Ole Jørgen Anfindsen is the editor of the website Honest Thinking and the author of the Norwegian book Selvmordsparadigmet (“The Suicide Paradigm”). Its main focus is on evolution and human biology vs. Multiculturalism and mass immigration.

For non-Scandinavian readers, it overlaps to a considerable degree with The Perils of Diversity: Immigration and Human Nature, written by the American Professor Byron M. Roth. Prof. Roth’s fine and politically incorrect book has been reviewed by Steve Sailer, as well as by Fjordman right here at Gates of Vienna.

Below are some excerpts from “The Suicidal Paradigm — A Conversation With Ole Jørgen Anfindsen” at The Brussels Journal:

OJA: While I do not see it as inevitable that the West will eventually commit suicide, it does appear to be a quite likely outcome of today’s processes. The currently ongoing destruction of our societies is possible because people either don’t care enough to speak out against our elites, and/or because they actually believe that we are merely going through some ‘adjustments’ on our way to the multicultural paradise. Our political Titanic can only be turned around if sufficient numbers of voters demand a change.

This appears unlikely to happen in the near future, and I suspect that part of the reason has to do with a certain level of decadence that has permeated the Western mindset. Exaggerating somewhat, people care more about wealth, status, and careers than about the future of their own children. As a matter of fact, we are not even producing sufficient numbers of children for there to be any future for us at all. Unless there is a change in attitude here, our societies are doomed, and deservedly so.

I suspect we have a long fight in front of us; a fight that will ultimately be about what Western civilization is, and upon which values it should be built. As we engage in battle with those who hate the West and everything it stands for, as well as those who despise people of European descent, let us not stoop to their corrupt ways and despicable methods. Let us affirm the value of every human being, irrespective of ethnicity, race, or religion (or lack of such). Let us be caring, reasonable, and generous — without becoming utopian, stupid, or naïve. And let us, above all, seek the truth — wherever it may lead.

Read the rest at The Brussels Journal.

I returned this evening from the wild mountainous hinterlands of Virginia, and was hoping to put up some actual posts before I collapsed into bed for a well-deserved forty winks. But I was defeated by the backlog of email — do y’all realize how much email you can send me in just two short days? It boggles the mind.

Anyway, I was able to collect a more or less normal news feed. The most important story is that after decades of internecine warfare, Hamas and Fatah have now reconciled, and have cut a deal to work together against the common Zionist enemy.

Also, check out the latest on Syria — the deadly repression there is continuing, but Sen. John McCain, among others, says that Syria is not like Libya, and the regime’s actions do not warrant NATO intervention.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to 4symbols, AC, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, heroyalwhyness, Kitman, Lurker from Tulsa, Takuan Seiyo, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

John Work has this feature on the latest shut-down of Vlad Tepes’ You Tube account:

I’ve frequently featured or linked to the Vlad Tepes counter-jihad website here on my blog. I go to Vlad’s site because it is always a treasure-trove of information and videos about what’s really going on inside the World of Islam – items that you will never read or watch on Good Morning, America or on CNN’s nightly news.

Tonight I made my regular trip over there and found an announcement that YouTube has shut down Vlad’s video account, purportedly over a video copyright violation issue that is over six months old and, according to Vlad, should be moot.

However, I am also informed via an e-mail that there is a move on within the cyber-space war zone to shut down several counter-jihad websites by repeatedly flagging them as offensive. The al-Shamikh forum, which Vlad tells me is a password-protected Muslim jihad site, has apparently issued a fatwa against three counter-jihad sites – one of which is Vlad Tepes.

They call themselves The Jihad Smack-Down Crew. Vlad Tepes is one of them. And they’re all on the jihad hit-list.

You can draw whatever conclusion you may wish to draw about what’s going on. Me? I’m suspicious that Google and YouTube have come under some pressure from the World of Islam and decided to knuckle under rather than risk who-knows-what…

It’s another overt submission to Islam – pervasive and perverse, and YouTube doesn’t care. For small fry like Vlad, if you’re in a public forum, there’s nothing much you can do about it.

Is there a safe public venue where people like Vlad can post their video materials without being attacked, hacked, and backed against the wall by haters of whatever stripe?

The Baron is away and his News Parser is shut down. I never could’ve got it up and flying anyway.

Which reminds me of an incident many years ago, back when Da B was a freelance programmer and a Kelly Girl, along with being the stay-at-home mom. One of his computer customers lived in a small town not far from here; for him the Baron built a custom job payroll and bad check program, one that spit out dunning notices at prescribed times; as I recall it did everything but affix the stamps to the envelopes.

