The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark: passionately democratic countries with strong creeds of tolerance, where parties of the right have now entered the political mainstream pushing anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic agendas.

That is how John Vinocur starts his International Herald Tribune article. The question that he (and it) asks — even as Chancellor Angela Merkel admits that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed" (actually, he asked it one week prior to Merkel's CDU speech) — is:

What are the chances that Germany escapes the emergence of its own version of the Sweden Democrats (who have just entered the Swedish Parliament), or Danish People’s Party (whose support props up a minority government in Denmark), or a figure like Geert Wilders, whose Party for Freedom now sits in third place as a Dutch vote-getter?

…confidence in and loyalty to the traditional parties of the German middle ground have markedly diminished.

These days, when it comes to the issue that has propelled anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic parties into greater power in Northern Europe — a sense among some citizens that Muslim newcomers are encroaching on their society without regard for its laws and standards — mainstream parties in Germany are starting to acknowledge they have not dealt with the concern anywhere near adequately.

…Intolerance, unmistakably, is part of the stock in trade of the new far-right outside Germany, but in most cases it does not replicate all of the classic rant of a party like France’s National Front: anti-capitalism, anti-American, and bigotry.

|

(Thanks to Damian…)

|

Founded on the thery that those Mexicans didn't need jobs anyway, a typical "editorial" from the golden age of self-delusion. As if these regimes weren't in fact founded on the notion of making sure their entire population was an ill-remunerated near-slave workforce.



A Radio Berlin International broadcast from 1972. The goal wasn't to "liberate" anyone, but to nag , demonize,and construct another blood libel.

|

Conseil de drague de Mister W n°5 : séduire une fille riche
envoyé par Scoflaire_video. - Cliquez pour voir plus de vidéos marrantes.

Apparently, Mister W never reads Instapundit and the problems caused by pretending to be rich…

|

While enlightened Frenchmen are busy condemning those clueless American clods for their alleged human rights violations (as well as for their alleged racism), France was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for the French police's heavy-handed approach towards its citizens (garde à vue)…

|

Tabbouli Salad

½ lb. medium fine burghul (crushed bulgur wheat)
2 bunches of green onions
5 bunches of parsley
2 bunches of fresh mint
2-1/2 lbs. fresh tomatoes
4 oz. olive oil or other salad oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepperWash the burghul half an hour before preparing the tabbouli. Dice the tomatoes. Chop parsley, green onions, and mint very fine. Mix all the ingredients together, adding oil and lemon juice gradually.

Serve on a platter leaving some of the chopped tomates to decorate the top of the platter, by making a one inch wide row along the circumference of the platter.
Beside this, one may also serve fresh leaves of lettuce, grape vine leaves, tender cabbage, or a combination of the three to be eaten with the tabbouli salad instead of pita bread.

|

Jeb he ain’t.

Expect the media to suppress the hysteria that would otherwise be mandatory had a Republican been in the White House.

|

When your political/intellectual argument fails to persuade, there are always other ways to achieve your goals:

The best chance Sarkozy's opponents have of bringing down his pension bill is if strikes at oil refineries continue and start to threaten fuel supply, or if youths hit the streets en masse and set off violent scuffles.

No doubt the media would have the same David v. Goliath positive vibe if it were Le Pen's supporters whose best chance at foisting their ethos was to, "hit the streets en masse and set off violent scuffles".

|

"Leur violence, leur lâcheté, leur gratuité provoquent un sentiment de consternation et de dégoût."

While enlightened Frenchmen are busy condemning those clueless American clods for their alleged racism (and their alleged human rights violations), Alsace erupts in an orgy of hatred, xenophobia, and racism coupled with neo-Nazi messages, car- and Koran-burning (followed by urinating on the smoldering embers of the Muslims' holy book), etc…

For some reason, French cartoonist Martin Vidberg manages to implicate John McCain ("McCain fries"?!?!) in the Koran burning! (Then again, the Arizona senator is emblematic of American conservatives…)

|

If I could rename the “International” Geneva-based institutions to anything else, I would call it the “Fake-Crisis Emergency Management Center”

|

As even Maureen Dowd is forced to come to terms with the fact that larger and larger sections of America — even CNN — are asking “Was Bush Better President Than Obama?”, the indignant New York Times columnist goes on to make a colossal effort to remind Americans how the Bush White House "broke creative new ground in thuggery and skulduggery."

