I’m taking a page from the book of New World Man to combine these two weeks’ worth of posts.

The winner for the Council for June 23rd was “The Iraq Insurgency Has No Central Command.” This post is an image; you can’t excerpt from it since the source code isn’t available. However if you remember your first year Latin exercises, think back to: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres and you’ll get the general idea. Better yet, click on the link — this is an informative schematic.

Gates of Vienna followed behind with Children in Danger from the UN. Yep, that saintly group, UNICEF, is not an effective place to put your charitable donations. Old myths die hard, especially this one:

Africa has many child-hostile traditions and practices. IRIN has the stories here, here, and here.[see post for links]. You can read them if you want, but know this: You’re being manipulated by charity-porn, which is meant to elicit your guilt and separate you from your money. Yes, the suffering is awful, but donating to UNICEF won’t change that, and the illusion of helping these kids can only prolong their exploitation.

What would be the best thing for African children? To have the UN disappear.

“The Jihadi Network’s Fatal Flaw” was the non-Council winner.

Mr. Dunn asks:

So how do we handle it [terrorism’s distributed network pattern]? The first point is that a distributed network doesn’t resemble an army, a guerilla force, or even the customary terrorist organization. What it resembles, with its wide range, clandestine approach, and ability to appear seemingly at random, in obedience to factors invisible to an onlooker, is an epidemic disease.

Fortunately, we know a lot about tracking epidemic diseases. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have been in business for decades, and have refined their techniques to a high art. You do the epidemiology, learn everything there is to know about the microorganism, its life cycle, its habits, and in particular its vectors, and concentrate on those. The pool of potential Islamist infectees is relatively small, the behavior of the infecting agent (a 4GW fan would call it a “meme”) well understood, the methods of prophylaxis highly effective.

What is certain is that a top-heavy bureaucracy such as Homeland Defense can’t meet the challenge. We need a small, self-contained unit, dedicated to handling this problem alone. A taskforce designed and staffed to deal with domestic distributed networks and nothing else.

Second place was given to the disturbing, memorable essay by New Sisyphus, “Srebrenica, Kosovo, Unknown.”

New Sisyphus says, of the barbaric deaths in Iraq of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.,—-

And through it all, the American people, quietly but intently, are watching.

They are listening, reading, thinking, weighing, reasoning.

The time has almost come for them to make their voices heard. When they speak it will be a terrible thing to behold and the world, displeased now, will be more displeased then.

There will come a time after that, sooner rather than later I think, when eyes will turn to America seeking help. And the great silence that will arise in this busy nation, content in its understanding and newly aware of the rules of the game, will cause despair in the onlookers.

We see you and what you think of us. We see our deaths and what you think of them. We know you and what you are worth.

Oh, you smiling young men of Barcelona, Lyon, Antwerp, Swindon, Rotterdam, Munich, Turin: fate comes for you, and soon, and no hope from over the ocean will ever, ever again arrive.

It’s over, over there.

The Watcher has everything here.

For the June 30th nominations, the Council winner was The Dance of Escalation and Reaction by our beloved, very sane Shrinkwrapped:

The illusory “peace process” depends on Israel getting their soldier and their student back intact, yet the Palestinians, indeed, Islamic fascists in general, have rarely shown themselves able to defer the gratification of torturing and murdering Jews and other infidels in the service of any particular real-world benefit.

Will these abductions be the trigger for real war?

Not likely. The U.S. keeps Israel on a very short leash or “Palestine” would be history by now. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be another of our strategic stupidities, of which all of us could count enough to use up all our fingers and toes.

The Glittering Eye was second with “How Do You Solve a Problem Like…Korea?”

What do I think should be done? Contrary to what may seem apparent from my many posts urging avoidance of the use of force I am not a dove. If a North Korean missile were to strike U. S. territory, it would be an act of war and should be treated as such. President Bush should immediately put the North Koreans on notice to this effect.

Most importantly, we need to engage the Chinese immediately on this issue. North Korea owes its creation and its continued existence to China. Without Chinese support Kim Jong-Il’s regime would surely fail. China must recognize that the United States will not be bullied, particularly by nonentities like North Korea whether it’s a Chinese client state or no. And we must be willing to sacrifice to back that up.

He’s absolutely right, too.

In the Non-Council Department, Diane West’s column, It’s The Islamic Jihad, Stupid led the rest:

Discussing the “war on terror” has been endlessly awkward. Terror — like a blitzkrieg, sneak-attack or disinformation — is a tactic, not an enemy. But in our politically-correct era, we dwell on the tactic, never defining the enemy. Drop 500-pound bombs on his head if we must — and we must — but don’t describe him as an Islamic jihadist in the age-old tradition of Islamic jihadis going back to Muhammad. Such historical precision might be hurtful and insensitive, and we wouldn’t want that.

Indeed, as a matter of American foreign policy, we don’t want that. Better to keep things vague and indirect, much as the Victorians are reputed to have done to avoid giving offense in the drawing room.

Florida Cracker followed with a creepy revelation titled, most aptly, “Peter, Paul and Ingrate.” Mary Whatever-Her-Name-Was, says with all candor, while discussing the voluntary donor who gave her some life-saving bone marrow:

“I had to have a bone marrow transplant. It’s been a terrible year,” she told me. “I just learned the donor’s name is also Mary. She has two daughters. I have two daughters. See, just in case something goes wrong, you must wait a year before you can communicate with them.

…Mary laughed and added: “The problem was, I’m a lifelong Democrat. I was terrified that if she’s a Republican, I could go into the voting booth and, like Dr. Strangelove, my whole brain could change around. When we finally spoke I asked her about this. There was a pause then she said, ‘But I am a Republican.’ So I said, ‘Well, hell, I guess it’s about time the Republicans did something nice for me.’ “

I bet the donor got a good chuckle out of that, and as everyone knows, having a good laugh from a shot taken at you is much better than receiving a thank you from a person grateful for your life-saving kindness. It made the surgical procedure where, under anesthesia, the doctors used special, hollow needles to withdraw the liquid marrow from the back of her pelvic bones all worthwhile.

I don’t wish many people ill, but curses on your head, you singer of trivial drivel. May your vocal chords shrivel until they are as small as your sense of gratitude.

The rest of the nominations and winners are over at The Watcher’s place. Go there.

On August 29, 1966, the famous author and polemicist Sayyid Qutb was hanged for treason, along with five co-conspirators, in his native Egypt.

Qutb was the publicist for the organization known as Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, or in English the Muslim Brotherhood (caution: pdf link), and the author of a number of books on Islamic theology and governance. He had been in prison almost continuously since 1954, when he was convicted of conspiring to overthrow Gamel Abdel Nasser’s fledgling government.

Not so long before that he and Nasser had been on good terms. The Muslim Brotherhood and Nasser’s Free Officers Movement had worked together to overthrow the Egyptian monarchy and establish the United Arab Republic. But after Nasser took control, the relationship soured — it turned out that consolidating the government and assuring his own position of power was more important to Nasser than maintaining a purity of Islamic governance. Qutb, on the other hand, stuck by his principles, and as a result spent most of the rest of his life behind bars.

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It all began in 1928, when Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood. The Ikhwan was based on the idea that the Egyptian government — and all the Muslim governments suffering under the infidel colonial yoke — had abandoned Islam and was, in fact, mired in apostasy. Kemal Attaturk was particularly worthy of opprobrium for abolishing the Caliphate and secularizing Turkey.

According to the Muslim Brotherhood, the duty of the believer was to resist subjugation by the infidel, follow the tenets of the Prophet, and return to the true practice of Islam. Al-Banna was not the first ardent Muslim to formulate such ideals, but his organizational skills made the Brotherhood into a formidable political force.