Sometimes I would drop by his customer’s house and pick up our son on the way home from work so they could continue the job with fewer interruptions. One day this client compared Da B’s work with him to the job his flying instructor performed. As he saw it, they both got the thing (computer or airplane) up and running and then he could pretend he was “flying” all by himself. He simply needed help on take offs and landings.

I understand that perfectly now.

Below is flotsam, jetsam, and some items gathered from aaaallll those emails awaiting their master’s return. Rest assured there is no order of importance in these bits o’ news. Think of it as Dymphna, free associating down the page.

As for the deeper meaning of the title of this post: I was feeling wicked and decided to grab the attention of the trolling mudfish by using “bare naked” in the title. Just feeling a little ornery cuz the B’s gone and in the interim no one comes galumping downstairs with a collection of “good” news he’s managed to find to soothe my savage breast…

Thus, let us all pray he makes it safely home. Without him here, those Gates would clang shut in a heartbeat. As they would for y’all, too. Hey, even the atheists ought to put in a petition on that score. Can’t hurt anything but your principles, right? I’ve got more than one bruised principle myself…as does any parent.

This first story is from Logan’s Warning. He’s like the Baron; looks the world in the face without flinching. I admire such tenacity of spirit:

Detroit Archbishop, Dearborn Police Chief Haddad, & Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran Bow to Islam

Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron joined with a group of religious leaders in opposing a Florida pastor’s plan to hold an anti-Muslim rally during Holy Week.

Either the Archbishop needs a history lesson, or he is in the state of deep denial. As for the history lesson, I suggest he starts with the Islamic conquests of the Coptics, Persians, and the Hindu Kush. The “moral values” of Mohammad and Jesus were not even close. Mohammad was a liar, rapist, and terrorist. Is that the message of Jesus? BTW, there are a lot more than “a few” of us. The voices of [against? D]Islam are CLEARLY on the rise! We are doing the job you are afraid to do.

Logan has further takedowns of the other “cronies” as he so aptly names them – i.e., the police chief and the legal department of the municipality of Dearborn in the person of one assistant prosecutor.

In addition, there’s a video from one of the fellows arrested by Dearborn’s finest last year for the crime of public assembly in Dar-al-Islam Dearborn while acting Christian. Those young men who were passing out literature were making a point, one that the authorities chose to interpret sans Constitution.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Here’s one that Fjordman sent in. He another one of those stare-the-ugly-reality-down kinds of people. Not I. I’m more the hide-under-the-covers-with-a-flashlight-and-a-good-novel-&-candybar type of coward escapist.

The essay, at PJM, is by Barry Rubin and it meditates upon the fact that the US is turning into a rowdy Middle Eastern vassal state. (Can’t give you much of the original; PJ gets touchy. But it’s worth your time for sure). What starts Mr. Rubin to pondering is a question put to him by a friend who wants to know why, when moderates in the Arab world (wait, make that “moderates”, pls) are attacked – a verbal attack I think he means – they always “react defensively and apologetically, trying to prove that they also hold safely radical views”. Rubin starts off with this [emphases are mine]:

The key, I realized, was the existence of basic principles that are beyond question and can be manipulated to ensure conformity. There are four main commandments of this type, along with several secondary ones. They can be expressed in the following terms:

• Thou shalt hate Israel with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
• Thou shalt have no other ideological deities before the promotion and protection of Islam.
• Remember the importance of Arabism and keep it holy.
• Thou shalt not covet the values, acts, or ideas of Western states and societies.

To prove my point, if I had written the previous four lines in Arabic as a citizen of an Arab country I would be risking my life or more likely my career. There are individuals who have done so but their number is limited. They have almost all been either Western-educated or spent many years living in the West. And they often end up having to flee there. Individual rebels who disregard the consequences – I can give you a list if you like – they may be brave, but this is not the stuff of which whole movements are made.

The existence of these imperatives limits debate, not only because someone crosses the acceptable line but far more often because they can be accused of doing so…

That’s why the authors of the American Constitution forbade limits on freedom of speech: because once you start creating off-limit areas the worst thing that happens is the empowerment of people who have a self-interest in setting and misusing these limits. They can administer these no-go zones by declaring anything they don’t like to be a hate crime.

And that’s what they’ve done, all over the West. Leftists loathe free speech when it comes from their ideological opponents.

Rubin’s first commenter nails it:

Extrapolating from Barry’s thesis, we can now understand more fully the twinning/morphing of Islamists and leftists. One is a mirror image of the other, regardless that their end goal visions differ in outcome. What is most important is that they both agree on pure totalitarian doctrines. IF one does not follow the mandated orthodoxy one pays the ultimate price, each under their own constructs.

Tragically, it has come to pass that the west is ruled by leftist leaders, from top down, bottom up. NO area of influence is left open to debate, debate is absolutely not tolerated. This is why when one speaks to a leftist one feels as if one is talking to a brick wall, whereby one leftist parrots the other-clone-like. So too do Islamists/Arabs mirror one another.