How does she proceed to do that? By writing …a review of …a Hollywood movie. The film about

…a respected undercover spy tracking Iraqi W.M.D. efforts … being hounded by the most powerful men on earth [Valerie Plame] … is a vivid reminder of one of the most egregious abuses of power in history, and there are deliciously diabolical turns by actors playing Scooter Libby, David Addington and Rove. Plame’s C.I.A. bosses are portraits in cravenness, cutting her loose at the moment she starts receiving death threats and her Iraqi sources become endangered.

Well, yes. Notwithstanding the fact that Fair Game is collaborative effort by leftist Bush- (and Cheney-)haters — director Doug Liman "does not use an Oliver Stone sledgehammer on history" is the best Maureen Dowd can say in the filmmakers' defense — it is the movie that Brent Bozell calls

the ridiculous Valerie Plame "docudrama" titled "Fair Game," complete with sound bites of her real-life congressional testimony. Those evil-Bush-years commercials will run in the [2010 mid-term] campaign's final weeks without a single reporter batting an eye.

Indeed. Remember that all this comes in the wake of Obama, and the Democrats, complaining about Republican propaganda and the undue influence of foreign operatives in the 2010 elections. However:

"Citizens United" is a court case that demonstrated how media and entertainment conglomerates get more power in a democracy than every other institution, and how conservative voices are often squashed and mocked by the liberal media. … By contrast, powerful Hollywood leftists had no problem getting their documentaries with political overtones widely distributed in theatres as Citizens United was being squashed.

But wait for the punchline.

And guess who's financed that "Fair Game" movie? A film company named Imagenation Abu Dhabi. The executive producer is Mohamed Khalaf al-Mazrouei, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Media Company. But [Barack] Obama won't be pounding the podium against that foreign influence.

|

Courtesy of the state, French women seem to have it all

writes Katrin Bennhold on the front page of the International Herald Tribune as the New York Times bemoans, yet again, the alleged horrors of society (needless to say, Nordic nations were as usual top candidates for eulogies):

multiple children, a job and, often, a figure to die for. What they [French women] don’t have is equality: France ranks 46th in the World Economic Forum’s 2010 gender equality report, trailing the United States, most of Europe, but also Kazakhstan and Jamaica. … A recent 22-country survey by the Pew Research Center summed it up: three in four French people believe men have a better life than women, by far the highest share in any country polled.

“French women are exhausted,” said Valérie Toranian, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine in France. “We have the right to do what men do — as long as we also take care of the children, cook a delicious dinner and look immaculate. We have to be superwoman.”

The birthplace of Simone de Beauvoir and Brigitte Bardot may look Scandinavian in employment statistics, but it remains Latin in attitude. French women appear to worry about being feminine, not feminist, and French men often display a form of gallantry predating the 1789 revolution. Indeed, the liberation of French women can seem almost accidental — a byproduct of a paternalist state that takes children under its republican wings from toddler age and an obsession with natality rooted in three devastating wars.

…as the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy put it: “France is an old Gallic macho country.”

France crystallizes the paradox facing many women across the developed world in the early 21st century: They have more say over their sexuality (in France birth control and abortion are legal and subsidized), they have overtaken men in education and are catching up in the labor market, but few make it to the top of business or politics.

|

Michael Phillips discusses the idol of so many unwitting, unread buffoons who are otherwise easily distracted with fake Dreamcatchers and getting worked up over the great bee crisis just as easily.

My slight distaste for Gandhi, after reading dozens of dishonest biographies of him, comes down to the fact that he tried to win independence for parts of India, by threatening to have his followers support Hitler in WWII.

Because, y’know, he was into non-violence, and even though there would have been a lot of violence in Britain had Hitler turned the Indians on the UK, it would still be, like, non-violent.

