2015

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/20/2015 The big story of the day concerns the most recent migrant disaster in the Mediterranean, in which at least 700 people perished attempting to make the crossing to Europe. Politicians across Europe are unanimous in their declaration that the EU must do more to protect the lives of would-be refugees. Cecilia Wikström, a Swedish MEP, says that a failure to act would be the moral equivalent of turning away from the Holocaust during World War Two.

In other news, the FBI arrested six Somali-American terror suspects in Minneapolis and San Diego. The incident had nothing to do with Islam.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, K, Papa Whiskey, Phyllis Chesler, 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.

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.

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Jussi Halla-aho: “Finland Has Repeated Sweden’s Mistakes”

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

Below is a speech given by Jussi Halla-aho at the public library in Turku, Finland last Friday. The occasion was an election event for a parliamentary candidate for The Finns Party, Vilhelm Junnila. Mr. Halla-aho is a member of the European Parliament for the same party. Kent Ekeroth of the Sweden Democrats, a like-minded party in Sweden, was a guest at the event.

The elections were held over this past weekend, and The Finns Party — the only major immigration-critical party in Finland — came in second.

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

Transcript:

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And They All Think Just the Same

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

Readers of a certain age may remember a hit song from 1963 entitled “Little Boxes”. The late beloved communist folk singer Pete Seeger is the performer who made it famous, but it was written the year before by another progressive singer named Malvina Reynolds. And the tune was filched from an even older song, “Pittsburgh Pennsylvania”, written in 1952 by Guy Mitchell.

Wikipedia doesn’t think Mitchell’s tune is the same, and the resemblance may not be enough to win a copyright lawsuit. However, the tag line is identical in sound. My old man recognized the tune as soon as Seeger’s hit came out, and sang the original to me:

“There’s a pawnshop on the corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…”

The Wikipedia entry notes that (according to Christopher Hitchens) the satirist Tom Lehrer described “Little Boxes” as “the most sanctimonious song ever written”. I’m not so sure I agree — “Imagine” by John Lennon may well win that prize. But “Little Boxes” is up there.

Now there’s yet another version of the same song, written by a blogger named Assistant Village Idiot, who describes himself as a “Postliberal”. Actually, his composition is from 2007, but the future Baron just tipped me to it:

Little Folkies

Little folkies on the hillside, little folkies made of ticky tacky
Little folkies, little folkies, little folkies, all the same
There’s a white one, and a white one, and a white one, and a white one
And they’re all made out ticky-tacky and they all think just the same.

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Stories: In This Case, About Water

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

Spring Fundraiser 2015, Day One

Today is the opening day of Gates of Vienna’s 2015 Spring Fundraising Week.

To readers who are new to this blog: for one week each quarter we appeal to those who find our work useful (or even just entertaining) to visit tip cup on our sidebar, as the spirit moves them. In this way we manage to eke out a living blogging the Counterjihad.

The theme of this week’s bleg is “Stories” — that is, any yarns that Dymphna and I feel like telling, as long as they include a coherent narrative. Which leaves us a lot of latitude. And suits us just fine, because both of us are inveterate storytellers, as attested by the frequently upward-rolling eyes of our close friends and family members.

Tip jar My opening story for the week will help explain why we are pushing y’all so hard this quarter. We’ve got a good reason to bang hard on the tip cup with a pencil — or maybe with a pipe wrench; that might make a loud enough CLANG.

It all started more than a month ago, just after the last hard freeze of winter. Dymphna discovered an infestation of black mold in the back bathroom, and I went in to investigate it. This is the bathroom in the “new” section of the house, part of an addition that was put on more than twenty years ago to accommodate my mother-in-law, who lived in it for the last part of her life. While I was examining the mold, I noticed a noise coming from the crawl space underneath. It sounded suspiciously like — gulp! — water running. I went outside and opened the crawl space cover, and sure enough, there was an immense pool before me and the sound of water trickling somewhere further back.

Water Works After an emergency visit by the plumbers the following day we learned that we had several leaking pipes, which had obviously been leaking for quite some time. Our crawl space has a vapor seal, which means there is a layer of plastic between the house and the ground, so we had acquired quite a swimming pool down there. Hence the black mold in the room above.

To make a long story not quite so long, the issue was a particular kind of plastic water pipe called “Quest”, which was popular with contractors about twenty years ago. Those pipes are now experiencing the same kind of problems almost everywhere they were installed, provided that they carry hard water. Which our pipes most certainly do — we live in Red Clay Country, and our well water is so infused with iron pyrites that we have a filter on the kitchen tap that has to be replaced periodically. We use it for drinking water (mainly for the taste; as far as I know the iron is harmless) and to avoid a rapid buildup of scale on anything that heats or evaporates water.

