Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/30/2012

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/30/2012After 44 years, a witness has come forward to say that Sirhan Sirhan was not the only gunmen who shot down Robert F. Kennedy in that Los Angeles hotel back in 1968. Other witnesses also confirm that there were more than eight shots fired, contrary to the official report. In that case, a lone gunman could not possibly have been responsible for the assassination.

In other news, S&P has downgraded the bonds of eleven Spanish banks. The banks’ debt is even more risky now that as Spain has re-entered a recession. Up to 60% of the banks’ assets are allegedly tied up in dodgy real estate.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JP, Nick, Seneca III, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

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

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

Pensions, Ethics, Tobacco, and Fighter Jets

The following article about public pension management in Norway demonstrates the logic employed by the Norwegian government. Norway lionizes the terrorists of Hamas, but refuses as a matter of principle to allow any tobacco-related investments in its public pension portfolio.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated an article with the latest news on pensions. He notes:

The Norwegian pension fund is currently estimated to be worth a staggering US $629 billion!

The translated article from VG.no, as posted at the subsidiary E24 Næringsliv:

The Norwegian pension fund lost Nok 10.6 billion due to ethics

The Norwegian pension fund’s ethical guidelines have slashed earnings by NoK 10.6 billion since 2005.

The calculation was undertaken by Norges Bank [Bank of Norway], and the amount was mentioned in the Government’s white paper on the management of the so-called Oil Fund, which was presented in March, according to Finansavisen.

55 companies are currently banned due to violations of the fund’s ethical guidelines.

In a government white paper on the management of the Pension Fund it has been revealed which ethical rules that have resulted in a reduction of profit. A list shows what the exclusions of various companies has cost the fund:

  • Tobacco 9.6 billion
  • Mining 2.8 billion
  • Consumer 1.9 million
  • Aerospace and Defense 0.8 billion
  • General Industry 0.4 billion

The White Paper states that:

“Exclusions from the Fund are based on ethical considerations, and not financial ones. For an investor with a long-term perspective, there may be conformity between what is in the investor’s best financial interests and those that are chosen on ethical grounds, but not necessarily.”

In recent years a number of companies have been removed from the fund.

Christian Tybring-Gjedde, an MP from the FrP, is critical of the practice.

“The cost of the ethical guidelines has been immense. And what have we achieved? Has the world become a better place? Have the excluded companies changed their conduct? The practice is selective, inconsistent and completely ineffective,” Tybring-Gjedde tells Finansavisen.

He believes the government is guilty of double standards when it earns large sums of money on the sale of tobacco, while at the same time it considers it to be immoral to own shares in tobacco companies. He is also critical of the exclusion of the U.S. company Lockheed Martin from the fund.

“Lockheed Martin is excluded from the fund, but at the same time the government has decided to buy fighter jets from this company. The price is estimated to be close to US 100 billion dollars, in fact it is so expensive that the parliament has debated whether to take the money directly from the pension fund and not from the state budget,” Tybring-Gjedde says.

The Platform for Catalonia Branches Out

Josep Anglada is the leader of Plataforma per Catalunya (Platform for Catalonia), the rising Catalan anti-Islamization party. He opposes what he calls “the scourge of Ethnomasochism” — the deadly tendency for white Europeans to assume the blame for all the evils in the world.

Mr. Anglada hopes the Platform’s brand of nationalism can be adapted and spread to other regions of Spain. The Catalan-language video below was posted on the site of Plataforma per Catalunya some four weeks ago ( “Entrevista al canal taronja”).

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



The following interview with Josep Anglada was posted on the Burbuja economic forum (originally published last month at Alerta Digital, but no longer available at that site). Once again, we owe a great debt to Hermes for the translation:

AD Interview with Josep Anglada: “Europe suffers from a moral decay that leads to a loosening of policy”

Part I

A. Robles. — In a country where everybody fishes feverishly in the sea of political correctness, one has to bow to the consistency of a leader who motivates thousands of Catalans without much to fish in a short term in the tempestuous waters of Catalan politics . He is followed because of his loyalty to stated principles, a history and a cultural and ethnic heritage. Josep Anglada (Vic, 1959), president of Platform for Catalonia (PXC) has been in recent years the target of all insults, all the blaming, and all the outcries. His example of Catalanism, of loyalty to and love for Spain, all fitting his ideals, would deserve all honors in any society not as weak and defenseless as our own.

Anglada talks again with AD, the reference newspaper for the ever-increasing number of Catalan identitarians. He is relaxed, hesitation-free, and aware of his enormous responsibility regarding the future of Catalonia. Josep Anglada know that many people are interested in silencing him. He knows he will remain under heavy criticism from the fiercely mainstream press, and that the harsh verbal attacks against him will only intensify as the political expectations of PxC continue to grow.

But here’s Josep Anglada, without masks or disguises, ready to continue to defend the sublime concept of Catalan and Spanish identity, with the enormous responsibility of knowing that he not only represents the people of his party, but also many Catalans who, out of fear, still make worthless decisions when voting.

It is no understatement to say that Anglada represents for many thousands of Spaniards inside and outside of Catalonia the hope for our collective survival. While expecting almost nothing from traditional Catalan politicians, Anglada delivers with his behavior and his words daily lessons which may well be a source of inspiration to many who are involved in politics, or many others who, with their silence, have become allies of submissive policies out of fear or convenience. Here is Josep Anglada, grandly carrying ideals he always remained loyal to. And here is he now, struggling daily against those he proclaims to be his sworn enemies: those who want to reverse the cultural model and turn Catalonia upside-down, who claim that the tolling of bells has the same emotional value as the calling to prayers of a muezzin , or that the couscous is as Catalan as the “tortell of Reis.”

Many would like to catch Josep Anglada in a frightening or bad gesture. It doesn’t work. It’s time for dialogue, and Anglada does it. It is another very different issue if the principles he defends are violated or his people, which are also ours, are offended. Again, Anglada responds as he is, as a Catalan and a Spaniard.

What does Josep Anglada expect from the upcoming French elections?

I hope that Marine Le Pen will reach the second round. She embodies the hopes of a France choked by immigration and exploited by an indecent political class serving the dictates of the international markets and banks. Marine Le Pen has just declared that she is the candidate of the people against the financial powers.

I hope the French will not swallow again the opportunistic electoral lies of Nicolas Sarkozy, who begins to talk again about immigration just before the elections, or the demagogic and deceitful speech of François Hollande, promising to act against international banks, when the PSF has always been their devoted server. Obviously both are terrified of Marine Le Pen’s electoral advances; that’s why they try to steal her arguments.

The Church, in favor of the immigrationist lobby

In a recent survey, the readers of AD largely opined that only the identitarian parties can prevent the annihilation of the European culture, and that even the Church and the community institutions are powerless against it. What factors have contributed to a growing perception that traditional European institutions lack effective responses to address our current cultural and ethnic reversal?

The empirical factor. That is, the objective observation of reality, and that an unavoidable conclusion derives from it: the Church and community institutions are not only incapable of preventing the decline of European culture, but in most cases they are active agents which collaborate in the irreversible alienation of it.