The west has all but succumbed to Middle East constructs, at least in terms set out by thuggish, elitist thought police.

A little further down, you can read a comment by our old friend from the Road to Eternity. He says anyone who doesn’t condemn Islam simply doesn’t understand it. Heh. Just ignore that other fellow who wants to squelch him.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The next one is an essay that touches the heart. Oh, from his keyboard to God’s eyes. I promise I’ll be really, really good if You pull this one off, Sir [and notice, Sir, the essayist’s last name is ‘Lord’. Surely that counts for something?]:

President Obama will not be re-elected. Period.

Why?

Obamaflation has arrived, and this is what it looks like.

Milk. A gallon of skim. At the local Giant in Central Pennsylvania:

January 11, 2011: $3.20
February 28, 2011: $3.24
March 6, 2011: $3.34
April 23. 2011: $3.48

That would be a 28 cent rise in a mere 102 days, from January to April of this year. The third year of the Obama misadventure.

Then there’s the celery. Same sized bag. Same store.

January 11, 2011: $1.99 a bag.
March 6, 2011: $2.49 a bag.

A rise of 50 cents in 54 days.

And the gas price during the administration filled with those who think “drill baby drill” is so yesterday? As one Internet photo had it, the numbers for regular, premium. and diesel were replaced with “LOL,” “OMG,” and “WTF!” Thus be it to governments who seem not to understand that energy is what makes the economic engine — and your car — hum.

What does this mean? It means Barack Obama is not going to be re-elected president of the United States. Period.

Obammie (Mark Steyn’s current nickname for the current occupant of the Oval Office) is infamous for his sneering comments at those of us who worry about the price of gas. As the UPS man told me yesterday when he dropped off my poha (it’s waaay too much money to drive to the Indian store in town. Shipping costs are less than driving costs), the more the gas goes up, the more work he has. Yeah…so take that, Mr. Sneer-in Chief.

Meanwhile, the gummint doesn’t factor fuel and food into its inflation data. Smart move by the citizens in Wonderland. They think we won’t notice, right?

I hope Mr. Lord is correct in his analysis about Obama’s Carteresque one-term “misadventure”. Is it any wonder that Donald Trump is starting to look good in comparison? Donald Trump fer cryin’ out loud. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?? I’d vote for him if the RNC had the testicular fortitude to nominate him. But they don’t. It’s more important to be liked by The New York Times than it is to get this disaster out of the White House.

[By the way, those food items always cost more at Giant because Giant’s employees are unionized. Workers at Food Lion and WalMart are on their own so the food is cheaper in those stores. When you’re unemployed, concerns about exploiting those folks at Fooli (who’ll tell you they’re real glad to be working) fade to nothing. Guess it depends on where you’re standing and how much change is in your pocket when you make that call…but then I hated unions back when unemployment wasn’t even on the horizon.]

Mr Lord notes:

You can get away with a lot of things as president and blame them on other people. For Obama its George Bush or now the oil companies or also now those evil corporations or… well… yada yada yada. But when average Americans begin to understand that Obamanomics is directly responsible for a 28 cent rise in the price of milk (with over a year and a half to go to the 2012 elections), there is going to be political hell to pay. And the buck, so to speak, stops, as it always does, with the president of the United States.

Yeah. The idjits had all that hope and now they’ve barely got change for a hamburger, a cheap food Mrs. Big-Derrière President is trying to take away from them. I love the hubris. Or is it the cluelessness? Or is it the corruption? Or are there no mirrors in the “White” House? If he gets a second term, I’ll bet they change the name. No more [hideously White] House for them. Maybe just call it 1600 instead. Numbers are safe. Unless you’re Obama, then trillions are kinda fungible…think of them as a concept rather than actual debt.

Whatever, the current re-election strategy calls for dragging out those 2008 idjits (and their dead ancestors) for another assault on the polling booths. Afterwards, they’ll be put back into cold storage again.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

For our final foray into the bare news, here’s one to bring us circling back to dear old Michigan. It’s from Diana West, a fearless voice against dhimmitude. She calls this incursion against Terry Jones’ constitutional rights, “leaping, not creeping, Sharia” [my emphases below]:

The Michigan District Court’s egregious ruling against Jones is all about protecting Islam from criticism, rather than about protecting criticism from Islam, which is what US jurisprudence, not to mention the American Way, demands. It is sharia that the US court is enforcing. [A pattern here, perhaps? Cf. Rubin, above – D]

One particularly hideous aspect of the ruling bars Pastor Jones and his colleague Assistant Pastor Wayne Sapp from visiting the vicinity of this mosque for the next three years. Jones and Sapp are American citizens; the area the court has barred to them is in American territory. With this ruling, the judge has made the court both the creator and also the enforcer of what amounts to a public, criticism-free and protest-free zone for Islam, a place in USA where “blasphemy” against Islam is against the law.

