The Danger Within...

I've alluded to this before.

One of the problems facing Europe is the lack of integration within their borders of the sizeable immigrant population. It's not so much that they don't try, it's more a fact that the governments in Europe have been in active denial over the last 20+years that there is even a need to integrate non-ethnic Germans into German society. In some ways the "multi-kulti", i.e multicultural, policies of most European countries is a craven admittance that they don't want to be bothered.

Putting their heads in the sand.


You see, this link shows you something that apparently the Telegraph has withdrawn "for legal reasons". I'm putting the archived article up here in case the link goes bye-bye:

ENGLAND: The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state

By Alasdair Palmer
The Telegraph Group
February 19, 2006

For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.

"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.

"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.

"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."

Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.

"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."

For someone with such strong and uncompromising views, Dr Sookhdeo is a surprisingly gentle and easy-going man. He speaks with authority on Islam, as it was his first faith: he was brought up as a Muslim in Guyana, the only English colony in South America, and attended a madrassa there.

"But Islamic instruction was very different in the 1950s, when I was at school," he says. "There was no talk of suicide bombing or indeed of violence of any kind. Islam was very peaceful."

Dr Sookhdeo's family emigrated to England when he was 10. In his early twenties, when he was at university, he converted to Christianity. "I had simply seen it as the white man's religion, the religion of the colonialists and the oppressors - in a very similar way, in fact, to the way that many Muslims see Christianity today.

" Leaving Islam was not easy. According to the literal interpretation of the Koran, the punishment for apostasy is death - and it actually is punished by death in some Middle Eastern states. "It wasn't quite like that here," he says, "although it was traumatic in some ways."

Dr Sookhdeo continued to study Islam, doing a PhD at London University on the religion. He is currently director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. He also advises the Army on security issues related to Islam.

Several years ago, Dr Sookhdeo insisted that the next wave of radical Islam in Britain would involve suicide bombings in this country. His prediction was depressingly confirmed on 7/7 last year.

So his claim that, in the next decade, the Muslim community in Britain will not be integrated into mainstream British society, but will isolate itself to a much greater extent, carries weight behind it. Dr Sookhdeo has proved his prescience.

"The Government, and Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, are fundamentally deluded about the nature of Islam," he insists. "Tony Blair unintentionally revealed his ignorance when he said, in an effort to conciliate Muslims, that he had 'read through the Koran twice' and that he kept it by his bedside.

"He thought he was saying something which showed how seriously he took Islam. But most Muslims thought it was a joke, if not an insult. Because, of course, every Muslim knows that you cannot read the Koran through from cover to cover and understand it.

The chapters are not written to be read in that way. Indeed, after the first chapter, the chapters of the Koran are ordered according to their length, not according to their content or chronology: the longest chapters are first, the shorter ones are at the end.

"You need to know which passage was revealed at what period and in what time in order to be able to understand it - you cannot simply read it from beginning to end and expect to learn anything at all.

"That is one reason why it takes so long to be able to read and understand the Koran: the meaning of any part of it depends on a knowledge of its context - a context that is not in the Koran itself."

The Prime Minister's ignorance of Islam, Dr Sookhdeo contends, is of a piece with his unsuccessful attempts to conciliate it. And it does indeed seem as if the Government's policy towards radical Islam is based on the hope that if it makes concessions to its leaders, they will reciprocate and relations between fundamentalist Muslims and Tony Blair's Government will then turn into something resembling an ecumenical prayer meeting.

Dr Sookhdeo nods in vigorous agreement with that. "Yes - and it is a very big mistake. Look at what happened in the 1990s. The security services knew about Abu Hamza and the preachers like him. They knew that London was becoming the centre for Islamic terrorists. The police knew. The Government knew. Yet nothing was done.

"The whole approach towards Muslim militants was based on appeasement. 7/7 proved that that approach does not work - yet it is still being followed. For example, there is a book, The Noble Koran: a New Rendering of its Meaning in English, which is openly available in Muslim bookshops.

"It calls for the killing of Jews and Christians, and it sets out a strategy for killing the infidels and for warfare against them. The Government has done nothing whatever to interfere with the sale of that book.

"Why not? Government ministers have promised to punish religious hatred, to criminalise the glorification of terrorism, yet they do nothing about this book, which blatantly does both."

Perhaps the explanation is just that they do not take it seriously. "I fear that is exactly the problem," says Dr Sookhdeo. "The trouble is that Tony Blair and other ministers see Islam through the prism of their own secular outlook.

They simply do not realise how seriously Muslims take their religion. Islamic clerics regard themselves as locked in mortal combat with secularism.

"For example, one of the fundamental notions of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable: there cannot be free choice about whether to choose or reject any of the fundamental aspects of the religion, because they are all divinely ordained. God has laid down the law, and man must obey.

'Islamic clerics do not believe in a society in which Islam is one religion among others in a society ruled by basically non-religious laws. They believe it must be the dominant religion - and it is their aim to achieve this.

"That is why they do not believe in integration. In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe laid out their strategy for the future - and the fundamental rule was never dilute your presence. That is to say, do not integrate.

"Rather, concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures. The education system will be Islamic, the shops will serve only halal food, there will be no advertisements showing naked or semi-naked women, and so on."

That plan, says Dr Sookhdeo, is being followed in Britain. "That is why you are seeing areas which are now almost totally Muslim. The next step will be pushing the Government to recognise sharia law for Muslim communities - which will be backed up by the claim that it is "racist" or "Islamophobic" or "violating the rights of Muslims" to deny them sharia law.

"There's already a Sharia Law Council for the UK. The Government has already started making concessions: it has changed the law so that there are sharia-compliant mortgages and sharia pensions.

"Some Muslims are now pressing to be allowed four wives: they say it is part of their religion. They claim that not being allowed four wives is a denial of their religious liberty. There are Muslim men in Britain who marry and divorce three women, then marry a fourth time - and stay married, in sharia law, to all four.

"The more fundamentalist clerics think that it is only a matter of time before they will persuade the Government to concede on the issue of sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that."

Dr Sookhdeo's vision of a relentless battle between secular and Islamic Britain seems hard to reconcile with the co-operation that seems to mark the vast majority of the interactions between the two communities.

"Well, it isn't me who says Islam is at war with secularisation," he says. "That's how Islamic clerics describe the situation."

But isn't it true that most Muslims who live in theocratic states want to get out of them as quickly as possible and live in a secular country such as Britain or America? And that most Muslims who come to Britain adopt the values of a liberal, democratic, tolerant society, rather than insisting on the inflexible rules of their religion?

"You have to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and their self-appointed leaders," explains Dr Sookhdeo. "I agree that the best hope for our collective future is that the majority of Muslims who have grown up here have accepted the secular nature of the British state and society, the division between religion and politics, and the importance of allowing people to choose freely how they will live.

"But that is not how most of the clerics talk. And, more significantly, it is not how the 'community leaders' whom the Government has decided represent the Muslim community think either.

"Take, for example, Tariq Ramadan, whom the Government has appointed as an adviser because ministers think he is a 'community leader'. Ramadan sounds, in public, very moderate. But in reality, he has some very extreme views. He attacks liberal Muslims as 'Muslims without Islam'. He is affiliated to the violent and uncompromising Muslim Brotherhood.

"He calls the education in the state schools of the West 'aggression against the Islamic personality of the child'. He has said that 'the Muslim respects the laws of the country only if they do not contradict any Islamic principle'. He has added that 'compromising on principles is a sign of fear and weakness'."

So what's the answer? What should the Government be doing? "First, it should try to engage with the real Muslim majority, not with the self-appointed 'community leaders' who don't actually represent anyone: they have not been elected, and the vast majority of ordinary Muslims have nothing to do with them.

"Second, the Government should say no to faith-based schools, because they are a block to integration. There should be no compromise over education, or over English as the language of education. The policy of political multiculturalism should be reversed.

"The hope was that it would to ensure separate communities would soften at the edges and integrate. But the opposite has in fact happened: Islamic communities have hardened. There is much less integration than there was for the generation that arrived when I did. There will be much less in the future if the present trend continues.

"Finally, the Government should make it absolutely clear: we welcome diversity, we welcome different religions - but all of them have to accept the secular basis of British law and society. That is a non-negotiable condition of being here.

"If the Government does not do all of those things then I fear for the future, because Islamic communities within Britain will form a state within a state. Religion will occupy an ever-larger place in our collective political life. And, speaking as a religious man myself, I fear that outcome."

Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.


The critical point here is that there will be no attempt by Islamicists to take over Europe via democratic methods, but rather alone by demographic methods. They will abuse the basic principles of self-determination to demand that it is their right to have a state within a state.