In the 1940s, as the Brotherhood acquired disciples among young and idealistic military officers, it moved away from its peaceful beginnings and became more and more violent in pursuit of its goals. After a series of assassinations of government officials, including the Prime Minister, King Farouk’s secret service retaliated by assassinating al-Banna in 1949.

If Sayyid Qutb had not joined in 1951, the Muslim Brotherhood might well have withered away. It almost certainly would not have developed into the influential organization it has remained until this day. Qutb acted as its theorist and popularizer, and became the Great Explicator of radical Islam.

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Even as a young student, Sayyid Qutb had been interested in following the time-honored principles of Islam, but he did not become a radical — what is now known as an “Islamist” — until the late 1940s.

It was his extended visit to the United States that radicalized him. While studying here he had a close-up view of the decadence and moral degeneracy of a modern Western democracy. To him, the United States was a cesspool of salacious and sinful behavior. Jazz music, nightclubs, sock hops, and even churches appeared to him to be hotbeds of sin and licentiousness.

When he returned to Egypt, he was ready for the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood was ready for him. He continued writing his treatises on Islamic theology, taking many years in prison to complete his 30-volume masterwork, In the Shadow of the Koran (Fi Zalal al-Koran). In 1963 he published Milestones (Ma’alim fi al-Tariq), which was even more incendiary. In fact, his trial and execution for treason were based on excerpts from Milestones. A quote:

The leadership of mankind by Western man is now on the decline, not because Western culture has become poor materially or because its economic and military power has become weak. The period of the Western system has come to an end primarily because it is deprived of those life-giving values, which enabled it to be the leader of mankind.

It is necessary for the new leadership to preserve and develop the material fruits of the creative genius of Europe, and also to provide mankind with such high ideals and values as have so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and which will also acquaint humanity with a way of life which is harmonious with human nature, which is positive and constructive, and which is practicable.

Islam is the only System which possesses these values and this way of life.

This was Qutb’s thinking, his ideology, the set of principles for which he was willing to martyr himself.

But let’s leave aside the ideology and examine his methods and practices. More than anyone else, Sayyid Qutb resembles that other mad genius of the 20th century, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, a.k.a. Lenin. Like the Bolsheviks, the Muslim Brotherhood was a utopian revolutionary organization, and was structured similarly. Qutb believed that a select few among the true believers of Islam, with himself in charge, would form the vanguard of a revolutionary movement. Al-Ikhwan was to be the Bolshevik Party of the Islamic renewal.

Unfortunately, the masses of the Islamic world were not yet ready for the true purified faith, having been lulled into complacency and moral turpitude by the sinful West. But once the Brotherhood overthrew the existing order and took power, an Islamic state would be imposed and government according to the Shari’ah would gradually emerge.

Sound familiar? That’s not surprising, since every Islamist despot and would-be despot since then has drawn on Qutb’s works for support and inspiration. The late Mohammed Atef, formerly Osama bin-Laden’s military commander, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb’s brother, who was also a member of al-Ikhwan, moved to Saudi Arabia after his brother’s death and was the teacher of, among others, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the mentor of Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man.

There seems to be a sort of demonic version of the Apostolic Succession at work here, beginning with Qutb and ending with bin Laden, who in turn has performed the laying-on of hands with Mohammed Atta, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and all the other petty head-choppers the world over who are even now busy slaughtering infidels and each other in the name of Allah.

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What surprised me during my research on Sayyid Qutb was the immense amount of intramural controversy over his ideas within the Islamic world. His work has proved inspirational to many Muslims; consider this example from the Islamic Circle of North America, “Sayyid Qutb” by Ahmed El-Kadi, MD:

Other than Prophet Muhammad (s), the contemporary men who had great influence on me were my father, [and then] Imam Hassan al-Banna, and Shaheed Sayyid Qutb. The first two Islamic books that I studied as teenager were “Dirasat Islamiyya” (Studies in Islam, or Lessons in Islam) and Aladalah Alijtima’eyyah Fil-Islam (Social Justice in Islam) both by Sayyid Qutb. Although I have never met or seen Sayyid Qutb, I knew him (as most other Muslims involved with Islamic work) through his many books, like the two mentioned above, his great commentary on the Qur’an, Fithilal-el-Qur’an (in the Shades of the Qur’an), and other books… Sayyid Qutb will always be remembered for his legacy of clearly defining the basic ideas of the Oneness and sovereignty of Allah, the clear distinction between pure faith and the association of partners with Allah (Shirk) overt and hidden, and the only hope for salvation of humanity. Sayyid Qutb was smiling when he was executed, showing his conviction of the beautiful life to come in paradise — a life he definitely and rightfully deserved.

The Islamic Circle of North America, which has just concluded a major conference in Connecticut, is a mainstream American Muslim organization, some of whose members are selected as spokesmen for Islam in America, despite the fact that their affiliates are often listed by our own government as terrorist organizations. It shows what a sorry pass we have come to that admirers of Sayyid Qutb can be considered “mainstream” Muslims.

Qutb has many admirers, but also many detractors, and the latter are not always criticizing him from a “moderate” viewpoint. In “The Wahhabi Myth”, Haneef James Oliver puts forth the Salafist refutation of Qutb’s ideas:

Qutb was not interested in following the traditional approach of explaining the Quran, which is to firstly refer to the Quran itself for other verses which clarify the meaning, then the Haadeeths of the Prophet (may Allah raise his rank and grant him peace) which deal with the meanings of specific verses, or if this does not exist, to refer to the explanations of his companions. Hence, it cannot be referred to as a tafsir [theological explanation] in the conventional sense… Instead of referring to these important sources, Qutb used his own opinions to explain the Quran — over and above these sources. Consequently, this tafsir contains numerous errors which the Salafi scholars have already clarified for the people. [emphasis added]

Mr. Oliver’s goal is to do away with the term “Wahhabi” (i.e., a follower of the ideas of the 18th-century cleric Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab) to designate those who wish to return Islam to its original form as practiced during the time of the Prophet. He prefers to be called a “Salafist”, that is, a follower of the salaf (literally “predecessors” or “forebears”), also known as the sahaba, the companions of the Prophet.

All of the orthodox scholars of Islam followed the way of the Salaf in understanding religion. Early scholars such as Imam al-Awzaa’ee, who died 157 years after the Prophet’s emigration to Medina, said: “Be patient upon the Sunnah, and stop where the people (i.e. the Salaf) stopped, and say what they said, and refrain from what they refrained from, and follow the path of your righteous Salaf; for verily, sufficient for you is what was sufficient for them.”

Today, one of the famous Sunni schools of jurisprudence is named after a scholar named Abu Haneefah. Millions of Muslims all over the world ascribe themselves to his school of jurisprudence; those who the media would term “mainstream” Muslims. Regarding adherence to the Salafi methodology, he said, “Adhere to the narrations and way of the Salaf, and beware of newly invented matters (in religion), for all of it is innovation.”

The orthodox scholars who came after these early generations also followed the understanding of the Salaf in religious matters. Imam ath-Thahabi said: “It is authentically related from ad-Daraqutni (a scholar from approximately 1,000 years ago) that he said: There is nothing more despised by me than ‘ilmul-kalaam (innovated speech and rhetoric). I (adh-Thahabee) say: The man never entered into ‘ilmul-kalaam, nor did he enter into argumentation (i.e. philosophy), he did not delve into that. Rather, he was Salafee (a follower of the Salaf).”

So the Salafist criticism of Sayyid Qutb is that, in his attempt to purify Islam and return it to its true path, he has in fact deviated from the true path. Qutb’s sin is innovation; his “calamities” consist of his own ideas.

