Our expatriate Dutch correspondent H. Numan has translated an article from today’s Spits Nieuws:

Definite: court case against Wilders

PVV leader Geert Wilders will be prosecuted. His legal counsel Mr. Bram Moskowicz appealed to withdraw prosecution.

Bu the high Court rejected his request. The prosecutor general will now prosecute Wilders for sowing hatred and insulting a part of the population.

Several complaints

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Several complaints have been filed against Wilders during the last couple of years, among others for comparing the Koran with Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.

H. Numan comments:

Excellent.

The very fact he might be prosecuted gave him about +15 virtual seats. I guess the actual kangaroo court will give him another 15.

Although suffering from serious jet lag, I’m back in the saddle here again. It will take me a while to catch up.

I must admit that I was not entirely candid in describing my recent absence as a “business trip”; I have actually been in Denmark for the past week taking part in the Counterjihad Copenhagen 2009 conference. This was a working meeting of bloggers and activists, as opposed to a symposium of well-known speakers; hence the lack of publicity. In addition to the meeting itself, some of the participants went to Sweden and spent a day touring Malmö and Lund, with special attention paid to Herrgården in Rosengård.

I took a lot of photos, and will publish a full report in due course (possibly later today).

Thanks to the folks who were so generous with their donations to help make the trip possible. You all know who you are!

It will take me a long time to catch up with all the email. Please be patient, and remember that I may never actually get to some of the messages. If it was really important and you don’t hear from me within a few days, send it again.

Oh, by the way — it seems that a disgruntled reader kicked Dymphna down the front stairs while I was gone. I must have forgotten to tell you not to do that.

[Post ends here]

Fjordman sent the following news:

Britain is experiencing the greatest exodus of its own nationals in recent history while immigration is at unprecedented levels, new figures show.

In 2007, 207,000 British citizens — one every three minutes — left the country and currency specialist Foreign Currency Direct has revealed that one in four working Brits are now looking to leave the country for sunnier climes and better job opportunities.

More British live abroad than any other nationality and the levels of emigration are now the same as those seen in the late-1950s when the £10 Poms left for Australia.

An increase in tax levelled at high wage earners coupled with rising UK unemployment is thought to be partly behind the mass exodus.

Actually, the reasons for leaving are far more complex and dire than this site suggests. One motivation is the flood of immigrants combined with the level of crime and the lack of response by the police and government to the breakdown in civil order.

In addition, Britain is now officially suffering from deflation, which means the economy is going off the rails:

Inflation on the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure, which includes housing costs, dropped sharply to -1.2pc in the year to April, from -0.4pc in March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Tuesday.

It was the lowest RPI figure since records began in 1948, and weaker than economists had expected.

The main driver of the fall was lower mortgage interest payments following the Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates by half a percentage point to 0.5pc in March, the ONS said.

Other contributing factors were falling house prices and rental costs, lower council tax costs, lower gas and electricity bills and falling food prices.

Housing-related costs fell by a total of 12.1pc in the year to April.

Sounds like good news doesn’t it? Cheaper housing, food, and cost of living expenses, what could be better? Unfortunately, deflation means that the economy is slowing down so job losses are going up:

Although in the short term falling prices will appeal to consumers, RPI is used to calculate wage increases so the sharp fall in April is likely to add to downward pressure on salaries already caused by higher unemployment and falling corporate profits.

“As a result, many workers are likely to wage freezes or even pay cuts,” said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.

Deflation poses a further threat to the economy if people expect prices to fall further and put purchasing plans on hold which can, if the trend persists, lead to lower output and even more job losses.

If inflation “heats up” an economy, deflation puts it in the freezer. Here’s an explanation of sorts, and a question for both sides of the Atlantic: will we become Japan or Zimbabwe?

Both extremes are destructive and leave people feeling that they do not control their lives anymore. Or perhaps what becomes apparent is that “control” was an illusion after all. Meanwhile…
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with the mass exodus from the UK comes the realization that a “geographical cure” can bring its own misfortunes. Even if the British choose to remain within the Anglosphere, for each immigrant there are the stresses of homesickness, of higher prices combined with finding or keeping a job, and the inevitable sense of being a stranger, of not quite “fitting in”.

On the other hand, the geographical cure, with the stated side effects, may still be worth the risk. A new life in a new place when the old life in the old place has ceased being satisfying can restore the sense of being the master of one’s fate.

If your destination is the US, be sure to bring your own Marmite, Weetabix, and barley water. They’re in short supply here.

Here is another in an occasional series from El Ingles. As readers familiar with our essayist know by now, Señor Ingles doesn’t pull his punches.

I will reiterate again (for all the good it seems to do) that this essay, like his others, is descriptive; it is not normative. We have become so bullied by the censorious politically correct language police that we are no longer able to differentiate between the two kinds of rhetoric. Like children, we conflate description with reality, as if by imagining what might occur, we magically make it happen by speaking.

That kind of thinking is regessive to an earlier period of human development when words had magic and could cause events all by themselves.

To the grown-ups: enjoy!

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Introduction
Being of a sinister disposition, I have continued to ruminate upon the likely course of events as relations between European countries and their Muslim fifth columns unravel. In particular, I would like to focus on the probable nature of attempts on the part of native populations to bring about what is euphemistically referred to as the repatriation of their Muslim populations.

To recap briefly, in ‘Surrender, Genocide or What?’ (hereafter referred to as SGW), I suggested that there were three basic ways in which the number of Muslims in any given European country could, in principle, be reduced:

• through pressuring them, in whatever fashion, to decide to relocate (Option 1);
• through deporting them (Option 2); and,
• through large-scale violence which, taken to an extreme, would constitute genocide (Option 3).

I further suggested that certain dynamics long at work in the countries in question had already significantly reduced the likelihood of being able to deal with the problem of Islam through Options 1 and 2 alone. In short, I saw a clear progression of violence and unpleasantness from Option 1 to Option 2 to Option 3, a slippery slope from one to the next, down which European natives were destined to slide, like it or not, as they fought back against Islam and the entire process of Islamization.

The above notwithstanding, it occurs to me of late that these three options may not in fact mark out a linear progression on the road from less to more ruthless de-Islamization tactics. Rather, they can better be considered to represent the three corners of an equilateral triangle, within which a given set of policies can be represented by a point, and each option a corner.

The proximity of the point to each corner indicates the fraction of the relevant option in a given set of responses. If we assume that European peoples start their de-Islamization efforts at a point very close to the corner representing Option 1, then it is far from clear that the course taken by that point as the situation disintegrates need veer off towards Option 2 before heading for Option 3. Indeed, there is no reason in principle why de-Islamization efforts cannot move directly from Option 1 towards Option 3, skirting widely around Option 2. In this essay, I will argue that this is, in fact, what is likely to happen.

As a preliminary to this discussion, I will consider in more detail what it would mean to implement Option 1, especially in light of recent developments in Europe. I will then reexamine certain issues I first brought up in SGW to explain why I am now convinced that Option 2 will never play a central role in de-Islamization efforts. Finally, I will consider what an escalation of the conflict between natives and Muslims in Europe would consist of in the absence of Option 2, how it might come to pass that Option 3 would be gradually incorporated into de-Islamization efforts, and how Option 3 might eventually render itself unnecessary.
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Towards Option 1
It is heartening to observe that politically-aware people in European nations are waking up, however slowly, to the catastrophe that Muslim immigration is busy shaping for them. As a direct consequence of this awakening there are prominent political figures in at least some European countries who have started to advocate what would be considered, in my scheme, Option 1, mixed with small amounts of Option 2. The most illustrative example is to be found in the Netherlands.

I consider the Dutch instance to be the purest, and conceptually the neatest, example of a move towards Option 1 and what may lie beyond it. The situation in the Netherlands possesses certain characteristics that allow for clarity and greatly sharpen our understanding of what is happening. In Geert Wilders it has as its figurehead a charismatic and striking politician with an incisive and unapologetic approach to divisive issues. Support for his party, the Freedom Party, has been growing rapidly, and has already reached a level which would make it the largest in the Dutch Parliament if elections were to be held today. Furthermore, Wilders has been extremely successful in building up a strong international profile in recent months, with a little help from the witless fools in the British Home Office.

Needless to say, it is hardly a certainty that Wilders will be Prime Minister any time soon, and far from clear that any coalition government he might be able to form in the future would actually afford him the freedom of manoeuvre he would presumably desire. However, there is clearly a considerable degree of momentum being established in the Netherlands with respect to the incorporation into government policy of many of the key ideas of those who are serious about opposing Islamization.

I will be more specific. In an April 2009 speech given in Florida, Wilders listed a number of measures that he felt should be introduced to oppose and reverse the Islamization of European countries. They included the following:

• Official recognition of Islam as a political ideology, not a religion, and the concomitant removal of all protections afforded it as a religion.
• The immediate cessation of all Muslim immigration.
• The encouraging of voluntary repatriation.
• The expulsion of foreign criminals, including Dutch citizens with dual nationality.
• The cessation of new mosque-building.
• The closing down of mosques in which incitement to violence has taken place.
• The closing down of Muslim schools.

Were such a program actually to be implemented, it is fairly clear that the Netherlands would have heartily adopted Option 1, supplemented with Option 2. What this means is that one of the European countries worst afflicted by the cancer of Islam is already at a point where the debate on what would constitute a genuinely effective response to Islam is moving into the political mainstream, pushed by a political party whose popularity is fast increasing and likely to increase a good deal more. Indeed, it is not inconceivable that within the next few years the Netherlands could be attempting to implement at least some elements of the first de-Islamization program in modern European history.

This is where we currently stand. Personally, I am both surprised and delighted that the situation vis-à-vis Islam is unraveling so quickly, in the Netherlands and elsewhere. I am also extremely heartened to note that a certain phenomenon that I wrote about in my essay, Pick a Tribe, Any Tribe, (Parts 1 and 2) is also starting to become visible in the Netherlands, to wit, the reemergence of tribalism in policy proposals. More specifically, I refer to Wilders’ suggestion that criminal immigrants should be deported. If my interpretation of this proposal is correct, then its importance cannot be overstated. Superficially nothing more than a robust response to imported violence and dysfunctionality, it in fact constitutes nothing less than a fundamental redefinition of what it means to be Dutch.

If a second-generation Moroccan living in the Netherlands could be deported upon obtaining a criminal record and an equally criminal native Dutch person could not, then the Netherlands would already have become a two-tier society, in which native Dutch people had legal rights that immigrants, of whatever generation, did not. Non-native Dutch people would know that their time in the Netherlands was something that could be brought to a halt at any time if they strayed too far beyond the law, provided they had dual citizenship or originated from a country that granted the right of return to anyone who could trace their roots to it.

When the members of a group can have their citizenship revoked, their citizenship has, in a sense, already been revoked. That is, they exist in a different legal category to that of the majority population of the country in question. This is a big step. Though Wilders has yet to formulate it in these terms, there appears to be a nativism, that is to say a tribalism, in his proposals that can only continue to reemerge throughout Europe in response to the threat of Islam.

Option 2 Denied?
Having now reminded readers of the details of Option 1, I must also remind them that, in SGW, I concluded that Option 1 would almost certainly be incapable of de-Islamizing a country. I do not plan to revisit that argument here; rather, I will simply assume that Option 1 has now been implemented in a hypothetical country without either breaking the will of the Muslim population or inducing a non-electoral discontinuity.

Now I will explore the question of what comes next, by returning to part of the discussion in SGW, which focused on the difficulties involved in deporting large numbers of Muslims from European countries, i.e., the problems inherent in the implementation of Option 2.

It needs to be stated in no uncertain terms that there is no point in attempting to implement Option 2 if in doing so, one collapses an electoral discontinuity into a non-electoral discontinuity. At that point Option 2 would no longer exist in any meaningful sense. Beyond a non-electoral discontinuity, there are very few ‘options’ at all in the sense that we would normally understand the term. Avoiding non-electoral discontinuity should therefore be a key objective of those who seek to de-Islamize their countries with as little human suffering as possible. Sadly, it seems clear that if the Muslim population of a given country increased so greatly that natives begin considering the draconian de-Islamization efforts which make up Option 2, then it will be sufficiently large to collapse any electoral discontinuity into a non-electoral discontinuity if it so desires. As I put it in SGW:

I am aware of no examples of large-scale deportations being carried out by aircraft, which they would have to be in this case. […] [I]t must be observed that air travel is the most infrastructurally fragile of all modes of transportation, and completely reliant on the goodwill and cooperation of people at the destination. A functioning government might be able to organize and carry out mass deportations via airline, but would surely be forced to preemptively intern the target population, and the notion that such populations in Europe would allow themselves to be peacefully interned strains credulity to breaking point and beyond. If this is true now, how much truer would it be in five or ten years time? Even the merest suggestion of implementing such a plan would surely collapse an electoral discontinuity into a non-electoral discontinuity for reasons already discussed.