And as such European governments are right now faced with a de-facto segregation between these immigrant communities and the fundamental nature of what nations are all about: the sovereignity of the modern nation-state is being deliberately undermined by those who want to use the state to protect what is fundamentally an attempt to destroy the state.

Rather anarchistic when you get down to it: reminds me of the anarchists I knew as a student who, if they didn't have a rich parent financing them, all lived on the dole.

To parahrase Lenin: What Must Be Done?


First of all: the break between rights and duties need to be resolved. If you move to Germany, for instance, you enjoy all sorts of rights as a foreigner: cheap health insurance, free education, subsidies for retraining, and generous unemployment and welfare payments. If you have a residency permit, you can't easily be thrown out of the country, and the Germans, with their highly developed "social conscience" won't allow you to be thrown out on the streets to starve if you are chronicaly unemployable. This practically begs for abuse: I've met enough "political refugees" - including one from Spain! - who were simply exploiting the system to have a life of leisure to say that the number of true political refugees, which Germany, given its history, has chosen to provide safe havens for, is vastly outnumbered by the fakers who just want a life of leisure. But these rights are not balanced by an according, explicit duty to integrate into German society without exception: if those wanting to come here knew that their wives and daughters would, effectively, burn their bras and have the freedom to live like German women, removed from their current effective chattel slavery, then you'd probably find that there are a lot fewer takers.


I've written here before on the general assault on the nation-state as actor on the international scene, led largely by NGOs and the internationalists. This is another case of how the nation-state is being undermined.

Score one for the tax man...

This is too good not to share.


Seems that there is a German film fund, a closed fund that finances films. In order to take advantage of tax laws, they (claim to) do so as producers of the film, i.e. they are part and parcel of the act of making the film, not mere financers of said film.

That way investors can take losses off their taxes, since they are part and parcel of the production process. You do a simple income-expenses calculation and you've got a nice negative cash flow while a film is being made, before it heads out to the market. If the film makes money, you pay taxes on the income. As we all know, film accounting rarely shows real profits (but it can happen: similiar funds financed Terminator 3 and made a killing for their clients).

Now these folks financed a little film called LA Crash.

Which of course won three oscars.


Apparently tax people in Germany watch TV too. They also noticed that the company in question - remember, they are claiming to be the producers of this film - aren't listed anywhere as actually being the producers of this film.

Which means that they are financing the film and that the income generated cannot be deducted from taxes.


Which means that the company mentioned in the link is apparently going to go up on charges of fraud, and that all of the investors will be getting a friendly letter from their local tax authorities "correcting" the income tax statements of the appropriate years and maybe even a little charge of ... tax evasion.

Fraud because they claimed to be producers when they weren't, tax evasion because they took tax breaks they weren't entitled to.




There is a term in the movie industry called " stupid German money", which Edward Jay Epstein does a great job describing not only here, but here as well.

Guess these Germans will find out how stupid they've actually been...

The Coming Catastrophe...

Want to know what European politicians are thinking?


One of the more typical examples of your average wooly-brained clueless pseudointellectual European politicians - sorry, I repeat myself - is Angelika Beer.

She's a Green politician, one of the early greens. The only other job she's ever held was as an administrative assistant.

For her various sins over the years she's been sent to Brussels and is considered to be the Green's expert on Iran. She chairs the European Delegation on Iran. Chairs it.


So there's this little interview where she's asked what should be done about Iran. Sorry that it's only in German, but it's an interview with German radio and I can't seem to find it translated anywhere.

But it's not the interview alone - I'll come to that - but let's go back a tad. I looked her up on the Internet - duh - and this is what I've found:

This is where she pleads that while the Iranians continue to stone people to death and to execute juveniles, it's really, really important to set up a inter-parliamentary commission to set up the conditions where a dialogue might be opened up to start to discuss what the Europeans can do.

I'm not making that one up.


Here is where she talks about Iran: she recognizes that there is a challenge from Ahmadinesdschad, that he wants to break with the west and build up an islamic region with himself at the head, that he is manipulating the national pride of Iranians. And she asks what is the answer of the Europeans?

I'm gonna translate/paraphrase (ellipses mean I'm leaving something irrelevant out):

I await that we use reason and clear analysis to guide us. ... we need new dialogue partners, we need to be active, in order to return diplomacy to the forefront.
...
I expect from those (planning military options-JO) a definition of how they plan to use military escalation, and whether this will enable us to reach our political goals, which is to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and to secure the existence of Israel: I do not believe that this can be the case.

For this reason I now appeal that our argumentation with Iran - which are not open to debate - abandon military options ... and that we put diplomacy once again in the forefront, despite the hate-filled talking of Ahmadinedschad.

The question of whether to implement sanctions, which sanctions should be used, and whether world peace is endangered, is not something that Mr. Chirac is responsible for, who all of a sudden threatens the use of French nuclear weapons; it is also not a question for Ms. Merkel to decide. This critical quesiton is one that can only be answered by the UN and we cannot pre-guess what they will do.

Now this sounds all so reasonable, right?

But notice two things: first she fails to actually say anything positive: she demands, instead, that her opposites deliver their arguments before she herself will react to them, classic passive-aggressive behavior. I've deliberately taken a non-clinical definition here to underscore that what we are seeing here is pathological behavior, besides being a pain in the ass.

But is it really pathological?

Back to the interview, I say.

Asked if the Europeans should turn off the flow of money to the Palestinians after the election of Hamas, she says:

Oh, that would be completely wrong. I don't have a patent recipe for what we should do, but the demand for financial sanctions, breaking diplomatic relations, shows the political helplessness regarding the question of whether this is the clash of cultures and how do we deal with this? Cutting off the money would be the false path, would leade to further escalation.

When asked what she says to those who, regardless of political party affiliation, can't see giving European tax money to terrorists, she replies:

I think you have to see that people's rights are unassailable. What does this mean for accepting other cultures and religions, and what have we failed to do to be informed? Where is the dialogue? You can see this in Germany in the discussion about integration, of requiring German to be spoken in school yards during recess, we have to see where we've made mistakes.

That's her entire answer.

When called on this, she says:

You're right. The dilemma right now, is that the cartoons have created a mood which isn't just a reaction, but is being politically instrumentalized. We see that worldwide in the muslim and arab countries. But we need to ask: how did this come about? When I speak to muslims here in Belgium I get answers that go far, far, far back: they say that they refuse to understand. What happened in Iraq? What happened with the Koran? The Koran was flushed down a toilet using american pressure, people were kicked. They say that it is the tip of the iceberg, where they don't want to see violence escalate, but they don't know how to influence things, but look at the positive side, in Germany, where muslim groups are trying to de-escalate the situation.

When asked whether the cartoons should have been prohibited:

I am of the opinion, that freedom of the press in Europe shouldn't be limited. But I believe that the preparation for a multicultural world, also by journalists, means that you have to consider what the cartoons meant and how they provoke, because political cartoons are there to provoke where the limits are, where they are crossed. And, now speaking as politician that we didn't see the dimension, we thought, OK, not so good, but it shows we didn't understand well enough, that it's not the right time to call for sanctions, we must really try to understand, and if it is the clash of cultures that so many fear then we need a world-wide answer. And then the UK, Kofi Annan, perhaps can call for an initiative, where the Europeans can say that it wasn't intended, but we're not going to limit our freedom of the press, but let's all go, right then, together to sit at a table to talk about this and integration and multi-cultural and multi-religion issues.

I'm going to stop here because the rest of the interview is simply too bizarre. Suffice to say: her answer to the question is that Europe should enter into a dialogue with Hamas, but the terror against Israeli citizens has to end, but we need to sit down and talk.


But do you see the pattern of behavior?


First: avoid stating a position where you have to actually be for something. Rather, toss the ball back and demand that others give answers so that first the other side is dissected before any position is formulated. In other words, a purely reactive policy of refusing to be for anything without knowing what the other side is for.

Second: at the same time taking, in advance, the blame for whatever has happened, as a matter of course: never admit that the other side has something that could be irreconcilable. It's also the classic US-liberal position, of always seeking the blame with your side for having a problem come up. Highly neurotic behavior, to put it mildly.

Third: the only concrete proposal is to get everyone to sit down and talk about it. What does this mean? Only one thing: she doesn't have the faintest idea of what is driving the other side and because of this there can be no plan of action.


Now this might be acceptable if she was just some woman at the office who says something like this.


But it's not: this is the European Union's chairperson for Iran .

She's the one who should have a deep understanding of what is going on in that country, why it is a threat, what are the motives of the Iranians, what can the EU do, what are the options.

Right.

In other words, the European Union's policy for Iran is being formulated by someone who admittedly knows nothing of what is going on, doesn't understand why Iran is behaving like it does, wants to sit down to talk about it, who is incapable of even considering any military options, who sees first that the West has made mistakes and has to come up with a solution.



Folks, you can write off the EU for the current cycle of confrontation with Iran. The lunatics are not only in control in Iran, they are also in control in Europe.


And Angelika Beer will never understand that it will be her fault for the Europeans not having a policy in regards to Iran. That it is her fault that the Iranians will not take the Europeans seriously under these conditions.

Which means that instead of being able to make a positive contribution to the problem, she is making things words. And understands nothing of that.


And if this is the best Europe has to offer, then good night.


The collapse of the dream of an effective European Union will not be the result of American hegemony, or Russian pressure, or insurmountable problems.


It will be the result of gross and negligent incompetence. Heck, gross and negligent is not doing the incompetence here any justice. It's much, much worse than that.

The coming catastrophe with Iran will be based on wishful thinking, good intentions and massive incompetence of the Europeans. That's more than just a tragedy.

Small update...

Sorry, tied up in writing texts for 170 industries...

But let me say a "I told you so".  The author makes it clear that Iran has outmanouevered the West, largely because it understands the area better and is able to better exploit a bad situation to make it effectively worse for the West.

What we are facing is most emphatically not the failed policies of a single administration or government, but the collective failure of the West in dealing with the failed Middle East. Of all the countries of the Middle East, there is really only one country that comes even close to western standards of effectiveness, productivity, rule of law and respect for human rights, and that is Israel. All others, without exception, are in one way or another failed states, with populations kept in poverty and ignorance (West Bank and Gaza: thank you UNRO for that disaster), kept under close control under religious rule (Iran especially, but Saudia Arabia as well) or simply charachterized by despotic rule and systemic corruption (pretty much everyone else).

It's not the failure of the US: it is also the failure of the UK, France, Germany, Italy etc. Western Europe's appeasement and obsession with stability has led to a situation of permanent instability that the US intervention in Iraq has stirred up. The criticism that that US has reaped for this is extraordinarily hypocritical, since we've reached the point where the problems, the failure of Islam to provide for its population and the resentments that are artificially driven to a frenzy in order to hide the fundamental failure of Islam in this area, would be getting significantly worse if the US hadn't intervened.

The problem is that the Europeans haven't realized that they must make the choice between shitty alternatives. The US has already made this, and while things could have gone better, they could've been a LOT worse. Europeans still think that they can negotiate their way into another period of pseudo-peace, thinking that they can ride out whatever wave of populism comes out of the Middle East.

In other words, they're living a fantasy.


On a more positive note, I was wondering when someone would notice this.

The democrats and their radical supporters have been spending millions and millions to achieve their goals: they haven't won once. Not once. I like saying that so much: not once. :-)


So what will these people do when Soros decides to cut his money and stop their gravy train? That thought frightens them almost as much as their fantasy interpretation of George Bush.


And this is indicative of the failure of Islam. It's a rather pathetic attempt to relevatise the achievements of the age of discovery in Europe, where the Europeans went out to discover the world, by insisting that it wouldn't have been as successful as it was without "the great scientific legacy" of Islamic scholars.

Great, nice to know, fella: so what have you done lately?

All that I can see is a fantasy world, as can be seen here. According to the chap, a Lebanese cleric, AmerIndians spoke Arabic.


Right. And monkey fly out of my ...

Enough: the failure of Islam should now be apparent. There was a great heyday of Islamic philosophy and science. It's over, guys, it's been over for more than 1000 years. What have you done lately?

What modern Islam has to offer is?

A overmagnified sense of injustice and inhumanity to thrash ignorant masses into a frenzy? Servitude and slavery for women? Denial of human rights?


It's not hard to have a negative image of Islam. It's really more difficult to have a positive one.

A Short Answer Turning Long...

Here a Dutch journalist asks the question "What sacred values are worth defending at such a high cost?"

Simple. For the Europeans, there are none. Except for maybe the welfare state.

On the one hand, NATO and the post-war period bred aggression out of the body politic. Everything was dealt with by negotiations.

That is how NATO works. The old resentments and conflicts were talked to death.


But the ignorance of the European is vastly more criminal than any supposed hubris of the Americans: by insisting on having a role, by insisting on trying to peddle their "soft power" nonsense - and let's face it, soft power is nonsense, it is nothing more than bluff - they have handed the Iranians carte blanche.

This, for me, is what follows:

Only Europe lacks core values that it holds sacrosanct and that it's willing to defend at the highest cost. It will continue to operate on the diplomatic field and cling to soft power even though this is the path of certain defeat when confronted with power players burning with geopolitical and religious ambitions.

Thanks to European illusions about soft power, the free world has two options left on Iran: disaster or catastrophe. America and Israel will bleed for Europe's lack of conviction.

And it's not so much Israel and the US: the EU will bleed as well.

And the sad part, the truly tragic part, is that when push comes to shove, the Europeans will have finally made themselves not merely irrelevant, but downright reckless and foolish. If anything, they're the ones with the superiority complex, based on feelings of inadequacy. The dangers of the world are being aggravated by EU policies, policies brought by reckless and ignorant politicians in a desperate attempt to cover up the fact, the damning fact, of their own inadequacy.

It's not merely the inadequacy of money being spent on the military - barely that which NATO requires and not a cent more - but rather an inadequacy of morals, an inadequacy of moral fiber, an inadequacy of being able to even understand that there is a right and that there is a wrong. It is the inadequacy of an entire generation, the generation of 1968, which has fought to tear down what Europe has and has succeeded.

Leaving only an empty shell full of rhetoric, which in the hands of ignorant politicians has led to the chasm that we now are looking at.

Of course, the classic Adlerian therapeutic tool is to work with the patient to identify the feelings of inferiority and to change unrealistic expectations.

What are the unrealistic expectations of the Europeans?


That they still have a role to play in world politics.

The tragedy will be that it will probably take another war to disabuse them of this notion. When the war comes, they will sit it out and lament how could it have come to this, they will lament the loss of life and destruction, how terrible everything is, without realizing, actively denying, that they have been major players in bringing this about. And when the war comes to them - terror, Iranian missiles, whatever - they will blame it all on the US and Israel.

First in the aftermath, after the dead are counted and the rules of the game written anew, will they realize just how much they have lost: those in charge simply won't be willing to listen anymore and what role the Europeans could have played, could have played to avoid the problem, will have been pissed away in the winds of change.

This is the tragedy of the beginning of the 21st century.


And what could the Europeans do?

It's simple. Move a German division into Turkey for "exercises". Move a French division into Oman for "exercises". Move a Dutch brigade into Afghanistan for "exercises". Move the Italian airforce to Iraq for "exercises".

Then the Iranians would start to listen. But the Europeans are completely incapable of such an exercise in force projection, not because they can't - they could if they wanted to, it'd be hard, but doable - but because they don't want to. They are too afraid of conflict, too afraid of their own history, too afraid of having someone consider them to be the bad guys because they went to war for something they believed in, something central, a core value.

There's that old Brecht quote: "What if they gave a war and no one came"?

Here is the entire quote:

"What if they gave a war and no one came?
Then the war will come to you.
He who stays home when the fight begins
And lets others fight for his cause
Should take care. He who does not take part
In the battle will share in the defeat.
Even avoiding battle does not avoid
Battle, since not to fight for your cause
Really means
Fighting on behalf of your enemy's cause.

 - Bertholt Brecht.

This is the fate of Europe as it stands today. When it is all over, Europe will stand beneath contempt: it will be reduced to irrelevance.

And that is the tragedy.

Yep, It's Been Slow...

Sorry, been busy wth follow up rating after the forecast.

Not that there hasn't been a lot going on. There is.

But the Europeans continue not merely hiding their head in the sand, but marvel at how great the view is and congratulate themselves on being so clever in finding it.

Like I've already said: we're being lied to. But for the nattering nabobs of negativism, lies only count if they are uttered in the White House. For these hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history  - damn but Safire could turn a phrase.


And I couldn't care less about the Oscars. Kids forgot to program them, which is fine with me. Means I can watch TV this evening with the SchizoidWife instead of withdrawing into the shell of my study.

Blogging will continue its regularly scheduled appearance when I get sufficiently worked up about something. That's what it's here for...

And this is the link...

Go here and read. Everyone who doesn't want sharia and Islam should read this and spread the word.

Where can I sign up?

Leserbrief an "Die Welt"

Sorry that this one is in German, but thought I'd document what I wrote.

This is the letter to the Editor that I wrote to the German newspaper "Die Welt" regarding an editorial from Jeff Gedmin:

Zu: "Amerika als Alptraum"; WELT vom  1. März

Sehr geerhte Damen und Herren!

Als Amerikaner, der 22 der letzten 26 Jahren hier in Deutschland studiert und arbeitet, der hier 2 Kinder großzieht und hier unmengen an Steuergeld bezahlt, kann ich das Anti-Amerikanisches, das Herr Gedmin beschreibt und zur Recht beklagt, nur bestätigen.

Meine beide Kinder, die amerikanische Staatsburger sind, mussen fast tagtäglich solches Unfug in der Gymnasium über sich gehen lassen, da sie beiden resigniert haben, die klaffenden Unwissenheit sowohl der Lehrer als auch die Mitschüler zu korrigieren und besseres zu belehren.

Es ist in der Tat eine Unverschämtheit, wie aus billigen politischen und polemischen Gründen nicht nur Unwissen verbereitet wird, sondern aktiv das Land und seine Burger verleumdet und angefeindet wurden. Um es zu wiederholen: dies geschieht nicht aus irgendwelche vorgetäuschte \"moralische\" Gründe, sondern aus reinste innenpolitische Kalkul, da es viel dienlicher ist, als mit den eigenen Probleme zu kämpfen.

Herr Gedmin has absolut recht: so lange es die Leute mit billigen anti-amerikanischen Ressentiment gut Karrier machen und Zeitungen verkaufen, wird es so bleiben, egal was für Schaden diese Entwicklung langfristig bedeutet.

Das Problem mit Deutschland ist es, das Deutschland keine kritische Denker mehr, sondern nur die Parteilinie der 68er Generation duldet. Kritisches Denken bedeutet nicht, andere rechthaberisch und besserwissend anzuprangern - Deutsche Amerikapolitik seit Rot/Grün -  sondern vor allem sich selbst kritisch zu betrachten und die Probleme kritisch zu betrachten, jedoch nicht um zeigefingerhebend die Welt was besseres zu belehren, sondern um die Probleme zu lösen.

Die deutsche Einstellung zu den fundamentale Probleme internationaler Politik wird durch beflissentliche Weg-Gucken und Verleugnung der Probleme gekennzeichnet: während die Deutschen ewige Gespräche führen, um ihre eigene Geschäftsinteressen bloß niemals zu schaden, werden Menschenrechte mit Füßen betreten (China, Darfur, Rußland).

Vielleicht das wesentliche Merkmal moderne Deuschen Politik ist heutzutage Heuchlerei. Ausnahmen gibt es, aber dafür muß man lange suchen.

Quick english translation:

Dear Sirs:

As an American who has spent 22 of the last 26 years in Germany, studying and working, who is raising 2 children here and as someone who pays a lot in taxes, I can only support what Mr. Gedmin has said, correctly, about anti-americanism.

Both of my children, who are American citizens, have to deal daily with such nonsense in their school. Both are resigned to accepting the fact that they cannot change the glaring ignorance of the teachers, as well as the students, and to let them know how things really are.

It really is outrageous, how ignorance is spread on the basis of cheap political and polemican grounds and even worse, how the country and its citizens are attacked and made into enemoes. To repeat: this doesn't happen because of the supposed "moral" grounds, but rather on the basis of pure internal political calculation, since it is so much easier to do that to deal with domestic problems.

Mr. Gedmin is absolutely correct: as long as people can help their careers with cheap anti-american resentment and sell papers, such behaviour will remain, regardless of what kind of damage this will do in the long-term.

The problem with Germany is that Germany doesn't have any critical thinkers any more, but insists on the party line of the 1968 generation. Critical thinking doesn't mean to denounce others with impugned superiority and purported legalistic arguments - Germany's foreign policy since Red/Green - but rather to be self-critical and critically analyse problems, not in order to teach the world with raised finger, but rather to solve problems.

The German stance for the fundamental problems of international politicals can be seen as practiced ignoring of the problems and denial of the problems: whilst the Germans engage with endless discussion, in order never to damage their business interests, human rights are abused (China, Darfur, Russia).

Perhaps the fundamental charachter of modern German politics is hypocricy. There are exceptions, but you really need to look for them.



Who knows, maybe they'll even publish it.

A Slight Misunderstanding

One of the really big problems facing Europe today - besides institutionalized corruption, failing social states and obscene unemployment that is made worse by labor departments - is the problem of ethnic minorities, almost invariably immigrants. France has the problem with immigrants from its former colonies; Germans have it with the Gastarbeiter; Italy has illegals coming out of every corner; the UK has the problem with its former colonies as well; Spain with Africans; you name it, they got it.

Now, as nice and proper socialist democrats - i.e. those who are socialists, but are willing to be voted out of office - the governments of Europe have been trying to integrate these folks into European mainstream society as productive members. Sometimes this works, but usually it hasn't.

This is based, unfortunately, on a slight misunderstanding.

The misunderstanding is enough immigrants actually want to become productive members of society.


The problem of the demographics in Europe are well known: low birth rates, which will, in the 21st century, lead to lower populations. Smaller populations, not lower growth rates. Negative growth rates: there will be fewer Europeans around.

Immigrant growth rates, on the other hand, are significantly higher.


But there is one factor left out of the equation.


Citizenship.

The vast majority of immigrants are not citizens of the country that they live in. Nor do they want to be.

What many want is the European welfare state to pay them to be in Europe (working is fine, otherwise on the dole), to have their kids, but never, ever, ever to force them to become citizens of the countries involved. You see, acquiring citizenship means not merely enjoying the rights and priviledges, but more importantly it means having to accept the duties and the legal framework of the country they live in.

And that is the last thing the radical immigrants want: they want a disenfranchised underclass to demand - and usually get, in order to avoid riots - special rights. They do now want assimilation.


What they want is ownership. You see, they think that when they achieve a certain percentage of the population of the country, then the government has to listen to them and obey the will of the people: after all, that's what democracy is all about, right?


Wrong.


This is the misunderstanding: in a democracy, those who have the rights and duties of citizenship have the right to be listened to.

Those who merely live there do not.


And this is where the conflict will grow: you will have large minorities, getting larger over time, who want to live according to their laws and customs (sharia, for instance). They aren't citizens of the countries involved, so they are disenfranchises (per definition).

Granting them sharia amongst themselves would be effectively the nullification of the state over these minorities. Which is, ultimately, what the radicals want: they want the state and the citizens of any given country to give them shelter, feed them, allow them to work, not demand integration and assimilation according to the norms of the host country, and pay for their health care, their retirement benefits, everything. But they want at the same time to be, basically, separate and equal, with their own norms and customs (female genital mutilation paid for by the health care system, for instance): they want a kind of apartheid, a voluntary apartheid imposed by themselves upon the citizens of the host countries.

And European politicians, terrified of confrontation, terrified of the monster that they have created in their midst, terrified of sending police into the local equivalent of the banlieus - and they are in every European city, most are simply better hidden - and terrified of having to tell their populace that their immigration policy of the last 50 years has failed miserably, are ultimately giving in to these demands, slowly but surely, allowing this to happen.

A slight misunderstanding.



There aren't any simple solutions to the problem. Europe has to realize that the growing immigrant problem is going to get a lot worse and may never get better: the lumpenproletariat is not only there, but steadfastly rejects the idea of becoming partners in society, prefering instead to demand their place outside of the society that has hosted them for so long.

A slight misunderstanding.

Economist Jokes...

Today's Handelsblatt had, for the first time in human memory, a couple of jokes about economists that I thought I'd share...


Five arguements for studying economics:

1) when you're unemployed, you know why

2) You can talk about money without actually having any

3) when you're out drinking, you can justify continuing to drink as long as possible in order to find out the marginal utility of the last drink

4) You earn your money telling other people why they don't have any

5) Economists are dangerous and deadly: you cannot observe their "hidden hand"


Not so bad.

Aphorisms

An economist is someone who doesn't have an inkling of what he is talking about, yet manages to convince those listening to him that they are too dumb to understand him.

Economics is the most painful way of stating the obvious.

All models are wrong, but some are useful.


And as an aside: I've been on the other side of the table interviewing people for jobs, and you'd be really surprised what sort of people applying for jobs with "modelling experience".

If ANY of them had had even the tiniest qualification in econometrics, we'd have hired them in a moment. But their greatest qualities... sorry, won't go there.

And here is the link to the classic economist jokes page.

And here's another classic: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb? None: if it needed changing, the market would have done so.

A Comic Farce

Well, the forecast round is over. Damn that was a lot of numbers.

I went over to MEMRI while compiling something in the background and found this. Apparently Tom & Jerry are Agents of International Zionism, having been invented by that nefarious Jew, Walt Disney.

Walt Disney was Jewish?

This is indicative of what we are dealing with in the Middle East, or at least Iran.

Here you've got an Iranian professor, a member of the film council of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry, Professor Hasan Bolkhari.

Who says that Tom and Jerry is designed to improve the image of Jews.

According to him, the Germans called the Jews "dirty mice". Tom's a mouse, so... I won't bore you with the rest: it is random noise at best.


No German uses the term "dirty mice" (dreckige Mäuse); they'd use the term "dreckige Ratten", or dirty rats. If anything, Germans use the word "Mäuse" to refer to money ("Hast Du die Mäuse", Do you have the cash?) or as a term of endearment ("Mäuschen", little mouse).


And these people are demanding to be respected?

Finding out that Disney had NOTHING to do Tom & Jerry, that Disney was a Congregationalist, and a rather devout one at that, and that indeed he became rather anti-semitic towards the end of his life (had to do with becoming ardently anti-communist), this all took me, what, 90 second or so? Googled on "walt disney religion" and on "tom & jerry copyright".

Having the internet means that when you're dealing with conspiracy freaks, it sort of is like shooting fish in a barrel. But this guy is a professor, a film professional, and fundamentally incompetent. Let me repeat: it took me no more than 90 seconds to find out that what he is saying is so bogus that it isn't even funny.

It's pathetic. Like I said: these people are demanding to be respected?

For what?







Oh, and I think Turner Entertainment now owns the rights to Tom & Jerry, although this isn't so clear. In any case, it's not Disney: Tom & Jerry were done by Hanna & Barbera for a while, but MGM started them up as theatrical cartoons. This site gives a link to a history of the cartoon, which is your basic slapstick. Barbera of Hanna & Barbera pretty much hated Disney: they drove a studio he was working for at the time basically out of business. Tom & Jerry received no less than 7 Academy Awards over 18 years during the Hanna & Barbera time period.


Oh, and yes, the first Tom & Jerry cartoon was made in 1939.  Before the Holocaust.

Short intermezzio...

Forecasting is almost done, but I thought I'd touch on two things.


First of all, the ports nonsense. This is an excellent example of sheer idiocy and ignorance of the press and of stupid politicians.

1) The ports are already run by foreigners: if this was a national security issue, then why hasn't it been adressed over, say, the last decade or so? I can give you the answer: because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who handles the day-by-day: what matters for national security is, duh, security of the port. Which is done by the US government. End of story: there is no story here, merely yet another attempt to drum up a tempest in a teapot.

2) Thanks to these fools, including the press, we've come close to insulting the folks who want to do business with us. Not a good idea, and it certainly gives rise to the notion that there is some institutionalized racism in certain circles in the US - Hi, Hillary - against them thar Ay-rabs.  Idiots. Idiots. Idiots.

3) Varifranks has it right: this undermines US logistics efforts.

For those who have never been in the military and have a disdain for it, this is a simple truth: professional soldiers do not study tactics and strategy, they study logistics. The US has won its wars because it has mastered the science of logistics, and other nations lose wars because they disdain it (Hi, Germany, Italy and Japan).


Second, Samuel Brittan has a column in the FT today (unfortunately behind the $ barrier...) that makes me just want to scream havoc and start swinging the axe.

Basically, he argues that having little or no growth is just peachy-keen and dandy-do because GDP doesn't really measure anything and there might be people out there who are just thrilled with working (and earning) less so that they have more leisure time.

Take it to the logical end, Sam! Look at all those folks out there who have lots and lots of leisure time and don't worry about GDP at all: the unemployed.

Jeez. What Brittan tries but ultimately fails to argue is that GDP doesn't take into account quality of life.


Duh. If I had a cent for each time this old canard is drug up, I'd be able to buy myself lunch.

Of COURSE GDP doesn't measure quality of life: it's NOT supposed to do that at all. All that GDP measures is an economy's ability to add value over time to the economic process. GDP is nothing more than that: fundamental GDP growth rates are a function of two and only two things: productivity and depreciation on capital.

Huh?

Adding value in the economic process is nothing more than a simple formula: you take goods and transform them into something else, using a combination of human and financial capital to do so. Human capital doesn't get used up, but increases over time (unless you're like some ex-colleagues of mine), while financial capital wants to be paid.

What Brittan appears to be arguing is that low rates of GDP growth are just fine as long as people make the choice to work less.

But that's not what's happening in the real world: European productivity growth is terrible, either way you measure it (per worker or per hour). There are exceptions, but generally speaking it's pretty abysmal.

And that is why European growth rates are low: they are not being as productive as workers elsewhere. It's an uncomfortable fact, but one that cannot be dismissed.

Brittan appears to be more than willing here to stick his head into the sand and ignore one of the key facts of modern day industrial capitalism: your competitors are getting better at making things. Either you adjust to that fact or you stick your head into the sand and talk about "leisure preferences" and how terrible GDP is because it doesn't take into account the feel-good factor.

Bullshit: GDP, as the value added in the economy, is basic to being able to measure how wealth, which is created in the economy, can be distributed. People can't make the decision to work less and have more leisure when the value added isn't there: this is symptomatic of ignoring the fundamental problem, which is fundamentally weak productivity.

And I don't have a solution (actually, I do, but that's another story entirely): but by choosing to ignore the problem, blaming it on externaltities, and hoping that weak growth rates is a function of people choosing to work less (because they have higher hourly productivity, meaning they can choose to work less and maintain their income, as opposed to working the same amount and earning more money), rather than indicative of much deeper, fundamental problems.

Sheesh. I wonder sometimes if historians will look back at our age and wonder how so many people could be so dumb. Sort of like a modern-day historian looking back at the actions that led up to WW2 and wondering how people could be so dumb and ignore the gathering storm.

Remember, history when it repeats isn't tragedy, it's farce.

In media res...

Sorry, middle of a forecasting round. I do so wish that statistical offices world-wide would just plain get their sh*t together and learn, finally, that they really, really, really need to simply do a couple of quality control checks. This is causing me, right now, no end of aggravation: a number of data updates have been, bluntly, less than worthless. Hard to forecast when the data is bent. It's being addressed, but it shouldn't really be happening in the first place. And no, I am NOT going to name names and show the data: got to get a forecast out.


For everyone involved: statistical quality control is actually very, very simple.

You need to have two databases: the one you've just updated and the archive copy without the update. Let's call the update T and the archive base T1.

Do a standard deviation on the absolute value of the Y/Y percentage change of the updated time series and store it as SDT, the same with the archive and call it SDT1. Do NOT seasonally adjust.

And this is the key: if SDT1-SDT > 0,01*SDT, then you have a change in the database that needs to be reviewed. The value 0,01 is arbitrary, but it's a darn good starting point, empirically speaking. This can be fine-tuned if you find you have too many false positives, but it should capture virtually all true negatives. What it is saying is that any new data that causes more than a 1% change in the standard deviation of the absolute values of the year/year nonseasonally adjusted data is something that needs to be reviewed. This has been empirically tested by yours truly on more than 100,000 time series, mostly industrial statistics, which have a significant amount of white noise ( i.e. changes month-to-month that have no underlying trend), from more than 20 countries.

It works. We use it here where I work to check no fewer than 1,000,000 time series and it is, for our poor data people, a godsend, since our database processing tools run the checks automagically and then plot them on the screen for review: it gets everything. Did the statistical office revise data from 10 years ago? It catches it. Did they change the data for the last 3 months? It catches it. Did they change the base year and forget to tell us? It catches it. Did they punch in a rate of change instead of a level? It catches it. Did they punch in a 0 instead of the proper value? It catches it. Did they make a mistake? It catches it. It has given us a reputation with several data suppliers of being extraordinarily on the ball: their own quality control didn't catch the errors.

What you capture with this are two things: first of all, a data point that is so completely out of the ordinary that it is more likely to be an error than a real datum; second, revisions that the statistical offices usually neglect to mention, or more likely, have mentioned, but it was buried somewhere so abstruse as to qualify for a mention in Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy.

What you test for in the above is not merely how meaningful the new data point(s) are. but also of there is a significant change in the seasonal pattern. One data point does not a pattern make (except for Democrats clutching desperately at straws or German politicians trying to whitewash how badly they have mauled their economy), but you'd be surprised how often statistical offices make mistakes.

Unless, of course, you do industrial forecasting and see it every day. :-(

But that is why posting is otherwise parsimonious: but the forecast will be done shortly...

How much corruption can the Third World afford?

We all know how the NGOs pull at our heartstrings with pictures of starving children and destitute families. It's part of their massive guilt trip marketing: give us money and we'll alleviate misery.

We also know how much NGOs consume of their financing in self-perpetuation and luxuries for those that run them.

Oh? We don't?

That's right, we really don't. NGOs are notorious about not disclosing their funding. We really don't know how much they are actually doing with the money and how much money goes to fund things that have nothing to do with what problems they claim to be addressing. There is, to put it mildly, a major accountability problem with NGOs.

But that's not really the major point I want to make here.

The good folks over at The Brussels Journal have an excellent post up about the corruption problem that the world is facing: foreign aid is fueling the already endemnic corruption in many parts of the Third World, and we're rapidly reaching the point where corruption is winning the upper hand.

In other words, we're reaching the point where helping is hurting, because the need becomes institutionalized and therefore will never be eliminated.

In other words, the inmates are now in charge of the asylum and have discovered that you can induce psychoses with the mood-altering drugs used to combat them in different doses.


That's right: what has happened here is that in the name of doing good, the doors have been opened for corruption beyonds the dreams of mere local government, beyond the dreams of perhaps anyone but the most rapacious of despots.

The writeoff of Third World debt really, really bad for at least three reasons.

1) It makes a mockery of the concept of sovereign debt. International lenders take a look at country risks and place an interest rate increase on countries that are poor candidates for being able to service or repay their debts. They don't stop lending to poor risks: they simply charge them more. They have to in order to protect their investments, anything else would be incredibly negligent financial management. By eliminating sovereign debt risk, you remove any and all incentives for Third World countries to improve their risk standing by doing sensible things like getting their government finances under control; having the kind of economic policies that reduce the need to devalue their currencies constantly (see Brazil and Argentina); improving efficiency within the local economy so as to gain higher levels of productivity and return on investment and last but not least, investing in a sensible manner to maximize the utility of that scarce resource called capital. By eliminating sovereign debt risks, you open the door to wasteful prestige investment projects that actually don't help anyone but the few actually invovled in the project.

2) You are rewarding, in a big, big, hugely big, way institutionalized corruption. One of the major problems facing the Third World is not that they are so heavily indebted, but rather that their rulers pissed all that money away on projects that have turned out to be completely useless. This has been to a significant degree the result of corruption, either that of the East/West (we'll give you money to buy a power plant, but you gotta buy it from one of our companies, who will be charging you significantly more than what you would have paid for it if it had been publicly tendered) or local (building a steel plant in the middle of nowhere in order to reward cronies and political supporters). Given that many Third World countries rely heavily on aid, aid is a permanent player in government finances (check government budgets in the Third World to see what I mean) and the opportunities for abuse are manifold and institutionalized.

3) It ruins the playing field. While I am highly critical of NGOs - I think that they may well be the major reason for failed states and the increasing irrelavance of international law, but that's another post entirely - their fundamental goal, of helping the needy and alleviating distress, is laudible. Once you start writing off debt without eliminating corruption, you are rewarding corruption and telling everyone involved that the important thing isn't helping people, it's making sure that you get your slice of the pie. That is what is happening right now: countries are being granted debt relief on the premise that they at least put up the appearance of elininating corruption, yet these countries are in such dire straits as the result of corruption that the aid keeps on flowing despite the corruption, and the debt relief is granted despite the corruption. What this means is that Third World despots can maximize their income by agreeing to fight corruption, increase the corruption and ensure that your economy is in such a shambles that you'll be able to nonetheless pull in the cash without actually having to do anything about it.

Bono had an interview in Der Spiegel a couple of weeks ago that in many ways is heart-rending: he knows the endemnic corruption, he knows that these governments know that they can skim and scam, and he doesn't have any answer except to hope that it will get better.

The real challenge in fighting corruption is that corruption is its own best friend.

I'd like to make a modest proposition: that the aid that the West pays right now is more than adequate to improve the infrastructure of the Third World, i.e. to provide clean water and adequate hygiene and health care, as well as to provide the means for individuals to escape crushing poverty via microfinancing.

Instead, western aid is increasing the problem, making things so much worse that the West is rapidly heading to the point where it will be condemned to finance corruption on a scale we have never contemplated in order to prevent mass starvation and crushing poverty.

We already have a situation where a mixture of corrupt government, corrupt NGOs and corrupt supranationals (UN, WHO, etc) extracts monies from the industrialized west as more or less a form of institutionalized extortion, doing only the minimum necessary to prevent mass death and the maximum possible to ensure that the situation doesn't change.

The answer to my question, then, is simple: the Third World cannot afford any corruption. Every penny that goes to Switzerland in private numbered bank accounts; every penny that goes to pay for high NGO salaries and luxuries; every penny that disappear along the way to cover "administrative costs", all end up doing just one thing: continuing the problem, not solving it.

Corruption isn't some sort of petty problem: corruption kills. Corruption, when it becomes endemnic, destroys societies and renders economies.


What is the saying? That if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem?

It's going to get worse before it gets better. A lot worse.

We can only hope, like Bono, that it will get better.

A further message to the clueless...

Well, how many messages are we supposed to get before we finally understand what is going on?

MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, is an excellent source of information. They simply document media articles in the Arab/Middle Eastern press, radio and TV.

This translation of an article is both chilling and illuminating.

Here's the key paragraph:

"The spiritual leaders of the ultra-conservatives [in Iran] have accepted the use of nuclear weapons as lawful in the eyes of the shari'a. Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of [Ayatollah] Mesbah Yazdi [who is Iranian President Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor], has spoken for the first time of using nuclear weapons as a counter-measure. He stated that 'in terms of the shari'a, it all depends on the goal.'

The key point here is that it all depends on the goal. While he speaks of counter-measures - but does not define them - this is the first justification of nuclear weapon usage by Iranian clergy: the chap in question is a disciple of the Ayatollah Zaydi, and we're not dealing with a loose cannon, here, but rather part of the conservative establishment.

Further, his words are NOT being commented upon by the mainstream religious leadership. This doesn't necessarily mean that they agree with him, but it is important: they have also NOT jumped up and down on him, as they would have if he dared to challenge the orthodoxy.


This means that they are seeking justification for using nuclear weapons in their religion.


Great. At what point do government wake up? At what point does preventing a war come before crass commercial interests (Germans need not answer, we know that answer already)?

We're sliding on a slippery slope and no one is even listening to the loons to see what they are planning.

And the difference is?

Great. I open up this morning's Financial Times.

This is the paper that refuses to print the cartoons from Denmark because it might offend muslim sensibilities.


So what do I see?

Front page, a full 1/3rd of the page above the gutter, best possible positioning: hey, everyone, new pictures from Abu Ghraib! Lookie lookie lookie!


Like this doesn't offend muslim sensibilties?

So, FT and all you other jive-ass reporters and editors: What's the difference?

All you do is add oil to the flames. You are complete and total idiots.

And you can't even get your stories straight.


What little respect I had for journalists was just pissed away.

So, what's the difference?

Of course, it's something the Americans did. It's been sliced and diced and dissected what went on there. But nooooooooo, let's not put Abu Ghraib behind us.

Let's tear off the scab and pour salt into the wound and call up all of our friends to come on over.



The journalistic excuse of not wanting to upset sensible muslims for not showing the cartoons has just been blown away.

Idiots is much too much a nice word for this.

We're being played with...

So, let's correlate a couple of news items and make sense of them.


First of all, we've got European politicians already figuring out how much appeasement they think is necessary in order to get back on the good side of "Islam".

The Islamists involved are happy for the governments to take most of the blame. But not all of it: after all, they're muslims and therefore professional victims.


Second of all, they're doing this because of violently demonstrating muslims on the streets of key European countries.


Third of all, the Dutch police arrest at least two people who are apparently from Hamas who were instigating the riots.



Do you see a picture developing here? See the rough shape while the piece of photographic paper soaks in the developer? The contours of the picture are starting to show up...

When I was in Jordan in 1977, I learned one or two things that stuck with me. First of all, in terms of native intelligence there are smart people everywhere. There are also dumb people everywhere. But never, ever, assume that if you have an education that you're necessarily smarter than someone from the Third World: assume this and at some point sooner or later you will get you ass handed to you on a platter. Second, asymmetric information means that the average educated Jordanian will know vastly more about the US and the West than the average educated American or European will know about Jordan or whatever Third-World country we're talking about.

This is what we are facing here: the first concentrated attempt at intimidation using violence on the streets of Europe. The violence is not spontaneous, but rather carefully calculated and laid out.

The fact that we in the West really don't take politics seriously, dead serious as the Iranians and the Syrians do, is being used against us. We're being played with: the Iranians and the Syrians are playing with their new political tools.

These tools?

Unemployed muslim youths, manipulated and radicalized. Cannon fodder, ready to riot at the drop of a hat, coddled and the result of institutionalized belief in victimization, irresponsible, excitable, sexually frustrated. Street fightin' boys.

Craven western politicians whose unwillingness to fight the above on the streets of Amsterdam and elsewhere means, for the Iranians and the Syrians, that they are weak and easily dominated. More than willing to avoid conflict by appeasement and already halfway to dhimmitude.

The mere existence of western civilization: they don't need to wait for an excuse, the fundamental reason is always there.

The Iranians and Syrians behind the Danish brouhaha are clever people, dedicated and more than willing to spill blood on the streets of European towns. They are going to use western liberalism as a weapon against the West, the weapon that the West has given to them. They will be using tolerance as an excuse for intolerance; they will be using
demography as a weapon; they will play on their assumed role of permanent victim, complete with wailing women and hysterical elders, coupled with resolute, refined and slick spokesmen, playing good muslim/bad muslim games to keep the pot at the necessary simmer to take it to a boil whenever they want.


We're being played with. The Neo-Islamists - those abusing Islam for political purposes - are learning how to play their political game in western Europe. It's not our political game, as the street fighting days in Europe have become rare since Weimar and the assimilation of the '68 generation. But it is their game.

The question is how to play the game if we don't even know the rules (if there are any that we can understand in our western rationality).

We're being played with. And the appeasement will make things worse rather than better.

In their own words...

As if this isn't clear already, let's clarify this some more.

The leaders of Iran have massive superiority complexes.

They are making decisions that are dangerous at the very least and could well lead to war, with all its untold misery and destruction. They are actively seeking to defeat the West, smirking and smiling as they do so, unaware of what great dangers they are on the verge of inflicting upon their own peoples, let alone foreigners. We've seen this behavior before, of strutting dictators, lording their "power" over others, only to go down in ignominous defeat, but at what costs, what costs.


What am I talking about?

This. (Hattip: Regime Change In Iran)

Let's take a more detailed look at what is said:

The statements of certain western officials show that contrary to their absurd claims, westerners are disqualified, and impetuous, lacking any cultural background.

But this is just the start, and is based on the following:

Human beings, apart from Muslims, are animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption.

Has the clue coin dropped yet?

Classic superiority complexes are based an massive feelings of inferiority. That sounds contrary, but that is the problem with those who have superiority complexes: they are based on a feeling of inferiority which is then compensated by proclamations of superiority.

But Merkel et al. are only partially correct in comparing the Iranian government to pre-war Germany. It's appropriate in the context of the use of anti-semitism as a reactionary tool, but what people are missing is that Iran is more comparable to pre-WW2 Japan and not Germany.

Why? Because pre-WW2 Japan was still filled with its mythology of bushido and the superior nature of Japanese society: the Japanese, after all, were descended from gods and their emperor was, literally, god-like. It took his speaking of the capitulation to bring home to the Japanese that they had lost the war. Even today the Japanese believe in the superiority of their production methods and societal constructs.

Their philosophy leading up to WW2 has some fascinating parallels to Islam today: hakko ichiu , or "all 8 corners of the world under 1 roof", i.e. under Japanese domination for their own good.

They also believed that the West, personified by the US, was a mongrel mix that could not respond with any sort of singular resolve. In other words, based on their superiority complex, their belief that Japan was unique and better, they discounted the ability of the US to counter them. They felt that the Japanese were truly superior and that the US was a massive contradtiction in terms, lacking any sort of clear purpose and resolve.

In other words, they misunderstood the US.  Misunderstanding your opponent in times of crisis is a clear way to have the crisis escalate out of control despite the best efforts to defuse the conflict. The US tried to put a brake on Japanese expansion in China by placing an embargo on oil and steel scrap, to be lifted when Japan withdrew from China.

Sound familiar? Economic sanctions?

Doesn't work worth a damn when you're dealing with people who have a massive superiorty complex: instead of dissuading them from war to peaceful resolution, instead you are goading them into, in their eyes, slapping you to knock some sense into you. How dare you try and change our divine nature!

Sound familiar?

These are not some wild-assed mullahs that are speaking here: these are the Iranians who run the country. These are the people that Iran sent to the West when they were young for technical training and who came back more radicalized than when they went there.

Who are demonizing the West.

Who are denying even the fundamental humanity of those who oppose them

Who hide their engagement and support of terrorism throughout the world, aimed not only at the West, but at any Muslim that dares to deny their authority.


It's time to take them seriously at their own words.

It's time to cease doing business with them. All business including oil. It's going to be expensive in terms of jobs lost and growth delayed, but is there really an alternative?

Is there?

Besides surrendering?

We've reached the point where there are three paths to follow: surrender and dhimmitude; war and conflagration, and "other".

But no one has any idea of what that other might be.


I'll reiterate what I've said here before: it only takes one side to make war. Slowly but surely the options, the alternative paths, are fading away. The Iranians don't want war: they want us to surrender. We don't want war, we want to keep the status quo.

These two positions are not compatible. It's not a matter of what we want: it's a matter of what the Iranian government is willing to do. They are seeking the conflagration, for their own religious reasons, not us. We can try and stop them now, before the conflagration begins.

But that's almost impossible when they have so fundamentally misunderstood the West.


To paraphrase: By their own words ye shall know them...

Can This Get Much More Absurd???

Those that have even a remote inkling of German politics have got to know that the new Chancellor, Ms. Merkel, is not really a very dynamic person. She's a tad reserved, certainly isn't one like Schroeder, the ex-chancellor, certainly enjoyed his evenings out with the boys. She's got a PhD in Physics, so she's got some academic background, and she appears to be what she is: someone competent who has decided to be a political figure. She fought here way through the party, was the protege of Kohl, who would affectionately refer to her as my "eastern gal" (I'm taking liberties with the translation) and who more or less cleared her path to run the conservative party here (which is in many ways left of the Democrats in the US, but that's another story entirely) and win elections.

Which she did nicely against some rather crude campaigning.

And she's done, so far, a decent job: her approval rating is around 80%, but that needs to be discounted because people are just so damn happy to have gotten rid of Schroeder.

Anyway, the picture I'm trying to paint of her is that of an astute professional politician. But that's all she is: no one expects the equivalent of the kneeing at the concentration camp in Poland ala Brandt, or the statesmanship of Schmidt, let alone the political savvy and manipulations of Kohl (who could be compared to Lyndon Baines Johnson in terms of his political savvy).

Get the idea? We're talking major middle-of-the-road policy, straight-and-narrow, no adventures, no risks type of major politician.

So...

Remember when she criticized the Iranians, compared their president right now to Hitler in the 1930s? It's a legitimate beef, to say the least, and it's a fairly astute analysis. But she didn't call for him to dismembered by crazed Bavarians or wild-eyed Saxons.

Made no difference: one of the Iranian government spokesmen - I originally wrote spokesperson, but like a woman would have such a job in Iran??? - immediately said that women politicians should think before opening their mouths. Which, given the (official) Iranian attitude towards women, is about all you could expect to hear. Well, it's gone further now. This is only in German, as far as I know (can't be bothered to google on it right now), but this is the gist of it:

This is in German, but this gives the gist of it as well.

The communications chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards compares her - Merkel - to Hitler. Not only that she is inexperienced and weak, but "she sees herself in childish dreams of being as powerful and great as Hitler, so that she as chancellor can rule the world."

The guy saying this is Commander Seyyed Massoud Jazayeri.

He goes on and says she's merely a lackey of the US and Israel. And she's got a zionist background, so what can you expect?

Hey Seyyed, here's a hint (like he's gonna listen): keep what you learned from your $4.99 correspondance course in psychology to yourself, you're only proving what people already think: that the people in charge in Iran are a bunch of loons.

But they're a bunch of loons that are really trying hard to get nuclear weapons.

It seems like it can't get much more absurd - what I am trying to say is that Merkel is really the last politician in Germany to harbor any sort of world domination fantasies - than it already is.


But I'm afraid that it is only going to get more absurd as time goes on and the irrationality of the Iranians becomes more and more apparent. I can only hope that it goes so far that even the left in Germany recognize that there is no point in trying to talk to people like this at all - my peacenik friends will, of course, disagree - and that there will come a time to act.

So unfortunately, yes, it can get much more absurd. It already is.

Ouch. Ouuuuuuuuch.

This has to go down in recent history as one of the better nastygrams. (Hat tip: One Hand Clapping)

Obama approached McCain with the goal of once again trying to reform campaign financing, a topic held relatively dear by McCain. Apparently Obama has had second thoughts...

Why is this worthy of a comment?

Because it shows just how deceitful even young Democrats are apparently becoming. Further, Senator Obama is an up-and-coming star of the party: young, successful, charismatic, black, populist.

Which apparently doesn't mean a hill of beans to the Democrats: he has obviously been caught in being deceitful. But this is a surprise to McCain?

At least McCain has the honesty to publish this out there for all to read: that it's a tad embarrassing for McCain to have been caught believing that Democrats are interested in the public interest.

And it's interesting to see how little the public interest is served by the Democrats.

Semantics?

We all know that Islam considers itself to be the Religion of Peace. Heck, if you could trademark that phrase, they'd have done it a long time ago.

But consider the fact that what they mean by peace is not that which we mean by peace, much like what the Soviets meant by peace was anything like what the West meant by peace.

I don't want to go all-out semantic, but Islam means submission: the world of Islam is the world of peace, while those not of Islam are, per definitio, not of peace.

Just like what the Soviets meant back when: mir doesn't mean peace, but rather subjugation.


Beware those who claim to be the peacemakers.

Trust those who own the Peacekeepers.



And yes, there are multiple meanings there: the MX missile was called the Peacekeeper, and in one of my favorite TV series, Farscape, the bad guys were called Peacekeepers. :-)

But seriously: what the Religion of Peace means when it speaks of peace is the peace of submission and as a necessary correlary subjugation, purportedly voluntary but disingeniously so.


The religion of "peace" doesn't want the peace that we know: it wants the West to submit. The cartoon conflict is just the tip of the iceberg: what the muslims are demanding is that we submit to them.

And not merely avoid insulting them. It's intended to be a slow and insidious process, starting with "acceptance" of differing cultures, followed by allowing forced marriages and accepting public slaughtering of sacrificial lambs, followed by allowing the alternative of religious schools to state schools, followed by one small step after another. It involves a slow self-censorship, where there is no public outcry about female circumcision and female slavery in Islam; where feminists do not care about their muslim sisters because it would offend sensibilities; where prosecutors don't even think of investigating corruption among the mullahs to avoid controversy; where the newspapers are afraid to print something that might offend; where governments close their eyes when Islamic countries acquire nuclear capabilities and ignore the warnings because it would create controversy and harm relations...

Yes, it's perhaps a matter of semantics when pointing out what the religion of "peace" means.

But it's better than submitting. If after the cartoon conflict that true nature of Islam as it exists today - a religion taken over by extremists, dedicated to despotic rule and fascistic control, currently completey incapable of reformation - isn't crystal clear and obvious, then...

...perhaps you've already started on the road to dhimmitude, of submission, of surrender.


Enjoy your slavery. It'll be at first a comfortable one, safe and without conflict: but that of your children will be terrible.

Growing a pair...

Well, it seems that a German politician of note has finally understood the threat. This politician has finally grown a pair.


Well, on consideration, perhaps she's grown a backbone instead.

While I don't necessarily see war as imminent, we are definitely in a pre-war situation that has all the potential of developing into a major conflict. It's not a conflict that Iran can actually win: for them, winning would be for the West to adopt dhimmitude as a way of life.

The question is whether it actually comes to military conflict. Let's play a review of the run-up to WW2: Germany occupies the Saar, Allies do not react. Germany pushes for the end to Czechoslovakia; the Allies, in order to avoid a war, appease the Germans (Munich). Germany then annexes Austria, who jumps at the chance to the eternal shame of the nation; since this was accompanied by a plebescite, it's "OK", even though Austria under the Treaty of Versailles was never to join up with Germany in a political or military union again.

So in the name of peace, in the name of avoiding the war necessary to ensure international treaties and to ensure that a violent ideology not grow stronger, those who wanted war were able to prepare in peace to commit violence never seen before.

This is the problem facing the West today: the appeasers are here today, exquisitely trained and educated, nuanced beyond anyone's wildest imaginations, appeasing an enemy that has no considerations for education and nuances, but is rather interested in expanding ignorance and enforcing behavior by threat of death. In other words, the appeasers, the intellegentsia of the West, in their nuanced understanding of history and the human psyche, fails to understand simple and thuggish behavior that seeks not to argue and convince, but rather demands blunt and blind obedience to a scripture that brooks no discussion, no differentiation and no criticism.

So we're in a pre-war phase. The question is when the West will realize this and start to react.

The next question is what can be done: the answers are getting more and more difficult as time goes on, because the options are shrinking as Iran moves closer and closer to getting at least a container bomb. I fear they are not that far away from this. For those who would point out that many analysts say that it will take many years before Iran is that far along, let us remember what these analysts are actually saying, which is that it will take that long for Iran to weaponize their bombs to the point that they will fit on their rockets. That's not the threat, nor is that the problem: the problem is that Iran doesn't need to weaponize in order to use their bombs: getting them to fit inside of a standard shipping container is enough to open the threat of covert delivery and detonation, which fits the Iranian modus operandi much better than waiting 10 years for them to weaponize. It's an illusion of the West that only nukes on missiles mean anything: what is important for Iran is the ability to detonate a nuclear weapon in order to destroy Israel if the West doesn't make Israel go away. That, at the end of the day, is what Iran wants, for Israel to simply "go away." That's what they've demanded, that the Europeans solve the problem that they've created (let's ignore the absurdity of this for the time being) and make Israel go away, to disappear from the maps.

What will the West then do when Iran tests a bomb in March of 2006? And then puts up an ultimatum demanding exactly this? That is the point where it's going to be very hard to not either kill large numbers of Iranians, either conventionally or with nuclear weapons. Would Israel, faced with a nuclear-armed Iran, with the potential of a second holocaust, really hesitate to do the regrettable, of ensuring that Iran never be able to make its threats come true?

We're not talking the oh-so-lovely theoretical world of the calculus of nuclear deterrence, but rather an existential question of survival. We've seen how Iran has clearly stated that Israel can be destroyed and any return attack would perhaps damage Islam, but never destroy it. Is Iran bluffing? Is Israel willing to commit mass death in order to prevent its own destruction?

Personally, I have no answers to the problems: all I see are options dwindling away. Just as before WW2, no one in the West wants the war. It's the other side that does. The tragedy is that by trying to avoid a war, actions by the West, persuading Islamists that they have nothing to fear, have brought us to the position where the options are dwindling. Dwindling options are never the way to avoid wars, but makes them more likely as polticians lose their ability to manage crises, especially when one side wants the conflict, is demanding the conflict, believes that the conflict is not only necessary but, like the Marxists of the SovUnion, absolutely necessary.

And yes, Germany has an especially critical role to play. The sins of the past - and they are many - can be in part be started to be redeemed when the Germans do the right thing: what they must do is to to be righteous among nations. This means nothing less than simply doing the right thing, regardless of what the costs might be: of saving lives where the astute thing to do would have been to let evil reign.

And here's a further link underscoring the seriousness of the situation: on the second page, de Borchgrave points out that we may well be facing someone with whom deterrence doesn't work.

Desperate for work, are they?

I continue to have a hard time understanding actors. (Hat tip: CounterTerrrorism)

These two have chosen to act in a blatantly anti-American film , acting as the bad guys. Both have played bad guys in a number of movies, but how desperate for work are these actors that they will act as the bad guys in a anti-US propaganda movie?

Time to boycott their films: Zane and Busey, if you were desperate for work when you took this job on, you should really be desperate for work when people realize what sort of aid and comfort you've given.

Not so much despicable as really, really, really stupid. Confirms what I've always thought about Hollywood actors: underscores the absurdity of the left who adores them when they go all political on you...

The Fallacy of Recycling

In today's Nikkei Weekly - 30 Jan 2006, page 15 - there is an interview with Prof Kunihoko Takeda, of Nagoya University.

He has analyzed plastic recycling in Japan, specfically PET bottles.

And this is the key quote:

"In the case of PET bottles, the energy used to sort, transport and process them amounts to about 1.6 million tons of oil per year. This volume of oil can produce almost three times as many new PET bottles. In other words, it takes three times more oil to recycle PET bottles than to make new ones."

That's right: three times as much oil to recycle PET bottles as to make new ones.

He also makes the right call: if you want to reduce garbage, make products that are more durable and have consumers use them more wisely for as long as possible.


But what a concept that would be.


I wonder what the cost of the German Dual System is in recycling here as well?

Taken at face value, recycling is a good idea: it should lead to optimum utilization of resources.

Instead, it is wasting resources. And the only ones making money are the recycling companies, whose market is mandated for them.

Another example of waste and inefficiency as the result of government interferement in markets...