baron and all my history books.

Ahmad al-Omran, a blogger and a friend of Mr. Farhan, said that Mr. Farhan had been the first Saudi blogger to be detained by state security. The arrest created widespread anxiety among other Saudi bloggers and advocates, he said.

“An incident like this has its effect,” Mr. Omran said by telephone. “It’s intimidating to think you might be arrested for something on your blog. On the other hand, this means that these voices on the blogosphere are being heard. But it’s really sad that a blogger who is writing about important issues out in the open would get arrested, while there are extremists who call for violence and hate, and the government is not doing much.”

But the Sauds say otherwise:

“The violation is not a security matter,” General Turki said. “He is not being jailed. He is being questioned, and I don’t believe he will remain in detention long. They will get the information that they need from him and then they will let him go.”

Mr. Farhan’s “questioning” detention began on December 10th. It must be taking them a looong time to “get the information that they need.” I do wonder how many digits or appendages will be missing when he is released from this non-jail incarceration.

I have no doubt he will be let go. It’s just the Saudi way of doing business with its citizens, especially those who dither on about free speech or otherwise run afoul of Wahhabi rules and regs.

Meanwhile, I suppose you heard about the pardon and release of the rape victim?
– – – – – – – – –

King Abdullah has pardoned a woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes after pressing charges against seven men who raped her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.

[…]

The case has provoked a rare and angry public debate in Saudi Arabia, leading to renewed calls for an overhaul of the Saudi judicial system.

[…]

The woman and her former boyfriend, who was also pardoned, were originally sentenced to 90 lashes for being together in private, while the attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison, and 80 to 1,000 lashes. For a woman to be meeting in private with a man who is not her husband or a relative is a crime in Saudi Arabia, where the legal code is based on a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law.

This is the usual Saudi cynical response to such situations. I didn’t report on it at the time because…well, what was the point? It’s Wahhabi Theatre for the masses. You can click on the link to read the full story on the behind-the-scenes machinations, though you probably can guess already.

Stories like these make me miss The Religious Policeman. Reading his posts always gave me hope for the Kingdom…hope in the long run, anyway.

In planning my history book budget for this year, I came across a bit of news at No Pasaran that reminds me yet again to be grateful that I don’t live in France:

amazon.com may not offer free delivery on books in France, the high court in Versailles has ruled.

The action, brought in January 2004 by the French Booksellers’ Union (Syndicat de la librairie française), accused Amazon of offering illegal discounts on books and even of selling some books below cost.

The court gave Amazon 10 days to start charging for the delivery of books, which should at least allow the company to maintain the offer through the end-of-year gift-giving season. After that, it must pay a fine of 1,000 (US$1,470) per day that it continues to offer free delivery. It must also pay 100,000 Euros in compensation to the booksellers’ union.

Retail prices, particularly of books, are tightly regulated in France.

Evidently, this kind of economic justice is par for the course. Free enterprise appears to be strangled on a regular basis in France. Here’s another dead body:

It’s not been a good month for U.S. e-commerce sites doing business in France: last week, the French auction regulator sued eBay France for breaching rules on the conduct of auctions. The regulator said that eBay’s failure to comply exposed consumers to the risk of fraud. In its defense, eBay France maintained that it is not an auctioneer and that it has “invented another way of buying and selling” not covered by the rules.

In France, “inventing another way” of doing anything is frowned upon…and fined out of existence.

[fini]

Who are you going to believe?

On story claims that the US is possibly in for a recession…

So says a professor of Economics at Yale:

Losses arising from America’s housing recession could triple over the next few years and they represent the greatest threat to growth in the United States, one of the world’s leading economists has told The Times.

Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged into a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years.

Professor Shiller, co-founder of the respected S&P Case/Shiller house-price index, said: “American real estate values have already lost around $1 trillion [£503 billion]. That could easily increase threefold over the next few years. This is a much bigger issue than sub-prime. We are talking trillions of dollars’ worth of losses.”

He said that US futures markets had priced in further declines in house prices in the short term, with contracts on the S&P Shiller index pointing to decreases of up to 14 per cent.