The European Union is today an Euro-global union that fails to defend the European identity, economy and industry. Regarding the Church, its position in favor of immigrationist lobby is clear. As a Christian, I wish it were not so, but it is. There are always laudable exceptions, but the official line is to ask for open doors to immigrants.

Rapes in Sweden, the imposition of sharia in many British districts, intifada in France, restrictions on ideas of identity in Germany. What is happening in Europe, Josep, that such significant examples of political surrender of the ruling class still do not cause a reaction of native Europeans in order to ensure their own survival?

We Europeans have been inoculated with a guilt complex for many decades. From the media, literature, the film industry and other weapons of propaganda, the idea was launched that Europe was guilty of everything, guilty for causing all Third World disasters, guilty of the disasters of post-colonization, guilty of hunger in Africa, guilty of creating widespread chaos in Central America, guilty of the endemic problems of others, and that we should expiate these sins by opening the doors to the millions of immigrants who would come to our countries escaping their own misery, which — at the very heart — is our mistake. This is a wicked falsehood that has permeated the collective mind of Europeans, who are suffering from what many authors have classified as “ethnomasochism”, which leads to resignation and acceptance of the unacceptable. It is a moral decay that leads to a loosening of policy.

The first thing to do is to expose and eliminate this absurd ethnomasochism. Europeans are not guilty of anything; the blame for the underdevelopment of the Third World lies with their own leaders and their own populations. Of course, we are willing to help, but always in their places of origin. And we’ll not allow them to invade our lands, collapse our economies and destroy our ancient cultures.

In Catalonia, the moral double standard of the leadership has reached grotesque levels. For example, what would have happened to Josep Anglada if he had made a plea in favor of the mistreatment of women, as recently the imam of Tarrasa did?

That is something that happens in Catalonia, in Spain and throughout Western Europe. As you say, it is something grotesque and has much to do with ethnomasochism. I repeat, it is not something typical of Catalonia. If someone in Bilbao, Madrid, or Malaga says the same as Anglada in Catalonia, the double standard and media lynching will be the same that I receive here.

The situation is ridiculous. A foreign imam says that women must be mistreated, and the only complaint comes from Platform for Catalonia. I say something as logical as that natives must come first and the mainstream media don’t stop insulting me and calling me xenophobic, racist, undemocratic and other nonsense. This is further evidence that many have lost their common sense.

Part II

Liberal feminists, the puppets of multiculturalism — What do you attribute the foul silence of feminists and liberals to when news about attacks to the dignity of women in Catalonia arise?

Liberal feminists have long adopted the role of puppets of multiculturalism and pro-immigrationism, even if it means a blatant contradiction with their positions from a couple of decades ago.

The same women who burned their bras in public as a sign of liberation are now those who dare not speak out against violence to women as brutal as the wearing of veils and female circumcision. This has certainly nothing to do with “liberation” The shameful attitude of those feminists clearly shows their moral standing.

You coined the phrase that the political caste is rotten. According to current events it seems that you were even too mild in your assertion…

Let’s say that this assertion defines the political class as a whole. You could add several more adjectives, none of them favorable, but that’s precisely what our politicians are. A caste, in the sense of an inbred group with their own interests, these being different from those of the rest of the population, and (they are also) parasitic, because they live on the resources of that very population they defend no more, hoarding them like parasites. The phrase still seems rather valid.

What price does Josep Anglada have to pay for publicly speaking out about what many say only in private?

When I decided to dedicate my life to the political defense of the native Catalan population against the flood of migration and the tyranny of the political caste, I knew I was taking a number of risks. I took courage and accepted the challenge. Personally I do not complain about any of it, and I do not want to make any eulogy of my personal performance. I Just fulfill my voluntarily assumed duties.

“A Muslim or Ecuadorian who speaks Catalan is not a Catalan”

Do you think that Catalan nationalism will one day realize that “Houston, we have a problem” regarding Islamic immigration?

No, never. This pseudo-nationalism is actually a threat to the true identity of Catalonia. Convergencia i Unió and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya have been the first to welcome mass immigration. They have called those who came from the Third World “nous Catalans” (new Catalans) and they have spoken of a “multicultural” Catalonia. They will never be conscious (of their acts) because for them to be a Catalan is simply to speak Catalan, which is just a ridiculous and reduced vision of the Catalan identity. A Muslim or an Ecuadorian who speak Catalan are not Catalans, and this is something that goes against the anti-identitarian pseudo-nationalism of CiU and ERC.

Catalonia is the opposite of what Eurovegas represents [Eurovegas: A recent project to make a new Las Vegas in Spain —translator]. Your party has positioned itself against the proposed plan to create Eurovegas mainly due to ethical reasons. What hidden interests do you believe are behind this project?

I fear that the interests are not even hidden. Its promoter, the mogul Sheldon Adelson, is characterized by doing dirty business and engaging in intolerable labor exploitation. Eurovegas is an anti-ecological project based on gambling, luxury prostitution — as Duran i Lleida itself acknowledged — and all sorts of filthy businesses surrounding this kind of decaying world.

CiU approves it because at a deeper level Eurovegas match their liberal and plutocratic model of Catalonia. We want another Catalonia for our children, one based on honest work, healthy leisure, social justice, morality, a Catalonia which is utterly opposed to what Eurovegas represents.

PxC bids all over Spain

Many readers demand the presence of PxC in Spain. Will there be a platformist candidate for every Spanish electoral district in the next European Parliament elections?

On March 31 we will make the official presentation of the symbol with which we will develop our activities outside of Catalonia; that is, from that time on the presence of Platform for Catalonia in Spain will already be a reality.

In the European elections, Spain is a single constituency and our plan is of course to submit an application. We have two years until June 2014 to work and see the possibilities we have in order to place one of our representatives in the Parliament in Strasbourg. We know that we will have a major support from European identitarian parties. That very year, in autumn 2014 provided no advancement is done, Plataforma per Catalunya will run in the Catalan elections with great chances to enter Parliament, and a few months later, in the spring of 2015, Platform will present hundreds of candidatures for the municipal elections in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain.

What would you like to be the main objective of PxC to be met this year?

This year we have a double objective: to stimulate activity in all regions of Catalonia and open several delegations in various parts of Spain, where we already have important support groups. 2012 will be a year of teamwork for us.

The two faces of PP

Which of the two models the PP holds regarding Muslims seems most plausible: that of Catalonia or that of Melilla, where a Muslim was appointed as head of the Delegation of Government?

As stated in your question, the PP has two models regarding Muslims, according to the place their representatives speak. That’s why neither one nor the other is credible, but it is the mask they use depending on the audience, a speech which in the end is the same: tolerance and cooperation with Islamization. Look at the case of the sorcerer’s apprentice García Albiol. After all his (anti-Islamist) propaganda he ended up authorizing the construction of a mosque in Badalona.

Are you surprised that the debate on flags in Catalonia has intensified when the worries and concerns of the Catalans are rather different?

No, nothing surprises me. When the political elite has no solutions for specific problems, they invent fictive ones to cover up their inefficacy. Some speak about the issue of the flags, others about the alleged linguistic conflict in Catalonia. This is just smoke.