I’ll extract from the Salafist treatise above to create a listing of the operative principles at work:

• Sufficient for you is what was sufficient for [the Salaf].
• Beware of newly invented matters… for all of it is innovation.
• There is nothing more despised by me than… innovated speech and rhetoric.

In other words, Islam cannot be improved, and any new idea which is employed in order to improve it will in fact do it harm.

From a mathematical point of view, Islam is a closed symbolic system. It consists of three sets of propositions (the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sunnah), plus a set of operations which can be performed on one or more of these propositional sets, each yielding another propositon. Each member of the set of operations is performed successively on the three sets of propositions. If the operation does not yield a member of one of the three propositional sets, then it is considered an invalid operation, and is discarded. No new propositions can be added, and only operations which elaborate previous operations can be expressed. A perfect, immutable, closed system.

Obviously, by Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, Islam is thus incapable of explaining or representing itself. But the same could be said of any other religion, including atheism. What makes the Salafist version of Islam different is its closed nature. Christianity and Judaism — and also their bastard child, Secularism — have remained open systems, able to incorporate new propositions and operations whilst retaining their symbolic integrity.

Islam is structurally incapable of following suit, since to do so would violate Proposition #1, and bring the whole symbolic edifice crashing down.

Is it really any wonder that so few scientific patents come out of Islam? Need we investigate any further why none of the important inventions of the last thousand years emerged from an Islamic culture?

As a fully coherent, logical, symbolic system, Islam is incapable of innovation as long as it as practiced faithfully.

And yet the Salafist ideal has set fire to the hearts of thousands, if not millions, of devout Muslims, and inspired violent jihad the world over.

Mysterious indeed are the hidden chambers of the human heart.

Fourth of July: lucky are the American children born today. Their birthdays will always be celebrated with fireworks and parties; parents will be home for a vacation day; the television news will be full of noise and color and reminders of American exceptionalism. You couldn’t blame a fourth of July baby for feeling a bit special, what with all the foofaraw and fanfare.

George M. Cohan thought himself fortunate to be a 4th of July baby. It was he who wrote —along with 1,5000 other Tin Pan Alley songs — “Yankee Doodle Dandy”:

I’m a Yankee Doodle dandy,
A Yankee Doodle, do or die;
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam’s,
Born on the Fourth of July.
I’ve got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart,
She’s my Yankee Doodle joy.
Yankee Doodle came to London,
Just to ride the ponies,
I am a Yankee Doodle boy.

Cohan was of Irish descent, born in Rhode Island. Amazingly prolific, he is considered the creator of the American musical comedy form. His baptismal certificate states he was born on July 3rd, 1878, but the family insisted that he’d arrived on the 4th. Given that mothers were often not present at the child’s baptism, this could indeed have been the case. At any rate, that was the story and everyone stuck to it.

Can we sing Mr. Cohan’s songs anymore? Is his celebration of America too dated? Are we too cynical to feel pride in our heritage? Have we been beaten into submission about our racist, crime-ridden, empire-driven nation?

Some people would say so. And others would trumpet any bashing they had to offer about our enfeebled, sinful condition. For every person who enthuses about America, there are ten MSM accounts of the latest droppings from Ward Churchill and his ilk. It wouldn’t be so bad if these bashers were accurate, but their bias is so blatant that you have to pause in wonder at the gullibility of the reporters who quote his incredible speeches.

However, there are others who ignore the poisoned pens of the self-haters. There are those who can report from their own experience that they’d rather be here, thank you.

Jake Barnes, the proprietor of the blog Spyral Notebook, has this to say about his adventures here and in Europe:

Last year I was sailing near Victoria, British Columbia and saw several beautiful houses near the shoreline. The local crew on the boat explained that the properties were most likely owned by rich Americans who had moved north to escape the pervasive crime in the US.

The British wife of a school friend frequently tells me that she would love to live in America, if not for the dangers crime would pose for their young daughter. She feels they cannot take the risk.

And during the 2004 Republican Convention, a lady friend visiting New York from Italy told me that the police power on display was proof positive that the US is a dangerous country. Why else would we need so many cops?

There is a general perception by Europeans that rampant crime is a condition of American life.

It’s not surprising that we got this reputation. In the 1970’s and 80’s, crime in American cities ran out of control. I, for one, was almost murdered on a sunny afternoon in the Boston Commons in 1973. Two thugs tried to choke me with a homemade garrote. Fortunately, I escaped with my life, if not my hockey equipment.

However in the last twenty years of living in New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and San Diego, I have not even witnessed a crime, let alone been attacked, robbed, or had my home burgled.

Not so living in Europe.

My house in a leafy suburb of Brussels was robbed three times in two years. The last time, the robbers simply pulled a truck up and removed every unattached object from the house. My car was keyed, smashed, jumped on, and finally burned to an empty shell. Roving gangs of Muslim thugs were a common site in areas throughout the city.

In London, on a route I walked daily between St. John’s Wood and my school’s campus on Regent’s Park, I was regularly harassed and threatened by men loitering in front of the London Mosque.

And during one year in Paris, my girlfriend was attacked in broad daylight across the street from the Arch de Triumph, I was robbed in the Metro, and incidents of petty crime and intimidation seemed commonplace. This year France has experienced a kind of rioting and violence not seen here for many years.

Crime in the US is clearly not what it used to be. Granted, murder rates are still very high, which is no small thing. But as our crime rates came down in the 1990’s, Europe’s took a precipitous climb in the opposite direction. Serious property crime is epidemic in the major continental cities. It has been a stunning reversal of roles.

European perceptions of crime in American have not changed as the streets have gotten safer here. Nor do Americans appreciate how dangerous European cities can be, even if one does stay in the “right” neighborhoods. People on both sides of the Atlantic need to appreciate the changes and take a reality check.

“A reality check,” indeed. Our friends, the British, don’t think much of us, or at least many don’t. A poll in The Telegraph had this to offer as a birthday present:

Britons have never had such a low opinion of the leadership of the United States, a YouGov poll shows.

As Americans prepare to celebrate the 230th anniversary of their independence tomorrow, the poll found that only 12 per cent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.

Most Britons see America as a cruel, vulgar, arrogant society, riven by class and racism, crime-ridden, obsessed with money and led by an incompetent hypocrite.

On the other hand, an essay from The First Post had much more substance to its assessment of America. The author, Mr. William Langley, had this to say:

Most of the world is ignoring the lessons of America’s remarkable cultural renaissance, of which dramatic falls in crime are only a part.

It is much easier, and far more fashionable, to portray the United States as a dying empire mired in a misbegotten war, outstripped economically by China, and unable to keep even tin-pot states like North Korea in line.

Yet on a recent trip back to Washington DC where I lived for the Clinton years, it was impossible to escape the good news. Almost all of America’s important social indicators — the measures of the true health of a nation — are pointing in the right direction.

Welfare cases have fallen by an astounding 60 per cent in the last decade. Marriage is growing in popularity, while divorce rates, having soared in the Sixties and Seventies, are falling — as are the rates of teenage pregnancy, drug use and suicide. Alcohol consumption among the young has fallen by 31 per cent since the mid-Eighties, and smoking by almost 50 per cent.

Young Americans are discovering sex later than their parents, and have fewer partners. A new, virtuous, generation is emerging.

Educational achievement, particularly among minorities, is rising, and the philanthropic instincts of the rich — as witnessed by last week’s $31 billion gift to charity by legendary investor Warren Buffet — are resolute.

Crime rates, not only in New York but across the country, continue to decline rapidly. According to the Department of Justice, violent offences overall have dropped by 55 per cent since 1993, while teenage offending is down by 71 per cent.