And that’s, like, y’know, I can grok on that. Speak to us, O giant sculpture dude!

|

In the latest battle in the age-old war against intolerable sexual discrimination, the Daily Telegraph's Barney Henderson reports that Spanish fathers have been given entitlement to breastfeeding leave from work (gracias para Duncan):

Europe's top court has declared that working fathers in Spain are entitled to take 'breastfeeding leave' everyday, even if the mother of the child is not employed.

|

The New York Times gives some space to N Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard who makes the case against higher taxes for the rich…

I have to acknowledge that the Democrats are right about one thing: I can afford to pay more in taxes. My income is not in the same league as superstar actors and hedge fund managers, but I have been very lucky nonetheless. Unlike many other Americans, I don’t have trouble making ends meet. …

Nonetheless, as Republicans emphasize, taxes influence the decisions I make. I am regularly offered opportunities to earn extra money. It could be by talking to a business group, consulting on a legal case, giving a guest lecture, teaching summer school or writing an article. I turn down most but accept a few.

The author of some popular textbooks then supposes that some editor offers him $1,000 to write an article, showing what would happen should there be no taxes of any kind as compared to should the Bush tax cuts expire (Instapundit has more).

HERE’S the bottom line: Without any taxes, accepting that editor’s assignment would have yielded my children an extra $10,000. With taxes, it yields only $1,000. In effect, once the entire tax system is taken into account, my family’s marginal tax rate is about 90 percent. Is it any wonder that I turn down most of the money-making opportunities I am offered?

By contrast, without the tax increases advocated by the Obama administration, the numbers would look quite different. I would face a lower income tax rate, a lower Medicare tax rate, and no deduction phaseout or estate tax. Taking that writing assignment would yield my kids about $2,000. I would have twice the incentive to keep working.

Now you might not care if I supply less of my services to the marketplace — although, because you are reading this article, you are one of my customers. But I bet there are some high-income taxpayers whose services you enjoy.

…Like me, these individuals respond to incentives. (Indeed, some studies report that high-income taxpayers are particularly responsive to taxes.) As they face higher tax rates, their services will be in shorter supply.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether and how much the government should redistribute income. And, to be sure, the looming budget deficits require hard choices about spending and taxes. But don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that when the government taxes the rich, only the rich bear the burden.

|

(Thanks to Edy — I like the reaction of the Philadelphia Eagles' Jeremiah Trotter (#54) at 2:13…)

|

Check out the leftynomics:

Solar panel operators receive a fixed tariff for every kilowatt hour of power they produce. That tariff is well above the standard market price for electricity, guaranteed for more than 20 years. The total subsidy payout over the last 10 years has been €60 to €80 billion. The yield has been modest by comparison. Solar power covers just 1.1 percent of German electricity requirements.

What’s even more hilarious, is that the author blames the Conservatives for “withholding the costs” of what the left’s fantasies of dystopic backwardness really are. Somehow, the Conservatives in power who are being buffaloed and berated into shutting down nuke plants and “transform” Germany are responsible for the fact that it might cost money, and not wishes or daisies.

That this notion would be expensive and unreliable was painfully obvious 20 years ago when households in Germany were still regularly taking delivery of oily Lignite coal. The fact that someone has waited until now to establish that their fantasies of power generation would cost 5 to 7 trillion Euro-smackeroos (2-3 YEARS for German GDP, by the way,) reveals the short term thinking of these louts so fond of telling others that they are such fantastic long term thinkers.

|

Fire From the Heartland (thanks to Valerie)

|

In Spain it is now becoming increasingly difficult to show children the ways in which a man and a woman are different:

Europe's top court has declared that working fathers in Spain are entitled to take 'breastfeeding leave' everyday, even if the mother of the child is not employed.

Of course this is just a shrugged-shoulder matter of simply employing logic without any intent, rather than for judicial reasoning. Is the employed husband of an unemployed woman going to run home to attend to the wife’s nursing? Sure he is, right after he stops bitch slapping her.

The new legislation means that both the mother and father are allowed to leave work for an hour during the day or reduce their working day by half an hour during the first nine months following the birth of a child.



The European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled on Thursday that the Spanish law caused an "unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex" because fathers do not have the same rights as mothers.