Those Quest pipes had copper fittings, which tend to become corroded by hard water and eventually start to leak — or even break, but we’ll get to that later.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/19/2015

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/19/2015 The Islamic State has released another video that purports to show the massacre of thirty people on the seashore in Libya. The victims, who were beheaded or shot, appear to be Ethiopian Christians.

In other news, Norway’s Labour Party has voted to recognize “Palestine”.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, Papa Whiskey, 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.

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You Don’t Have to Read the Book to Get the Prize

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Dymphna

I got on Twitter today to post a quick 140-character pushback against the latest chapter of the old and tired trope against Diana West. Or should I say “tripe” at this point? What words can one use to describe a relentless smear campaign mounted once more against “American Betrayal” and its author?

That’s got to be one tired horse by now.

To my surprise, there was a fellow on there who was all ready to believe the gospel according to National Review Online. Based on his other material, this Mr. Talmadge appears to be a reasonable man. Unfortunately, however, like numerous others he was ready to believe the latest smear simply because of its provenance: we all know National Review Online would never tolerate an untruth on its pages. Ergo, as Mr. T. said, “it could only be a legitimate takedown”. But in his reply to Ms. West’s demur, he also said he hadn’t read the book.

There you go. If National Review says you’re beyond the pale, then you are, and you’d better shut up because they’re not going to quit sliming you. Have these people morphed into Leftists while we weren’t looking? Or are they simply willing to “cop a rhythm, steal a rhyme” from the Left when a popular method of character destruction is so handy? Ah, temptation.

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A Bizarro World Diana West

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

It’s been almost two years since the publication of Diana West’s book American Betrayal, but incredibly, reviewers at ostensibly “conservative” publications and websites continue to mount scurrilous attacks against it. Right-thinking people have evidently determined that Ms. West is insufficiently “housebroken”, and aim to complete their self-appointed task.

The latest hit-piece against American Betrayal was written by Ron Capshaw and published at (where else?) National Review.

Among numerous other gems, Mr. Capshaw’s false assertions include these two: “Diana West’s American Betrayal dusts off this view of FDR as a traitor” and “West avoids such grown-up views, and is in effect the mirror image of Oliver Stone.”

Well…

“Mirror image” doesn’t do justice to NRO’s compendium of imaginary statements attributed to Diana West. Mr. Capshaw’s confection seems more an artifact from Bizarro World.

For readers too young to remember the golden age of Superman comics, Bizarro World popped up in those pages as an occasional whimsical feature replacing the everyday world of Metropolis. It was a planet inhabited by analogues of all the Superman characters, but with everything reversed, upside down, topsy-turvy, 180° off of normal. Newspapers were printed upside down. People wept when they were happy and hit each other to express affection. They threw away peeled oranges and ate the rind. They left a building through the entrance and went in through the exit.

Ron Capshaw has constructed his own Bizarro World and placed his own Bizarro Diana West in it with her book, Bizarro American Betrayal.

Back in the fall of 2013 I described the evidence for a malign but hidden influence whose gravitational field pulled in so many otherwise sensible conservatives and induced them to vigorously condemn Ms. West’s book, usually when they hadn’t even read it. I now realize that I made an error of nomenclature when I dubbed that celestial body “Planet X”. A more appropriate term would have been “Bizarro World”, where up is down and books are full of words that were never written by anybody in this world.

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

Yesterday Diana West had a few choice words to say about this latest hit piece in NRO:

What follows are brief extracts from the latest entry by Ron Capshaw — apparently, his fifth (5th) such sally. I have stripped his essay down to inferences and charges only.

This latest on American Betrayal is headlined:

“FDR, Truman, and Ike: Not Communists, Just Naïfs”

The inference, natch, is that American Betrayal argues that these presidents were “Communists.”

NOT IN MY BOOK. (Readers of The Rebuttal: Defending ‘American Betrayal’ from the Book-Burners, where this phrase repeats and repeats in highlighting some of the lies and fabrications that litter the original Rado-toxic mess, are invited to sing along.)

Now for the excerpts from Capshaw #5:

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Threats and Harassment Inhibit Peaceful Assembly in Europe

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

On Thursday and Friday of last week the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe hosted the “Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association, with Emphasis on Freedom of Association” at the Hofburg in Vienna .

As posted last Friday, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff read an intervention on behalf of Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa at the conference on April 17. The posted text was from the full version of the intervention; time constraints required that a shortened version be read out at the plenary.

Below is a video of Elisabeth’s presentation. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this clip:

The prepared text of Elisabeth’s abbreviated intervention is below the jump.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/18/2015

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/18/2015 A young “American” named Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud (Mohammed Coefficient: 100%) left for Syria last year to join the jihad in Syria. He returned “home” earlier this year and planned to commit workplace violence at a military base or a prison. Fortunately, he was arrested before he could carry out his plans. Even more fortunately, the incident had nothing to do with Islam.