Even if we ignore the vexing question of how Option 2 could be ordered, let alone implemented, without hurling a country into a non-electoral discontinuity, we need to ask a few questions about its utility in comparison with other options, which, as I suggested above, now seem to me to be slightly broader than I had suggested originally in SGW. So let us suspend our disbelief for a moment. Imagine that a hypothetical Wilders government announces that most Muslims and people of Muslim heritage are to be deported from the Netherlands, without the country descending directly into chaos. In this case, we could say with some confidence that many, if not all, of the following consequences would be observed:

1) International Condemnation
The degree, type, and consequences of international condemnation experienced by a Netherlands announcing the deportation of its Muslim population would depend very heavily on the extent to which other European countries were involved in similar activities at the same time. For this reason, it is difficult to even begin to make any predictions as to what the details of the broader international response might be. However, we can reasonably predict that in the absence of a Europe-wide breakdown in relations between Muslims and their host societies, the Netherlands would very quickly become an international pariah state. International organizations such as the UN and EU could well expel it; at least some other European/Western countries would condemn it; the OIC and member states would call for military intervention (presumably by the US!). Many third-party countries without any obvious stake in the struggle would also join in the chorus of disapproval. None of these developments would necessarily prove fatal to Dutch de-Islamization efforts; perhaps not even all of them together could do so. However, the external attacks would be a thorn in the side of those defending the Netherlands from Islam.

2) Severing of Diplomatic Ties and Trade Links
Closely related to the previous concern, this would likely cause greater difficulty for our hypothetical Wilders government. The welfare of Dutch citizens in Muslim countries would be a key concern, and a preemptive withdrawal of diplomatic personnel from the Muslim world would probably be prudent. More problematic still would be the cessation of trade with the Muslim world, which could have an impact not only on Dutch exports, but on supplies of oil and gas. It is also possible that other countries would boycott Dutch produce and refuse to sell their own exports to Dutch companies and consumers.

3) Refusal of Airlines
Given the likelihood of Muslims in the Muslim world deciding that the continued presence of large numbers of their co-religionists in European countries was beneficial, it is quite possible that they would simply refuse to cooperate with any efforts on the part of those countries to deport said Muslims. It would surely be a relatively trivial matter for Morocco to close its airspace to any European airline or aircraft that were participating in the mass deportations of Moroccans from the Netherlands. If formal channels for deportation were to close, it is very difficult to see how Option 2 could proceed at all. Of course, if the Netherlands were to simply start brutalizing its Moroccan population, the attitude of the Moroccan government could change overnight as it realized that maintaining political leverage in the Netherlands through the Moroccan population there was of only secondary importance relative to preventing them from being slaughtered. But here we would already have blundered into Option 3, which is precisely what we are trying to avoid, thus rendering Option 2 irrelevant and/or impossible in any case.

4) Surge in Terrorist Activity
Given the Muslim predilection for terrorism, it is very hard to imagine a scenario in which terrorist activity, successful or not, would not immediately spike as the Muslim population of the Netherlands learns that it is expected to surrender to the unpleasantness of Option 2. Even a single successful attack could, in such a context, result in a rapid escalation of counterattack after counterattack that would render the further implementation of any ordered set of policies impossible, with all that this impossibility implies.

5) Massive Riots
Needless to say, large-scale rioting and the aforementioned surge in terrorist activity constitute the most obvious ways in which an electoral discontinuity would collapse into a non-electoral discontinuity. Even ignoring this possibility the massive damage and destruction – physical, human, and political – caused by rioting is something that Wilders and those like him will be keen to avoid if at all possible. It is hard to see how large-scale and well-organized rioting across urban areas in the Netherlands could be avoided if a future Dutch government were to announce its intention to implement Option 2, and equally hard to see how such rioting could be brought under control once both sides understood that they were involved in an existential struggle.

In addition to these issues, I must reiterate that it is difficult to envisage a scenario in which attempts to implement Option 2 on any large scale did not collapse an electoral discontinuity into a non-electoral one, which would be the gravest problem of all. In addition, there is the more prosaic set of problems presented by the sheer cost and logistical difficulty of trying to deport hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, many of whom will undoubtedly not go quietly, from a given country by air. As such, I would suggest that it is unclear that any reasonable cost-benefit analysis could indicate that Option 2 were an efficient or effective way of de-Islamizing a country. However, the twin failures of Options 1 and 2 do not in fact mean that a downwards plunge into Option 3 is therefore inevitable. On the contrary, I suspect that something somewhat more refined, and considerably more devious, awaits us.

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Option 1 (Enhanced)
Let us assume once more that Option 1, laced with a small amount of Option 2 (hereafter referred to as Option 1 (Standard)), has now been implemented in some European country, as described above. While it has cut the growth rate of the Muslim population, nonetheless, this has largely failed to solve the problem of Islamization. Let us further assume that the country in question has not descended into anarchy, but that the predictable pushback on the part of Muslims has indeed transpired. Given the higher fertility rates of Muslims, it is clear that much would remain to be done. Here, I propose to consider how Option 1 ([Standard) might gradually be upgraded to Option 1 (Enhanced) by the people and government of a country eager to resolve its Muslim problem permanently.

As a preliminary, let it be said that domestic political and legal challenges to pushback against Islam will be ignored in these considerations since they are too difficult to predict and would be proved irrelevant if the country in question were on the verge of moving beyond Option 1 (Standard).

I have not yet explained what Option 1 (Enhanced) is, so let me do so here: it consists of using far more inconsiderate and uncivilized means to tighten the squeeze on Muslims, including means that are well beyond the pale at present in any polite discussion of the problems resulting from Islamization. Not famed for my politeness, I will suggest that these means would include but not be limited to the following, in order of increasing divergence from the prevailing ideas of what is acceptable in a civilized society:

Draconian Legislation Banning the Hiring of Illegal Immigrants
Hiring illegal immigrants should already be illegal, but introducing and enforcing more draconian legislation aimed at employers who ignore the status of illegal immigrants could have great utility in getting rid of the large numbers of illegal immigrants, many of whom are Muslims. In the UK, there are estimated to be somewhere in the region of 750,000 illegal immigrants. Though hard data is difficult to come by, these illegals are often said to originate in Muslim or predominantly Muslim countries, such as Somalia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Clamping down on illegal immigrants in this fashion would be one of the easiest and politically painless ways of putting the squeeze on Islamisation. Alternatively, a clampdown on illegal immigrants could be announced, with enforcement efforts focusing overwhelmingly on Muslim illegal immigrants to get the message across implicitly.

Reduced Access to Public Services and Quality of Public Infrastructure
This is something that would have to be done gradually to avoid the possibility of being pulled into a non-electoral discontinuity. To understand it, consider the infrastructural elements on which our quality of life so heavily depends: transportation (roads, buses, trams, trains), sanitation (sewers, water supply, garbage removal), communication (mobile phone networks, terrestrial phone networks, broadband connections, mail delivery), health (doctors’ surgeries, hospitals), law enforcement (police patrols, emergency services, arrest and incarceration of criminals), and public support (housing benefit, unemployment benefit). These disparate fibres, which together constitute much of the weave of a modern state, would provide a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities to a government wishing to squeeze Muslims out of its country. Some can simply be denied at the source, such as welfare benefits. Some can be downgraded piecemeal, such as bus and tram services. Others can gradually be observed to disintegrate or suffer from inexplicable problems, as phone lines go dead, garbage removal grinds to a halt, and the local clinic closes for ‘lack of funds.’ Imaginative readers can no doubt offer their own suggestions in this regard.

Refusal of Re-Entry for Muslims
Ignoring the multitude of legal barriers that exist at present, it should be possible in principle to devise a system whereby certain types of immigrants can simply be kept out of the country should they ever leave. One of the ways in which the Americans tightened relevant aspects of their security post-9/11 was to implement pre-flight checking of the personal details of would-be entrants to the US. Anyone not providing their details or providing details that flag them as undesirable is refused boarding at the departure point of their inbound journey. This and other approaches could surely be adapted to the purposes of European countries eager to prevent Muslims from re-entering their countries should they ever leave. Note that the objective of such a measure would not be to spring a surprise on Muslims trying to board aircraft back to Europe in their countries of origin. Rather, it would be to lay down a choice to Muslims still in European countries: either accept that you can never return to your home country, ever, for any reason, or make the decision to go back there now for good. Those Muslims in Europe with strong family and other emotional ties to their home countries would surely feel great pressure as a consequence of such policies.

Assiduous Deportation of Muslim Criminals
Of course, some Muslim criminals are already deported from European countries. Here, however, I refer to the deportation of anyone of Muslim heritage, citizen of their host country or no. It would need to be decided which crimes warranted deportation, and which groups could have their members deported should those members be so foolish as to be convicted of breaking the relevant laws. Once these decisions had been made, however, a significant fraction of the young, male Muslim population of any European country would fairly shortly be available for deportation, especially if relevant new legislation were to be applied retroactively. The ability to break up families and generally destroy the confidence of Muslims in their status in European countries would be at least as significant as the actual deportations. Additionally, the Muslim unrest that would undoubtedly result from any such large-scale deportations would provide a fresh stream of ‘volunteers’ to be deported, making it a potentially very potent weapon in the hands of committed de-Islamizers.

Violent Attacks by Non-State Actors
Just as the previous option essentially introduces elements of Option 2 into Option 1, deporting Muslim criminals would do the same, but with elements of Option 3. It does not require a great degree of foresight to see that ever more organized forms of violence may well come to be used by Muslims and natives against each other as the tensions between them increase. However, in the context of the ever-tightening squeeze that is Option 1 (Enhanced), such violence, directed at Muslim populations throughout a given country, would also constitute a fairly obvious squeeze factor. This will not be lost upon those non-state groups interested in seeing the influence of Islam in their countries undergo a steep decline. The possibility of elements in the police and/or intelligence services providing equipment, training, or intelligence to these groups is an intriguing one. That said, however, this course of action differs from the other four in that it is not undertaken by the apparatus of state, and is therefore part of Option 1 (Enhanced). That is, it would be more likely to occur after the situation has degenerated far enough to make this option viable, but not in the sense that it is something that the authorities would intentionally or overtly implement. To be completely clear, Option 1 (Enhanced) does not include the possibility of the government of a country engaging directly in large-scale, lethal violence against Muslim populations. It is very hard to see what advantage this would have, politically speaking, over arming and turning a blind eye to informal militias. As such, I dismiss it here and do not propose to analyze it further in this context.

Having introduced the most obvious ways in which Option 1 (Standard) could be upgraded to Option 1 (Enhanced), it is necessary to point out those elements that are likely to make the latter a more attractive option than Option 2 for the purposes of de-Islamization. These are several: its diffuse nature, its deniability, and its incrementality. I will touch upon each of these in turn.

Diffuse Nature
Opposition to a given political scheme of whatever sort will always be easier to organize if the scheme itself is clear-cut, easy to identify, and easy to analyze. Option 1 (Enhanced), coming as it would on top of Option 1 (Standard), would consist of a large number of different initiatives whose variety would make it difficult for opponents to organize any coherent response. Furthermore, there is no need for decision-makers to present these initiatives as being a unified suite of policies. At least some aspects of Option 1 (Enhanced) would be introduced with virtually no public discussion at all. The potential exists to imbue large chunks of Option 1 (Enhanced) with, shall we say, a reduced radar signature, making them difficult targets for those who oppose these strategies.

Deniability
Deniability is related to and, at least in part, stems from the diffuse nature of Option 1 (Enhanced) as outlined above. How troubling that Muslim areas should find their electricity supply cutting out in the middle of the day for no discernible reason! How irksome that the perpetrators of mosque bombings and arson attacks should prove so difficult to bring to justice! What a coincidence that all the illegal immigrants being arrested and deported by immigration authorities should happen to be Muslims! And what a shame that it should be necessary to deport thousands of young Muslim criminals, thus breaking up family ties. However, we must have law and order, we simply must. Option 1 (Enhanced) could, not completely but substantially, be presented as something other than what it actually is. Of course, no one with any spare brain capacity at all will be fooled by this smokescreen should Option 1 (Enhanced) ever come to be implemented in any European country. But sometimes keeping up appearances is a good tactic to employ against the aggrieved.

Incrementality
Most importantly of all, Option 1 (Enhanced) has the advantage of incrementality, which is to say that the degree of pressure exerted on Muslims can be varied arbitrarily to take any value at all. This is in stark contrast with Option 2, which would represent such a massive rupture with the past that it would almost certainly break a country in two, or, to rephrase, result in a non-electoral discontinuity. To demonstrate the point, let us contrast moderate and draconian implementations of Option 1 (Enhanced), in the context of the UK.

In the moderate implementation: 1) those hiring illegal immigrants would be punishable by a fine of up to £5,000; 2) road maintenance and street cleaning would be deprioritized in Muslim areas, and diversion of county and national tax revenues to make up for the weak tax base in these areas would cease; 3) Muslim residents of the UK without British citizenship would be refused re-entry to the UK if there were suspicion of their involvement in terrorist/jihadist activity; 4) authorities would turn a blind eye to attacks on mosques, or on Muslims in general; 5) anyone of Muslim heritage convicted of a violent or sexual crime would be deported, without the right of appeal, to their country of origin.