Property crimes are at their lowest level since Federal statistics began in the early Seventies. Beyond the lawless pockets of a few big cities, America is now one of the least crime-troubled societies on earth.

How has all this happened? And why, amid the relentless onslaught of America-bashing, do we hear so little about it?

New York Times commentator David Brooks gives a simple explanation: “People have stopped believing in stupid ideas; that the traditional family is obsolete, that drugs are liberating, that it is every adolescent’s social duty to rebel.”

This is essentially correct. From the Sixties onwards, America witnessed widespread social decay in the form of family break-up, drug tolerance and attacks, in the name of liberal values, on what had traditionally been viewed as the parameters of decency. A new generation of Americans, having seen and reviewed the results, wants to change things.

“Americans today,” says Brooks, “are leading more responsible, organised lives. The result is an improvement in social order.”

You feel it everywhere. In the courteousness and generosity of ordinary Americans, and the pride they have in their country. We don’t hear much about it, because it doesn’t fit our Euro-jaundiced view of what the United States is…

Thus another “reality check,” this time by a visitor.

Do we have problems to address? Certainly. And some of the worst of them are at the very top of the hierarchy — beginning with our Imperial Congressional Horde. But even they — with their narcissistic posturing, corruption, and blatant waste of tax-payers’ money — even they cannot spoil this day.

Take a reality check, everyone. It’s still a grand old flag.

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UPDATE: From commenter Thanos’ blog:

Foreigners misunderstand America, and what freedom here really is. They do not understand how our constitution protects individuals, not classes or groups. They neither grasp the laws designed to limit government, nor the responsibilities and duties that we free individuals must carry. The tree of liberty is fed with tyrant’s blood, and that is just one of many responsibilities that we all know.

The ultimate effect and genius of our government is that each person is a sovereign individual, a king or a queen in their own right. It’s no mistake that fathers in America oft call their daughters princess, although there is neither title, divine right, nor grant of nobility to do so. We are each of us noble in America, and in America we write our own grants of nobility as we walk this land of 300 million kings and queens.

So foreigners misinterpret our easy grace with freedom and our ability as ego, they mistake our declarations as braggadaccio, and they see this brawling country of three hundred million souls and fear our great powers.

Yes, read the rest. It’s worth the ride.

Here’s something to consider as the hurricane season approaches: remember Katrina and lawless New Orleans (better known as N’awlins to some of us)?

New Orleans has a pretty horrendous crime rate, wouldn’t you say? Ranks right up there with Los Angeles, Chicago, Cincinnati – all those cities that the MSM tells us are failing. Which perhaps they are, by American terms.

However, let’s compare the crime rate in lawless New Orleans with the crime rate in, say, the city it was named for: Orléans, France. In New Orleans, the per capita rate is given in the hundred thousands. Thus, according to this report, the 2004 rate for New Orleans, for all crime, was 6,110.3 per 100,000 population. Pretty awful, when you compare it to say, Minneapolis, which is only 6,278.2 per 100,000 people. Oops. There goes Minneapolis.

Well, never mind. There’s a law-abiding city out there somewhere. Let’s try the gang city – Los Angeles. 4,347.4 per 100,000. Hmm…all those illegal aliens and Los Angeles comes in below New Orleans? Are we missing something here? Find the moral, Waldo.

But wait. I set out to compare the gun-owning, rip-snorting, trouble-making American criminal element in New Orleans with its counterpart in Orléans, France. Everyone knows Europe is more evolved than America, more sophisticated, more law-abiding – they sure have plenty of laws to abide by, don’t they? The European species is more restrained, civilized, blah blah, than the crude Homo americanus vulgaris.

Heh. Orléans’ crime rate is 109.24 per thousand people. In our terms, that translates to 10,100 per hundred thousand. So, extrapolating further, Orléans, France, has roughly sixty seven percent more crime than Mayor Nagin’s soggy fair city.

I got this idea from Paul Belien, who reported that

According to Urban Audit, Liège has the highest crime rate of all European cities (EU27), with 256.13 recorded crimes per 1,000 population in 2001.

Hmm…that was five years ago. What do you suppose it is now? The statistics for American crime were drawn from the figures in 2004, three years later.

In researching the numbers, I came across two interesting sites. The first one, entitled “The United States versus the World” bemoans our incarceration rate. Cuba comes in for kudos because of its humane treatment of prisoners:

In Cuba, the emphasis is more on rehabilitation and a return to the community than on punishment or societal isolation. Prisoners are allowed to wear street clothes, earn a comparable income (to that of a free person who holds the same occupation), and are incarcerated in their home province no matter what their security level is. Additionally, prisoners become eligible for a conditional release program halfway through their sentence (for sentences of under five years), through which they work on farms or in factories with co-workers who are not informed of their prisoner status. Through this program, offenders are also able to visit their families at home (unsupervised) twice a month for three days at a time.

Of course, the words “political prisoner” never appears anywhere in this “report.” Just ask The Ladies in White what they think of this load of horse manure.

Another site proved more interesting. This was a blog called “Useful Fools” but it doesn’t seem to have been updated recently. Nonetheless, it floats out there in cyberspace with some good statistics for 2003:

Here are Interpol 2001 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):

• 4161 — US
• 7736 — Germany
• 6941 — France
• 9927 — England and Wales

Thus the US has a substantially lower crime rate than the major European countries!

Here are the Interpol 1995 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):

• 5278 — US
• 8179 — Germany
• 6316 — France
• 7206 — England & Wales

Hence the trend in the US is towards a lower crime rate, while the trend in Europe (except Germany) is towards an increasing crime rate.

In America, your chances for violence increase if you’re dealing drugs or if you’re married. In Europe, it’s open season on everyone. Equal opportunity hate crimes, perhaps?

By the way, Mr. Belien allows as to how he would feel safer in New Orleans.

A new Norwegian English-language blog opened for business a few days ago. It’s called “News from Norway”, and is run by someone called The Observer. His arrival in the blogosphere has helped ease the pain of Fjordman’s retirement.

Today’s post is about the presence of large number of unskilled immigrant welfare-recipients in Norway’s major cities, and the problems they pose for the Norwegian economy.

The decisive blow… was handed to our politicians a couple of weeks ago by one of the main business organisation in Norway, the NHO. It published a study in one of the national newspapers on the effects of immigration, and it revealed what opponents of a liberal Norwegian immigration policy has been saying for years. It’s simply not sustainable. We’re not gaining anything by “importing” massive amounts of welfare recipients from third world countries. On the contrary, we as a nation are losing out big time. The study warned us that if changes weren’t carried out swiftly we stand to lose our entire national surplus due to the ill effects of our current policy. That means 250 billion us dollars right down the drain.

If we had sensible politicians in Norway I wouldn’t worry. If we had sensible politicians I’d know they would do everything humanly possible to implement the necessary changes to reverse this negative trend and that things were going to be alright in the end. But unfortunately we’re not blessed with sensible politicians in my country, and that scares the hell out of me.

I’m putting News from Norway on our blogroll. It looks to be a good source of news from the northwestern corner of Eurabia.

The best example of the loss of personal and civic freedom is what is happening to the proprietor of Brussels Journal in particular and to Belgium itself in general.

In the case of Brussels Journal, not only is Paul Belien being blamed for the Belgium’s growing distrust and dislike of its Muslim population, he has even been threatened with censure for the beserk, homicidal behavior of a teenager kicked out of boarding school. As though this jerk ever read Belien’s website!