“No-go-zone” is what we call those pits in Europe where violence and intimidation of non-Muslims have ethnically cleansed areas to a point of Islamic purity and de facto Islamic law. Where Islamic courts are recognized, as in the UK, where Islamic law is recognized, as in the premise of the cases against Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in Austria, Lars Hedegaard in Denmark and others, Western courts are increasingly bending to, incorporating and implementing Islamic law.

In Jones’ case, the Michigan court seems to be doing something a little different. By physically carving out a criticism-free area for Islam, the Michigan Court is making history by creating the first de jure, physically defined no-go-zone in the USA, maybe in the whole Western world.

It surely won’t be the last. This is just a small beach head on the shores of Lake Michigan. Just a toe in the water. Just the first rippling, soft waves of that offshore tsunami…

A few years ago, whilst doing some online research about where modern Muslim women went for plastic surgery to get new hymens installed before the wedding date, I noticed that a majority of the surgeons advertising their wares (“get-it-done-on-your-lunch-hour”) seemed to be from Michigan. Looking back (the best kind of insight being hindsight, right?), I ought to have seen the portents in those cheery ads…

[By the way, Ms. West, a heads-up. Check your latest edition of Strunk and White…umm, make that Strunk and Cream. I’m sure the adjective “hideous” (adverb, “hideously”) is now reserved as a prefix for white, as in white PEOPLE, e.g., Hideously White People that Decent Folk Avoid. Of which you are one, my dear.]

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

I’ll end The Bare & Naked with this email from a reader in Sweden:

Heard Baron Bodissey on radio talking about integration of Turkish immigrants in Germany. Maybe this authentic joke from the old West-Germany could interest you:

What’s the difference between an Ossie (a citizen in Germany from the old DDR) and a Turk? The Turk has a job and speaks German.

I’m not sure that the situation is hopeless. European government
policies will change. And many immigrants and their children will too.
Let’s just hope that the reaction to mass immigration will not be a
fascist one. All of our enemies’ enemies are not our friends.

Indeed they are not. However, when Obama is finished with the US, will we have anything left but frenemies?

Anyone want to sing along with BB King?

“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”: want to bet BB King never would’ve dreamed it would end up as our new national anthem. Just think how much more singable it’ll be at baseball games. Maybe Eric Clapton will lead us all in a few verses, hmmm?

Who killed the “spirit of inquiry” in Islam?

That’s the subtitle of a book review (behind a firewall for the moment) regarding the fateful decision by Islamic scholars to make intellectual curiosity among the faithful sure grounds for blasphemy, shunning and death.

The crucial decision to turn away from new information (or even old, Platonic philosophical information) was the force which drove Islam into the corner to sit with a dunce cap on its head. The book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis gives you the history of this foreclosure (as Freud would’ve called it). Slouched there even now, fingers in his ears, the fiercely irrational believer maintains that reason has no place in reasoning, and there is no cause and effect. In other words, it’s whatever the current dunce claims that “Allah Sez”…even if Allah’s slave is hiding in a well and waiting for the right moment to End It Fer Everybody.

In the Product Review on the Amazon page (linked above), they have this handy summary:

The Closing of the Muslim Mind solves such puzzles as:

• why the Arab world stands near the bottom of every measure of human development
• why scientific inquiry is nearly dead in the Islamic world
• why Spain translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years
• why some people in Saudi Arabia still refuse to believe man has been to the moon

As the reviewer, David Aikman notes:

but what use is reason in the face of the Iranian education ministry official who claims that the Tom and Jerry cartoons were concocted in the United States to improve the image of mice because, during the 1930s in Europe, Jews were called “dirty mice”?

What use reason indeed? Back in the 90s when I learned Iran didn’t let the printing press into the country until the mid 19th century – and Persians are supposed to be the smart ones – I knew they had a problem. Islam deliberately removes the faculty of reason. No surgery necessary, just endless indoctrination: loud, incessant, and beginning when children are young and malleable. Why develop something that won’t ever be used?

The Closing of the Muslim Mind, or rather the review of the book, focuses on the decision that it would be “dangerous” to permit free inquiry. Indeed. Not only did science die at the hands of Islam but it also obliterated historical inquiry, literature, the arts, and music – all the beautiful furnishings of the human mind – and replaced them with submission to life in its nasty, brutish and short form.

Why would there be any inquiry beyond requisite bathroom rituals when rational endeavor is forbidden?