The only organization which talks about real problems and provides effective and concrete solutions is Platform for Catalonia. We are the people and talk to people. The results of the next elections will confirm this.



Platform for Catalonia
Immigration Policy

Massive immigration is one of the consequences of globalization. The waves of illegal immigration cause a rise in crime, unemployment, and social spending. They create linguistic, religious and cultural conflicts together with a huge level of social exclusion, thus causing a serious menace to the identity and the social cohesion of Catalonia.

PxC believes that:

  • The immigrants have their rights and obligations, but by no means shall they have more privileges that the rest of citizens in Catalonia.
  • The immigrants must adapt to our social model, and not we to theirs.
  • We will require immigrants to follow the laws of our country, and we will prosecute those who do not want to pay taxes just like any other citizen.
  • Although respecting freedom of belief, PxC will not give subsidies from public money to the building of mosques.
  • We will intensify the policies of international cooperation with the countries where immigrants originate in order to curb in a drastic way the flow of migrants.
  • Illegal immigrants must be expelled.
  • Criminal immigrants must be expelled after serving their sentence.

Video transcript:

00:03   Plataforma per Catalunya is preparing to extend
00:06   outside our country [region] after having grown in the last
00:09   municipal elections. This Saturday, leaders of the
00:12   party will meet in Sant Boi with people from all
00:15   over the country in order to study the possibility
00:18   of presenting some tens of candidatures outside
00:21   Catalonia for 2015. Sant Boi on Saturday will be
00:24   the gathering place for people from all over the
00:27   country who define themselves as “identitarians”,
00:30   meeting with leader J. Anglada and David Parada,
00:33   a prominent member, secretary of the organization and
00:36   councilor in this town of the Baix Maestrat, among
00:39   others. Anglada explained to our channel the
00:41   goal of his party in spreading to the rest of Spain.
00:44   “Yes, this is something we already had in mind
00:47   long ago. I believe that the time has come,
00:50   and moreover, I believe that it is not good to
00:53   have this two-party system on a national level
00:56   in Spain between the Popular and the Socialist
00:59   Party, and we assume that the formula of P. per
01:02   Catalunya, which has been successful in
01:05   Catalonia, can also succeed in the rest of Spain
01:08   and give many, many thousands of Spaniards the
01:11   possibility to vote for other political options
01:14   besides the Popular and the Socialist Parties. We
01:17   assume that nowadays it is important to have this
01:20   third alternative of hope, because I believe people
01:23   are disappointed with the political class we have in
01:26   Spain. The main goal… because we must understand
01:29   and acknowledge that (people) are a bit behind
01:32   regarding platforms on a national level, the main
01:35   goal for all platforms all over Spain is nowadays
01:38   the next municipal elections of 2015.”
01:41   They will now work out how to put forward some
01:44   tens of candidatures for municipalities outside of
01:47   Catalonia in the next municipal elections of 2015.
01:50   Let’s not forget that after the last elections the number
01:53   of PxC councilors rose from 17 to 67. The party
01:56   also has contacts in Europe with the Italian Northern League,
01:59   the French National Front, and other parties from Sweden
02:02   and Austria. If nothing changes, they will be in
02:05   the European elections, and regarding this issue,
02:07   the party leader had this to say:
02:10   “We have also many contacts on a European
02:13   level; I myself was in Italy last week. If
02:16   nothing changes, I’ll be traveling to Brussels
02:19   as a guest at the end of April or beginning of
02:22   May, and I’ll travel again to Italy, more exactly
02:25   to Milan, in June. But regarding the elections,
02:28   everything will depend on… because as you
02:31   know, we are a honest party, and contrary to
02:34   other parties in this country, we don’t have much
02:37   in the way of financial resources. So, the main goal of PxC
02:40   will be the elections for the autonomous regions
02:43   to be held, as far as I can remember, in 2014, but
02:46   perhaps they will be held sooner… if so, then now
02:49   we would not have enough resources to participate
02:52   in these elections, but it seems that on a European level,
02:55   there’s much interest to see Plataforma per Catalunya
02:58   in the next European elections, but if there’s no
03:01   chances, we do not rule out that we won’t take part
03:04   in the next European elections”
03:07   The leadership of this party which has been cleaned
03:10   of any link to radical Catalan movements, has now
03:13   strengthened its anti-Islamic and identitarian agenda
03:16   of European populism, and considers that they are
03:19   strong enough in Catalonia to make the
03:22   big jump beyond.

Totalitarians Suffer From Free Speech Phobia

Background

The Baron doesn’t have time for ‘social media’. Truth be told, I wouldn’t either if I were well, but sometimes during one of my attacks of the Vapors, when I’m stuck in bed, it’s fun to divert myself from the discomfort by visiting our Twitter page to check out the latest memes. Some of them are trivial, some amusing, some scurrilous. What they aren’t is long. A blessing indeed that each message is limited to 140 characters when you have fibrofog! The worse it gets, the more blessed is brevity.

The initial sign-up and jargon was confusing but several other bloggers helped me get the thing up and running a few years ago. Now it’s rather like standing on a busy street corner and catching bits of conversation. I miss the feisty Andrew Breitbart, who so enjoyed responding to the haters; his élan is one of the reasons AB is so missed — he was fun and fearless. And Michelle Malkin responds to them in the same way. The hatred is intense vitriol; you can’t help wondering how otherwise sane (one hopes they’re sane) adults (one hopes they’re adults) can spew that stuff so punctually and predictably… and in the end, the greatest sin of all: they’re boring.

We get email notices of “follows” every day on our account. I often look at the profiles of people who choose to get our feed, and ninety-nine per cent of the time I let the follow through. Sometimes I follow back, especially if the language isn’t foul or if it doesn’t seem to be merely a marketing ploy or spam. Other days, when I don’t feel well enough to open the computer, who knows? Followers just come on through and the busy Baron deletes them in our webmail. I seldom visit the “Following You” page to see who’s there. Sometimes I will look quickly down the list to see if a blogger compatriot is on there and doesn’t have a reciprocal “follow” from us.

I did block two real (i.e., non-spam) Twitter accounts recently: the first was quite recent: from one of those Norwegian dudes who ‘reported’ on our supposed demographics. Their descriptions were even uglier and less accurate than President Obama’s infamous “bitter clingers” comment regarding a group of American citizens who planned not to vote for him in 2008. Since then, of course, many conservatives have proudly worn “Bitter Clinger” t-shirts, etc. while they continue to razz him for his mean-spirited remarks about the good people of the Fifty Seven states of America.

[Heh. I always thought he got us confused with the OIC but obviously I’m wrong since the ever-vigilant and ever more Leftie Snopes describes the OIC as some “obscure” group. I’ll bet Madame Secretary of State would be amused.]