The way to a European’s heart, and EU institutions know this, is for governments to be appearing to give people something for nothing, and this sounds like just that.

|

This is what happens when your choices in life are socialized:

This Saturday, one of Greece’s most respected newspapers, To Vima, reported that the nation’s largest government health insurance provider would no longer pay for special footwear for diabetes patients. Amputation is cheaper, says the Benefits Division of the state insurance provider.

To use a dental analogy, in East Germany crowns and fillings were not done to the degree that they would be in any civilized society. They simply pulled teeth until enough of them were gone by a certain age to justify dentures – one set – the lifetime allotment.

Greece’s National Healthcare System was created in the early 1980s, during the tenure of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. Papandreou, an academic, won election under the slogan, Αλλαγή, which is the Greek word for Change.

Emphasis mine. Sallow dyspepsia theirs.

Never mind the ways that they could be cut up, redistributive policies lead to degeneration of the WHOLE pie. It’s something that brings the motive and outcome of candidate Obama’s exchange with Joe the Plumber into sharp focus. Redistributive policies even shaft the people they try to help.

|

Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars” … tends to reinforce the questions of some of the allies about the Obama administration’s resolve to stop the mullahs’ drive

writes John Vinocur in the International Herald Tribune.

… in describing how the administration’s goals became fixated on finding a date when U.S. forces would begin to leave the country, and how the original objective of “defeating” the Taliban became “disrupting” them, and then “degrading” the insurgents, the book’s essential meaning for allied governments is likely to be in the indications it provides of a United States for which “winning” has become a soft notion, open to interpretation.

…a notion of nonurgency concerning Iran — while “Obama’s Wars” quotes Mr. Obama’s maxim for Afghanistan as being “Faster in, faster out” — has not gone down easily with countries like France, Britain and Israel who rely on their own estimates of a narrower time frame for confronting Tehran.

Indeed, it contrasted with a statement from a high official of a European allied nation three weeks ago that, in relation to Iran’s nuclear plans, any “further loss of time will be disastrous.”

As for the book, it goes to doubts — expressed semi-privately by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France — about the U.S. president’s basic views of the world and America’s concept in 2010 of victory and defeat.

…the author told of asking the president directly, “You can’t lose a war or be perceived to lose one, can you?”

Mr. Woodward said Mr. Obama replied: “I think about it not so much in the classic, do you lose a war on my watch? (sic) I think about it more in terms of, do you successfully prosecute a strategy that results in the country being stronger rather than weaker at the end of it?”

The remark might sound vague in relation to America’s presumed instincts. It is neither the omnipresent win or lose of American sports, nor the profit-and-loss, black-ink, red-ink ledgers of American business and American life.

I asked someone who might be called a European defense intellectual with close ties to the French government about that. The reply: “An America that debates whether it should win a war it’s in is a very frightening prospect.”

Readers of Mr. Woodward’s book will also note that it does not prophesy less ambiguity soon about the United States’ level of military determination.

|

Permit me to present an excerpt from a 1981 East German publication for agitators. It was meant to give small-time propagandists who were supposed to work the barracks, the factory floor, and the like, examples of successful preaching to the imprisoned.

One choise piece provides an example of the limits of truthiness:

Italy: What are the Causes of Terrorist Actions?

The new year began in Italy as the old one had ended: with terrorist actions. On 31 December, Police General Enrico Calvaligi was shot at the front door of his home. In January, the kidnapping of Judge Giovanni D’Urso occupied public attention until he was a released. These were only the latest in a long chain of events that began on 12 December 1969 with a bomb at the Agricultural Bank in Milan and reached its high point so far on Bologna on 2 August 1980 when 85 people were killed and more than 200 injured. What are the causes of these terrorist actions, which have affected Italy in particular, but also other capitalist countries?

Bourgeois and social reformist ideologists and politicians generally, reject the claim that the roots are in the capitalist system. Explaining the causes, however, requires considering the whole interrelated complex of objective and subjective of economic, social, political, and ideological factors, and they develop from the nature of the capitalist system!