Stumbling onto that review reminded me that I’ve woefully neglected an important book review of my own, one I’ve been waiting to “feel better” enough to write an in-depth essay. Well, t’ hell wid it…I ain’t never gonna feel well enough to do that so you get my scrambled version instead. I hope it’s enough to entice you to buy the book.

Our advisor has mentioned many times the need for Counterjihad fiction. She says contrarian artists need to invade all the arts and present the minority point of view so that the public can judge for itself. This is a challenging idea, but then her strategies usually are. It’s also difficult to create good art when you have an explicit agenda. Sometimes it works, but usually after the fact – e.g., excellent World War II fiction couldn’t rise to the top until we’d had enough time to create an aesthetic distance.

In this war, we don’t have the luxury of waiting. We must go with the literature we have now, the fictional works being created out of an author’s need to share a grim and overwhelming reality. In that spirit, I present a “thriller” (the author’s classification, though “terrorist thriller” is closer to the mark).

What’s the au courant expression for a book you enjoyed? “It’s a good read”? (Before you send me an email about this usage, I already agree. Using verbs as nouns is gauche, but people persist if it works). The Martyr’s Prize is definitely in the “good read” class; the author was right when he said in his cover letter that one ought to read at least a couple of chapters. He promises the reader they’ll be hooked if they do. Yes, indeedy.

Brooks William Kelley has written a page-turner. For a first effort, and self-published, it’s exceptionally well done. He’s made believable characters you’ll care about, and he builds the plot like he’s been churning them out for years. Do the gears grind in places? Sure. But this is not (yet) a polished professional author; this is an ardent storyteller, and he will improve with experience. Since he was smart enough to leave sufficient numbers of unresolved plot lines to make you want to find out what happens next, there should be sequels. There’d better be!

The Amazon page reviews are good, almost all of them five star. There is one fellow, a two star loner, who complains about “the overuse of vulgarity” and guesses (wrongly) that therefore the author is young. Well, knock me over with a feather cuz I never even noticed this language quirk. Living in cyberspace as much as I do, perhaps I’m inured. However, I agree with the fellow that Kelley has talent and will improve with time.

The dissenter calls the novel “rambling”…another criticism that passed right by. Kelley’s pacing is tight, given the issues he has to cover. Here’s a bit of outline from another Amazon reader:

Start with raw, believable and well-defined characters, both protagonist and antagonist. Layer the story with current events, genuine techno-babble, actual Quranic verses, and sprinkle a few factual news pieces gleaned from today’s actual headlines that perfectly mirror the storyline, and you have an all consuming adventure that a mere 380 pages is unsuccessful at satiating the pallet.

The locales are strikingly accurate (for anyone who’d ever been to them) to the point one can actually feel what the character feels. Your imagination will soar as you are drawn directly into the mind or geographic location of the scene painted so specifically by Kelley that you feel a part of the story as it unfolds….

Since I’m a technophobe, I can’t tell you whether those details are accurate but they sure are compelling. Not the geeky stuff at the beginning so much (though those details are crucial as plot devices). No, what glued me to the page was the rigging of a flat panel TV so that it would…well, you’ll have to read the book and sweat that part of the plot with the rest of us.

Amusingly, sprinkled in with the other bits o’ reality is a covert description of Robert Spencer playing himself but called, if I remember correctly, Dr. Pennington. RS appears briefly in one incomplete scene as the speaker invited to a college campus to give his lecture on Islam. For a brief moment, there he is, “rotund” and knowledgeable about his subject – and under attack by the usual suspects. It takes a certain amount of physical courage to do that and Mr. Spencer has proved he has this quality.

The fleeting de rigueur sex scenes will be a disappointment to those who want more, but they’ll also be a disappointment for those who’d have liked to see a female character taking her time before jumping in the sack. I realize mores have changed, but sometimes I hear rumblings from the younger generation that they’re changing back. At any rate the “love interest” remains as a hanging chad to be further resolved in book two. When you read it, ask yourself if the woman doesn’t remind you a bit of Ann Barnhardt.

And one so fervently hopes there will be a book two. I like Mr. Kelley’s characters, even the villains. Well, for the latter, they’re easy to ‘like’ because you know they’re going to exit stage left in a big bang. But the heroic ones remain with you after you read the last page. You wonder how Mr. Kelley will develop all those embryo plots you can see in the far distance…

The Baron never has time to read anything. If he has occasion to travel again, I’d like him to wrap this one is a plain brown cover (can’t be too careful with the TSA) and take it on his next wearisome plane ride. Two or three chapters in, he’ll be hooked…

An earlier CBN News exclusive revealed the existence of an officially-approved Iranian video about the imminent arrival of the Twelfth Imam, also known as the Mahdi. “Twelvers” believe that the End of Days is about to arrive, and will begin with the appearance of the Mahdi.