“Over the next five years, the futures contracts are pointing to losses of around 35 per cent in some areas, such as Florida, California and Las Vegas. There is a good chance that this housing recession will go on for years,” he said.

Professor Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance, a phrase later used by Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said: “This is a classic bubble scenario. A few years ago house prices got very high, pushed up because of investor expectations. Americans have fuelled the myth that prices would never fall, that values could only go up. People believed the story. Now there is a very real chance of a big recession.”

On the other hand we have the buoyant Larry Kudlow, enthusing about 2007 and looking forward to 2008:

At his year-end news conference, President Bush stated with optimism that the economy is fundamentally sound, despite the housing downturn and the sub-prime credit crunch. The very next day, that optimism was reinforced with news of the best consumer spending in two years. The prophets of recessionary doom, such as former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, Republican advisor Martin Feldstein, ex-Democratic Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, and bond-maven Bill Gross have been proven wrong once again.

Calendar year 2007 looks set to produce 3 percent growth in real GDP, nearly 3 percent growth in consumer spending, and over 3 percent growth in after-tax inflation-adjusted incomes. Meanwhile, headline inflation (including food and energy) will have run at 2.5 percent, with only 2 percent core inflation.

Jobs are rising over 100,000 per month and the stock market is set to turn in a respectable year despite enormous headwinds. Low tax rates, modest inflation, and declining interest rates continue to boost Goldilocks, which is still the greatest story never told.

Bush’s optimism is well-earned, in Congress too. He has stopped a lot of bad legislation on higher taxing and spending. He won on S-CHIP and the alternative minimum tax. He mostly prevailed on domestic spending. And he got much of what he wanted on war funding without any pullout dates.

And he’s not yet finished. In the most dramatic statement of his holiday news conference, Bush said he will not stand for the continuing congressional proliferation of pork-barrel earmarks.

“Another thing that’s not responsible is the number of earmarks the Congress included in the massive spending bill,” said Bush. “The bill they just passed includes about 9,800 earmarks. Together with the previously passed defense spending bill, that means Congress has approved about 11,900 earmarks this year. And so I am instructing budget director Jim Nussle to review options for dealing with wasteful spending in the omnibus bill.”

This is huge. The statute of limitations for Republican overspending, over-earmarking, and over-corrupting that caused huge congressional losses in last year’s campaign will not run out until the GOP shows taxpayers that it again can be trusted on the key issues of limited government and lower taxes.

In these matters, Republicans must be holier than the pope. And while President Bush has been doing the Lord’s work with his newfound veto pen, he must continue to wage war on earmarks if the GOP is to cleanse the political memory of Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

So which scenario is more likely? Doom and gloom or Sunshine Kudlow? The latter is often optimistic and often correct. The Yale academic is not familiar to me, but on the other hand he is from the Ivory Tower so I tend to distrust his opinion on principle.

Besides, Kudlow’s writing style is much more entertaining.

[post ends here]

Since arriving at adulthood – it took me longer than most – I have made some kind of New Year’s resolution based on acquiring new knowledge or behavior. The only constraint was that it be at least slightly outside my comfort zone.

My first resolve was to learn to ice skate. I had grown up in the sub-tropical South; until I arrived in New England, I’d never met a snowflake in person. I remember being awed by watching my very first snow fall, and seeing the white stuff pile up in Christmas card- carved drifts. I stood at the front door for a long time, caught up in the wonder of it all. Eventually, my father-in-law and one of his sons came out into the hall where I stood in amazement, caught up in the marvel of the growing piles of snow.

The two men were dressed in heavy coats and hats and clumped into the hall in large rubber boots, pulling on thick gloves. Of course I shared with them my enthusiastic astonishment – in fact, I shared it at length, while they exchanged glances with one another. Finally, they’d had enough of my naïve chatter: moving quickly, they flung open the Victorian double doors…and then picked me up and put me down in the middle of all the loveliness. I sank down into an icy hole while they picked up shovels and began the arduous task of clearing the walks and stairs for the second time that evening.