The second was a Swedish babe (yep, I’m politically incorrect. Yawn.) who claims (a) that Gates of Vienna is run by Fjordman, and (b) it’s Fjordman who is responsible for “his” blog’s support of Israel. For her ‘proof’ this blogress posted a picture of Fjordman to demonstrate his ‘obviously Jewish’ facial features, and then posited several psychiatric diagnoses resulting from these racial features. I didn’t see any evidence of her background in medicine, but maybe she’s modest and has scads of credentials to back up her paranoid Swedish conclusions. But given her culture, she doesn’t like to brag, see?

Given their outright lies, the two of them can come in through the front gate like anyone else. Or they can stay home. As they say around here, “it don’t confront me none” whether they read us or whether they stay home sharpening their little hate hatchets.

The Progressive Fear Showing Its (Masked) Face on Twitter

Twitter has a feature which allows you to report spam accounts if they attempt to link you.

There have only been a few here, easily deleted. However, in an interesting if predictable development, Da Tech Guy (among many others), reports that conservative blogs are being targeted by numbers of Lefties as “spam”, thus getting the right-leaning blog accounts suspended by Twitter. In other words, they send out reams of spam to Twitter declaring certain right wing blogs as ‘spam’. The mind reels…

Da Tech Guy says:

Have you ever wondered why the left always seemed to take the side of the totalitarian states during the cold war. Well look at what’s happening on twitter and wonder no more:

Last night Twitchy reported that liberals had launched an assault on conservative Twitter users, reporting them as spam to trigger account suspensions and renewing their abuse of the flag-spam feature when conservative accounts were reinstated.

You can usually tell spam when it comes… [he means when it comes in your email]

… you look at the account, it has 0-10 followers and tweets out the same link to different folks hoping you will click on it (they also as a rule have an image of an attractive lady but I digress) Our friends on the left after seeing conservatives on twitter beat them time and time again have decided to abuse the reporting system to shut down debate:

The Left has begun organizing stalker mobs to falsely report conservatives for “spam”/“abuse,” in order to silence the Right on Twitter. Why?

Silencing opposition is the Left’s only hope for success. [my emphasis — D]

If conservatives are permitted a fair chance to critique the Left’s agenda, to expose the Left’s tactics and demonstrate the failure of the Left’s policies, the Left loses. Not content to dominate academia, public schools, the entertainment industry, book publishing and the mainstream news media — all of which cultural institutions are characterized by an overwhelming liberal hegemony — the Left is now determined to silence conservative opposition in the few bastions of freedom that remain: Talk radio, cable TV and the Internet.

The post goes on to quote Ed Morrisey’s take and offers some ideas as to the reasons for these attacks. I recommend reading the whole thing.

Da Tech asks:

What still amazes me is how these people are so willing to do this openly.

After six years of experience with haters, I’m no longer amazed. Amused is closer to our reaction. The Left has no shame, no sense of integrity. Indeed, they “are so willing to attack openly” because they control the portals to academia, the press, and the government bureaucracy ; their arrogance arises from a sense of hubris. Just watch Obama in action for a week or so to witness the sense of noblesse oblige. That character flaw is why I long ago named him the Dauphin.

True Believers don’t need humility for their Project of bringing us under control and closing off speech for those with whom they disagree. When the ends justify the means, they have no problem defining dissent as “spam” and thus attacking in hordes so that Twitter suspends a rightwing account. Such an end is righteous indeed, a victory against the Enemy — and we are the Enemy, as we learned with Breivik and the country which spawned him. The ends justify the means for these folks even when the means are untruths, slanders, and libel. Regarding that last smear, they know you have to have very deep pockets to mount a response forcing the truth to be told.

The Baron is pessimistic about the chances for conservatives to prevail in the coming Presidential election. I can understand why: of all the able candidates who might have been put forth, the Republican Party nonetheless decided to field a hedge fund manager as its choice for President in 2012. Still, when one considers Obama’s record, even the weight of his incumbency doesn’t tip the scales much in his favor. And there are Young Turks, able and smart, coming up the ranks. So I’m guardedly hopeful. When the New York Times starts smearing them, you know they’re scared. These Progressives are rotten poker players.

Meanwhile, as the Left continues to panic, expect to see more of the Chicago Way in operation between now and November. As Da Tech Guy says:

As the truth of the left’s prospects in this election become more apparent expect more of this because the bottom line is our friends on the left can’t compete in the market place of ideas so they want to shut it down.

Amen, brother.



Updated with the links now corrected as far as I can tell. This happens more frequently now because Blogger’s new improved “Preview” doesn’t permit any previewing of the links. Go figure.

Why Islam is the Largest Threat to Freedom

Below is the prepared text of the speech given today by Geert Wilders at the Gatestone Institute in New York. Many thanks to the PVV for sending it.



Dear friends,

I am happy to be in New York again, even though in my country today it is Queen’s day, a national celebration. This is why I am wearing my orange tie.

Geert WildersThank you, Nina, for organizing this event and giving me the opportunity to address all of you. It is always good to be among friends. It is an honor to be here in the presence of so many people who care for the preservation of freedom in our civilization.

It is great to be in America, the beacon of liberty, the land of the free, the land where people are still allowed to speak freely. I know what I am talking about. I was acquitted after a legal ordeal that lasted almost 3 years. I had been brought to court for criticizing Islam.

Though at the end of the day I was acquitted, the court case had been a disgrace. It was a time-, money- and energy-consuming nightmare. This charade that happened in the Netherlands for the last few years could not have happened in your great country, where the First Amendment guarantees people the freedom to express their opinions.

The first Amendment is what we need in the Netherlands and Europe.

I am in New York for the release of my book “Marked for Death”. It explains why Islam is the largest threat to freedom which the world is currently facing. It argues why Islam is a totalitarian ideology rather than a religion. It reveals how Islam has already profoundly changed Europe in the last decades. It exposes the cultural relativism which has affected Europe so deeply that many in Europe refuse to stand for liberty and prefer to appease Islam.

As you know, people who speak out like myself and I pay a steep price for speaking these truths. Apart from legal attempts to silence me, there are also the threats by radical Muslims to kill me. I have been living under permanent police protection for almost eight years now. People like me pay this price for speaking the truth about Islam. But I do not regret one word. I see it as my duty to warn the West.

I have traveled widely in the Islamic world. I have read the Koran. I have studied the life of Muhammad. It made me realize that Islam is primarily a dangerous ideology rather than a religion. This is the truth. This violent ideology wants to impose Islamic sharia law on the whole world, including us the Kafirs, the non-Muslims. This inhumane ideology is also outspokenly anti-Semitic.

This ideology also harms Muslims. Islam believes that everything men have to know can be found in the Koran. As such, it is hostile to all forms of innovation. But without innovation there can be no progress and people cannot prosper.

Many people unfortunately are blind to the true nature of Islam. They are blind because they do not realize what Islam is and mistakenly believe that it is a religion just like any other religion.

I have written my book to inform them.

Islam fails four major tests that religions should fulfill:

1.   Adherence to a religion must be a personal choice;
2.   no religion should demand that those who leave it be killed;
3.   a religion must never mandate the subjugation of those who do not belong to it;
4.   a religion must be in accord with basic human rights.

I have also written my book because I am not a defeatist. The West is able to defeat totalitarian Islam just as it defeated Nazism and Communism in the past.