The fact that the Iranian government believes in this eschatological framework is evidently not something the mullahs wanted the world to know, judging by their reaction.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this report by Erick Stakelbeck:

Tonight’s news feed was prepared in advanced, and is thus truncated. There will be no news feed tomorrow (Tuesday April 26th). Normal service will resume on Wednesday night.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to 4symbols, Diana West, Fjordman, heroyalwhyness, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

I’m going away to visit family for a couple of days. I’ll be back in the saddle here sometime on Wednesday evening.

I’ve left a casserole in the fridge, and a news feed queued up for tonight. If you get into the wine cellar, stay away from the Pouilly Fuissé — that’s for me only. Y’all can drink all of the Mad Dog you want.

Dymphna will be holding the fort in my absence, and you may hear from her from time to time.

As regular readers know, the Danish journalist and historian Lars Hedegaard was acquitted of “hate speech” back in January. His crime had been to make remarks about the propensity of Muslim men for committing rape within their families — not all that remarkable an assertion in our circles, but a punishable offense in Modern Multicultural Denmark.

The district prosecutor has decided to have another go, and the second trial of Lars Hedegaard begins tomorrow in Copenhagen. Below is a piece written for the occasion by the editor of Sappho.dk.

The Danish Show Trial against Lars Hedegaard to Resume

By Katrine Winkel Holm, Chief Editor of Sappho.dk

On April 26 my colleague, the Danish author and historian Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society and The International Free Press Society, will be back in court accused of “racism” for comments he made during a conversation on the Islamic treatment of women.

Without his permission the entire conversation was electronically disseminated, which provided his detractors with the opportunity to denounce him to the police.

The district prosecutor for Copenhagen and Bornholm jumped at the chance to get this prominent free speech advocate convicted of “racism” under Denmark’s infamous “hate speech” article 266b of the penal code but suffered defeat when the case came before the lower court at Frederiksberg in January this year. The judge did not believe that Hedegaard’s comments had been made with the intent of public dissemination, which is what the prosecutor must prove in order to secure a conviction under article 266b.

Unhappy with this setback, the state prosecutor appealed to the Eastern Superior Court in Copenhagen, where the retrial is scheduled to start at 1 pm on April 26 before a panel of three judges.

The trial is expected to last no more than two hours, which would appear to leave little time to deal with the subject matter — the Islamic view on women and the treatment they have suffered throughout the ages.

However, truth has no place in cases brought under article 266b. All that matters is whether Hedegaard’s observations — or the observations he is claimed to have made — have caused Muslims to feel hurt. Consequently, the defendant is not allowed to present evidence or call witnesses who might confirm his contention that the Islamic treatment of women is incompatible with the norms of a civilised society.

Lars Hedegaard’s case is just one in a long line of similar heresy trials that have been conducted throughout Europe for decades. Among the most notorious are the prosecutions of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in Austria and Geert Wilders in Holland but there have been scores of similar cases that have received less public attention.

The reason for this judicial tsunami against outspoken Islam critics is not hard to find. It has become uncomfortably clear to ever-wider sections of the public that the official policies of free Muslim immigration, multiculturalism and cultural relativism have failed utterly. The European states are now faced with problems which their rulers have no idea how to solve. So instead of admitting that they have failed, they choose to silence those who point out that there are problems.

As Lars Hedegaard is prevented from talking about the real issue in court, he has used the time since his initial acquittal to write a book. Its title is Muhammad’s Girls: Violence, Murder and Rape in the House of Islam and it will be published the very day he is to appear in Superior Court.

Sappho has obtained permission from the publisher, The Free Speech Library, to translate and reprint Lars Hedegaard’s Foreword.

Foreword

On January 24, 2011 I had the experience — for the first time in my life — of sitting in the dock of a Danish courtroom. The State Prosecutor for Copenhagen and Bornholm had resolved that I had violated Article 266b of the penal code by publicly threatening, ridiculing and denigrating a group of people.

And a very large group of people at that. Somewhere between 1.2 and 1.6 billion Muslims — or at least the male half of them — who the State Prosecutor thought had reason to feel so aggrieved that I ought to be punished for it.

Global harmony was under pressure so the prosecutor had told the press that he had taken great pains in preparing the case.

His thorough preparations resulted in an indictment where the following words — which he attributed to me — were highlighted as criminal:

“When a Muslim man rapes a woman, it is his right to do so. When Swedish girls are raped, mass rape etc., etc., there is nothing wrong with it viewed from an Islamic perspective that is their right. They rape their own children. You hear that time and again. Girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles, their cousins or their father. Women have no value, they are not human beings. Their function is to be wombs — they bear the warrior’s offspring and create new warriors but apart from that … well they may be used for sexual purposes but other than that they have no value.”