In other news, a Swedish shipping line has sent its vessels to the Mediterranean to rescue migrants who might otherwise die during the crossing from North Africa to Italy.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Papa Whiskey, 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.

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Where is the Dialogue?

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

On Thursday and Friday the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe hosted the “Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association, with Emphasis on Freedom of Association” at the Hofburg in Vienna . Harald Fiegl and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff were among the participants at yesterday’s conference.

Below is the translation of a German-language intervention read by Harald Fiegl on behalf of Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell at yesterday’s plenary.

Intervention by Mission Europa
Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting
Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

Vienna, April 17, 2015
Session II
Non-Discrimination and the Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly

Where is the Dialogue?

Mission Europa is an Austrian NGO and as such, since 2008, the 60th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, has been part of the organizing team for a torchlight march in order to bring to light the persecution of Christians, especially in countries of the Middle East.

Mission Europa also supports Christians such as Chaldeans, Arameans, and others, living in Austria.

Mission Europa can participate in and organize these marches without any hindrance from the authorities; however, we have noticed that the dialogue the OSCE would like to see taking place is refused by the authorities.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/17/2015

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/17/2015 According to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the most dangerous leaders of the Islamic State are “Swedes”. Meanwhile, the UN reports that increasing numbers of food vouchers issued by the World Food Program are being diverted and sold on the black market by Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon.

In other news, the European Commission has ordered Spain to allow migrants to submit asylum requests without their being required to first scale the border fences at the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Papa Whiskey, Phyllis Chesler, 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.

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Some Are More Equal Than Others

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

The Webber Academy is an acclaimed secular private school in Alberta. It treats all religious faiths equally: no religious observance is permitted in school. No prayers, no worship services. Not for any religion. Period.

That is, until some parents of Muslim students filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The HRC found against the Webber Academy, and ordered it to pay a fine, and to accommodate its Muslim students, to avoid discrimination.

In other words, Muslim students must be treated differently from all other students, otherwise they are being discriminated against.

The following video features Ezra Levant’s take on this farrago of “justice” in Modern Multicultural Canada:

The text of the HRC decision on Webber Academy

Below are excerpts from an article in the National Post on the judgment against the school:

Calgary school slapped with $26K fine for refusing to let Muslim students pray on campus

A Calgary private school unlawfully discriminated against two Muslim students by refusing to allow them to pray on campus, says the province’s human rights tribunal.

The Alberta Human Rights Commission fined Webber Academy a total of $26,000 for distress and loss of dignity after the boys were forced to hide at the school or leave the property during the city’s chilly winter to fulfill their faith’s obligations.

Neil Webber, the facility’s founder and president, said he was disappointed with the ruling released Thursday and said an appeal with Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench will be filed.

“A key pillar of our founding principles is that the school be a non-denominational environment in which children can thrive and focus on their academic success,” Webber said.

“This remains our goal.”

A human rights law expert at the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre said the ruling is a reminder to providers of public services in Alberta like schools and businesses that there is a duty to accommodate religious beliefs so long as they don’t cause undue hardship to the organization.

“It could be a Jehovah’s witness who wants Saturday off from work or a few students who want a space to pray at a school,” Sarah Burton said.

“If someone has a protected ground under human rights legislation and you can reasonably work around that request, then you’re obligated to provide it.”

The ruling focussed on the treatment of 14-year-old Sarmad Amir and Naman Siddique who were admitted to Webber Academy in late 2011.

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Are We Already Losing Our Freedom of Assembly?

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Baron Bodissey

For the past two days the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has hosted the “Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association, with Emphasis on Freedom of Association” at the Hofburg in Vienna . Harald Fiegl and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff were among the participants at today’s conference.

From the prospectus for the event:

This Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting (SHDM) will provide a forum for the discussion of the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association as a means to achieving democracy and human security in the OSCE area. The topics will focus on a human security approach to freedoms of assembly and association, non-discrimination and the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association as well as the enhancement of the participation of associations in public decision making processes. The discussion will focus on the role of the OSCE participating States and other actors in safeguarding and promoting relevant OSCE commitments.

Below is an intervention read by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff on behalf of Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa at today’s plenary.

Intervention by Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa
Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting
Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

Vienna, April 17, 2015
Session II
Non-Discrimination and the Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly

Are we already losing our freedom of assembly?

It is with significant concern that Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa has followed the developments in freedom of assembly in several OSCE Participating States over the last decade. Propaganda from extremist groups, violent street confrontations and lackluster enforcement of relevant laws is leading us to the conclusion that freedom of assembly is under severe pressure, as compared to a decade or two ago.