In the severe implementation: 1) those hiring illegal immigrants would be punishable by a fine of up to £100,000 and/or five years in prison; 2) Muslims would lose access to free healthcare and see welfare benefits cut in half, and Muslim areas would see garbage removal drop off to once a month, as electricity supply and mobile phone coverage were gradually cut back; 3) all Muslims not British citizens would be flatly denied entry/re-entry to the UK; 4) native militias would conduct mosque bombings, targeted killings, and arson attacks against Muslim targets throughout country, with police and intelligence services turning a blind eye, when not actively aiding and abetting; 5) anyone of Muslim heritage convicted of any crime at all would be deported, without the right of appeal, to their country of origin.

These two examples demonstrate the huge scope for squeezing Muslims within the confines of Option 1 (Enhanced). The ability to apply pressure gradually in this fashion, incrementally tightening the vise, would be one of the advantages of this option, which creates no sudden flashpoint likely to induce disintegration as per Option 2.

Of the five negative responses to Option 2 I listed above (international condemnation, severing of diplomatic ties and trade links, refusal of airlines, surge in terrorist activity, and massive riots) at least the first three could be forestalled, reduced, or delayed by progressing to Option 1 (Enhanced) rather than going to Option 2 should Option 1 (Standard) be tried and found wanting. This is no small advantage, especially given the greater likelihood of Option 2 inducing a non-electoral discontinuity.

From Option 1 to Option 3 and Back Again
It will not have escaped readers’ attention that Option 1 (Enhanced) starts off nasty and gets worse. Accordingly, it is unlikely to take place without considerable upheaval, and some of its measures and the aftermath of those measures may be better categorized under Option 3 rather than including them in any version of Option 1. Note that there is no point at which the former replaces the latter. Options 1, 2, and 3 are, after all, nothing more than a conceptual framework introduced to facilitate a more rigorous analysis of the constituent properties of de-Islamization. These are not an explicit menu of mutually exclusive options that would be individually chosen in any conscious fashion.

There is a point beyond which any analytical framework contrived to deal with subject matter as complex as the de-Islamization of Europe will break down, and ad hoc argument becomes as effective as more rigorous alternatives.

The framework I have established here has now reached that point. Thus, I will make the observation hinted at already i.e., all de-Islamization measures undertaken under Options 2 and 3 could also be considered to fall under Option 1. If two thousand unfortunate Muslims were to be killed in Birmingham, would that not induce many others to consider booking flights back to Islamabad, Dhaka, or Mogadishu? If this is the case, then how can Option 1 and Option 3 be considered discrete, separate alternatives?

This is not a paradox I want to resolve here. Rather, I will suggest that if discontinuity is reached while European natives are still majorities in their own countries, any large-scale violent conflict between Muslims and those natives will quickly work to the advantage of the latter. Any violence that could be categorized as Option 3 (under my existing taxonomy of de-Islamization) combined with the other provisions of Option 1 that would already be in place, would have such a drastic effect on Muslim populations that de-Islamization could be completed almost entirely within the confines of Option 1.

It is hard to envisage de-Islamization taking place without at least some outbreaks of mob violence and the temporary breakdown of law and order across swathes of urban Europe. Some countries may well see the formation of armed militias and concomitant eruptions of more systematic and lethal violence aimed at entire communities. But it is hard to believe that such violence, backed up as it would be by elements of the apparatus of state, would not constitute the most effective squeeze factor imaginable for an Option 1 (Enhanced). In addition, this efficacy would surely (and hopefully) mean that very little application would be necessary.

Given these factors, here is my final prediction: European countries seeking to de-Islamize will move into Option 1 (Standard), supplemented as described above by small amounts of Option 2. As this proves insufficient (which it will) these tactics will segue into Option 1 (Enhanced). In some countries more and more Option 3-type violence will be incorporated. After a period of unspecified time, the will of the Muslim population of the country under consideration will be broken, and decreased resistance from that Muslim population will allow a successful end to de-Islamization through a reversion to Option 1 (Enhanced). There will be no need of a further application of violent tactics.

Of course, this assumes that the spine of the state itself is not broken by the discontinuities a country has to pass through to get to this point, and that the government maintains a strong grip, though not a monopoly, on the use of violence within the country’s borders. If the state does not maintain its firm hold then all bets are off, and unhappy times lie ahead for everyone.

How anyone ever gets addicted to pain medication is beyond me. This stuff is awful. But the cracked ribs are worse, so for the nonce, blogging will be random and raggedy, not to mention sparse. I spent a few hours today studying the Tamil situatioin in Sri Lanka, but my mind is on drugs. A mind on drugs doesn’t do paragraphs very well.

For today’s news, hat tips are due for the Frozen North, JD, and Insubria…

Since it is Constitution Day, we have news of Norway. And Italy is on the list because of the brouhaha it is causing by refusing to be overrun by illegal immigrants. They’ve set up a deal with Libya about asylum seekers.

There is also some Canadian nanny state news, and another story about Canada getting tough with the EU.

The BNP is set to strike, and the US Republican party is toast for the next “40 years”. Guess they’ll need a Moses to lead them on that meander through the political desert.

The swine flu waxes and wanes, and Catholics like Obama even with his abortion views.

Hezbollah is getting set for a visit in Moscow. Somehow those two make a nice couple.
– – – – – – – – –
Security police intervene against fundamentalists

The security branch of the Norwegian police (PST) say they have uncovered plans for terrorist attacks against targets in Norway, and that they have intervened against 25 Muslim fundamentalists that they believe planned terrorist acts against Norway and other nations.

– I can truly say that we have on several occasions sent persons out of the country who were about to do things that could have turned out to be very serious, says PST chief Joern Holme to NRK.

He says that they have also interviewed several persons who have been stopped and warned by the PST.

– We have said that we do not accept that they continue their activities in their extreme, violent circles, Holme says.

– It is important for us to prevent Norwegian youth from going on so-called Jihad-travels, which could mean that one carries out terrorist acts, and is willing to offer one’s own life in terrorist acts, says Holme.

Holme says to NRK that he is talking about Norwegian as well as foreign citizens.

According to NRK, of the 25 persons young men referred to earlier in the story, none of them are of ethnic Norwegian background.

No ethnic Norwegians? Well, maybe Mr. Butt’s friends are in on this? Oh…of course not. As he says, Muslims don’t promote terrorism.

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The Oslo Jewish cemetery vandalised

The old cemetery of the Mosaic Religious Community in Oslo has been vandalised. Several gravestones have been defaced with Nazi symbols. The vandalism has been reported to the police.

The vandalism was discovered Thursday afternoon. On one gravestone was written: “Krigen er ikke over” (The war is not over).

The old Jewish cemetery in Oslo was established in 1869. It is now a heritage site.

More non-ethnic Norwegian activity.

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Believers in the Norse gods get their own graveyard

The religious fellowship that worship the old

Norse gods, the Aasatrufellowship Bifrost, will soon have their own burial place in Oslo. This has been approved by the authorities, according to Aftenposten.

The new grave site will be shaped like the outline of a ship, and may only be used for cinerary urns, the newspaper writes.

According to their home page, the asatrufellowship Bifrost is a religious fellowship for modern asatru founded on Norse custom, the pre-Christian religious traditions. Since 1996 the Bifrost fellowship has been an officially recognised religion by Norwegian authorities.

It goes on to say that “Our goal is to gather those who want to worship the old Norse gods and keep the old traditions alive. We want to create a living forum for everybody interested in asatru and to increase the understanding of art, culture and traditions with roots in the pre-Christian time. We want to take care of the heathen cultural heritage and keep it alive and updated through practice based in the study of sources and innovation in the heathen understanding of history, myths and the forces.”

Heathens? Those who lived on the heath, then? The good thing about this is that it is based on a people’s history and traditions.

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Woman cuffed for not holding escalator handrail

Anyone who has ridden an escalator and bothered to pay attention has seen – and likely ignored – little signs suggesting riders hold the grimy handrail.

In Montreal’s subway system, the friendly advice seems to have taken on the force of law, backed by a $100 fine.

Bela Kosoian, a 38-year-old mother of two, says when she didn’t hold the handrail Wednesday she was cuffed, dragged into a small holding cell and fined.

“It was horrible, disgusting behaviour [by police],” said Ms. Kosoian, a 38-year-old student of international law. “I did nothing wrong. They should go find the guys who stole my tires off the balcony.”

Ms. Kosoian, who studies at the Université du Québec à Montreal, was riding an escalator down to catch a 5:30 p.m. subway from the suburb of Laval to an evening class downtown when she started rifling through her backpack looking for a fare.

Ms. Kosoian, who grew up in Georgia when it was still part of the Soviet Union, says she didn’t catch the officer’s instruction to hold the rail when he first approached.

When he told her again to hang on, she says she replied, “I don’t have three hands.” Besides, she had been sick and feared catching a new bug.

That’s when the officer demanded identification so he could write her ticket, she said.

Ms. Kosoian started arguing. The officers handcuffed her and threw her into a small holding cell. The officers searched her bag and gave her a $100 ticket for failing to hold the banister and another $320 ticket for obstruction.

The handcuffs bruised Ms. Kosoian’s wrists and an officer’s boot scraped skin off the top of her foot.

She intends to fight the tickets.

Société de transport de Montréal regulations say “it is forbidden for all persons to disobey a directive or a pictogram posted by the Société.”

Hmmm…seems like the Nanny State can easily morph into the Mean Daddy state. Just ask Mark Steyn.

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Catholic community in schism on Obama presidency

Notre Dame is a Catholic university, and Mr. Obama supports a woman’s right to an abortion. As well, he lifted the ban on research using embryonic stem cells. At least five dozen bishops from across the United States have condemned the university for inviting such a man.

A recent poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed that 54 per cent of Catholics thought it was right of the university to invite Mr. Obama and confer the degree, while 38 per cent thought it was wrong.

But among Catholics who attended church at least once a week, 45 opposed the invitation and only 37 per cent supported it.

“As a Catholic university, Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth,” local Bishop John D’Arcy wrote in an open letter, calling the decision to invite the President “shocking.” He and other clergy will be boycotting the service.

Yet Catholics voted for Mr. Obama over Republican challenger John McCain 54 per cent to 45 per cent.

And the Pew study showed 67 per cent of American Catholics approve of how Mr. Obama is doing his job, a level four percentage points higher than the general population.

The schism within the Catholic church contrasts with the unity of white evangelical Protestants, with those opposing letting Mr. Obama speak at Notre Dame outnumbering supporters two to one.

Schism? Hardly. In order to have a schism, you have to have more control over your adherents. This is just Catholic in-fighting. As for Notre Dame, a school that would invite Tariq Ramadan to teach there is not going to have a problem with a President who believes in partial birth abortions.

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Hands Off Our Arctic

In London, the lions of Trafalgar Square share space with the towering image of an Inuit woman and her child. In Paris, an inukshuk greets people leaving the Metro. In Oslo, Ottawa is opening an Arctic political office. And in Brussels, officials are fanning out to promote the image of a cold, northern Canada.

The Harper government has launched an aggressive campaign across Europe to brand Canada as an “Arctic power” and the owner of a third of the contested land and resources of the Far North. Ministers and ambassadors have been instructed to deliver a strong message, through every channel available: Canada owns it; hands off.

This new assertiveness has caught European and Russian officials off guard as Ottawa pushes to fend off attempts by other northern powers and the European Union to claim stakes in the Northwest Passage and the open seas of the High Arctic.

While this involves hard diplomacy, such as Canada’s leading role in a move to exclude the EU from sitting on the Arctic Council, Mr. Harper’s officials have also ordered embassies abroad to mobilize their cultural resources to deliver this policy message, to create a visual image of a fully Arctic Canada.

The stakes are high. Yesterday, Russia released a report arguing that Arctic resources could spark military confrontations, and Canada recently released a major atlas of the Arctic, the result of research intended to back claims of Arctic land ownership under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“Canada is an Arctic nation and an Arctic power,” Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon told European leaders in Tromso, Norway, at the end of April, while directing his diplomats to adopt an assertive new language around Canada’s Arctic possessions. Under his instructions, the new phrase “Arctic power” has begun appearing in communiqués and speeches.

The message for Europe’s leaders and citizens is simple and abrupt: The Arctic is not up for grabs. “Through our robust Arctic foreign policy,” Mr. Cannon said, “we are affirming our leadership, stewardship and ownership in the region.”

The word ownership is key. As Arctic jurisdictional disputes make their way through the United Nations, Ottawa wants to assert its claim to be owner of a third of Arctic land, ice and water, as well as any oil and minerals that happen to lie below.

That is by no means a settled matter. The European Parliament recently stated that it is interested in an international treaty on the Arctic, like the one that governs the Antarctic. The United States and Europe both dispute Canada’s claim that the Northwest Passage is purely in Canadian territory. France now has a polar ambassador, former prime minister Michel Rocard, even though France’s northernmost point is 1,500 kilometres from the Arctic Circle.

And Canadian officials believe that Europeans are hearing a far stronger message from Russia, which has aggressively industrialized and militarized the Far North and claims ownership of the North Pole, than they are from Canada.

Mr. Cannon led the fight to deflect the EU’s attempt to become a “permanent observer” on the Arctic Council, which includes the eight Arctic nations: Canada, the United States, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia. While Europe’s ban on Canadian seal exports was the excuse, officials said there are worries that the 27-nation EU will try to interfere with agreements among the Arctic nations.