Such was my introduction to the joys and sorrows of living in a cold climate. A few years later, we had moved to a house outside Boston and the kids quickly discovered a small pond nearby. A perfect, kid-sized pond for investigating in the summer and skating on in the winter. Watching them, I decided to learn to ice skate, too.

Easier said than done. After falling onto my gluteus maximus once too often, I retreated from the ice and considered my options. My inclination was to retire gracefully to the hearth and wait for Spring – if and when it arrived. Since my idea of heavy exercise is to haul the Oxford Dictionary across the room, this was an easy choice. I would limit my exertions to making hot chocolate for the skaters when they came home, red-nosed and c-c-coooold.

When January 1st rolled around someone asked if I’d made any resolutions for the coming year. The image of the pond came to mind and I found myself saying, “yes, I’ve decided to learn to ice skate.” Evidently this idea had been forming off-stage once I learned there was an indoor rink within walking distance and they offered lessons for adults on week-day mornings.

In the beginning, my lessons mainly consisted of me holding onto the railing – why didn’t that pond have a railing?- and carefully moving my feet while I held onto safety with one hand…
– – – – – – – – –
…Eventually I got brave enough to let go and push off with one foot, gliding through that initial move. Getting my left foot to agree to push off was another matter entirely, though it gave in as I got braver and more assured of my footing. I finally understood: the idea was to leave a slight liquid groove with the push of each foot, which allowed me to stay upright and moving. It helped if I crouched a little…

In due time, I was out on the ice at the pond – but only when no one else was around. The pearled, pastel morning light of winter in New England made the effort worth it. I had indeed become an ice skater.

I had also become a resolution-maker. Each year I would rummage through my bag of ignorance till I came upon something that looked worth attempting.

I believe the idea was planted when I read Killing the Celt. I had no idea that Julius Caesar had attempted to annihilate the Gauls. He was so brutally murderous that back in Rome they considered prosecuting him for war crimes. Of course as the author, Tomas Runmhar, points out the Gauls were their own worst enemy. As has been true throughout their history, Celtic tribes don’t cooperate with one another. It’s more fun to fight than negotiate. Something in the Celtic blood appears to be addicted to adrenalin rushes.

Then I read my Christmas gift from the Baron: “Endgame: 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II” by David Stafford. Here’s a description by one reader:

This is as close to a perfect book as I have recently read on WWII history, particularly on the infrequently covered closing days of the European war.

Seldom do historians write about the immediate repercussions and events that ran concurrent with the disintegration of the Third Reich.

…David Stafford carefully chronicles these events through the eyes of various personalities involved. Their anecdotes complete an image of Europe in such disarray that paint a picture of near hopelessness.

Stafford captures the emotion of the allied race to Berlin, the ominous possibility of a Nazi Alpine Redoubt and the anticlimactic sigh the war weary world breathed before the loose ends were truly tied off.

Reading this book, one realizes how unfortunate it is that those lessons and tales of World War II so often go forgotten…

Not having read much history about the time between VE Day and the start of the Korean “Conflict,” I was enthralled. That was quickly followed by “Don’t Tread On Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting,” by H.W. Crocker.

Now I’ve turned to Paul Johnson’s “A History of the American People.” It’s been sitting on the bookshelf since 1998…better late than never.

When I told Fausta about my New Year’s resolution to delve into history, she recommended Winston Churchill’s three-volume “History of the English-Speaking Peoples.”

That ought to keep me busy through February. After that, I’m not sure where to go. Can any of our readers suggest some titles? I’d be interested in political, religious and cultural history from any period and any place. I emailed Wretchard to ask him to recommend a book on the Philippines. If there is an era or a place which you’ve studied and think others might find enlightening, please send the titles my way.

Needless to say, the books have to be in English. I can slowly make my way through some French, but it’s too laborious to be enjoyable. Like most Americans, I am limited to high school and college requirements for a foreign language but my Latin is by now far too rusty from disuse to be of any help except for etymologies.

2008 will be the Year of History-Reading. Much easier than ice-skating.