Belgian television and the Brussels papers say that the Antwerp shoot-out is the result of my writings. Regular readers of The Brussels Journal know my view well enough: I have repeatedly defended the view that Muslim immigrants are not to blame for Europe’s predicament. The latter is entirely of our own making. Europeans have foolishly replaced God by the State as the one on whom they rely to take care of all their needs from cradle to grave. The religious vacuum has led to a demographic vacuum, because those who lose faith in God lose faith in the future as well. A civilization that has created a religious and a demographic vacuum is bound to perish.

“The Antwerp shoot-out” he refers to seems to have been a lone incident in which an estranged and isolated adolescent went on a shooting spree. If it is true that Mr. Belien’s writings somehow influenced this disturbed individual, then I have a few crimes I’d like to lay at the door of the New York Slimes. We can start with 9/11 and work out from there.

But that’s not all. In addition to blaming Mr. Belien for the isolated violent incidents, the authorities have reacted by threatening to ban any kind of weapon, including pepper spray. Mr. Belien reflects on his country and the road to good intentions which has left its young without purpose, belief, or meaning:

Like the Columbine School Massacre a few years ago in the US, Hans Van Themsche’s killing spree is indicative of a society where young people have lost all respect for human life. Is it a coincidence that this should happen in a society that has lost respect for human life itself? Belgium has a very liberal abortion law and wants to extend its euthanasia legislation to minors and to the senile elderly (whose guardians will decide for them). Is it a coincidence that at the same time so many young people have also lost their faith in the future? They listen to Satanic and “goth” music, dress in black, shave their heads and write in farewell letters that “heaven does not exist.” Having lost faith in heaven, they then decide to turn the world into hell.

That’s not all, though. Mr. Belien’s conflict with the zeitgeist in his country goes way back. Seventeen years ago he wrote an op ed piece for The Wall Street Journal that didn’t go over well with the powers that be in Belgium. He was fired from his job as a journalist and has never held another newspaper position. Sounds like he was black-balled for speaking up, doesn’t it?

But they’re not finished with him yet. Now the police have begun interrogating him about the specifics of his homeschooling his children. The Beliens have five children and have homeschooled them all. Four are now at University; the youngest is about to finish her secondary training. All have done well. However…

And it’s a big “however,” because Mr. and Mrs. Belien have refused to sign the state paper that all Belgian homeschooling parents must if they wish to pursue education at home. In this contract, the parents agree to abide by The United Nations Convention on Child Rights.

Here’s what Belien’s wife has to say about it:

In today’s Belgian newspaper [June 20th, 2006] Gazet van Antwerpen Bob Van de Voorde, the spokesman of Frank Vandenbroucke, the minister of Education, says:

“One of the conditions [for homeschooling] is that the homeschoolers must sign a document in which they promise to rear their children along the lines of the UN Convention on Children’s Rights. These parents have not done this. This is why the ministry has started an inquiry.”

The parents Mr Van de Voorde is referring to in the paper are my husband (TBJ editor Paul Belien) and myself. The “inquiry” is a threat to prosecute us.

Homeschooling is a constitutional right in Belgium. We have homeschooled four of our five children through high school. Only the youngest is still being homeschooled because the others are already at university. And yet, as if they have nothing better to do, the Belgian police and judiciary are conducting an “inquiry” into our homeschooling to see whether we “rear our children along the lines of the United Nations Convention on Children’s Righs.”

But, as Mrs. Belien notes this means turning the authority of parents over to the state. Though she does not specifically state this, it is well-known in child studies that anything which interferes with the parent/child attachment is detrimental to the child:

Until two years ago, we never encountered any problems with the authorities concerning our family’s home education. In fact, compared to neighbouring countries, Belgium was very tolerant of homeschoolers. In 2003, however, the Flemish regional parliament decreed that all homeschoolers are obliged to sign a document in which they promise to rear their children along the lines of the UN Convention. The latter undermines the authority of parents and transfers it to the state.

The document the homeschoolers are made to sign also states that government inspectors decide whether families comply with the UN’s ideology. Furthermore, it contains a clause in which the homeschooling parents agree to send their child to an official government recognized school if the inspectors report negatively about them twice.

We refused to sign this document. Not only do we object to the imposed UN ideology, but we would never put our signature under a document that forces us to send our children to government controlled schools simply because two bureaucrats decide on the basis of arbitrary criteria that we are not in compliance with the imposed philosophy. Last week my husband was questioned by the police. He was informed that, because we refuse to sign, our children are not being schooled or brought up adequately, i.e. along the lines of the UN Convention. Hence, we are committing a criminal offence. The authorities are threatening to prosecute us.

…Since our case has…been reported in the Belgian newspapers many families have responded with tales of their own. It is becoming clear that the decree of 2003 is being enforced with uncharacteristic speed and rigidity. One family withdrew their youngest son from the technical school where the eldest child had become a drug addict. They used the form supplied by the Ministry of Education to inform the latter of their decision to homeschool and in doing so unwittingly accepted the clauses of the 2003 document, as these are incorporated into the form.

Some months later the inspectors arrived. They said that the boy was using manuals unsuited for his age, even though he was using the same manuals as his peers at school. They were rude to his mother, who is of Polish origin, and claimed that she could not educate her child because of her accent. They said they would return. The parents carried on their education and noticed (as so many homeschooling parents do) that their son was highly motivated and was learning faster and better than he had done at school. Four months after their first visit the inspectors returned. They conceded that they could see improvement, but not enough and that the boy had to return to school.

Two weeks later the police came to their door with an order to send the boy to school or risk a penalty. The boy does not want to go back and there is no way these parents are going to force their child to return to a school rampant with drugs where their other child was ruined. They are now considering emigrating to Poland.

What is increasingly clear is that Belgium is not a safe place for children. The state is not content to take over parental authority, they then transfer that authority to a supra-national organization — the United Nations — one whose record on the care of children is scandalous, to put it charitably.

And if that weren’t enough, Belgium is again being rocked by the news that pedophile killers are on the loose — deliberately let loose by authorities who had them in custody. Here is Mr. Belien’s report, almost in full:

Nathalie Mahy (10) and Stacy Lemmens (7) disappeared on 9 June. Their bodies were discovered yesterday. Exactly ten years ago, before Stacy and Nathalie were born, the Belgian papers also brought pictures of murdered girls. Their names were Melissa Russo (8) and Julie Lejeune (8), victims of the notorious pedophile Marc Dutroux.

Stacy and Nathalie were abducted in Liège, the largest city of Wallonia, the Socialist-dominated French-speaking part of Belgium. Melissa and Julie were from the same city, often referred to as “Palermo on the Meuse.” According to Urban Audit Liège has the highest crime rate of all European cities (EU27), with 256.13 recorded crimes per 1,000 population in 2001.

Two weeks ago the police arrested 38-year old Abdallah Aït Oud, a Belgian of Moroccan origin. He was seen near the little girls prior to their disappearance. Aït Oud denies having murdered Stacy and Nathalie. Though the police [have] not been able to prove otherwise, he is a major suspect. He has already been arrested twice for pedophilia, once in 1994 and once in 2001, and he has no alibi for the night and the day after the disappearance of the girls, who are stepsisters.

In 1994 Abdallah Aït Oud was convicted to five years imprisonment for the rape of his 14-year old niece. He had regularly abused his sister’s daughter since she was six. Three years later, however, in 1997, when the Belgians were still recovering from Dutroux’ atrocities, the Belgian authorities, though they had promised the citizens that pedophiles would have to serve their sentences, released Aït Oud from prison prematurely. On 7 September 1997 he was arrested for theft and sent back to prison, where he remained until 2000. In March 2001, shortly after his release, he abducted and violently raped a 14-year old girl.