Ottawa is also about to open a Canadian International Centre for the Arctic Region in Oslo. This will be an overtly political institution, designed to counter the messages being sent by Europe and Russia. Mr. Cannon announced that the centre, which will also play a research role, will primarily serve to “promote Canadian interests” and “influence key partners” on Arctic-sovereignty issues.

Now this will be fun. I love it when the Canadians stand up for themselves.

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Nigerian militants destroy oil pipelines

Nigeria’s main militant group said Sunday it destroyed two oil pipelines in the southern Niger Delta, the latest attack amid the worst outbreak of violence to hit the region in months.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta gave no further details on the attack. A private security official, however, said attackers threw dynamite and fired early Sunday upon an oil installation run by Royal Dutch Shell’s local joint venture.

A Shell spokeswoman had no comment on the attack. The security official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The militants also said two Filipino sailors kidnapped from an oil industry service boat died when the Nigerian military attacked its camp Friday where 15 Filipino sailors were being held.

The military earlier said it had rescued six Filipino hostages and recovered their oil boat in its attack on the camp run by militant leader Government Tompolo.

There was no word on the fate of other Filipino hostages.

The Nigerian military sent helicopter gunships and gunboats against the camp after militant fighters had clashed earlier in the week with security personnel and hijacked the oil boat carrying the Filipinos.

The violence was the worst since September, when militants destroyed several oil pipelines after clashes with government forces.

Many militant camps from various factions dot the creeks and swamps of the Niger Delta, where crude oil is pumped in Africa’s biggest producer. Militants say they’re fighting to force the federal government to send more oil revenues back to the southern oil region, which remains desperately poor despite six decades of oil production.

The government says the militants are mostly interested in stealing oil.

After years of militant activity and lack of maintenance on crucial oil infrastructure, Nigeria produces about 1.6 million barrels of crude a day, or about one quarter less than its stated capacity.

This is probably America’s fault. Everything else is. Or maybe Dutch Shell is to blame. At any rate, the Nigerians are obviously blameless for the ruin of their petroleum infrastructure. Just ask them.

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Italy’s Immigration Bill

The government’s new security bill cleared parliament’s Lower House on Thursday and headed for the Senate but criticism from the center-left opposition, the Church and even groups like Amnesty International showed no signs of subsiding.

The bill, among other things, makes illegal immigration a criminal offense, extends to six months the period immigrants and would-be asylum seekers can be kept in detention centers, authorises civilian patrols – which critics have likened to vigilante groups – and sets a maximum three-year jail term for landlords who rent to illegal aliens.

‘‘This law was absolutely necessary and I believe we needed to tackle these questions using common sense and a sense of justice as well as with determination,’’ Premier Silvio Berlusconi said after the final House vote.

‘‘We couldn’t carry on with a situation created by the Left that offered incentives for illegal immigration. It was important to send a strong signal,’’ he added.

‘‘By approving this security bill we also sent a message to organized crime saying we cannot accept immigrants who have no skills or talents to enter our labor market and thus end up filling the ranks of organised crime,’’ Berlusconi observed.

The premier also said that he knew of no criticism from the Catholic Church or the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) to his policies The CEI on Wednesday, after the government pushed through the bill three major amendments by confidence vote, complained that the bill failed to address the integration of foreigners and risked separating the children of illegal immigrants from their parents.

The passage of the bill was hailed by the Northern League party of Interior Minister Roberto Maroni which had made limiting immigration one of its battle cries.

[…]

A Catholic association dedicated to helping immigrants and the homeless, CNCA, observed that should the measure be passed by the Senate without modification, ‘‘it will be remembered as one of the most shameful bills ever passed in our country’’.

The bill, CNCA added, ‘‘violated several international treaties, the spirit of our own Constitution and basic ethical principles which we thought we all shared’’.

‘‘With this bill the government in one move has succeeded in pitting us against the United Nations, sparking outrage in the international community and provoking repeated condemnation from authorities in the Catholic Church. But much worse it has fueled the fire of fear and rage,’’ CNCA said.

A statement from the Italian branch of Amnesty international said that ‘‘what we are witnessing in Italy is a progressive erosion of the respect of human rights for groups which are already vulnerable like migrants, minorities and those seeking asylum’’.

Well, if Amnesty international is involved, you know the Italians must be heartless villains for wanting to maintain their sovereignty. The very idea!

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Meanwhile…

Ambassador takes patrol boats, rebuts UN criticism

Libya can process requests from asylum seekers who might otherwise have presented them in Italy, Libyan ambassador Hafid Gaddur said Thursday.

‘‘The asylum requests can be assessed in Libya, we already host many political refugees from many countries,’’ Gaddur said at a ceremony where Italy handed over the first three of six patrol boats to be used to stop boat people setting off from the north African country.

‘‘Libya is a country which hosts two million undocumented immigrants. Anyone who wants to, can stay with us and may do so in peace unless they commit a crime’’.

‘‘Libya has always hosted people who have had problems in their countries of origin and will continue to do so’’.

Asked whether Tripoli would sign up for the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, Gaddur replied: ‘‘We are evaluating it’’.

He also said that all the world’s countries have embassies in Libya and there is also a United Nations bureau.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR has criticised Italy’s new policy of taking rescued sea migrants back to Libya, saying it is against international law and criticising Libya’s alleged lack of facilities and its failure to sign up to the convention.

Asked whether he thought the so-called ‘push-back’ policy would continue, the ambassador said: ‘‘We have an accord with Italy, signed on December 29 2007 with a centre-left government and we are applying it with a centre-right government’’.

Since last Friday Italy has turned back more than 500 migrants despite criticism from the UN, the Catholic Church and humanitarian organisations.

The three boats, belonging to Italy’s Finance Guard, were handed over at a ceremony in this port between Rome and Naples which saw the participation of Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni and the commander of the Finance Guard, Cosimo D’Arrigo. The three boats, explained D’Arrigo, ‘‘will be used in joint patrols in Libyan territorial water and international waters in conjunction with Italian naval operations’’. ‘‘Members of the Libyan coast guard will also be stationed at our command station on the island of Lampedusa and will take part in patrols on our ships,’’ he added. The patrols, D’Arrigo said, ‘‘will be carried out based on standard operating procedure with priority given to the search and rescue of persons in distress at sea’’. A crew of 41 Libyan sailors have been training in Gaeta for the past two weeks on the three boats. Italy plans to give Libya another three boats in a few weeks’ time. The Finance Guard has sent a team of ten specialists to the Libyan coast guard base in Zuwarah, which will serve as the base of command on the Libyan side. The joint Italian-Libyan patrolling mission will last an initial three years.

Maroni said the European Union must step in and help member states which bear the brunt of illegal immigration in the Mediterranean.

‘‘Italy is a frontline state against illegal immigration and invests its own funds to protect other European countries but we want the EU to take decisions which it has so far avoided and help countries which face this problem,’’ he said. The minister said Italy was putting strong pressure on the EU to deal with the issue.

Don’t hold your breath on help from the EU, Mr. Maroni. They don’t believe in sovereignty, remember? No more countries now, just “regions”. Or there will be if they can get those pesky Irish to sign the Treaty and be done with it. On the other hand, it’s hard to see the benefit in this for Libya. Maybe it’s just one more Libyan Whim Theory operation.

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Hezbollah in Moscow if It Wins Election

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that he saw “no obstacle” to some Hezbollah members taking part in the Moscow peace conference on the Middle East, should the Shiite movement win the Lebanese election. The Itar-Tass press agency reports today. Lavrov had been taking questions from journalists on his return flight from the United States as to whether an Hezbollah victory in the June 7 elections would make preparation for the Middle East peace conference difficult. Hezbollah is currently the biggest minority party in the Lebanese parliament and part of the national unity government.

Hezbollah, you’ve come a long way, dudes. Only a few thousand bodies and a bajillion broken promises later, and here you are on your way to Moscow. You’ll definitely fit in.

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Democrats Will Dominate for 40 Years

James Carville, the man who masterminded Bill Clinton’s first election victory, has predicted the Democratic Party will dominate American politics for the next four decades due to “seismic shifts” in demographic voting patterns.

He said the party’s emphatic win last year demonstrated long lasting, built-in electoral advantages over the Republicans, who had made a huge mistake by retreating to their conservative base under George W Bush.

“Unless Republicans figure out how to deal with the new demographics in this country it’s going to be very, very tough going for them,” said Mr. Carville, the fast-talking Louisianan known as the “Ragin’ Cajun”.

“Republicans shouldn’t be worried. They should be in agony. They should be throwing up. The Republican brand is the worst political party brand in history.”

History, he argues, is on his side.

“There have been long periods where one party generally has the upper hand. You never win every election – the Democrats won’t win every election – but for 40 years the underlying dynamics in demographics stay with them,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

From 1896 to 1932 there was just one Democratic president and from 1932 to 1968 just one moderate Republican, Eisenhower. Since 1968 the Republicans have generally held sway, exploiting the backlash to the liberal society.

But in the first decades of the 21st century, young voters have swung heavily to the Democrats, a crucial advantage given that voting behaviour in the US is generally set when people are in their 20s.

Hispanics and blacks are growing as a percentage of the population, while white men and Christians, who have voted heavily Republican for the past 40 years, are declining.

“It’s the kind of seismic shift we have never seen before,” he said.

As an unashamedly partisan Democrat, Carville rejoices in Republican misfortune, but also claims that none of his high-powered Republican friends – congressmen, pollsters and columnists – disagree with his hypothesis.

The Republicans are a feckless bunch at this point, but the Democrats appear thuggish. And what with the Pelosi meltdown in Congress and the stimulus attack, the 2010 elections may prove interesting. You thought John Kerry was going to have an easy win, too, didn’t you, Mr. Carville? Let’s see what 2010 brings.

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BNP set to win seats as support surges

The British National Party is on course to make significant gains in the local elections in England in two weeks time, according to a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph today.

It shows that seven per cent of voters are ready to back the far-Right party and that 24 per cent have considered voting BNP in the past or are thinking of doing so now.

In the eyes of almost three-quarters of potential BNP supporters, Britain “almost seems like a foreign country”.

The poll underlines the recent warning from Margaret Hodge, the employment minister, that white working-class families felt so neglected by the Government and angered by immigration that they were deserting Labour and flocking to the BNP.

Mrs Hodge told The Sunday Telegraph that eight out of 10 white people in her east London constituency of Barking were threatening to vote for the BNP on May 4.

The surge in support for the BNP – which displaced the National Front as Britain’s main far-Right party in 1982 – could damage the Conservatives in the local elections, which will be David Cameron’s first electoral test since becoming Tory leader.

The poll suggests that the BNP draws its support more from the Conservatives than from Labour – and is gaining ground at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and UK Independence Party.

It confirms that Mr Cameron’s brief honeymoon with the voters is over. Labour remains in the lead despite the damage caused by the “loans for peerages” scandal and the financial crisis in the NHS. It is on 35 per cent (down one point since March), the Conservatives on 33 (down three) and the Liberal Democrats on 17 (down one).

A majority still believes that, despite having a new leader, the Conservatives have not changed all that much and even more reckon it is no longer very clear what the party stands for.

But the “loans for peerages” row has further damaged trust in Labour. Sixty two per cent of voters agree that it gives the impression of being “very sleazy and disreputable” – putting the party on a similar “sleaze” rating to John Major’s ill-fated Tory administration.

The strong showing for the BNP, which has already achieved more success than any other far-Right party, will alarm all the mainstream parties. At the general election last year, the BNP won 4.3 per cent of the vote across the 116 seats it contested. It polled 16.9 per cent in the Barking constituency.

The poll confirms the fears of Labour MPs that Mrs Hodge’s warning about the support for the BNP among white working-class voters has given the party a valuable boost. In recent months, almost no one had been telling YouGov they would vote BNP, but publicity following her comments has highlighted the party’s existence.

[…]

The BNP has said it is putting up more candidates than ever before – 356 – for the local elections. At present it has 15 councillors across England and hopes to win up to 40 seats on May 4.

Lord Tebbit, the former Conservative Party chairman, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, challenges the widely held view that the BNP is an extreme Right-wing party. He said that he was unable to find evidence of “Right-wing tendencies” in its 2005 manifesto.

I thought their domestic program was in support of a statist, welfare economy. But our Brit readers will chime in on this, I hope.

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Swine flu: 101 cases now confirmed in Britain

Six adults and eight children were among the latest cases in London, the south east, and the east of England, the Health Protection Agency said.

It brings the total number of confirmed cases in Britain to 101.

Two of the people had recently returned from Mexico, the source of the outbreak, while a further 11 had been in contact with patients already suffering from the virus.

How the final person contracted the disease is still under investigation, the HPA said.

The latest cases follow updated advice from the Foreign Office, telling British travellers that they should feel free to go to Mexico, following a fall in the number of new swine flu cases.

Holidaymakers and business travellers had, until Friday, been advised against all non-essential travel to the country.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “This change follows a decline in new cases of swine flu reported in Mexico since a peak on April 26 and takes into account information and advice from a variety of sources, including the UK Health Protection Agency.”

Tests on the virus have suggested that the strain is less virulent than first feared, and the World Health Organisation is not recommending any global travel restrictions.