In the socio-economic area, terrorism is bred complex of factors of new and old contradictions, in the backwardness of the south, and particularly the sharpness of the economic crisis and its results. The inflation rate in 1980 was above 20 percent throughout the year, at the top of the leading capitalist states, and unemployment according to official figures remained at about 1.7 million, about 50 percent of whom are young people. In a situation of general uncertainty, extremist and anarchist ideas spread among dissatisfied and politically immature young people who want revenge on the bourgeois state. In this milieu, adventurers find an audience for their calls for “direct action” and terrorist acts, which they claim are the quickest path to social change. The crisis is also hard on the middle class, and produces not only anti-monopolistic views, but also radical views to the right and the “left.” Demagogic appeals to national sentiments, or to economic and social difficulties and social problems, allow neo-fascist and “leftist” extremist groups to win supporters in various social levels — from the poorest farmers in the south to some tradesmen, businessmen, civil servants, and students.

The two were, of course, kidnapped by the Red Brigade, well known for their “right wing views” to the East German listener of this bromide, and who were trained, plosletyzed to, and funded by the intelligence agencies of the Warsaw pact,making the entire thing a “Daddy drinks because you cry” type of argument.

|

(…although how can you enjoy a mojito if there is no alcohol inside?!)

|

To me, Plantu brings to mind the image of a grinning idiot in a ragged suit cranking the handle of a calliope. And that's largly how he's characterizing the President if you look more closely.

It's interesting to see that he signifies the President by drawing his non-specific generic negro minstrel figure. Good work there, spanky. You'll really get somewhere with that attitude.

|

The Birth of Freedom: Why would anyone believe that all men are created equal? That all should be free? That all deserve a voice in choosing their leaders? Why would any nation consider this a self-evident truth?

|

|

It would seem that the new generation of gangsters in the Lyon area have not heard that violence only occurs in America (aka the land of the nutty gun-lovers). Indeed, the — very young — criminals, who seem to come from la banlieue and who seem to base their attacks on the video games that they play, writes Richard Schittly in Le Monde, are multiplying hold-ups with an extreme violence. It is precisely for that reason, we learn, moreover, that the police will not intervene during the hold-up of a bank or a jewelry shop.

« Dans ce genre de situation, une intervention risque de déclencher une fusillade en plein centre-ville, on choisit de ne pas les intercepter immédiatement », justifie un commissaire de police.

|

A Legacy left behind by the Red Army: Soljanka

Of which there were very few, but like that evil genius Ripley’s love of Gulasch, mine is a weakness for Soljanka, a picante soup made popular among Eastern Germans by way of contact with their Soviet military comrades / douchebags / occupiers.

I have translated the recipe from the original Klingon, to which I’ve added my personal touches:

- 200 g /7-8 oz. of Yellow onion, finely chopped (avoid the vidalias or any new-fangled mild varieties)
- 100 g /3-1/2 oz. of unsliced bacon, cubed into small pieces
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 100 g /3-1/2 oz. of Tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon of Paprika
- 2 medium sized pickles (dill or sour are best), “julienne” cut to the extent one can with a pickle
- 500 g of meat: sausage, leftovers, or trimmed tips of pork or ham (anything, really, even leftover chicken!)
- (Add a tbp. of butter, if the meats are all lean.)
- 1,5 liters/ 3 pints of Beef stock (powdered stock may also be used, but omit the salt if you do)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon of capers

For decoration:

- Thin lemon wedges (thin sliced rings cut into triangles)
- Sour crème
- Dill

Optional:

- Parsley
- A few sliced olives, or any other pickled favorites.
- Pepperoncini (one of my favorites)

Preparation:

Sauté the onions and bacon in the bottom of your soup pot, until the onions clarify. Do not let them brown.
Add all of the meats, pickles, and paprika for a few moments until they soften.
Then pour in the soup stock.
Add the lemon wedges to the stock, salt and pepper to taste.
Let it come to a boil, and then let it simmer for at least 15 minutes and up to 45 minutes.
Just prior to serving, add the capers, and all the optional faves, as well as the sour crème dollop right in the middle of the bowl.

Decorate with small lemon wedges an a small dollop of sour crème. Some prefer the sour crème “on the side”, or otherwise spoon out the amount they deem excessive prior to stirring it in. Some the dill reserved from preparation is also a good thing to drizzle on top.