This time the negligent Belgian authorities decided not even to give the pedophile a prison sentence. Instead they sent him to a mental hospital. Last December Aït Oud’s doctors decided that he was cured and let him go. He went to live in Stacy’s and Nathalie’s street in Liège. The authorities did not notify the neighbours that a man with a dangerous pedophilia record had moved into their street. Disclosing such information is illegal in Belgium, where the state cares more about protecting the privacy of criminals than about protecting the innocent children of law-abiding citizens.

If Aït Oud proves to be the rapist and murderer of Stacy and Nathalie, this case eerily resembles that of Marc Dutroux. He, too, was a convicted pedophile when he abducted and murdered four children and girls in 1995. He, too, had been released prematurely from prison for good conduct. When Dutroux was arrested (by chance!) in 1996, the police found four corpses in his garden but also freed two abducted children whom he kept locked up in his cellar.

There is great indignation in Belgium. If Abdallah Aït Oud proves to be the murderer of Stacy and Nathalie there might be an explosion of popular anger. If he is not the culprit the trauma among the public may be even worse, as this would mean that another pedophile psychopath is on the loose again.

Clearly, the Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the safety of its subjects. Citizens are even beginning to wonder whether the authorities are not just unable but actually unwilling to do so. As I pointed out here a year ago, in relation to another Belgian sex scandal, with Moroccan victims, “morality has gone berserk all over Europe, but nowhere to the same degree as in Belgium.” The country has been sliding into Gomorrah since the 1970s…

[…]

Belgium’s capital, Brussels, has a murder rate about five times higher than Paris and two times higher than London. The murder of the two children in Liège is the latest in a series that started last February in Brussels with the assassination of a 16-year old black boy, whose throat was cut by five “youths” who have not yet been found. This atrocity was followed by the murder last April of 17-year old Joe Van Holsbeeck, stabbed by two underaged Polish gypsies during rush hour in Brussels’ Central Station. Barely a month later, last May, there were the murders of a two-year old toddler and her black nanny and the shooting of a Turkish woman in broad daylight in downtown Antwerp by an 18-year old Flemish boy playing out a violent computer game in real life. In a crowded public transport bus in Antwerp last Saturday a passenger was kicked to death by six youths, described by some as “five Belgians and one Spaniard,” referring to their nationalities, and by others as “six Moroccans,” also referring to their (dual and original) nationalities.

Yesterday, the Belgian authorities reclassified the murder of the bus passenger, Guido Demoor, from “manslaughter” to “assault and deliberate battering resulting in unintentional death.” This means that the maximum sentence the “youths” can get is five years in prison. Life is cheap in Belgium, but perhaps the Belgians themselves are partly to blame.

The Belgians habitually hold a silent “White March” whenever they are shocked by atrocities in their midst. This is an indication of their political immaturity and allows the political class to carry on as if nothing had happened. As Louis Tobback, the then Belgian Minister of the Interior and leader of the Socialist Party, said about the first “White March” in October 1996, shortly after the discovery of the bodies of Dutroux’ victims: “[Carrying white] symbolizes innocence and virginity, but it also means that their [= the protesters’] message is blank. I am not afraid of that.”

(click the original story to get to the links provided there)

A “White March” as a response to serious judicial and legal dereliction? When pedophiles are allowed free reign under the guise of “mental illness” of what use is an impotent and fundamentally silly march for heaven’s sake? Talk about spitting into the wind.

What Belgium needs is an infusion of something akin to Jacksonian Scots American political philosophy to teach the basics of law and order and the maintenance of real moral authority. Fat chance. The elitist government holds the reins of power; even the Catholic Church in Belgium is merely a mouthpiece for the politically correct and expedient course. As one commenter on BJ put it:

“It comes to my mind every now and then that socialist governments’ intention in releasing criminals is to keep the society in constant fear. The fear, in turn, is probably supposed to make people turn to their governments for help.”

If you can bear to watch the European continent flush itself down the toilet while declaring that they’re simply practicing good hygiene, then read The Brussels Journal on a regular basis…

…at least while it’s still permitted to operate.

Gates of Vienna Readers:

I’ve just received the most wonderful offer. I couldn’t wait to share the letter with you, along with my reply.

Aren’t people wonderful??

Here’s the letter:

Dear Blessed one,

My name is Mrs. Juliana Van Ron from Netherlands, I am a dying woman who had decided to donate what I have to you. I am 59 years old and was diagnosed for cancer about 2 years ago, immediately after the death of my husband, who had left me everything he worked for. I have been touched by God to donate from what I have inherited from my late husband to the you for the good work of God, rather than allow my relatives to use my husband’s hard earned funds ungodly. I have asked God to forgive me all my sins and I believe he has because He is a merciful God. I will be going in for an operation, and I pray that I survive the operation. I have decided to WILL/donate the sum of $3,500,000(three million five hundred thousand dollars) to you for the good work of the lord, and to help the motherless, less privileged and also for the assistance of the widows.

At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls, due to the fact that my relatives are around me and I have been restricted by my doctor from taking telephone calls because I deserve all thee rest I can get. Presently, I have informed my lawyer about my decision in WILLING this fund to you. I wish you all the best and may the good Lord bless you abundantly, and please use the funds well and always extend the good work to others.

Kindly Contact my lawyer through this email address ( alsolicitors@aim.com) OR (alsolicitor@lawyer.com) if you are interested, so that he can arrange the release of the funds ($3,500,000.00) to you. I know I have never met you but I have been directed to do this by God, and I hope you act sincerely.

NB: I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplished, as I don’t want anything that will Jeopardize my last wish, due to the fact that I do not want relatives or family members standing in the way of my last wish. Love,

Regards

Mrs. Juliana Van Ron

Oh lucky day! My ship has come in, and on deck is one Mrs. Juliana Van Ron, sailing in from the Netherlands (and looking none too perky) to share with me her worldly goods…(note to God: so what took you so long to show up with her? )

Dear, dear Juliana Van Ron…

May I call you Julie, dear heart, seeing as how you’re giving me three million cool ones?…What a sweetie you are! For that much money, of course, you can call me whatever.you.want. And whenever you want, for that matter.

I don’t know how in the world you glommed onto the fact that I needed the money,darling, but I sure do fit your criteria being as how I’m motherless, less privileged and a widow and all.

Oops. I forgot the Baron. Oh well, don’t worry, Julie, he can be dispatched stay in the background and be still as a mouse. See, what I’ll do is, every time I poke my nose out the door I’ll wear a long black veil. I realize some of the neighbors will think I’ve gone into the nunnery and others, who know me a bit better, will think I’m off to the nuthouse, but with three mil, let ‘em think any little thing they want, right?

I want you to know I’ve looked carefully into the situation and have decided that the Caribbean is the best location from which to carry out your wishes. There will be luxury hotels orphanages, nightclubs schools for deserving children, and casinos colleges with full scholarships for everyone.

It is only fitting that your name be emblazoned on each awesome edifice. Would you like neon with that?

As for your lawyer, have him get in touch with me at his earliest convenience. I’ll tell him where to mail the check…and no, sweet pea, it won’t be to my bank.

Believe me, I will invest your husband’s hard-earned money very carefully. And if you throw in a few extra hundred thousand I’ll take care of those mean relatives, too. No problemo, Julie. They won’ta bother you no more. They’ll feed da fishes, lady.

Oh, by the way, if this is a scam…nah, it couldn’t be; you sound too nice…but if this offer does turn out to be fraudulent, Julie old girl, I do hope you like to swim. If you’re not the sweet little old lady you appear to be, if you’re one of those nasty crooks that infest our email…let’s put it this way: I have every intention of sending you on the same picnic I have planned with some friends for your meanie family. Bring bread for the fishes, kid.