In Mexico more than 60 people have died as a result of the H1N1 virus, with most cases reported in Mexico City.

Around the world, 39 countries have reported more than 8,400 cases of the infection.

This is a disease that won’t go away and won’t grow up. It’s been up-graded and down-graded several times now. Wash your hands, everybody, and forget that vacation in Mexico. If the germs don’t kill you, the drug lords will hold you for ransom.

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Swine flu has become deadly in New York City

The Queens assistant principal stricken with the now-deadly H1N1 virus succumbed to the illness late today, the first known fatality in the city from the disease, hospital officials said.

Mitchell Wiener, 55, died at 6:17 p.m., just hours after his family optimistically told The Post his condition had stabilized.

The somber news came as city officials ordered five more schools closed today in an attempt to stop the spread of the deadly virus – bringing the total number to 11 citywide that will be shuttered this week.

“We were treating him very aggressively,” said Flushing Hospital spokesman Ole Pedersen.

“He was in critical condition. His family was saying that he had not, in fact, deteriorated, which was true, but he was still extremely critical.”

Wiener is the sixth person in the US to die from the highly contagious disease.

The assistant principal at IS 238 in Jamaica Estates first fell ill more than a week ago, but didn’t seek help at the hospital until his symptoms became severe early Wednesday morning.

[…]

The additional schools ordered closed today, all in Queens, are IS 158Q in Bayside, Our Lady of Lourdes, a private parochial school in Queens Village, and IS 25Q, World Journalism Preparatory School and PS 233Q, all of which share the same Flushing campus.

“We think it will help stop transmissions throughout the city,” the mayor said today.

The decision to close the schools was made after high numbers of students at each building reported flu-like symptoms.

At IS 158Q, 41 students out of a total population of 1,127 reported the symptoms, the Health Department said. At the three- school IS 25Q complex, 27 felt sick out of a total of 825 students, and at Our Lady of Lourdes, 37 students were ill out of a total population of 424.

[…]

Health officials were at a loss to explain why the outbreaks have occurred overwhelmingly in Queens.

The mayor’s handling of the swine flu crisis drew criticism today from city comptroller Bill Thompson, who’s running for mayor.

“We went from ‘This is a crisis’ to ‘Don’t pay attention’ to ‘OK, it’s a crisis again,’ “ Thompson said.

Well, duh. That’s exactly what the rest of the world is doing, too.

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New England Journal of Medicine Swine Flu Map

This is a cool map. You can click on any country and see the incidence of the swine flu cases. You can also use a button on the bottom right to show the changes over time.

A couple of weeks ago, the Baron sent off a request to one of our volunteer translators to have her account in English of a news report from the Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet.

His email got misplaced but the translator found it today and went to work on the article. I just got the finished product a little while ago.

For all I know, the Baron gave up and got another translation, so this story could alredy have been posted. But even if this is a repeat,it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate moment: May 17th is Norwegian Constitution Day.

What better way to celebrate than to ponder the ideas of one Ghufoor Butt.

Ghufoor Butt (no, I’m not making that up) is forming the ILP, which he explains in this interview. What intrigues me about this man is his artlessness. I can’t think of a better word to describe his frank opinions and his fearlessness in uttering them. The man has chutzpah to spare.

He says:

The new party will prohibit homosexual practices and lower gasoline prices. “In about three years will the mayor of Oslo be a Norwegian-Pakistani,” says Ghufoor Butt.

One has to admire such stunningly misplaced confidence.

“If Norwegians had not drunk alcohol, had sex before marriage and eaten pork, they would have been the world’s best Muslims. They are honest, not criminals, and love peace,” said Ghufoor Butt .

Butt is the leader of the newly-established party, the Independent Labor Party (ILP), and the leading candidate for the party in this year’s parliamentary elections.

Right. Norwegians would make great Muslims. After all, they have that long tradition of arranged marriages and honor killings. Not to mention their well-known tribal internecine warfare.

What is this fellow drinking?
– – – – – – – – –

Independent Labor

Dagbladet: You are not afraid that people will mistake you with the Labor Party?

Butt: “No one has objected yet. We are a party for everyone that works, including immigrants. Therefore, we have an international name,” said Butt, who himself moved to Norway in 1974. He does not understand why some Norwegians feel threatened by Islam.

Maybe Fjordman could have a chat with him, get Mr. Butt up to speed on why “some Norwegians” feel threatened by Islam.

“That we do not have sex before marriage or drink alcohol is not a threat to Norway. Muslims love Norway, and many have switched their citizenship to be Norwegian. We are no threat,” says Butt.

No threat at all…except to young Norwegian women and Norwegian culture in general.

Bollywood Star

Today Butt is “world-famous” in the Norwegian-Pakistani community. He has played in twenty Pakistani films, is still a big name in Pakistan and was a well-known Pakistani political journalist. In Norway, he is best known for having a hunger strike against the high airline prices between Norway and Pakistan in 2006.

Today he runs, among other things, a movie store in Grønland [now an immigrant neighborhood in Oslo] that sells Bollywood movies. He also directs and produces films, the last, “Mukhtaran May”, he produced in 2002.

On April 28, Butt travels to Pakistan to launch the new Norwegian party.

“There I shall appear on two Pakistani TV channels, GEO and ARY, to talk about the new party,” says Butt.

Dagbladet: Isn’t it strange to launch a Norwegian party in Pakistan?

Butt: No. Most Norwegian-Pakistanis watch these two TV channels. So if we are to reach them, these are important channels,” says Butt.

Dagbladet: Are you betting only in Norwegian-Pakistani votes?

Butt: No. We have four Norwegian candidates and we would like also that ethnic Norwegians should vote for us..

No alcohol? Muslims’ treatment of women? This guy is sure an optimist. He’s also clueless. Someone give him a clue and a clue bag. Please…or maybe just hit him over the head with a pork chop.

Frp [Progress Party] for immigrants

In many ways, Butt’s new party is similar to the Progress Party. They want lower gasoline prices, the elimination of tolls, and impose lower taxes.

“We are one of the world’s richest countries. So, I do not understand how it is possible to have such expensive gasoline,” says Butt. He believes that the Progress Party has done little to achieve this.

“If they really fought for lower gasoline prices and for the removal of tolls, they would have had these by now. I promise to fight harder,” says Butt.

Fighting “harder” is not the same as fighting smarter and that’s seems to be Mr. Butt’s problem (not counting his name).

Will have open borders

Although Butt shares the Progress Party’s views on low gasoline prices and tolls, he has diametrically opposite views on the integration debate. The party wants to make family reunification easier, and will provide automatic Norwegian visas to anyone who marries a Norwegian citizen. They want to remove the requirement that one must earn over NOK 270,000 ($41,300) a year to bring a new spouse to the country.

“This is unfair to young Norwegian-Pakistani that are starting-up,” says Butt.

In addition, he wants to provide mandatory bilingual education to the six largest immigrant groups in Norway, and that all religious leaders such as imams and priests should receive state pay.

“When you see how little money many mosques have, it is necessary to help them pay for the imam,” says Butt.

Call Saudi Arabia, Mr. Butt. They will send you a few trunk loads of petrodollars. After all, that’s what they’ve done in your native country.

Would prohibit Muhammed drawings

The party is not as tolerant towards others. When it comes to the Muhammed-drawings and gays Butt replied, “cards and cash”

[Translator: I’m not sure what that idiom means — something like “with both barrels” maybe?].

Dagbladet:What are your views on the Muhammed caricatures?

Butt:”This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. We can not allow the mockery of religions, such as Muhammed-drawings,” says Butt.

Dagbladet:Should those that published the Muhammed-drawings in Norway be punished?

Butt: Yes, they must be punished.

Butt will also prohibit homosexual practice.

“It should not be lawful for gays to marry,” says Butt.

Monday Butt phoned back. He wanted to emphasize that homosexual practice is forbidden under Islam and that it is the religion that is against gay practice, not the party.

“We do not want to change Norwegian law,” says Butt.

What a wonderful example of taqiyya. “We don’t want to change Norwegian law, we just want to obliterate it and substitute sharia. So what’s the problem? Norwegians make great Muslims, right?”

American Osama bin Laden

The 63-year-old is critical of the U.S. war on terror, and put the question of Western media portrayals of Osama bin Laden.

“Who has served in the terror with Osama bin Laden? It is notMuslims. In Islam it is illegal to practice/work with terror,” says Butt. He believes the U.S. is behind most of the terror in the world.

“How is it possible that they have not managed to capture Osama bin Laden. Either he doesn’t exist, or he worked for the U.S. and lives there now,” says Butt.

If it is illegal for Muslims to be terrorists, then all those jihadists must be little twinkle fairies, phantasms made up by the Zionist press. Yeah, that’s it: jihadists are Jews in disguise, trying to make innocent Muslims look bad.

“The Jews were perhaps behind”

The Norwegian-Pakistani [Butt] is also skeptical of the official version of the terrorist attack September 11, 2001.

“Where were the Jews? And how many were killed? These are questions I think, today, that we do not have answers for,” said Butt, who believe the Israeli intelligence service Mossad may have been behind the attack.

“The United States has not answered the big questions. Who was behind the attack? There is also a big question how many Jews died? This we do not know today,” says Butt.

Dagbladet: Are you anti-semitic?

Butt: I have nothing against the Jewish people, but I believe it must be able to ask these questions.

Dagbladet: Many will interpret this as hatred against Jews.

Butt:It is not true. I am against what the Jewish people do to the Palestinians, but I am not against the Jewish people.

“Mossad was behind 9/11”. Of course. Why didn’t we think of that before? Mr. Butt certainly has a knack for clarification.

Soldier as youth

As a youth, Butt participated as a soldier in the war between India and Pakistan in September 1965. Today he wants to pull Norway out of the war in Afghanistan.

“Norway has no business in Afghanistan, and one of the party’s most important issues is to stop the Norwegian military presence in the country. Norway is a land of peace. It should not look at what the U.S. does when it comes to Afghanistan and Iraq,” says Butt.

The politician thinks Norway should support Pakistan in Kashmir-dispute with India.

“Norway should support Kashmir’s independence,” says Butt.

Hmm…that’s a diplomatic decision he won’t see anytime soon.

Will have Norwegian Pakistani Prime Minister

Minority politicians stood in 1995 and 2007 with their own list to the council elections in Oslo, with no luck. Butt still believes they [i.e., his new party] will succeed where others have failed.

“I have a lot behind me to achieve this. I think people trust me,” says Butt.

In the fall he hopes for a seat in Parliament. But it does not stop there.

“My hope is that in about fifteen years in Norway, like the United States see a second-generation immigrant in the job of prime minister,” says Butt. Also at the [Oslo] council election in three years, the 63-year-old hope for a “break election”.

“I think the Mayor of Oslo in three years will be a Norwegian-Pakistani,” says the Norwegian-Pakistani.

Well. This dude has a lot of opinions and high hopes. But, you know, he could be right about one thing: Osama bin Laden is in the U.S. I think I know where he is, too: the transgendered ObL is now Nancy Pelosi and s/he’s sitting in the American House of Representatives, big as life. She’s certainly no crazier than Mr. Butt.

Happy May 17th, Norway! May you continue to enjoy the spoutings of Norwegian Ghufoor Butt.

Many thanks to translator, J. Great story, great timing.

The reports about the Obamas’ indebtedness before she acquired her big hospital salary (for a job they didn’t fill after she left), and the fact that they lived way beyond their means by using re-financed mortgage money has led to this piece of political satire.

Let’s see if You Tube permits it to remain..

{post ends here]

Today is St. Dymphna’s feast day, for those of you who keep track of matters ecclesiastical.

No tipsters today. Actually, there were tipsters and stories, but…well to make it short, I went tripping gaily down the front steps today to plant some flowers. Emphasis is on tripping. Nothing serious enough for a doctor visit but I bruised my ribs, put a few gashes and contusions in the usual places – elbows and knees and shin. Also landed on my carpal tunnel-afflicted wrist.

It hurts to sit here, so I couldn’t extract the news tips. The ones below I had hanging around before my trip.

Let’s see if I can still type when I get up tomorrow.

[Note to Kepi Blanc: I landed on that shoulder but it didn’t dislocate so no need to describe again how you fix those things on the battlefield]

In the Soviet of Washington, D.C. it’s against the law to park in your own driveway.

File under “you can’t make this umm…stuff, that’s it “stuff” up. As in “stuff and nonsense”.

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The Snafus Have Just Begun

Dead People Get Stimulus Checks

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Maggie Simpson as Howard Roarke in the Simpson version of “The Fountainhead”

– – – – – – – – –
From TARP to Obama to Command-and-Control

Larry Kudlow is a rara avis: a genial economist, given to flights of optimism (that often turned out to be true). But he’s not flying anymore. The boy has moved to the slough of despond.

If he is not happy, it does not bode well for any of us…’ceptin’ maybe our Messiah.

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In Politics of School Reform, Transparency Doesn’t Equal Accountability

Remember we were talking about lousy schools? Well, this is written by the blogger, Eduwonk. We used to be on The Watcher of Weasels together.:

“Transparency is powerful and President Obama has rightly made it a pillar of his administration’s approach to policymaking. But transparency also offers the seductive promise of an easy way out for policymakers. It can trap proponents of various policy proposals in an intellectual cul de sac because it becomes easy to see information as sufficient to drive reform rather than just as a predicate for change. The risk is especially potent when proponents are convinced of the obviousness of the changes they seek.

We’ve seen this repeatedly with federal education policy. The Bush administration assumed the federal No Child Left Behind law would produce a tidal wave of student and school performance data that would swamp opposition to school improvement efforts. Seven years later the political resistance to education reform is as potent as ever and former Bush aides now acknowledge placing too much faith in the power of information…[…]

[this is an excellent essay. Click the link]

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Sweden wants to force ISPs to save user data

Internet service providers (ISPs) in Sweden will be forced to store customer data for at least six months starting in 2010, according to a new proposal from the government […]

hmmm. The Swedes are so polite, I guess this will be a done deal next year. Now if they told our radical libertarian ISP provider to do this, he’d have his pitchfork out. I’ll have to send him this bit o’ news. My guess is he’ll say “over my dead body, dude.” Or words to that effect.

‘Scuse me, y’all. I gotta go rummage for some pain pills…

From the Venerable First Earl of Cromer at Lambeth Walk

Islam Awareness Day for the Police

Yesterday in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, more than thirty rank-and-file community police officers and PCSOs gathered at the Castlemere Community Centre along with a number of their senior officers.

They were there to learn about ‘a day in the life of a Muslim’.

The course was designed by a Muslim Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) called Madasar Nasir. He aimed to ‘provide the officers with a better understanding of the service providers, policy makers and professionals working within the Muslim community, who are responsible for developing community cohesion, in the hope that this would enable them to meet the needs of the local community more efficiently.’

After that was out of the way, the officers were taken on a tour of Central Mosque in Tweedale Street.

Finally, they ‘enjoyed a taste of Asian cuisine’.

Inspector Michelle Hughes hailed the event worthwhile and successful. She said:

“Events like these help fulfill our responsibility to comply with both race relations and equal opportunities legislation and shows that we take our responsibilities very seriously.

“My thanks go to the staff at Castlemere Community Centre for their assistance in organising such a fine event and I hope that this is the first of many.”

As the Venerable First Earl of Cromer was heard to say:
– – – – – – – – –

Yes, the first of many. After all, it’s not as if Britain is being plagued by an unprecedented wave of violent crime. The public might as well pay these officers for a bit of unashamed groveling dhimmitude followed by a delicious curry.

Actually, your Venerableness, these police are practicing for life in the Ummah. They hope to keep their jobs in the new regime.

Seriously, I’ll bet this was a top-down order to attend…or else. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when any of them got home that night and was asked, “so, how was your day, dear?”

What I want to know is when do the authorities organize groups of Muslims to live as “A Brit for a Day”. That might make for some entertaining reality TV.

While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances – to The Lambeth Walk.

This is from Elsevier.

It was translated by VH, who provides the context of this bureaucratic attempt at humor:

An Internet video that should encourage voters to go to the poll box the for the elections for the European Parliament (June 4-7), has led to indignation in Belgium. In the movie, meant to be humorous, a murderer with an axe appears that recalls the murderer, Kim de Gelder, who massacred several people in a nursery in Dendermonde this past January:
– – – – – – – – –

The Dendermonde nursery attack was a stabbing attack by Kim De Gelder on the Fabeltjesland daycare centre in the village of Sint-Gillis-bij-Dendermonde in Dendermonde, Belgium, at 10:00 a.m. on 23 January 2009. Three people were stabbed to death, and twelve were mutilated in the attack.

The attacker, alleged to be Kim De Gelder, a 20 year-old Belgian from Sinaai, entered the Fabeltjesland nursery, located in Sint-Gillis-bij-Dendermonde in Dendermonde, Belgium, through an unlocked side door, claiming he had a question. He then entered one of the rooms and began attacking small children before moving up some stairs, where he continued in another room. The man was reported to be wearing black and white makeup with his hair vividly coloured in red, similar to that of The Joker.

A massive search operation was mounted, and a man was captured by police a short while later, in the nearby town of Lebbeke….Police reported that he was carrying a list of nurseries, of which they suspect he may have been planning to attack as well.

Kim De Gelder was, in eyes of his friends and colleagues, a silent boy, who never said anything.

“Silent boy”. That’s become part of the profile, it seems.

So there you have the context of the “shock” a Belgian might experience upon viewing this “humorous” video that is part of a series on the European Parliament You Tube site with the phrase,

Voting is for everyone. So if you’re running a polling station, just stay cool and make it happen.

Some of the other video clips seem equally bizarre, but then I’m an American bumpkin. I don’t grasp the finer nuances of European humor. [In my defense, I will say that I definitely “get” Russian wit. In fact, my favorite joke is Russian. I use it as a kind of litmus test – i.e., if someone finds it funny, I know we’ll be sympatico]

The post at Elsevier concludes:

A spokesman for the European Parliament was said to be shocked at the equation [of the Dendermonde attacker and the fellow in the video – D] The mayor of Dendermonde (the Flemish city where the massacre took place last year) called the EU-commercial ‘tasteless’.

That’s putting it mildly. These people are housed in the EU Parliament in Brussels, for heaven’s sake. What were they thinking?? Better yet,what were they drinking?? Whatever they imbibed, it sure served to inhibit the part of the brain that flashes “INAPPROPRIATE! DON’T GO THERE!” On the other hand, the video is still up and has at least four stars, so there are some souls out there who find it amusing.

Hat tip: VH

The Times has two reports up today about the BNP. One is a story and the other is an editorial. Needless to say, the BNP doesn’t come out looking well in either one.

First, the story – which reminds me of the 2007 post about Swedish postal authorities refusing to deliver the Sweden Democrats’ campaign materials.

Do Britain’s postal workers have a different set of rules than those in the US? Or is this a new trend? For the moment, I can say “it’s not happening here”, but who knows, maybe this new “freedom” the postmen have in the UK will begin to blossom in America, too:

Postal workers are refusing to deliver British National Party election leaflets because they object to its “right-wing rubbish”.

About 100 workers in the West Country have told union leaders that they will not carry the leaflets, which bear an anti-immigration message.

They have accused Royal Mail chiefs in Bristol and Somerset of “bullying”, with one office allegedly threatening workers with dismissal if they do not comply.

The Communication Workers Union says that Royal Mail is breaking a “conscience clause” agreed four years ago that allows staff to refuse to deliver literature they find offensive.

A “conscience clause”??? For the mail??? Are these people serious? So if I’m hired to deliver the mail and I don’t like the magazines you’ve subscribed to, I can just dump them in the nearest bin? Hmm…I can see the temptations. One could conveniently “lose” a great many solicitation letters from groups that didn’t meet one’s personal standards of the true and the good.
– – – – – – – – –

Dave Wilshire, spokesman for the Bristol and District Branch of the CWU, said: “Over the past 48 hours I’ve had around 32 calls from individual members and those speaking on behalf of groups, saying they don’t want to deliver the material.

“That is fair enough. The clause says members don’t have to deliver material if they feel threatened or if it is against their personal beliefs.

“In Bristol we have the St Paul’s area which has a very high density of those from ethnic backgrounds. Anyone being expected to post BNP stuff through there is going to feel at risk.

What he’s saying is that Bristol has an area of Britain in which the rule of law has ceased to operate. That is pitiful.

“Managers in Bristol are effectively bullying people.”

He added that it was “outrageous” that some had been threatened with losing their jobs.

One postman working in the Fishponds area of Bristol, said that his route bordered two ethnic-minority areas and it was “concerning” to be made to deliver inflammatory material.

He told the Western Daily Press: “We are being forced by management to give out the BNP material even though it’s against my beliefs – everyone knows what they stand for.

I love this: indoctrination really works. “everyone knows”…this is not a democratic culture, this is being a bully, using the tactic of shunning. In this case, shunning the BNP, because “everyone knows what they stand for.”

This person has had the full re-education camp training:

“We are being made to dish out this rubbish. I’ve read the BNP literature and although there isn’t anything racist or fascist on it, it does say ‘No to immigration’.”

This is surreal. No racism, no fascism, but those awful BNP leaflets want to limit immigration to a country that is already overwhelmed with immigrants, thus they are “rubbish”.

Simon Darby, BNP spokesman, said: “We have a contract with the Royal Mail to deliver some 29 million BNP leaflets. Some will be binned by Labour-supporting postmen who want to corrupt the democratic process, but it is a question of cutting that down.

“People will make up their own minds about the Communication Workers Union telling people what to do. This is the sort of thing that is happening in Zimbabwe.”

So if they have a contract with the Royal Mail, can the British National Party sue them for breach of contract? If this conscience clause in the workers’ union allows for pick-and-choose mail delivery, then the Royal-Pain-in-the-Ass-Mail should have told the BNP that due to their workers’ “rights”, management could not guarantee delivery. Somehow I doubt they did that. In a world where reality was still on top, the BNP would be able to bring suit against these people.

Royal Mail said: “Where possible we will try to be flexible and sensitive to individual personal circumstances or beliefs.

“However, we need to balance this with Royal Mail’s legal obligations under the Representation of the People Act, to deliver election material.”

Good luck with reconciling those two principles, Jack.

But that’s not all The Times has on offer today about the BNP. Here’s a follow-up editorial on the party’s tactics to win over voters by putting the skinhead members in the closet:

British National party (BNP) skinheads are being urged to cover up their shaven scalps as the far-right group seeks to present a new, more respectable image, according to a leaked internal “war book”.

Polling experts believe the antiimmigration party led by Nick Griffin has a chance of picking up its first seats in the European parliament in June by capitalising on recession-fuelled rows over “British jobs for British workers”.

A handbook distributed to activists discloses how the BNP, which has already won a string of council by-elections, plans to soften its extremist reputation and appeal to potential supporters as an “alternative extended family”.

The manual for activists includes: Orders to “make sure your team are tidily dressed and look presentable. No naked torsos in summer, unshaven scruffs or skinhead haircuts (put them in caps or hats)”. Suggestions for the use of internet blogs to attack opponents, including ostensibly independent local blogs that “help us to collect and disseminate material damaging to other parties”. Ideas for reviving St George’s Day traditions to combat the “growing power of Islam”.

Interesting. This sounds like the handbook any political party or community organizing group distributes to volunteers. As one commenter on this editorial put it:

“ Is this article serious?

As a steadfast Tory I look in on the BNP website from time to time to see what policies they are trying to steal this week. This handbook has been freely available for at least a year, probably longer.

My wife now votes BNP, this kind of journalism is partly why.

Ah, yes. But now that the elections draw nearer, the Times has to put the paranoid spin on the BNP, complete with hex signs:

The handbook urges activists to rebrand the BNP by always using its full name. “The initials BNP have to an extent been turned into a demonised tag by the media,” it says. “‘British National party’ sounds more reasonable and comfortable.”

Obviously, the writer doesn’t see the irony in choosing this quote from the handbook, since he is one of those very same demonisers.

The handbook adds: “Millions of people live very lonely and isolated lives. The decline of the family and the break-up of communities mean there is a big gap in [their] lives. Filling that gap, giving people an ‘alternative extended family’, is the most powerful recruiting tool.”

A spokesman for the campaign group Searchlight said: “This booklet exposes the reality behind the BNP mask of respectability. What other political party feels the need to ask its senior organisers to be careful not to get caught discussing their plans for violent behaviour on the internet?”

Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, defended its tactics: “We switched to recruiting on the net because we do not get a fair crack from the traditional media.”

“Searchlight”, at least from reading its website, is hardly a campaign group unless you define as a “campaign” their apparent mission to harass the BNP out of existence.

I recommend looking at the comments sections on both of the Times articles. Here’s one representative response (and more than 90% of them are positive):

Surely the media should declare an interest in BNP bashing. If the BNP receive more votes and seats the media will be forced to report on them impartially and in a balanced fashion – something that does not happen at present. This balanced reporting would require reports from non NUJ members.

Britain is definitely living in interesting times. It will take great intestinal fortitude not to cut and run from this top-down mess.

Not that America is not in a similar pickle…

The students, the teachers, and the principal all won their freedom. Who lost? The teachers’ union.

From Reason TV:

Score for this round?

The good guys 1
The union 0

[post ends here]

Thanks to Paul Green, JD, Steen, Insubria, Net Right Nation, PEJ, and TB for the stories. Apologies to others, like Tuan Jim, for not getting to his group.

Stories from the Netherlands, Britain, US enviro education propaganda, Italy, Brazil, Italy and Egypt together, Al Qaeda in Italy, a potato-faced Jesus in Sweden, Tamils in Toronto (that’s a good rant), Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s criminally large bail outs, and a Freedom Party for the UK. Well, he can dream…
– – – – – – – – –
Wilders Sees Leftwing Cordon Sanitaire

Geert Wilders considers the leftwing parties have set up a ‘cordon sanitaire’ around his Party for Freedom (PVV). In the wake of the leftwing Greens (GroenLinks), centre-left D66, the Socialist Party (SP) and small Christian party ChristenUnie, Labour (PvdA) has now also said it will not govern with the PVV.

The PVV has been the Netherlands’ biggest party in a leading poll for a month and a half, which has led to speculation on possible governing combinations. It has now become clear that none of the leftwing parties in the Lower House will join a coalition with the PVV.

[…]

The term ‘cordon sanitaire’ is understood in the Netherlands as the tactic employed for years by the political parties in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, against Vlaams Belang. All the parties there have from 1989 up to the present maintained the rule that they will never work with that party.

The situation in the Netherlands is not comparable with that in Flanders. There, all parties have enshrined the cordon sanitaire in a written statement. Additionally, the Christian democrats (CDA) and conservatives (VVD) are not ruling the PVV out as a coalition partner. On top of this, a combination of PVV with one of the leftwing parties is in any case unlikely.

A coalition of PVV, CDA and VVD would according to the two leading pollsters (Maurice de Hond and Synovate) currently respectively win 76 and 73 seats in the 150-seat Lower House. It is therefore the only realistic three-party coalition that would have or come close to a majority. However, elections are not scheduled until 2011.

that just gives the Netherlands more time to melt down, more time to experience the growing lawlessness that Wilders wants to fight. Time is probably on Wilders’ side

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The America Hating Kids Enviro Video Coming Soon to Your School

by Warner Todd Hudson

A new propaganda video created by an extreme environmental activist is making its way into America’s classrooms and The New York Times loves the whole idea. Enviro obsessive Annie Leonard, Greenpeace member and activist, has created a 20 minute video filled with anti-capitalist, anti-American propaganda to encourage kids to eschew “stuff,” calling the presentation “The Story of Stuff.”

Leonard’s propaganda piece is so anti-American she even begins her video by saying that her “friends” say she should describe the United States by using the symbol of a military tank because “it’s true in many countries and increasingly in our own.” And why is a tank “increasingly” the symbol of the USA? Because “more than 50% of our federal tax money is going for our military.” Naturally, this misleading propaganda doesn’t mention that a large portion of that federal military spending ends up going to the weekly pay and health care of our soldiers, something apparently Ms. Leonard is against. She goes on to say that a government’s job is to “take care of us, that’s their job.” Here she is trying to promote dependency and proves that she has no clue what a government is really for – especially in the U.S. system.

Leonard also starts the intro of the piece off saying that “some people matter more than others” in an effort to impress on kids that “the system” is evil and that “some” people are of lesser value as far as our system is concerned. Again, this is a clear abrogation of the simple truth that everyone in the U.S. is equal under the law but that the individual’s own abilities makes them what they are.

Naturally her symbol for “the corporation” is a bloated, fatcat with a top hat and a huge dollar sign on its stomach. Leonard claims that “the corporation looks bigger than the government because the corporation IS bigger than the government.” Of course what is misleading with this is that the business community is not “the” corporation. There are many thousands of corporations world wide, so presenting business as an evil “the corporation” is starkly anti-capitalist, unrealistic and dangerously simplistic for kids.

Her second chapter is the “explanation” of what “extraction” is. Leonard calls extraction “a fancy word for natural resource exploitation, which is a fancy word for trashing the planet.” Well, you can see where this is going, I am sure. From here every chapter shows how evil production, invention, capitalism, and economies are as kids are told that everything we eat, wear, and every tool we use is one more step toward destroying the planet.

Despite the fact that this is pure anti-American, anti-capitalist propaganda with no balance and no real economic or scientific truth, The New York Times celebrates this thing in its Sunday, May 10 piece. The Times story oohs and ahs over this “sleeper hit” that has seeped into our nation’s classrooms and is awed that it caused one little boy to wonder if he should want to buy a set of Lego toys because toys are now thought to be evil thanks to Leonard’s film. Imagine frightening a kid so bad that he is afraid to want a toy! This is the level of zealotry we are talking about.

[…]

Still, at least the Times gave the other side of the story, though it did wait until the end of its coverage to do so. The last few paragraphs detail a single parent that stands against the video and reports of a school in Montana that has decided not to use the propaganda flick in its classrooms.

I would suggest that if you are a parent you find out quickly if this anti-American video is being shown in your schools without your knowledge. I am sure it is a “sleeper hit” because teachers of far left ideology are sneaking it into classrooms without alerting parents.

Having a child in a government school means eternal vigilance for the parents. It’s a long slog.

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Berlusconi’s anti-immigration comments spur outcry

By Deepa Babington
Reuters

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s open rejection of the vision of a multi-ethnic Italy sparked sharp debate Sunday, winning praise from far-right allies and accusations of racism from the left.

Berlusconi’s conservative government has won public favor by cracking down on illegal immigration, allowing the premier to go a step further as he defended Saturday a new policy to deport migrants to Libya before they arrive on Italian shores.

“The left’s idea is of a multi-ethnic Italy,” Berlusconi told a news conference. “That’s not our idea, ours is to welcome only those who meet the conditions for political asylum.”

[…]

Opposition lawmakers denounced the premier’s comments as racist and told him to accept Italy would inevitably become multi-cultural whether Italians liked it or not.

“France, Great Britain and Germany are European nations with far more immigrants than us but they’ve worked for integration.” […]

Yeah, and we know how well France, Great Britain and Germany are doing with immigration. These guys must have been living under a rock

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Battisti prefers suicide to Italy

A convicted left-wing terrorist who Italy wants extradited from Brazil has told a French-German TV channel that he would rather kill himself than return to Italy.

‘‘I will not go back to Italy, I’ll never go back alive,’’ Cesare Battisti told Arte TV from his cell in Papuda, near the Brazilian capital Brasilia, where he is awaiting a definitive ruling on his extradition.

‘‘I’m afraid, but there are things that one can still decide, like when to die. I don’t think I’ll let others decide my death, not the unjust Italian government,’’ the 54-year-old former terrorist added.

In the interview, which Arte TV will broadcast on Saturday, Battisti said that ‘‘after 30 years they’ve put me in jail for crimes I didn’t commit. I never killed anyone. I was a member of an armed gang and took part in some robberies, but I was just a militant and not the monster, the killer they made me out to be’’.

Battisti was an alleged leader of the 1970s leftist terrorist group Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC) which was held responsible for four murders and numerous robberies in the late 1970s.

In order to avoid prosecution in Italy, he fled to France in 1981 where he lived for over 20 years and became a successful writer of crime novels.

Italy’s request five years ago for his extradition made front-page headlines in France, with French left-wing parties and libertarian newspapers rallying to support the former terrorist’s battle to remain in Paris.

Battisti went missing in France in August 2004 while awaiting the outcome of his appeal against extradition and later turned up in Brazil, where he was arrested in March 2008.

Brazil initially granted Battisti political asylum because he risked ‘‘persecution’’ due to his political convictions if he was returned to Italy.

[…]

Italy firmly protested and worked to have his case reviewed by the highest authorities. A decision is currently pending from Brazil’s supreme court.

There’s nothing the Left loves more than a terrorist. “Truth speaking to Power” and all that.

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Fannie Loses $23 Billion, Prompting Even Bigger Bailout Chance of Repaying Taxpayers Is Slim

By Zachary A. Goldfarb

Fannie Mae reported yesterday that it lost $23.2 billion in the first three months of the year as mortgage defaults increasingly spread from risky loans to the far-larger portfolio of loans to borrowers who have been considered safe.

The massive loss prompts a $19 billion investment from the government to keep the firm solvent, on top of a $15 billion investment of taxpayer money earlier this year.

The sobering earnings report was a reminder of the far-reaching implications of the government’s takeover in September of Fannie Mae and the smaller Freddie Mac. Losses have proved unrelenting; the firms’ appetite for tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer aid hasn’t subsided; and taxpayer money invested in the companies, analysts said, is probably lost forever because the prospects for repayment are slim.

But the government remains committed to keeping the companies afloat, because it is relying on them to help reverse the continuing slide in the housing market and keep mortgage rates low.

Even as the government bailout of banks appears to be leveling off, the federal rescue of Fannie and Freddie is rapidly growing more expensive. Fannie Mae said that the losses will continue through at least much of the year and that it “therefore will be required to obtain additional funding from the Treasury.” Analysts are estimating that the company could need at least $110 billion.

Freddie Mac, which has been in worse financial shape than Fannie Mae and has obtained $45 billion in taxpayer funding, will report earnings in coming days.

Fannie’s most recent loss compares with a $2.2 billion loss in the first quarter last year, before the government takeover.

Fannie Mae, of the District, and Freddie Mac, of McLean, have been growing ever more dependent on federal largesse. The Federal Reserve has bought $366 billion of their mortgage investments and $70 billion of their debt, and has pledged to buy hundreds of billions of dollars more of both. The Treasury has pledged $200 billion to each company to keep them solvent and already bought $124 billion of their mortgage investments.

In total, the government has committed about $2 trillion to supporting Fannie and Freddie and buying the securities they issue.

The federal government seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last September out of concern that they would collapse and threaten the entire financial system.

The usual suspects in Congress refused to listen last year when it was common knowledge that Fannie and Freddie were shipping water. Didn’t want to hear it because the incestuous relationship between our national government and Fannie and Freddie has been a disgusting porn show for years. TWO TRILLION DOLLARS for these criminals. I don’t see Obama threatening the executives there. In fact, I think their bonuses went through as usual.

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Tamils take over Toronto

By Arthur Weinreb

Although there have been short protests by Tamil Canadians in Toronto protesting civilian deaths in Sri Lanka there were no major problems until the end of last month. What began as a protest before the U.S. consulate on Toronto’s University Avenue ended up blocking a main street in Toronto for four consecutive days.

The worsening of Toronto’s already gridlocked city that resulted in problems for ordinary people just trying to go about their business didn’t faze any of the thousands of Tamils who blocked the street. Nor did the fact that three of Toronto’s largest hospitals are located just up the street from the consulate seem to be a concern. They had a point to make and the hell with everyone else. And the city of Toronto paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to have police stand around and watch them.

Further protests were held last weekend that culminated in Tamils blocking the Gardiner Expressway, a major east-west artery. It’s hard to understand the mentality of this mob. They claim it is to get the attention of the Canadian and U.S. governments to what is happening in “their country”. These governments have already called for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka in order to save the civilians caught up in what appears to be the final stages of the 25 year old war. Governments, including the one headed by the godlike Barack Obama, are not likely to do anything else .

[…]

The police no longer control the streets of Toronto, the Tamils do

Many protesters in the crowd proudly wave the flag of the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) which Canada has declared to be a terrorist organization. This further angers ordinary law abiding Torontonians. But at least the antics on the Gardiner Expressway finally got the attention of the authorities. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller both warned them not to do that again. But unless there are some Tamils out there who have a morbid fear of being taxed to death, the warnings will likely do no good.

The person who seemed most upset about the demonstration that closed the expressway was Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair. Blair went on and on and on about how the Tamils put little children, some in strollers, at the front of the demonstration opposite police dressed in riot gear. Perhaps if Blair spent more time reading and less time trying to look pretty for the media he would know that this is a typical Tamil Tiger tactic; using innocent people, particularly children, as human shields. The use of these children was disgusting and proof that if left unchecked, we will turn into a third world country. On a positive note at least none of the adults were yelling at the kids; if they were they no doubt would have been done for child abuse. At least we now know that putting children between those engaged in illegal activities and the police do not constitute such abuse.

As is constantly being pointed out, there are many places where protests can take place without causing undue hardship to others. But the protesting Tamils, waving the flags of their beloved terrorist group don’t care. They don’t care about their fellow citizens; they don’t even care about whether or not they put their children in danger. There’s an apparent drug war in Toronto’s west end and yesterday a 14-year-old boy was shot to death; the fourth such death in the area in the past three weeks. But the Tamil protesters don’t care that scarce police resources are being employed when they block streets and expressways because they feel that they have a right to. Mob rule has come to Toronto.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, Parliament is going to consider whether certain groups should be designated as criminal organizations, similar to the terrorist designations that were legislated after 9/11. If this is carried out, the Hell’s Angels will no doubt be the first group so designated. The boys can’t be too happy about this possibility. Perhaps they should protest by closing a highway or two down. Let’s see if Chief Billy Blair wrings his hands over that one.

At least one thing is certain about the Hell’s Angels; if they do protest they won’t bring any children along.

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We Need a Freedom Party of Britain

by Ed West

The thing about the Euro elections is that everybody gets their turn. It was the Greens in 1989, UKIP in 2004, and most people believe this year it will be the BNP’s turn. And the more the great and the good warn people not to vote for them, the more votes they get – after Russell Brand denounced the party I was tempted to join out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

That’s not to say this is the part in Cabaret where the blond boy starts singing in the beer garden. Even if they do well next month, the BNP are not going to sweep to power any time soon because, unless or maybe until Britain’s demographics hit a Doomsday scenario, middle-class voters are too repulsed.

It’s all branding – whatever the membership is like now, they were founded by Holocaust deniers and they are associated with beery violence (even if BNP members are just as much victims from anti-fascists, if not more). I’ve never believed the myth that working-class whites are more racist than the middle class – the opposite is true – but the BNP remains a working-class party and no party can achieve power without cross-class support.

But across the pond another type of anti-immigration party does seriously threaten to take power, and its success could well be a model for English dissenters.

Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party is expected to top the poll in the Netherlands, and don’t be surprised if they take power within a decade. They have a winning formula: the party opposes any more third world immigration and is hostile to Islamism (and, indeed, Islam), but it is also economically liberal (unlike the BNP) as well as being culturally conservative, and dedicated to the cause both of Christianity and humanism. They are serious contenders because they have broken through the stigma barrier in a way the BNP will never achieve.

If UKIP had any sense it would have taken Wilders as its model and made immigration and societal breakdown their main focus, rather than remaining a slightly bizarre one-issue party. I know Europe is very important, but on a day-to-day level it does not affect people in the same way that immigration, crime and the general decline in everyday civility do.

Perhaps after UKIP loses most of its seats next month, and if David Cameron’s Tories are as socially liberal as many people fear they will be, a genuine gap in the market will open up for a Freedom Party of Britain.

What a lovely dream. Things are so chaotic it doesn’t seem likely. I hope some Brits will tell me I’m wrong.

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Rome and Cairo agree democracy needed to stem immigration

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday said spreading democracy was the best way to tackle immigration problems, adding that Rome and Cairo were united on this front. Speaking at the end of an Italian-Egyptian summit, Berlusconi said he would take a bilateral ‘‘democratisation project’’ drawn up during the talks to the next meeting of European Union leaders. ‘‘The world’s democracies must unite in a project of democratising those countries immigrations come from,’’ he said. ‘‘This is because a free society is the only way to ensure people are able to use their talents to escape poverty’’.

Berlusconi, who said he had reached agreement on the issue with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, added that rising populations in poorer countries ‘‘will inevitably result in unsustainable migratory pressure’’ on Europe. The Italian premier provided no details about how the project envisioned ‘‘spreading democracy’’ to poorer countries but did say ‘‘concrete infrastructural works’’ were more important than straight financial aid.

[…]

An accord was reached on Egypt’s Oil Ministry and Italian oil and gas giant Eni on various new areas of cooperation. Other agreements included one on the return to Alexandria of Ancient Egyptian masterpieces currently in Italy and the creation of an Italian University in Egypt. The summit also marked the official launch of the Italian-Egyptian Year of Science and Technology.

The summit has been set up as an annual event, following the first such meeting last year. The Italian government has said this type of fixed annual event, normally reserved for European nations, reflects the value it places on its partnership with Egypt.

An Italian University in Egypt? That would be an interesting cultural mix. And it might give the Copts some place to run when the Arab Egyptians are persecuting again. There’s some “democracy” for you: asylum.

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The Singing Revolution

Just go there and watch the trailer. I promise you’ll be impressed.

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SCAR Goes To War

Two years after completing field testing, the new American assault rifle, SCAR, has been issued to a battalion of U.S. Army Rangers, who are headed for Afghanistan. SCAR (Special operations forces Combat Assault Rifle) was a SOCOM (Special Operations Command) effort to develop a new assault rifle that had some of the characteristics of the (now abandoned) U.S. Army XM-8 rifle. SOCOM had the money, and authority to develop their own weapons. And SCAR is mainly for use by SOCOM troops.

SOCOM wanted a weapon that did everything the XM-8 did, and a little more. Back in 2003, SOCOM asked rifle manufacturers to submit proposals, and FN (a Belgian firm) came up with the best ideas. One advantage FN has was its ability to quickly implement requests for design changes. FN’s rapid prototyping shop was often able to turn out a new part in hours. This, and FNs long history of good weapons design, gave them the edge. SCAR has a more reliable short-stroke, gas piston operating system, and a floating barrel for better accuracy, plus several other improvements over the current M-4/M-16.

Pictures here

You have to love a gun named SCAR. Has the right kind of manly heft to it. Think about it: would SCARF have the same effect?

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Italy accuses two of leading role for al Qaeda

Reuters

Italian prosecutors have accused two men, arrested last year for links to trafficking in illegal immigrants, of being leading al Qaeda figures in Europe involved in training militants for suicide attacks.

Police in the southern city of Bari yesterday said the two men, identified as Syrian imam Bassam Ayachi and French computer engineer Raphael Gendron, played a leading role in “communication, transmission and propaganda” for al Qaeda.

They were arrested by Italian police in November 2008 on suspicion of trying to smuggle five illegal immigrants into Italy. Among the documents found on them was the will of a would-be suicide attacker, detailing the compensation to his family after his death, police said.

[…]

Documents found in their possession mentioned attacks in France and Britain, “but as a mere possibility, without anything concrete or any immediate threat”, Claudio Galzerano of Ucigos, another police anti-terrorism unit, said.

[…]

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Jesus image in a fried potato in SWEDEN???

A restaurant in southern Sweden has put a potato up for auction after staff discovered what they believed to be the face of Jesus Christ in a spud that “hopped out of the frying pan” earlier this week.

Restaurateur Sylvia Szepanski told The Local that she witnessed the first appearance of the “holy” vegetable first hand in the kitchen of her restaurant at the Söderslätt Golf Club, 20 kilometres south of Malmö.

“Our chef was frying some potatoes when suddenly one of them hopped out of the frying pan and set itself apart from the others.”

But opinions differed initially as to the nature of the alleged apparition. Szepanski’s voice turned to one of wonder as she reenacted the moment.

“I said, ‘Look, it’s the face of a child angel’.

“But the chef said, ‘No, it’s the face of Jesus’.”

Szepanski soon agreed that there was indeed something Christ like about the shapes visible in the fried peel and news of the potato Jesus was fed to the local media.

“We’ve had people coming here asking to see the potato. We have set it up in a sort of plastic crib in the kitchen,” she said.

But with business brisk, Szepanski said staff did not have time to welcome curious visitors into the kitchen. Instead the “miracle” root vegetable has been put up for auction on eBay, where there have so far been no bids.

Bishop of Lund Antje Jackelén was not immediately available for comment regarding the Lutheran Church of Sweden’s view on whether everyday items could attain a form of religious significance.

Puh-leeze. This is not Swedish behavior. Maybe the chef is part Italian? French? I’ll bet the Bishop of Lund is hiding, waiting for the darned potato face to rot.

Yes, I’ll be glad when the Baron returns with the real news, too. I’ll be even gladder about it than his readers.

***UPDATE***

Tincture of Lawlessness
Obama’s Overreaching Economic Policies

From George Will’s column today in the Washington Post:

In February, California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature, faced with a $42 billion budget deficit, trimmed $74 million (1.4 percent) from one of the state’s fastest-growing programs, which provides care for low-income and incapacitated elderly people and which cost the state $5.42 billion last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that “loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester.”

But the Service Employees International Union collects nearly $5 million a month from 223,000 caregivers who are members. And the Obama administration has told California that unless the $74 million in cuts are rescinded, it will deny the state $6.8 billion in stimulus money.

Such a federal ukase (the word derives from czarist Russia; how appropriate) to a state legislature is a sign of the administration’s dependency agenda — maximizing the number of people and institutions dependent on the federal government. For the first time, neither sales nor property nor income taxes are the largest source of money for state and local governments. The federal government is.

The SEIU says the cuts violate contracts negotiated with counties. California officials say the state required the contracts to contain clauses allowing pay to be reduced if state funding is.

[…]

The Obama administration’s agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of “economic planning” and “social justice” that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.

As if California didn’t have its back to the wall already, along come the feds to make life even more difficult. And the political class wonders why many Americans find them revolting?

Americans for Limited Government is exposing in great detail the opaque sweetheart relationship that the current American administration has with organized labor. I’ll deal with the automobile unions later. Right now, the scandal, (and I don’t use that word lightly) involves the pressure being put on the state of California. This is a classic example of “you don’t play by our rules, no money for you.”

This post from ALG is quoted in its entirety, including the wealth of links the author, Isaac McMillen, collected in his research of this…this shameful, corrupt business that reflects the top down problem we have in the US right now.

Transparent? You bet. But much more than the administration wants you to see.

The Services Employees International Union (SEIU) has been in the headlines in recent days for its collusion with the Obama Administration to strip the state of California of its rightful share of stimulus funds. It’s a pay-to-play union ploy, one that California Representative Brian Bilbray (R), in an exclusive Washington News Observer interview, has termed “absurd.”

Said Mr. Bilbray, “The entire concept of the president holding the taxpayers and the budget process in California hostage to be able to pay back to a union that gave $60,000,000.00 dollars to his campaign, is just the kind of cynical politics that people are fed up with. We were promised change, and this is not change. This is really Chicago politics at its best-or its worst. I think that, the fact is, the local legislators, the governor have worked out a crisis policy here, and to have the president now use taxpayers money to extort policies out of the state of California is absurd.

“Remember, this is not President Obama’s money, this is California’s taxpayer’s money, that rightfully should be returned back to them, and without the strings. We’re not talking about the stimulus package now being something that helps; this is not an issue of aid, this is an issue of control, and control from Washington.”

– – – – – – – – –

Still, even with all of that, much of the activity coming out of California may be no more dirty business as usual for the notoriously heavy-handed SEIU hierarchy. It is not the first time the SEIU has exploited those beneath it in a bare-knuckled power play. In fact, this labor organization has a shady history of disenfranchisement enforced by heavy-handed authoritarianism.

For even as the Obama-SEIU controversy unfolds, the formation of a rival union is pitting the SEIU in a life-and-death struggle for the 150,000 members currently on the line-many of whom support the rival union out of anger for the way the SEIU has treated them.

The SEIU needs a big “victory” to retain its power-and the tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars in dues it stands to lose if it is booted out by the union voters it has disenfranchised.

The big split within the SEIU began when central leadership wanted to split off the healthcare workers from the other hospital workers in their local unions, making them instead members of larger, more geographically-broad healthcare worker-only units. And they wanted to do this without consulting the healthcare workers themselves, many of whom had grown used to the large amount of independence allowed within the local SEIU chapter.

To solve the problem, the national SEIU boss Andy Stern ruthlessly removed the local leadership, staging what has been described as a “hostile takeover.” New light has been shed on the takeover with the release of a lawsuit against SEIU by the security contractor hired to aid in the heavy-handed takeover.

The contractor, the OSO Group, claims it never received nearly half of its approximately $2 million bill. Furthermore, they exposed in the lawsuit document many of the tactics it was ordered to employ on behalf of the SEIU-which amount to nothing less than raw intimidation.

OSO Group explains that they were called in to provide “surveillance and security” to SEIU-UHW buildings and to the hotels where senior SEIU officials would reside and meet to discuss their plan to break the local union. The armed OSO security contractors appeared in force at various local SEIU buildings, and a 24/7 command post was set up to coordinate the operation. During this time, there was haggling over SEIU’s late payments to the OSO Group, ultimately resulting in the filing of the lawsuit by the contractor.

In a press release, the newly formed rival union points to the lawsuit and reiterates that the armed contractors used visual and video surveillance to intimidate the local workers who had rejected the national union’s takeover. Clearly, the national SEIU did not demonstrate a great amount of trust in its members.

This sticky situation is just the tip of the iceberg, however, when it comes to the union’s open hostility to its own members.

In another part of California, former local SEIU boss Tyrone Freeman has come under federal investigation for misuse of funds procured from his 160,000 union members, many of them not earning much more than the state’s $8/hour minimum wage.

But, in blatant disregard for his members and their finances, Mr. Freemen, a personal appointee of SEIU President Stern, channeled over $400,000 in union dues and charitable contributions to family-run businesses, $300,000 to personal luxury expenses-such as a golf tournament, cigar club, and Hollywood talent shop-and an additional $300,000 toward ethically-questionable entities, as reported by the LA Times.

Mr. Freeman’s internal union workings have also come under fire, as federal Labor Department officials investigate whether the local union’s elections were weighted towards incumbents.

Additionally, some within the SEIU have questioned why it spent, in the words of Andy Stern, “$60.7 million to be exact,” all on behalf of Barack Obama during the 2008 election-and then turned around and laid off a third of its DC staff. [my emphasis – D] All this while pushing for Congress to pass the pro-union “Card Check” legislation. Said the lead DC union official, Malcolm Harris:

“It’s completely hypocritical. This is the union that’s been at the forefront of progressive issues, around ensuring that working people and working families are taken care of, but when it comes to the people that work for SEIU, they haven’t set the same standards.”

Apparently the controversy surrounding SEIU has reached such proportions that even ACORN is removing its SEIU links from its website. Whether that was because the SEIU didn’t want to be associated with the voter registration group now under criminal investigations in Nevada and Pennsylvania, or that ACORN wants to avoid the publicity of being associated with the SEIU, this clearly bodes ill for both groups.

Whatever the case, the SEIU is treading on dangerous ground, as it attempts to give the people of California the same contemptible treatment it has dished out to its own members-and in the same authoritarian manner.

When asked by the Washington News Observer about the intrusion of the SEIU into California politics, Congressman Bilbray added the following, “I think it’s inappropriate for anybody–I don’t care if its big business or big labor-to have the ability to basically modify-if not dictate– policy, especially in the delicate balance between the authorities and the responsibilities of the federal government and the authorities and responsibilities of the state and local governments. And to allow anyone, be it business or labor, to interject their agenda into that is really scary.”

And for an organization with a reputation as authoritarian and self-serving as that of the SEIU, that is a very scary thought indeed.

Also see: Obama Grants SEIU Wish at Expense of Golden State for more background.