Makes 4 servings, or 2 if served without any other dish. Serve with rye or black bread on the side, the gamiest smelling type that you can find.

This is one of the simpler recipes, prone to a more pickle dominated taste, but is easily tempered by using a little bit more bacon or sausage.

Click on the photo for an excellent Ukranian Soljanka recipe, which has a much fresher taste, not masked as heavily by the tomato paste. It should take on the taste of creative variations more readily.

|

The consensus opinion takes a hit, below the water:

Americans are divided over whether President Barack Obama or his predecessor has performed better in the White House, according to a new national poll.

And a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday also indicates in the battle for Congress, Republicans hold large advantages over the Democrats among independents, men and blue-collar whites. The poll also indicates that Republicans are much more enthusiastic than Democrats to vote.

By 47 to 45 percent, Americans say Obama is a better president than George W. Bush. But that two point margin is down from a 23 point advantage one year ago.

"Democrats may want to think twice about bringing up former President George W. Bush's name while campaigning this year," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.



No doubt the reality-based community is readying the new and updated signs. Afterall, it is a search for truth .............. right?

|

So we could watch Ladytron, naturally:

|

How incredible! It just so happens that, by an amazing coincidence, ancient Muslims in India happened to build the mosque of Barbi Masjid at Ayodhya, the birthplace of one of Hinduism’s most revered deities, Ram, where a Hindu temple seems to have existed beforehand. Jim Yardley:

Lawyers for Hindu groups … contended that a temple to Ram had existed on the site until it was demolished to make way for the Babri Masjid, constructed in the 16th century by India’s first Mughal ruler.

"India’s first Mughal ruler" is not incorrect in this case, but one wonders whether it is not a way to avoid saying "India’s first Muslim ruler". According to Hindus, furthermore, "Ram was born beneath the central dome of the destroyed structure." What an amazing coincidence is that?! Muslims just happened to build a mosque on the exact place where another, non-Muslim religion had one of their most revered spots and where the ruins of that other, non-Muslim religion's temple happened to be…

And this sort of recurring fact seems to escape the (more-intelligent-and-more-suave-than-the-average-clueless-American-clod) journalists of the New York Times (which elsewhere refers to "the Republican Party's rabble-rousing tea partiers"), when writing a hit piece on someone like Pamela Gellar…

|

Eye of Pickled Newt



Or some-such. Actually, I think that thing on the left is part ibex and part squid.

|

This Fall in America, It will be the Tea Party Movement versus the Cocktail Party Movement.

|

It seems to me that Uncle Sam, the eternal multilateralist, is learning his lesson all over again – and sweating it out. The Apathetic European standing next to him seems to be enjoying watching the waifish innocent townsfolk die at the hands of tin pot dictators and insurgents, while manning his precambrian Monty Python-esque artillery.

|

A report on cyberwar in Le Monde by Yves Eudes (also an article on the worm that attacked the U.S. Army) is the occasion for Rocco to practice his evil-and-cruel-shark-toothed-Yankee-soldier cartooning…

Meanwhile, articles such as the Nathalie Guibert piece on France's defense measures or the Yves Eudes piece on NATO's Estonia defense tactics or the Jean-Pierre Stroobants piece on cybercriminality in the EU are laconically illustrated by photos like that of a gendarme at his computer…

|

The scandal, real or alleged, of a European food agency president's belonging to the agro-alimentary lobby, as reported by Hervé Kempf in Le Monde — the information was uncovered by our old friend José Bové — allows Serguei to draw one of his typical fat-evil-cigar-smokin'-capitalist-lording-over-the-little-people cartoons.

|

Gay Saudi prince 'murdered servant in ferocious attack'

Hey, he’s got all the right credientials... a gay ‘outsider’, aristocratic wealth that’s counteracted by the cred, a willingness to take ‘direct action’, a sense of entitlement, and, let’s face it, an unknown with political access.

On the surface, any number of towns on the west cioast of the United States would elect him to their city councils on the strength of ‘celebrating his identity’ alone.

|

So long Signalman SM3c Bernard Schwartz. You’ll always be first rate.

|