To which the State Prosecutor added: “and the like”.

As my attorney proved in court, these words were not mine but the State Prosecutor’s retelling of a much larger line of argument taken out of context.

On top of that the judge could find no evidence that my characterisation of the Islamic concept of women had been uttered with the intent of public dissemination — which is what Article 266b requires for something to be punishable. Consequently I was acquitted. At least initially as the prosecutor decided to appeal the verdict.

What remains it the prosecutor’s contention that all the words he had placed between his quotation marks were in fact denigrating and therefore punishable. So let us assume that I actually had spoken precisely as claimed by the prosecutor and done so publicly or had written it and disseminated it far and wide. Would I have been convicted? That is what many of those who have commented on the outcome of the trial believe, which is why they reject the contention that my acquittal may be seen as a victory for free speech.

For reasons I shall not dwell on in this context, I maintain that is was a victory, but I can well understand why others might view it differently.

I any event the case does pose a number of important questions: On what grounds does the State Prosecutor decide that somebody has a valid reason to feel hurt? Is it enough for somebody to call the police and claim to be offended on behalf of some group or other, whereupon the State Prosecutor presses charges? No, there are criteria, as the Director of Public Prosecutions, Joergen Steen Soerensen expressed in a letter from August 2010 to Sappho.dk’s Chief Editor, Katrine Winkel Holm:

“The core area of the provision [Article 266b] is statements to the effect that the group in question generally lacks value as human beings, liken them to animals in addition to gross and utterly non-factual [usaglige], generalised claims of serious criminality, negative personality traits and an immoral and offensive way of life.”

When one reads the Director of Public Prosecutions’ remark about “the group in question [that] generally lacks value as human beings”, it is easier to understand why he considers the words attributed to me in the indictment as offensive. He evidently believes that it is I who thinks that Islam’s “women have no value, they are not human beings” and that it is I who wants to deprive them of human value, place them on an equal footing with animals etc.

That would be a bold interpretation. I believe that women, as concerns rights, chances in life and claims to be respected, are or ought to be absolutely equal to men regardless of their religion or where in the world they were born.

So it is not my view on women that is reflected in the indictment but the view on women that I think can be derived from Islamic holy scripture, which has manifested itself throughout Islamic history and which is still being advocated by the most influential Islamic scholars.

It may also be that the Director of Public Prosecutions and the State Prosecutor for Copenhagen and Bornholm actually have understood that the indictment does not reflect my attitude towards Muslim women but Islam’s own. In that case, they must view this interpretation of Islam as “non-factual” and therefore criminal.

According to Nudansk Ordbog [Dictionary of Current Danish] “saglig” [factual] is something that is “primarily related to facts rather than feelings, intuition and personal judgement”. In that case it ought to be an easy task — but also absolutely necessary — for the prosecutor to disprove my interpretation of Islam’s canonical view on women. For the prosecutor to characterise my rendering as non-factual, he must be in possession of the right, factual and evidence-based interpretation.

As a responsible institution the public prosecutor therefore owes it to the citizens to explicate his state-authorised Islamic view on women and tell them what indisputable facts this state-guaranteed interpretation is based on. Otherwise the citizens run the risk of expressing themselves in a non-factual manner and be punished for it.

The first thing one must demand of a law is that it be clear so that everyone may understand what is permitted and what is forbidden. That much was stated in the preamble to the Law of Jutland from 1241. And now that the Director of Public Prosecutions has passed a law — albeit without the consent parliament — that non-factuality must be punished, it is incumbent on him to make this new law clear. In brief: He must unequivocally enlighten the citizens as to how one may talk about Islam. This book is intended as a help to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Most of the points of view below are not mine but opinions quoted from others. I start with the prophet Muhammad, whose view on women can hardly have failed to influence the behaviour of some Muslims.

It is far from certain that the public prosecutor will consider Muhammad’s and his followers’ interpretation of orthodox Islam factual, and under the new juridical regime it may not even be legal. But I urge him to accept that I mean well. Below he will find a compilation of everything that he evidently thinks Islam in not about. On this basis it will be easier for him to point to all the textual evidence, all the historical occurrences and all the statements that demonstrate that Islam is the religion of peace, tolerance and sexual equality.

During last week’s uproar in Dearborn, a Terry Jones supporter gave a brief press conference, and was subjected to the usual abuse at the hands of local Muslims and (presumably) their leftist allies.

Notice that the Jones supporter speaks calmly, reasonably, and politely, while his detractors scream invective at him and drown him out. This is what Andrew Klavan calls the “SHUT UP!” principle, as Vlad points out in the second half of this video.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this clip:

Most of our tipsters are away on Easter break, so once again the news feed is unusually light.