With best wishes for your health in your coming operation, I remain your “dear blessed one” —

Dymphna

UPDATE: Read further on the money scam on Starling David Hunter’s post: The African Canned Ham Spam

My Freudian slip: I had typed “Sterling” for “Starling”…hmmm.

Daniel Katz, the Editor-in-Chief of Middle-East-Info.org, has emailed us a few times requesting an exchange of links. Last night I finally got around to looking at his site, and I’m definitely going to put an icon for MEI on our sidebar.

The first thing that caught my eye was the introductory Flash animation, which features comparative statistics for Israel and the Arab countries plus Iran. The numbers are instructive:

In addition to the statistics shown above, the introduction informs us that the Arab countries and Iran have 750 times as much land area as Israel, 14.6 times the GDP, and two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves.

One comes away with the impression, and rightfully so, of a tiny beleaguered state of Israel surrounded by an implacable and much larger enemy.

But look what else is hidden in the statistics: The Israeli economy is almost 52 times as productive as that of the Arabs, based on land area. Given that — like their Arab cousins — the Israelis were bequeathed a chunk of rocky desert, but minus the oil, this figure is very impressive.

Also, on a per-capita basis, the Israelis are more than four times as productive as their Arab and Iranian neighbors. If oil were withdrawn from the calculation, how much higher do you think the figure would be?

Yet Israel spends twelve times as much per capita on its defense as do its neighbors — not surprising, given that some of those same neighbors are on the public record as intending to wipe Israel off the map.

And those are just the economic statistics. The less quantifiable comparisons are even more important: cultural vitality versus repressive backwardness, innovation versus stagnation, vibrant democracy versus ruthless autocracy, liberty versus subjugation — the list goes on and on.

As the MEI introductory page says:

The case for Israel should be apparent even to thoroughgoing supporters of the Palestinians. Who else has offered them a genuine future? Egypt? Jordan? Syria? Lebanon? The Gulf States? It takes only a cursory glance at the history of the Middle East to realize that for the most part, neighboring dictatorships have ruthlessly exploited the Palestinians for their own ends with callous indifference to the consequences. Israel, alone in the Middle East, has attempted to construct, with and for the Palestinians, a viable and peaceful future.

Israel’s strategy of winning Palestinian hearts and minds failed because Israeli carrots could never overcome the intimidation applied by Palestinian terrorist regime’s sticks.

Fundamentally, Israel is the target of these terrorist organizations and despotic regimes precisely because of its virtues:

• Oasis of freedom in a desert of Arab and Iranian tyranny
• Oasis of independent judiciary in a desert of Arab and Iranian arbitrariness
• Oasis of women rights in a desert of Arab and Iranian women discrimination

There’s a wealth of material at Middle-East-Info.org; readers are advised to stop by and check it out. The site has a clickable map which leads to detailed information on each country.

But a warning is in order: if you are sensitive to brutal images, or have children with you watching your screen, you may not want to click through all the links, since MEI has not spared its readers the full range of visual truth to be found in the region’s Islamic countries. Arab brutality is so commonplace that mentioning it is almost banal, but its images are not. Prepare to be shocked.

Minut dropped us a note this morning in response to my post from last Thursday. He thanked us for our interest in his site, and said, “I think we Danes are ‘The Thin Red Line’.”

He also sent another poster for our enjoyment. Vulgar but effective, don’t you think?

Gates of Vienna has been reporting recently on the trial, conviction, and sentencing of the family of Ghazala Khan for her honor-killing murder in Slagelse, Denmark. During a 36-hour period on Wednesday and Thursday I noticed that a lot of internet searchers were finding their way here, looking for Ghazala Khan. Out of 295 searches during that time, 119 (more than 40%) were trying to find out more information about her.

Re-creating some of the searches showed that Gates of Vienna was indeed in the top three sites listed, in most instances.

I’ve standardized the spelling and punctuation of the search strings involved in order to consolidate the statistics in the table below:

Search string		#		Pct
denmark ghazala		1		0.3%
denmark honor-killing		2		0.7%
denmark killing women		1		0.3%
father jail danish honor killing		1		0.3%
ghazala khan		23		7.8%
ghazala khan abu laban		1		0.3%
ghazala khan blog		1		0.3%
ghazala khan convicted		1		0.3%
ghazala denmark		25		8.5%
ghazala father brother denmark prison aunt in law years		2		0.7%
ghazala khan ghulam abbas		1		0.3%
ghazala khan honor		2		0.7%
ghazala khan denmark honor killing		4		1.4%
ghazala khan kill		1		0.3%
ghazala khan killing		3		1.0%
ghazala khan malkin		1		0.3%
ghazala khan murder		3		1.0%
ghazala khan site:.com		1		0.3%
ghazala khans		1		0.3%
ghazala khans husband		1		0.3%
honor killing case denmark		1		0.3%
danish honor killing		30		10.2%
honor killing ghazala		1		0.3%
honor killing of ghazala khan		1		0.3%
honor killing sentence denmark		1		0.3%
honor killing slagelse		1		0.3%
honor killing trial in denmark		1		0.3%
honor killings viking		1		0.3%
news ghazala khan		1		0.3%
nine family member denmark		1		0.3%
sentence killing daughter denmark		1		0.3%
stories of honor killings ghazala khan		1		0.3%
symbols of courage in denmark		1		0.3%
true story about murder of ghazala khan in copenhagen		1		0.3%
Totals		119		40.3%

Most of the searches seemed to originate from within Denmark. I couldn’t pull the countries of origin for the ISPs directly from the site meter statistics, since I was dealing with a subset of all the searches; instead, I had to go through the details of each search individually. It was a laborious and time-consuming process, and I ran out of steam after doing 58 of them, but here’s the breakdown for those:

Location		#		Pct
Denmark		33		56.9%
The rest of Europe		6		10.3%
Other		19		32.8%

Of the non-Danish Europeans, three were from Sweden. Most of the “other” locations were in the USA and Australia, but there was one from the UAE and one from Turkey.

What puzzles me is why the Danish searchers were looking in English-language sources for information about the case. On Wednesday and Thursday, when I was looking for information in the online Danish newspapers, there seemed to be plenty of stories available about Ghazala Khan and the trial; there was no news blackout. So why would Danish readers need to do English-based searches in Google?

Do the Danes doubt the accuracy or completeness of information in their own media? Or are there other reasons for these searches? Scandinavian readers are welcome to venture their opinions in the comments.

Dymphna’s theory is that the Danes want to see how the news media in the Anglosphere are handling the story. If that’s the case, they must have noticed by now that our MSM outlets — the keepers of Truth, the guardians of the portals to all news worth reading — were almost completely silent on the topic.

It’s good to know that the Secretary of State is in agreement with Gates of Vienna.

Of course, she had to travel all the way to Russia to express her concern re their attitude, while we could do it from the comfort of our pajamas, right here at home.

It seems yet another microphone got left on, allowing the whole world a glimpse behind the scenes of the diplomatic curtain, a chance to hear the real conversation for a change:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking unknowingly into an open microphone, chastised her Russian counterpart yesterday for bemoaning the killing of five Russian diplomats in Iraq, saying it was wrong to focus on the deaths of diplomats when so many others are dying there.

“The implication that by somehow declaring that diplomats need to be protected, it will get better, I think is simply not right,” Miss Rice said during a closed luncheon as the foreign ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries negotiated their meeting’s final statement.

I love the folks who leave these microphones on. It makes life more real for all of us when we get to hear the real deal for a change. Had we not had this glimpse into the G8 luncheon, who’d have cared about whatever got reported. It would be one of those usual fill-in-the-blanks diplo-speak joint communiqués.

Or maybe the audio-visual people are doing everything right. Maybe they are leaving those microphones turned on. Perhaps this is another case where the devil angel is in the details.

Hmm…wonder what Vlad’s thinking right now? I pity the poor guy who had the microphone detail. Hope he likes Siberia.

Hat tip: Commenter eatyourbeans.

UPDATE: Commenter Ypp gives us the real reason Vlad is mad:

Why russians are really outraged is not so much because the victims were diplomats, but because they considered themselves friends of insurgents. In reality they are very disappointed and are trying to hide that by producing angry resolutions.

For those fortunate few who can read Russian, here’s Ypp’s blog: Янки После Пьянки.

Through no desire of her own, Oriana Fallaci will spend her final days as the focus of a trial in her native country. She has been charged with defaming Islam in eighteen separate statements in her book, The Force of Reason.

Defamation is the politically correct term for telling unpleasant truths about extremely thin-skinned cultures who refuse to acknowledge that their own leaders have previously proclaimed what Fallaci says is their goal: the subjugation of Western civilization. Surely everyone by now has heard the imams in Britain who boldly state that their goal is to have the flag of Allah flying from No. 10 Downing Street, or the grandiose “speeches” from Osama bin Laden telling the West how Islam will conquer us all. Not to mention Iranian leaders who scold American presidents and warn of our destruction, or the inciteful propaganda put out on a global basis by Saudi Arabia.

However, in our Alice in Wonderland world, such statements are not hate speech. Killing Jewish Frenchmen after torturing them is not anti-Semitism. Israel’s incursion into Gaza to retrieve its soldier is “revenge.”

If you have read The Force of Reason you will have been moved by Fallaci’s own force and passion. She lays it out, chapter after chapter: the Muslim version of Khrushchev’s promise to bury us. After they finish with the pigs and apes in Israel, that is.

9/11 was a conversion experience for Fallaci, as it was for many people. In fact, for those who did not awaken to a new world on 9/12, one must wonder if they are not the walking dead. If the annihilation of thousands of innocent Americans — Ward Churchill’s “Little Eichmanns” — did not change minds and hearts, then a hundred more falling buildings or chemical and biological weapons let loose in this country will not change them either. As the Pslamist says, they have hearts of stone.

Now Fallaci’s book has her on trial in Italy. She faces prison time — should she return to Italy — for saying things like this: “Over the last twenty years terrorists have killed six thousand people to the glory of the Qur’an.” Such are the strictures binding free speech in Europe that even factual statements or tentative opinions can get you in trouble via the “anti-incitement laws,” laws which can mean imprisonment:

Britain’s then-home secretary Jack Straw remarked in 1999 on criminal activity by people, many of whom posed as gypsies or “travelers”—hardly a slur on all gypsies even without that qualifier. But a travelers’ group filed a complaint of inciting racial hatred, prompting a formal investigation and extensive media coverage asking whether Straw was racist. In 2002, the prominent French novelist Michel Houellebecq was charged with inciting racial hatred in a novel and interview in which he referred to Islam as “the stupidest religion.”

Fallaci calls Islam much more than stupid. And for doing so, Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy has brought charges of defamation against her. This is the same Adel Smith who is up on charges himself for defaming the Catholic Church. But, of course, Mr. Smith sees his statements about the criminal church as merely truth and will have his day in court to make his case.

Now comes (as they say in American legal documents) www.OrianaFallacitrial.org. That’s the name of the site dedicated to solidarity with Fallaci in her latest — and probably last, given her terminal cancer — ordeal. It is aimed at collecting signatures from around the world from those interested in standing with her in this battle for freedom of speech in a land which looks increasingly like a cross between Orwell’s 1984 and Alice in Wonderland. What genre exists for a mixture of farce, tragedy, and systemic, sleep-walking injustice?

Gates of Vienna has received an email, as surely other blogs have, requesting that we publicize their efforts:

I write on behalf of Future Europe association (Europa Przyszlosci) from Poland. We have organized an action, “The end of free speech – the end of democracy”. One point of that action was a letter of solidarity with Oriana Fallaci that was signed by prominent Polish politicians, journalists, scholars and artists. The letter itself and description of Oriana Fallaci’s case and freedom of expression is on our page www.intl.orianafallacitrial.org. Since we would like to make our action more visible, could you please put a link to the above-mentioned page on your web page. Attached you will find the logo for our action.

Thank you for support.

Here is the image this group — The “Europa Przyszlosci” (FUTURE EUROPE) association — is using in association with their campaign. Go here to read the petition and sign onto it if you wish. Note that Lech Wałęsa is one of the signatories.

In a world of worthy causes, in a universe of injustice and suffering, this one remains important. An old lady, still an icon of journalistic integrity, is dying. Like Saint Sebastian, she is also being tortured with arrows from moral midgets and cultural imbeciles.

It behooves all of us to do the little that we can.

A Danish guy emailed us yesterday with a tip about his website, “Minut”. Since it’s mostly in Danish, it’s largely mysterious to me. I can see that it has a blog (also in Danish), and an articles section. It also features a comic strip, which is tantalizing, because (based on the images) it’s probably quite amusing, but I’ll never get the joke.

The reason he emailed us was to offer us the use of some of Minut’s excellent posters, which are found in the Propaganda section of the site. The tag with the link says, “Konservativ propaganda lige til at printe ud.” Almost makes sense, right?

I’ve reproduced a few of the English-language examples here (click one of these small images to bring up the full-sized poster). Some of the Danish-language posters are very good, too, even if I don’t understand all the text. One of them features Abu Laban in a clown suit as a part of the “Arabiske Statscirkus”.

Anway, I recommend that all our readers, Anglosphere and otherwise, drop by Minut and take a look around. Use the contact page and send those guys a note (English is OK — that’s how they wrote to me).

These Danes may be boring from within, but they’re certainly never boring.

As anyone knows, Vladimir Putin doesn’t tread lightly. Thus, the obviously mentally challenged terrorist group calling itself the Mujahideen Shura Council — the idiots who posted their video of the bloody executions of two of those Russian diplomats kidnapped in Baghdad — are in doo-doo so deep that even the Coalition Forces won’t be able to save them… even if they were inclined to do so.

Of course, per Putin, it’s our fault his diplomats are dead, because if we weren’t there, well, no problemo, right? They could have been carrying on with their oil-for-food corruption without all this malarkey about freedom and elections and associated balderdash (what is the Russian equivalent of “balderdash”?).

The BBC reports the story (and carries a great picture of Putin that is worth clicking the link to see):

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered special services to “find and destroy” the killers of four Russian diplomats taken hostage in Iraq.

The head of Russia’s security services immediately pledged to see Putin’s order carried out.

[…]

The head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev, promised to carry out the task “however much time and effort it requires”, Interfax reported.

Separately, the lower house of the Russian parliament approved a statement condemning the killings, and appearing to blame Iraq’s “occupying powers”.

“The whole responsibility for the situation in Iraq, including guaranteeing the security of its citizens, and also foreign specialists, as before lies on the occupying powers,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, back at the Mujahideen Shura Council, what do you suppose the perps are doing? Besides writing out their last wills and testaments, I mean? Americans play by all these silly little rules that don’t impede the Russians and never will. Perhaps they are considering finding some less freshly-stained boxers and cleaning up a bit before throwing themselves on the mercy of the coalition forces? Fat lot of good that will do. Mere walls do not a safe prison make… not when the Russkies are after you.

Somehow, Mr. Putin’s visage brings to mind the unforgettable wisdom of Jim Croce’s admonition:

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Jim Vlad, da do da do…

Start counting the virgins who await you, boyos, ’cause your film careers are over. It won’t be long now until you are the unlamented Mujahideen Shura Council, lately of Baghdad.