My book is dedicated to freedom. It is inspired by many freedom fighters, from previous generations but also people from our age. As it happens, two people, whom I refer to in the book, are present in this room here today: Andy Bostom and Ibn Warraq.

Fortunately, we are not alone in the fight for freedom. We are in the company of heroes and friends. This gives us the strength to continue.

In order to defeat Islam so, we must do four things.

The first and most important is to speak the truth, always and everywhere also about Islam. Like the Americans, the people in the Netherlands and other European countries desperately need a First Amendment.

That will allow them to tell the truth about Islam and Muhammad. In doing so we will expose this dangerous ideology and its founder. We must encourage Muslims to leave Islam and to choose for freedom and prosperity.

Secondly, we have to believe in the superiority of our Western values. If we do not believe in our own Western values, we will not be prepared to defend them. That is why we have to end the biggest disease in the world today, the cultural relativism which pretends that all cultures are equal. This is simply not true. Our Judeo-Christian and humanist civilization is far superior to any other civilizations like the barbaric Islamic civilization. We should not be afraid to say so. It is more free, more democratic, more tolerant than any civilization the world has ever seen.

Thirdly, we must stop the Islamization of our societies, by restricting immigration from Islamic countries, and expelling those who violate our laws and commit violence. If you respect our laws you are welcome to stay; if you don’t you do not belong here and we will send you packing.

And fourthly, we must reassert our national identities. The nation-state enables self-government and self-determination. This insight led the Zionists to establish Israel as the homeland of the Jews.

Zionism teaches us one of the most important lessons which the modern world needs today. Theodor Herzl argued that a Jewish state would facilitate “a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.” Today, we need our own respective nation-states to preside over a new blossoming of our own Western spirit.

Our nations are the homes in which freedom and democracy prospers. This is true for the Netherlands. This is true for America. This is true for Israel.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is a beacon of freedom in an unfree region, a beacon of life in a place of darkness. If Israel falls, the West falls.

Mothers in the West can sleep safely because Israeli mothers at night worry about their sons in the army. Their fight is our fight. We should support it.

Israel is, indeed, a vital outpost of Western civilization. That is why Islam conditions the faithful to hate the Jewish state and to view its destruction as an imperative. It is our duty to stand with Israel.

All these arguments are made in my book, in which I also explain how we can defend freedom and oppose Islamization and cultural relativism in a non-violent and democratic way. In fact, that is what my party, the Party for Freedom, is doing in the Netherlands.

When I began to speak out against Islam 10 years ago, two things happened. Extremist Muslims from the Netherlands and all over the world marked me for death, but Dutch people came to me to express me their support. In 2010, we became the third biggest party in the Netherlands. Though the PVV did not become a coalition partner in the Dutch government, for almost two years we supported a center-right minority government in return for measures to roll back Sharia in Holland, stop the Islamization process, and counter cultural relativism.

The Dutch government even had the audacity to speak out against the powerful OIC, the Organisation of Islamic Conference. The OIC is an international organization of 57 Islamic countries, most of them barbaric tyrannies.

This OIC constitutes the largest voting bloc in the United Nation. It had criticized the fact that Dutch judges had acquitted me of all charges in my court case. But the Dutch government made it clear to the OIC that freedom of speech will not be muzzled in the Netherlands. It told the OIC very bluntly: “The Dutch government dissociates itself fully from the request to silence a politician.” Never before had a European government had the courage to confront the OIC in such a forceful way.

Unfortunately, last week, the Party for Freedom decided to end its support for the government. As you can imagine, this was a difficult decision for us, given the many things also on the subject of Islamization that we were still to achieve. Unfortunately, however, previous Dutch governments — as governments elsewhere in Europe — have signed away a significant part of our own sovereignty to the EU, the European Union, a supranational institution run by unelected and undemocratic bureaucrats.

The EU controls our borders and decides over most immigration rules. The EU also imposes a policy of austerity on our country.

When the government, in order to comply with the EU rules, decided to raise taxes and slash the budget at the expense of the citizens rather than by trimming the government, my party had no other option but to bring the government down and we did so last week.

We are now heading for elections, which will be held on September 12th. Our electoral campaign will focus on the need to restore our national sovereignty, because without our sovereignty we cannot defend our identity and fight against Islamization.

My friends, we continue our efforts. Our opponents have not been able to bully me. They have not been able to silence me. They shriek and yell, but we will never give in. One of my favorite presidents Ronald Reagan once said: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted.” Reagan was right. The future belongs to us.

In 2008, I released Fitna, a documentary about the true message of the Koran. Tomorrow, I release my book. I wrote it to inform people and also to encourage freedom loving Muslims to leave Islam. And to see Islam for what it really is.

I wholeheartedly support those who struggle for freedom in the Islamic world. The Arab, Turkish, Iranian, Pakistani, and Indonesian people have tremendous potential. If they could liberate themselves from the yoke of Islam, if they would stop taking Muhammad as a role model, and if they get rid of the hateful Koran, they would be able to achieve amazing things.

As I say in my book — my message to them, to all the muslims all over the world, is clear: “Fatalism is no option, Inch’Allah is a curse; Submission is a disgrace. Free yourselves. It is up to you.”

I receive hundreds of emails from all over the world. From people in Islamic countries, and from people in Western countries begging for help. They, too, want to fight for freedom and stop the Islamization process. We have to advise and help.

I leave you with another Reagan quote: “We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow.” Indeed, my friends, there are so many things which we can do. Things which we must do. But we can do them only if we can count on each other. You can count on me. I spoke, I speak, I shall continue to speak. I hope I can continue to count on your support.

We are fighting for the future of our children, the survival of the Western spirit, the preservation of our liberty and democracy, our Judeo-Christian and humanist heritage.

We must be brave and save our heritage and our own constitution. The West is in danger, but we can still prevail. Even when we are insulted, even when we are harassed and intimidated, even when we are marked for death — we must stand up for our values, tell the truth and never ever be silenced.

Thank you.

Can We Say “I Told You So”?

Remember the “Arab Spring”? How about “democracy in the Middle East” — does that ring a bell?

Well, that was then, and this is now.

More than a year ago, before the blood had been hosed off the concrete in Tahrir Square, those of us who have studied the history of the region were not as sanguine as the mainstream media about the anticipated rosy future for the Muslim Middle East.

The past four decades of Lebanese history offered an instructive example, as did the election of Hamas in Gaza. It was obvious that when the “Arab street” finally got a chance to vote in a real election, it would install the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates in office.

Which, of course, is exactly what happened in Tunisia and Egypt, and to a lesser extent in Morocco. And the mandarins of the MSM are now shocked — shocked! — to discover Islamic fundamentalists calling the shots in their beloved new “democracies”.

All this brutality, murder, homophobia, and misogyny — who could have guessed?

The following article is from Saturday’s Washington Post, but similar pieces have recently appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, and other venerable leftist organs.

It seems the Progressives of the media are waking up to the unintended consequences of what they pushed so fervidly to achieve last year. Or, to be more cynical about it, perhaps their masters in the Obama administration have ordered up these reports as advance damage control in anticipation of a long, hot Arab Summer just before the election:

The ‘Islamist Spring’ Continues as Tunisia Suffers Fundamentalist Takeover

One year after the uprising that sent autocratic leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali packing to exile in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia stands divided between two visions of its future. Last year’s street clashes in this sun-spangled city by the sea have morphed into a different kind of battle — more intimate confrontations in which many families struggle with essential questions of identity.

Secular parents, surprised to find their daughter covering her hair in public, worry they are losing their child to extremism. Moderately religious families argue over a son’s decision to grow a beard and demonstrate against aspects of Tunisian life they have always taken for granted: beer and wine, bikinis on the beach, Hollywood movies on TV. In workplaces, kitchens and sidewalk tearooms, one question dominates: Can and should Tunisia’s blend of Western and Islamic values and practices be maintained under the North African country’s new freedom, or has that freedom unleashed a religious extremism that threatens to push this land of 10 million people toward a new kind of dictatorship?

Read the rest at the WaPo website.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/29/2012

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/29/2012True to his word, Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center burned a Koran outside his church yesterday in Gainesville, Florida. He and his congregation also burned a print of Kurt Westergaard’s “Turban Bomb Mohammed” at the same time. The event was part of Pastor Jones’ proposed worldwide Koran-Burning Day to protest the jailing of a Christian minister in Iran. There’s no word whether any other churches burned Korans yesterday.

In other news, Canada’s finance minister caused controversy at an IMF meeting when he refused to agree on a Canadian contribution of $7 billion to the new $400-billion IMF bailout fund, which is primarily intended to address the ongoing debt crisis in the Eurozone.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Russkiy, Steen, Takuan Seiyo, The Observer, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

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

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

Muslims Slaughter Christians in Nigeria and Kenya

It was open season on Christian worshippers today in parts of Africa, as Islamic terrorists struck at churchgoers in two deadly attacks in Nigeria and Kenya.

The video below is taken from a CBC news report on the incidents in Nairobi and Kano:



A report from AGI has more details about the attack on the Church in Nairobi, which is suspected to be the work of Al Shabaab. Witnesses in the church believe that a bomb had been placed under the altar by an accomplice:

21 Dead in Attacks on Christians in Kenya and Nigeria

(AGI) Nairobi – There have been new attacks against Christians in Africa where one person was killed and ten wounded, four seriously, when a grenade was thrown at a Catholic church in Nairobi. Police sources have reported that twenty people died in an attack in Nigeria.

According to the daily newspaper the Daily Nation, no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack during Mass at the international Church of God’s Miracles in Nairobi’s Ngara district. Six of those wounded have been hospitalized at the Guru Nanak Hospital while those most seriously injured are at the National Kenyatta Hospital. A number of witnesses have reported that the bomb may have been placed under the altar by one of those attending Mass, probably an accomplice.

No one has yet claimed responsibility but it is thought that the attacks was carried out by the Somali militia Shabaab, linked to Al Qaeda and previously responsible for other attacks against Christians in Kenya.

In March one person died in a similar attack in Mombasa and nine died in attack on a bus stop in Nairobi. Last week the American Embassy warned its citizens in Kenya that attacks were considered imminent.

The attacks on Christians in Nigeria are thought to have been carried out by the Islamic fundamentalist terror group Boko Haram. Also from AGI, here’s a report on today’s attack:

Loud Explosion and Gun Shots at Kano University in Nigeria

(AGI) Kano – A loud explosion shook up the Kano University campus in Northern Nigeria. This is the city that was targeted by the attacks by of the Boko Haram sect during the last few weeks The news was reported by sources of the security forces.

After the explosion, witnesses also heard the firing of gunshots. In the same area there is an outdoor theater which is attended by Christian students.

A second report from Nigeria lists a total of twenty deaths for all the university attacks:

Nigeria: 20 Bodies Found After Kano University Attacks

(AGI) Kano – Twenty bodies were recovered after the attacks by Islamic sect Boko Haram in recent weeks in the university area of Kano in northern Nigeria, a military source reported. At first a loud explosion was heard in front of a theatre hall used to celebrate religious Christian functions when the place was crowded with people. Witnesses said they later heard gun shots, which suggests that the explosion opened the way to an armed commando.



Hat tips: Vlad Tepes, C. Cantoni.

Muhammad Manipulated the Koran

The following article by Geert Wilders was published in Dutch at thr Dagelijkse Standaard website. Many thanks to a Dutch reader for sending a translation.

A note on Mr. Wilders’ book: we were sent an advance copy for review purposes, and will indeed be reviewing it.

Rotterdam Mosque, Geert Wilders


Muhammad Manipulated the Koran
by Geert Wilders

My book about Islam (Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me) is being launched in New York on Tuesday. It posits that the Koran is not a book that was written by Allah, but on the contrary, one that was written by Muhammad. That is the truth, but to Islam that is outright blasphemy.

Islam claims that the Koran was written down by Allah in person before the beginning of time. It was written in Arabic, says verse 20:113. The original copy of the book — the Umm al-Kitab, the “Mother of the Book”- lies on a golden table in heaven. Consequently the Koran is of a totally different order than the Jewish or Christian bibles, which were written down by prophets or apostles. The Koran was written directly by Allah himself.

According to Islam Muhammad simply noted down what the archangel Gabriel read to him from Allah’s book. Whoever doubts that must fear for his life. That is why historic and linguistic research into the origin of the Koran are taboo.

In 1991, Suliman Bashaer, a professor at the Palestinian university in Nablus, was thrown out of a second storey window by his students because he questioned the historic truth of the Koran. A Lebanese or Syrian linguist, whose identity is known to no-one and who writes under the pseudonym of Christoph Luxenberg, maintains that the Koran cannot have been written in Arabic but was written in the related Syro-Aramaic language. His life, too, is in danger, because Allah himself said that the Koran was written in Arabic. Whoever denies that commits blasphemy. When Newsweek published an article about Luxenberg’s theory some years ago it was promptly banned in a number of Islamic countries.

Yet the evidence that not Allah, but Muhammad is the author of the Koran is overwhelming. When one reads the Sira, the biography of Muhammad written by Ibn Ishaq in the eighth century, it is striking how Allah produced texts that catered directly for Muhammad’s political, sexual and covetous desires. One must be blind not to see that Muhammad was an opportunist who adapted texts as it suited him.

Take the example of the so-called Satanic Verses. In the early period of Islam Muhammad did not get much support in his home town of Mecca. His fellow citizens did not believe a word of what he told them about the so-called messages of Allah. As a consequence, Muhammad, who sought the support of the Meccans, allowed the Muslims to pray to Mecca’s main female deities. He said they were the daughters of Allah. They were perfect intercessors, said the Koran.

Later, when Muhammad quarreled with the Meccans, he revoked these verses, claiming that they had been inspired by the devil instead of by Gabriel. This story is in the Sira, but Muslims do not like to be reminded of it. Salman Rushdie incurred a death sentence for his book The Satanic Verses. The Japanese translator of Rushdie’s book was murdered; two other translators and the Norwegian publisher of the book narrowly escaped the same fate.

As Muhammad failed to convince Mecca’s polytheists, he attempted to win the support of Jews and Christians in the city. This explains why Allah was friendly towards them in the early verses of the Koran. But when the Jews and the Christians refused to recognize Muhammad as God’s latest Prophet, the Koran began to threaten them with hell and damnation. New verses commanded the Muslims to wage war on them.

As a result, many Koranic verses contradict each other. Muslims have solved this problem with the abrogation concept: Later verses overrule earlier ones. This, too, is something they do not like to be reminded of. In a speech in Regensburg in 2006, Pope Benedict unwittingly pointed out that there is a difference between the tolerant verses of the early period, “when Muhammad was still powerless and under threat,” and the hostile verses of the later period. At once savages burned down churches in Islamic countries and murdered Catholics. The Pope quickly apologized.

Muhammad not only manipulated the Koran for political reasons. He also did it out of lust. When Muhammad desired the wife of his adopted son, he forced the latter to divorce her. Arab incest taboos, however, did not allow a man to marry the ex-wife of an adopted son. And behold, Allah produced a Koranic verse (33:37-38) ordering him to marry the woman so that “it should become legitimate for true believers to wed the wives of their adopted sons. Allah’s will must be done. No blame shall be attached to the Prophet for doing what is sanctioned for him by Allah.

Muhammad also manipulated the Koran to satisfy his greed for material things. After the raid on a Meccan trade caravan at Badr in March 624, Muhammad wanted to have all the spoils for himself. Lo and behold, there was Allah with a verse (8:1) stating “The spoils belong to Allah and the Apostle.”

All this aroused the suspicions of Muhammad’s scribe, the man who wrote down the prophet’s revelations. The scribe renounced Islam and ran away.

This, too, is something the adherents of Islam do not like being reminded of. However, that the Koran was not written by Allah in heaven is a fact. The Koran was made up by Muhammad as it suited his according to his opportunistic goals. We must confront Muslims with this truth. Because only the truth sets people free. And if the truth is that the Koran is not the word of Allah, it does not need to be taken literally.



Geert Wilders is a member of the Dutch Parliament and leader of the Party for Freedom. He is the author of the book “Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me” (Regnery). This article was first published in Dutch at the Dagelijkse Standaard website.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/28/2012

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/28/2012Despite the opposition of Sinn Fein Leader Gerry Adams, the Irish referendum on the new EU fiscal treaty is expected to support the Eurozone regime. The latest polls in Ireland show 47% in favor of the treaty, 35% opposed, and 18% undecided.

In other news, the Chinese have become the single largest source of aid to South Sudan. Before Sudan was divided, China invested extensively in the entire country, due to its oil resources. The aid has followed the oil since the breakup, causing the Chinese to focus on South Sudan.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, Mary Abdelmassih, Nick, Steen, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

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

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

The Natives Come First!

The anti-Islamization activist Josep Anglada is said by some to be the Tommy Robinson — or even the Geert Wilders — of Spain.

Strictly speaking, we should say “of Catalonia”, since Mr. Anglada speaks on behalf of a Catalonian political party to a Catalonian audience in the Catalan language. Catalonia has an Iberian culture, and its language is understandable to natives of other Spanish regions, but it is as ethnically distinct as Portugal.

The video below shows excerpts from a speech given by Josep Anglada of Plataforma per Catalunya (Platform for Catalonia) just before the Spanish general elections, November 10, 2011. The party received 59,781 votes.

Many thanks to our Spanish correspondent Hermes for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:



A transcript of the video is below the jump:

00:01   We are about to see a dream
00:04   come true, a dream I know
00:06   that we can fulfill together, with
00:09   you, with the women and men
00:11   of Plataforma per Catalunya,
00:14   and we will make it come true
00:16   with all those people who
00:19   collaborated in this campaign.
00:21   We must open the doors of
00:24   the Congress of Deputies to
00:26   the voice of the identity so
00:29   that our slogan, which
00:31   comprises four words,
00:34   will be heard with strength
00:36   and energy: The Natives Come First!
00:38   It is evident that not only
00:41   leftists and anarchists fear us, but also
00:44   the political class, and the political
00:47   class fear us because they know
00:50   that we will never make pacts
00:53   with this political class. They fear
00:56   us, because they know that the
00:59   men and women of Plataforma
01:02   per Catalunya will never enter
01:05   into pacts with the offspring
01:08   of this politics of the 3%, the Palau, the
01:11   Pretoria, or the Gurtel case [corruption cases].
01:14   They fear us, because they know that the men
01:17   and women of Plataforma per Catalunya
01:20   will never make pacts with those responsible
01:23   for the Islamization of Catalonia, Spain
01:26   and Europe. And we cannot make
01:29   pacts with this political class because
01:32   Plataforma per Catalunya, together with the
01:35   other European identitarian parties, together —
01:38   WE’LL LIBERATE CATALONIA, SPAIN
01:41   AND EUROPE FROM ISLAMIZATION.

Sabotaging the Lettuce

Cultural Enrichment News


A Moroccan immigrant in Spain has been sabotaging his employer’s exports by concealing broken glass in shipments of lettuce. Many thanks to our Spanish correspondent Hermes for translating this article from Diario de Avisos:

Worker detained for hiding broken glass in lettuces
April 27, 2012
Europa Press, Murcia

Broken glass found in lettuceThe Civil Guard in the Murcia region has carried out “Operation Batavia”, which resulted the arrest of a worker at a food company in the Murcia region on suspicion of a crime against public health for introducing fragments of broken glass in boxes of lettuces intended for export.

The investigation began early last March, when an exporter of agricultural products from the Murcia region received a warning from their overseas customers about finding shipments of lettuces with fragments of broken glass inside, having noticed this fact just before distributing the lettuces to the final consumers.

After ruling out diverse assumptions about an alleged ‘contamination’ of the exported products, authorities established a line of research focused on the presumed responsibility of the people close to the company, more specifically to the production line, beginning to study the traceability of each shipment affected.

According to this hypothesis, sources from the Civil Guard informed that the alleged perpetrator could have introduced the pieces of broken glass in the boxes during the process of harvest, between the cutting of the vegetables on the field and its subsequent transfer to the processing compound.

After a quick investigation, the police agents determined the relationship of one of the workers of the company, who had been working in harvesting and storing for 12 years, with the above-mentioned facts.

Once all necessary evidence was collected, measures were taken last Wednesday (April 25) to localize, arrest and subsequently take into custody a person under suspicion of the criminal acts already investigated.

The severity of the events resulted in the loss of the shipments which were already at their destination, both those in transit and those who were waiting to be carried away by the buyers after the companies concerned suspended the shipment. The losses hitting the agricultural company have reached the amount of €200,000 euros so far.

Similar incidents occurred in the company back in 2007, but at that time the suspects could not be identified.

This research resulted in the arrest of a person identified as E.H., Moroccan, 49, who lives in Torre Pacheco, under suspicion of crimes against public health, who has already a police record of similar acts committed previously.

The detainee and the proceedings initiated have been made available to the Court of Instruction No. 6, San Javier (Murcia).