The Syrian government is continuing its violent suppression of popular dissent. Police fired into a crowd in the Mediterranean town of Jabla, killing at least nine people. Over a hundred people were killed by security forces on Friday, and then another twelve people were killed yesterday at a funeral for people killed on Friday.

In other news, the FBI has identified the suspect in the attempted Colorado mall bombing. He is Earl Albert Moore, a 65-year-old convicted felon who was recently released from prison.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Fjordman, Gaia, KGS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Some 30,000 North African culture-enrichers have arrived in various Italian ports since the refugee crisis began in January. Facilities near the points of landing — which are usually small islands such as Lampedusa — are rapidly overwhelmed, and the Italian authorities evacuate the migrants as quickly as possible to larger camps on Sicily or the Italian mainland.

One of the facilities used for this purpose has been the Kinisia shelter in Trapani, a province of Sicily. The following article describes the camp’s conversion from a “shelter” to a “migration facility” — which I assume means it will become a more permanent residence for enrichers whose immigration status is being evaluated:

Trapani Shelter Facilities Convert to Holding Centres

(AGI) Trapani – Authorities are to replace the current shelter facility in Trapani’s Kinisia district with immigration facilities. The site has to date been used to shelter as many as 700 Tunisian migrants.

A temporary shelter at an air force facility in Cagliare on Sardinia is being emptied of its inhabitants. These enrichers have been granted travel documents, which are presumably the same permits that have so aggravated France, Austria, Germany, and other EU member states:

A Further 181 Tunisians Leave Cagliare After Permits Issued

(AGI) Cagliari – Air force premises hosting some 700 Tunisians immigrants are gradually being emptied. The immigrants had been transferred to Cagliari from Lampedusa and have been allowed to leave after the issue of 6-month transit permits. A total of 181 left today, after yesterday’s 135 departures. All parties leaving the premises, police confirm, have been granted electronic travel permits.

The French have prevented migrants from crossing the border with Italy at Ventimiglia. But what happens to travelers who embark at a Sardinian port? Can they travel directly to a port in southern France, say (just to pick an example at random) Marseille?

It will be interesting to see where the Cagliare enrichers finally wash up.

Meanwhile, the UK has joined the ranks of EU member states who insist that they will absolutely not accept any of the overflow of Italian cultural enrichment. According to The Telegraph:

UK Will Not Take in Migrants Fleeing Northern Africa, Insists May

Theresa May has insisted she will not take in any of the migrants fleeing turmoil in northern Africa as concerns grow that they could head for UK shores.

The Home Secretary has told her EU counterparts that Britain is not prepared to join any “burden sharing” as tens of thousands of people cross in to Europe, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Italy, where the refugees are arriving on a daily basis, has urged its EU partners to help ease the pressure by accepting some of the migrants.

But at a meeting of her justice and home affairs counterparts last week Mrs May said Britain will only offer support to Italy to help deal with the issue there.

She will repeat her firm stance when the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council meets again next month.

It came as British MEPs warned migrants could head for Britain because it is seen as a soft option and called for action to stop camps building up at Calais.

[…]

Gerard Batten, the Ukip MEP for London, said: “People are going to gravitate to Britain.

“Britain is top of the list because we have one of the most generous welfare benefits systems and we are famous for being a soft touch.

“I don’t have any confidence in the authorities doing anything to stop them coming in.

““There is a human crisis, but the approach of giving people residence permits will make things permanent, rather than encourage people to return home when peace in Libya and the whole of north Africa finally returns.

“The problem here for us is the European borderless state.”

[…]

The growing tensions in Europe has put the Schengen agreement under threat.

Along with France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Germany are understood to be considering reintroducing some border checks.

The current situation is not stable. Italy cannot continue to take in thousands of refugees a month, even if the EU pays a large part of the expenses associated with the holding-camp system. The problem isn’t just financial: mass immigration rends the social fabric of any country required to absorb the refugees.

Something has to give, but what?

Hat tip for The Telegraph story: AC.

In the clip below, an elderly Dutchman on a tram is savagely beaten up by “youths” for standing up to see what they are doing, and for asking what is wrong.

Many thanks to hetvrijevolkcom for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Ezra Levant, as you may recall, was dragged through a lengthy “trial” before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for the crime of publishing the Danish Motoons in Maclean’s Western Standard magazine. He eventually beat the rap, but not before spending an inordinate amount of money in legal fees.

Mr. Levant is prominently feature on SUN TV, a new TV channel in Toronto, and plans to use his new platform to speak out on behalf of freedom of expression and against the growing movement to suppress politically incorrect speech in Canada and elsewhere.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this video: