| February 2005 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | |||||
July 2007 Stats for The Big Picture.
More Dutch Plan to Emigrate as Muslim Influx Tips Scales:
AMSTERDAM – Paul Hiltemann had already noticed a darkening mood in the Netherlands. He runs an agency for people wanting to emigrate and his client list had surged.
But he was still taken aback in November when a Dutch filmmaker was shot and his throat was slit, execution style, on an Amsterdam street.
In the weeks that followed, Mr. Hiltemann was inundated by e-mail messages and telephone calls. “There was a big panic,” he said, “a flood of people saying they wanted to leave the country.”
Leave this stable and prosperous corner of Europe? Leave this land with its generous social benefits and ample salaries, a place of fine schools, museums, sports grounds and bicycle paths, all set in a lively democracy?
The answer, increasingly, is yes. This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims.”The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure cooker atmosphere,” Mr. Hiltemann said.
There is more than the concern about the rising complications of absorbing newcomers, now one-tenth of the population, many of them from largely Muslim countries. Many Dutch also seem bewildered that their country, run for decades on a cozy, political consensus, now seems so tense and prickly and bent on confrontation.
...”Our Web site got 13,000 hits in the weeks after the van Gogh killing,” said Frans Buysse, who runs an agency that handles paperwork for departing Dutch. “That’s four times the normal rate.”
...”When I grew up, this place was spontaneous and free, but my kids cannot safely cycle home at night,” said Mr. Konings, 49. “My son just had his fifth bicycle stolen.” At school, his children and their friends feel uneasy, he added. “They’re afraid of being roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids.”
In other words, they had a nice peaceful country. They admitted Muslim immigrants who are now 10% of their population. These immigrants are instructed to attack non-Muslims. They teach their children to attack non-Muslims. Wait long enough and bingo—the culture is being destroyed and the good people are being driven out by the hostile invaders they had initially welcomed.
There’s a debate about the future of Europe going on on Austin Bay’s site, between Austin and Mark Steyn. Here are some thoughts I posted in the comments section of that article:
[Mark Steyn:] That means Europe will be almost wholly dependent on the Muslim world for immigration – and one of the features of super-tolerant anything-goes post-Christian Europe is that it radicalises hitherto moderate Muslims. Look at the number of Islamist terrorists who are creatures of the Euro-Canadian welfare systems – Richard Reid the shoe bomber, Zac Moussaoui, Ahmed Ressam, even Mohammed Atta’s political character was formed in large part by his time in Germany.
In the view of noted historian of Islam Bat Ye’or, it is precisely the massive Muslim immigration that has caused Europe to become “post-Christian.”
[Mark Steyn:] A senior Dutch cabinet minister told me in 2003 that what really scared him was that young Dutch Muslims were more Islamist and less assimilated than the grandparents who’d arrived in the early Seventies.
This fits in with Bat Ye’or’s views as well. She argues that Muslim immigrants to a nation are instructed not to assimilate, and in fact to attack the host culture, with the specific view of taking it over. In her view these actions by the massive immigrant Muslim population are in large part responsible for the decline of Europe. She feels that once Muslims are in sufficient positions of political power in Europe, non-Muslims will be treated as second-class citizens, as they are in many Muslim nations today. She cites the examples of several formerly Christian nations in which the Christian inhabitants were one day surprised to find themselves out of power and treated as “dhimmi,” or second-class citizens, due to just such tactics.
Arguing from these views, the only way for Europe to save itself would be to find a way to peacefully dispel the hostile Muslim culture in its midst. Bat Ye’or feels that it may be too late to save Europe.
We must work hard to keep the same thing from happening in the United States. Here are some suggestions (previously posted here. ):
I discuss Bat Ye’or’s views in additional detail here.
Seemed mediocre to me. He said impolite things about Cuba Gooding and Jude Law (and wasn’t particularly funny). His political riff was particularly annoying, and must have underlined to the Conservative 50% of the country how out of touch Hollywood remains.
And I can’t believe the riff he just did when he interviewed people on the street and found out none of them had seen the Oscar-nominated films, arguing that the Oscars are irrelevant. How impolite, to insult the show he’s hosting.
Update 8:12pm. Hillary Swank’s acceptance speech is the highpoint of the evening so far, I’d say. Hearfelt, sincere, and moving.
Update 8:43pm. Holy toledo—they finished early for perhaps the first time in the history of the telecast. And instead of cutting to interviews with the actors backstage, they’re running credits. They probably didn’t see this coming at all. But—it’s great that it wrapped up in around 2.5 3 hours instead of 4 like usual. Good job Gil Cates!
VDH describes how we must be willing to take harsh actions in the present so as to save lives—both of the enemy’s people and of our own—in the future:
It would have been extremely messy to have shot the first 400 looters who began a cascading riot that ruined $13 billion in Iraqi infrastructure. Storming rather than pulling back from Fallujah in April 2004 would have offended the press, the professors, and the Europeans. Arresting or killing Moqtada al-Sadr in June 2003 might have angered the Arab world and invited parlor debate among the mandarins back home, but such measures also would have shown ironclad American resolve and eventually would have impressed even our enemies.
The key in irregular, as in conventional, war remains the will to win.
...Victory always sways the heart even of the most ardent pacifist, just as defeat and humiliation erode the will of the most zealous hawk—although it is hard to confess that most humans still think with the most primitive part of their brains. Amid all the glitter of contemporary culture and technology, the will to fight for victory remains crucial to battlefield success, an odious thought for us postmodern children of the Enlightenment, who feel we should be exempt—as too wealthy, educated, or sophisticated—ever to have to descend to the primeval swamp to destroy bin Ladin and his ilk to ensure our survival. But *bin Ladin’s October infomercial mentioned truces and respites, not out of tender concern for the West, but because bin Ladin is beginning to feel, like al-Sadr, that he is going to lose.
Modern Western man is faced with this awful dilemma, from which he recoils: real peace and successful reconstruction are in direct proportion to the degree that an enemy is humiliatingly defeated and so acknowledges it—the aim being that he will come to feel that he cannot go on being what he has been. To that end, absolute victory may encompass everything from Hiroshima to bombing downtown Belgrade as the price for tranquillity and a democratic and humane postbellum Japan and the Balkans. Not finishing off a defeated Republican Guard in 1991 or sparing looters in April 2003 or breaking off the siege of Fallujah in April 2004 only ensures that more corpses will pile up later. President Bush’s so-called Axis of Evil in 2002—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—all had in common unfinished business with the U.S. military that had led to a bellum interruptum of sorts. In contrast, the Grenada communists, Noriega, Milošević , and the Taliban were all defeated, and only after that were their societies rebuilt—and thus Grenada, Panama, Serbia, and Afghanistan now do not belong to the axis of anything. Perhaps for all the debate over how to fight irregular wars in an age of global terrorism, we would do best to recall the realistic, if inelegant, words of the owner of the Oakland Raiders, the infamous Al Davis: “Just win, baby.”
You can just imagine the outrage here at home if those first 400 looters in Iraq had just been shot. The awareness of the likelihood of such a reaction here at home is, of course, why they weren’t shot. But the price of such squeamishness is not less such outrage, but unending such outrage, as the rebuilding of Iraq is dragged out due to the absence of such harsh measures, and the carping and complaining of those who want to see the rebuilding of Iraq successfully completed, goes on and on.
VDH is right. It is an error to be so squeamish about enemy casualties and civilian casualties when inflicting sudden and conclusive defeat on the opponent can bring a speedier end to hostilities, ultimately saving lives of the opponent’s people and of our own people. Avoiding such harsh but brief measures only drags out the conflict.
Some on the Left, of course, want to drag out the conflict. Some on the Left want us to take as much damage as possible, as much loss of American lives as possible, so that we are slow to become involved in additional fights. The key phrase here of course is, “want us to take as much … loss of American lives as possible.” No views are an acceptable reason for the U.S. to take actions which ultimately increase loss of American lives.
Dick Morris points out:
The Democrats are in disarray with their putative candidate, Hillary, moving to the center, while the party elects leftist Howard Dean as its chairman. More and more, the Democrats are not merely inconsistent, wrong and/or misguided they are the worst of all possible things you can be in Washington: irrelevant.
That’s very insightful. Hillary is pretending to be religious and more of a middle-of-the-road candidate—(is anyone likely to believe that about her?)—while the DNC just made screamin’ Dean their Chairman. That exposes how disorganized the Democrat party is today.
Mainstream Media in Europe had everybody convinced that a) Bush would never in a million years get re-elected and b) the elections in Iraq would not be successful.
Then both those things happened.
And, per Dick Morris, the public is starting to wake up.
February 25, 2005— NICE, FRANCE
...Nobody here expected Bush to be re-elected. Subjected to 24/7 of liberal propaganda, the European man in the street felt that Bush was going to crash and burn in the U.S. election. Western Europe was happy about it.
Eastern Europe, unhappy. But nobody felt the he would pull it out. That he did and expanded his control of both houses of Congress without compromising on Iraq or withdrawing our troops, sent a message that the American people are behind their president.
Then few people expected the Iraqi elections to come off without a hitch. The vivid demonstration of democracy, purple fingers and all, by-passed the cynical and jaded Euro-media and showed that the people of that beleaguered nation really want the democracy the U.S. has won for them.
...His trip to Europe highlights Bush’s new appeal. His name and photo dominate all the front pages and his speeches newly eloquent and increasingly idealistic are being heard by all. He is going over the heads of the leftist European media and speaking directly to eastern and western Europe.
Perhaps it will be less easy for MSM to mislead the European public in the future.
This Sunday, February 27th, at 7:30 am Eastern Time:
Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis
Bat Ye’or
Description:Bat Ye’or talks about her new book, “Eurabia,” at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. She looks at the relationship between European and Arab countries since the mid-20th century and argues that Muslims living in Western Europe have significantly influenced their governments’ attitudes toward Israel and other countries in the Middle East. During the talk, she also discusses why Turkey should not be allowed into the European Union and addresses the question of European anti-Semitism. Bat Ye’or answers questions from the audience following her remarks.
Author Bio:Bat Ye’or is the author of “The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam,” “The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude,” and “Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide.”
(Posted here by permission.) It’s fascinating to be able to have conversations with people on the other side of the world, which in cases like this would have been impossible not too long ago. Last night I got to IM’ing with a friend in India about his country’s experience with Islam.
On the history of India and Pakistan, which were formerly one nation: “Pak went Muslim way, and now known more as a rogue state, lagging in all the areas. ...India despite a huge population, is the shining star on economy front…”
Yesterday I posted about the Jihadist method of immigrating into a society, but not assimilating into it, so that the target society is forced to change and become more Islamic. I was curious about the assimilation of Muslims into India’s Hindu society. It turns out that they are so notably not assimilating, that the subject came up by itself:
I asked specifically about Muslim assimilation into Hindu society:
How Islamist history is seen as reflecting on Islam in India: ”...we see all bloodshed in the world (except Sri Lanka) where at least one party is Muslim.”
Interesting, isn’t it?
If you’re using FireFox, there’s a new version of it here.
The Big Picture is honored to have been added recently to the blogrolls of these weblogs:
Classical Values
Kate Wright
Lets Talk Politics
MoverMike
Mugged by Reality
To the owners of these sites: thank you!
There was another great LA Press Club event last night. This one was at Cinescape in L.A. I got to catch up with a lot of really cool people, including Amy, Andrew, Andrew G., Cathy, Emmanuelle, Lewis, Luke, LYT, Matt , Sandra, and more. it was a lot of fun.
Last weekend, at a private residence in Los Angeles, Bat Ye’or, author of Erabia: The Europe-Arab Axis, spoke about Jihad. From a Washington Times article on the book:
“Eurabia,” the long-awaited book by Bat Ye’or, is a comprehensive, even overwhelming and absolutely shocking explication of how and why it is that Europe is transforming itself into what the Egyptian-born historian calls “a new geopolitical entity ” Eurabia.”
...Created 30-odd years ago at the instigation of France and the Arab League, the practically unknown EAD [Euro-Arab Dialogue] has provided structural and theoretical underpinnings to a Euro-Arab axis ” Eurabia. These have fostered the political, economic and cultural bonds between Europe and the Arab world that Bat Ye’or maintains were designed to create “a global alternative to American power.”
...freely flowing Arab oil into Europe … would come about in exchange for freely flowing Muslim immigration into Europe…
But the Europeans got back-stabbed. In accordance with Jihad, the immigrating Muslim populations did not assimilate with the culture, but rather, sought to overpower and destroy it. From Eurabia:
Islamic doctrine forbids Muslims to accept the influence of infidel cultures.
That is no exaggeration. For examples of this, see this post on the Freedom House report on the literature being distributed in Saudi Mosques right here on U.S. soil. One example:
Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.
They’re not here to join in. They’re not here to help everyone around them live better. They’re here to take over.