Photo: 20 Minutos

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

Demography is Destiny

Update:

Many thanks to all the readers who responded by leaving their stats in the comments. I’m surprised and gratified to hear from so many lurkers!

I’ve shut down the comments now so that I can collate the results and summarize them in a new post.


A few days ago our Norwegian correspondent The Observer translated a delightful article from NRK — Norway’s official state broadcast service — about the demographics of the patrons of “Islamophobic” websites. Gates of Vienna was specifically listed among those sites whose readers fit the following profile:

Single, childless men over 65 years, with little or no education are overrepresented on Islam hostile websites, according to a survey done by Klassekampen [“Class Struggle” — a Norwegian communist newspaper].

I’m certain that Andreas Malm and Tor Bach, the authors of this useful report, are far better statistical analysts than I. Unfortunately, NRK does not describe these experts’ investigative methodology, except to say that they “used the internet analysis tool Alexa” to discover the characteristics of the average Gates of Vienna reader.

By a happy coincidence, Dymphna and I have been handed our own batch of statistics on the demographics of our visitors. Nearly a hundred readers, most of whom usually lurk, were prompted to comment on the translated NRK report, and many of those volunteered data about themselves.

I extracted the demographic information (age, sex, marital status, number of children, and level of education) for fifty-one of those commenters. It’s not a very large sample, given the thousands of readers who stop by here every day, and it’s very much a self-selected group. Based on NRK’s report, one might expect that the typical Gates of Vienna reader is too feeble-minded, rheumy-eyed, and palsied to read the “Captcha” characters and utilize the comment form properly. So self-selection and the senile incompetence of our readers could well have skewed the sample.

Still, our results are probably at least as meaningful as those cobbled together by Messrs. Malm and Bach.

Demography is destiny, so toothless and cretinous septuagenarians who cling bitterly to their Islamophobia are destined to become Gates of Vienna readers — if, that is, we believe those erudite geniuses at Klassekampen.

However, if our modest sample is any indication, a surprising number of men and women destined to read this blog turn out to engineers, surgeons, law students, and various professionals of all stripes.

The data drawn from the comments included 13 women and 38 men — that is, more than 25% of respondents were female, hardly the cesspit of testosterone posited by Mr. Malm. The youngest was 15, and the oldest was 77. The mean age of the participants was 43.6 years.

The level of education for the average volunteer was about halfway between a bachelor’s and a master’s degree.

More than half (54.9%) of the respondents were married. The average number of children for each (including all the childless participants) was 1.25.

For the purposes of this study, I’ve constructed a statistic called the “Concupiscence Index”, which counts being married as one point, and then adds an additional point for each offspring. The scattergram below plots concupiscence against age, with color-coding to distinguish the men from the women:

Gates of Vienna demographics


As you can see, the women in our sample are somewhat older and somewhat more concupiscent than the men. The graph also makes it clear that the demographic bulge for both sexes is well under the bitter-clinger age of 65.

For those who are interested, here’s a tabular breakdown of the educational level of people in our sample:

Level   %
< High school   2.0%
High school   3.9%
Bachelor’s   54.9%
Master’s   29.4%
Ph.D.   9.8%

And this is a grouping by age:

Age   %
0-19   2.0%
20-29   17.6%
30-39   19.6%
40-49   31.4%
50-59   11.8%
60-69   11.8%
70 & up   5.9%

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


Anecdotal evidence

Below are various comments which contributed no data to the statistical study, but may be of interest to our readers.

First, an overview from Egghead:

The archetypal GoV reader is a person with a brain AND a conscience who wants to see Western civilization survive in all its past, present, and future glory.

Also, from another reader:

Probably the one factor most GOV readers have in common is some knowledge of history.

This comment made me laugh the loudest:

If this guy [Andreas Malm] actually had access to the bond markets, well, no wonder Europe’s broke.

On the methodology:

The ‘research’ is almost certainly the result of the ‘One Big Idea’ syndrome, and the ‘big idea’ in this case is cultural relativism, multiculturalists categorise anyone who is critical of this delusion as socially or intellectually isolated, or just barking mad.

Also:

Where do they find this tosh?

From 1389:

Anybody who is SERIOUS about protecting women and girls from rape, sex trafficking, bodily mutilation, enslavement, and other abuse will focus on the area where the problem is by far the most severe: the Muslim world.

From Seneca III:

The desperation, the desperation! Their search for explanations to challenging opinions in areas where only a modicum of intelligence can provide a rational, carefully reasoned riposte is pitiful.

From Beach Bum:

Nice to see all these upstanding people speaking out against the falsehoods presented about them in the Norwegian MSM.

From a man whose “political sympathies lie with the historical Left”:

If you told me 5 years ago that I would today be against any immigration of non-whites into any European countries I would have told you that you were mad.

From a young man in the UK:

I’m usually less agreeing with most of you, and I’m not particularly politically minded. I think it’s the fact that the Islam question so to speak has got to the stage where it’s getting people involved who normally wouldn’t.

I’m currently debating a vehement leftist, who is also a very strong environmentalist. Yet his views on Islam are more in line with really far to the right bordering on fascism.

From our youngest participant:

I’m a man sure, but I’m 15. I can tell you now that there will be no ‘‘class struggle’’ in my country, not whilst I’m still breathing!

From a “proud Norwegian”:

Though this so called survey shames me to the roots of my patriotic heart. I read håvamål and meditate on the verses’ meaning and how I can use them to evolve as a person, I read history and many other genres of literature.

And finally, this commenter probably speaks for most of our readers:

We have been here the whole time, just on mute.



A note on the methodology

As mentioned above, the data used in this study were drawn from a very small self-selected group, and thus cannot be said to signify anything, statistically speaking.

To make the results even less certain, lacunae in the data — concerning sex, age, education, marital status, or the exact number of children — were filled in by deduction and guesswork.

Readers who match the demographic profile listed by Klassekampen could have overwhelmingly avoided commenting on that post, skewing the distribution of age and other characteristics of those who decided to comment. Additionally, the commenters who did respond could be liars.

So who knows how reliable my analysis is?

However, I’d be willing to bet that it’s at least as reliable as the communists’ conclusions summarized in the NRK article.

And, unlike the study conducted by Andreas Malm and Tor Bach, our methodology is transparent and well-described. Anyone who wishes may harvest the same comments, fill in the gaps using the same sort of guesswork, and draw up their own version of the same statistics using widely available computer software, a hand calculator, or a pencil and paper.

There’s no sleight-of-hand or flimflam here. I’m biased (and proud of it), but I don’t let that influence my calculations.

Math is math.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/27/2012

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/27/2012A federal judge has ruled that an Ohio prison did not violate its inmates’ constitutional rights by serving halal food to all prisoners. Since everyone was being treated equally in this regard, the judge determined that the prison’s actions did not constitute a state establishment of religion.

In other news, Francois Hollande, the socialist candidate in the upcoming presidential election who is ahead of the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in the latest polls, attempted to appeal to right-wing voters by promising to keep the burka ban, and also to crack down on immigration.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, KGS, Seneca III, Van Grungy, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

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

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