As mentioned, this is a problem in several OSCE Participating States. Examples from Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, Austria and more show that in particular left wing extremist, and to some extent Islamist, groups, are granted undue opportunities for intimidation, threats and open violence against public manifestations held by groups they disagree with. This is leading to a hardening of the environment for public manifestations, discouraging participation by the average citizen, and creates undue security challenges for organizers of fully democratic and peaceful public events.

There are many examples of organized terrorism against peaceful assemblies:

In Sweden, members of the extremist group Revolutionäre Fronten has committed several acts of political violence, assaulting public events and individuals for political reasons. The perpetrators have been convicted of no less than 12 years of jail time for their politically motivated offenses. (Danish article)
In Denmark, similar (though less openly violent) groups repeatedly intimidate and assault public events. One such case was on February 23rd 2013, when AFA sought to attack a demonstration held in support of the Jews in Denmark, who face increasing harassment by Islamists. (Danish article)
In England, the group Unite Against Fascism repeatedly used classical fascist street intimidation tactics in order to intimidate, scare and assault peaceful rallies held by the English Defence League.
In Germany, similar groups framing themselves as “Anti-fascists” have — frequently successfully — blocked street events held by PEGIDA, a group protesting increasing Islamic influence in Germany. Thus, the so-called ‘anti-fascists’ deprive their opponents of a fundamental right in a democratic society, that of citizens assembling peacefully in order to express their concerns and opinions. (German article)

This is a problem with several aspects. One of them is that when public events face threats of attack from extremist groups, the threatened events frequently find themselves in difficult situations due to demands made by police authorities. Police in several countries apply a variety of methods to diminish the visibility of the threatened events, an approach that is at odds with fundamental OSCE principles for freedom of assembly. These methods include police doing the following:

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The Reality of Obama’s Opaque Foreign Policy

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Dymphna

Resistance in Italy to unlimited mass migration is being spearheaded by the Lega Nord [Northern League], the secessionist party in the northern provinces of Italy. This anti-immigration sentiment is spreading to the rest of Italy, as parties sympathetic to and allied with Lega Nord form in the rest of Italy.

While Lega Nord used to be considered “extreme right” by many Italians, that sentiment is changing rapidly as the country’s infrastructure becomes overwhelmed. But this is Italy after all. They are willing to say the unsayable more quickly than their cohorts in Northern Europe.

From The Telegraph today comes a report about the “revolt” against the immigrant “invasion” that stands further back to view the larger picture I mentioned in my post yesterday. Surprisingly they are admitting this massive influx is an invasion, but they take back the truth by putting scare quotes around the grim reality of those they term merely ‘migrants’. [the emphases are mine, not in the original]:

Italians are in growing revolt against the number of migrants arriving on their shores, with more than 10,000 people rescued from the Mediterranean in the past week alone.

The huge influx of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa is putting an intolerable strain on a country that has been in recession for the past five years.

Conservative politicians called this week for boatloads of refugees to be sent back to Libya, while the system of migrant reception centres is on the verge of collapse.

[…]

Conservative politicians say the policy of rescuing migrants at sea only encourages people trafficking by Libyan gangs.

[…]

“The system is close to collapse,” said Claudio Palomba, the prefect of Rimini, on the Adriatic coast, and the president of the national union of prefects. “We’re only in April and I don’t know if the system will be able to cope if the number of arrivals keeps up at this pace.”

Matteo Salvini, the head of the Northern League and a rising star of the Italian Right, has called on his supporters to block moves to accommodate any more migrants.

“I ask the League’s governors, mayors, assessors and councillors to say no, with every means, to every new arrival. The League is ready to occupy every hotel, hostel, school or barracks intended for the alleged refugees,” he wrote on his Facebook account this week.

As boatloads of refugees continue to make the dangerous crossing from Libya, merchant vessels in the Mediterranean complained that they were being called to help with rescues.

Italy terminated its search and rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, in October and it has been replaced by a much smaller operation run by Frontex, the EU’s border control agency, which has to rely on the assistance of merchant ships.

[…]

“The situation is becoming unsustainable,” Mario Mattioli, the owner of [a] tug boat, told La Repubblica on Thursday. “Taking part in rescues is no longer unusual – it has become routine.

“Like other merchant ships we are being called on to help out on a daily basis, but our crews are not trained to deal with these operations. We can’t provide medical care or thermal blankets or emergency food.”

There are also security issues for the crews of merchant ships – this week traffickers fired shots into the air from Kalashnikovs in order to force an Italian vessel and an Icelandic coast guard ship to relinquish a wooden boat which had been used to transport migrants from the Libyan coast.

In other words, the smugglers are becoming bolder in demanding their vessels back. This is behavior akin to the pirates off the coast of Somalia. As has occurred before in lawless times, what happens on land is reflected in behaviors on the sea.

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