The method of Jihad is to get enough non-assimilating people into the target nation so that they destroy the target culture with the one they’ve brought with them. Bat Ye’or describes how effective this already has been in Europe:
As the mass of Europeans remain to this day totally ignorant of the EAD (Euro-Arab Dialogue) agreements, they did not perceive that the growing social insecurity, the erosion of their basic freedoms, and the unrelenting mutation of their societies resulted from the consciously chosen policies of their own leaders—concocted in the opacity of the European Commission decision center. The EU’s various bodies, committees, and policies represent a complex supranational web that often escapes accountabiity and are impenetrable even to experienced people. Europeans have been unwittingly victims during thirty years of constant indoctrination, encouraged by state support—as evidenced in all the Euro-Arab agreements signed at the highest levels of government.
It’s amazing how well this works, especially in democracies where politicians need every vote they can get:
[Islamic doctrine] requires the acknowledgment of Islamic prestige and superiority, and European ministers have shown themselves glad to oblige with proclamation of the Islamic origin of, or predominant contribution to, Western civilization’s science and arts. Some of these proclamations are so florid they suggest that without Arab science, Europeans today would be a mass of illiterates, for Europe owes its civilization and culture to Islam.
...Islam actually inherited most of its knowledge from Greece, Rome, and the Judeo-Christian, Armenian, Persian, and Hindu civilizations that Muslims conquered and colonized and upon which they built their own contributions….
...Yet, since the inferiority of the infidel is a dogma enshrined in the Qur’an and in so many Islamic religious dictums, the obsequious declarations of Eurabian ministers, politicians and intellectuals are reminiscent, as we have seen, of the obligatory acknowledgement of Islam’s superiority under dhimmitude.
The word “dhimmitude” refers to the traditional status of non-Muslims in nations that have been conquered by Muslims. They are oppressed and all but enslaved. The plight of non-Muslims in nations like Iran is tragic.
Dhimmi submissiveness, with its crawling behavior, emerges from a study of historical records and can be analyzed in populations reduced to an almost hostage condition. The great enigma of our time consists in its adoption by so-called free Western nations. Legitimate acknowledgement of mutual cultural borrowing between peoples which allows for transformation, assimilation and improvement, is different from uncritical and self-serving adulation.
This adulation was designed to undermine Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots. The principle of a Judeo-Christian civilization in Europe was belittled by producing and constantly propagating the Islamic origin of European civilization. Hamadi Essid, head of the Arab League Mission at Paris and its permanent delegate to UNESCO, told a meeting as early as 1970, ‘For some time there has been a catch-phrase: Judeo-Christian values. This, slogan is directed against the Arabs.’ Arabs reject the term ‘Judeo-Christian civilization’ and replace it with ‘Abrahamic civilization’ because, as Abraham was a Muslim (according to the Qur’an), it follows that Western civilization not only includes the Islamic dimension, but is Islamic in its essence through Abraham, the Muslim prophet.
‘Abrahamism’ is a notion that totally denies the historical identity and origin of Judaism and Christianity, since it reduces them to falsifications of Islam, the true religion of Abraham. Today, any reference to Europe’s Christian sources—not to mention its Judeo-Christian roots—has been omitted from the EU Constitution on ‘secular’ grounds, but mainly so as not to offend Muslim immigrants.
The above quotes are from Eurabia. The following are from my hand-written notes from her talk last weekend. Quotes are not expected to be verbatim.
A recent French report has shown that in some schools there are separate water fountains for Muslims and for infidels.
I mean, do you really need to hear any more than that? That’s pretty much the ball game, isn’t it? If that’s what’s going on in Europe, they are in big trouble.
Europe cannot defend itself anymore. So it has to flatter Arabs.
... European churches now want to get away from the Judeo-Christian god. They are now saying that Jesus was a Muslim.
Europe is now Palestinian. It is no longer a Judeo-Christian nation. But the U.S. is, which Islamism will seek to destroy, to dominate. Because there are still people there rooted in the bible. America is the root of the resistance. If America disappears and falls, the world is open to Jihad. It is America who is resisting, and who is helping others to resist.
On the plus side:
Many Muslims don’t know that these are rules that are centuries old. If we talk about this to them many things can change.
If the Arabs accept Israel as a country which has its own history and right they will also accept Christianity. We have to make them understand that we are all together and they have to change their mentality.
We have to help the Muslims also who are open-minded.
We’ve got a fight on our hands. I think we need to:
Update 3-10-05: See also this post: Jihad is Driving the Dutch Out of Their Own Nation.
You may have heard the reports that the 1972 porno film “Deep Throat,” currently the subject of a documentary, was possibly “the most profitable film of all time: made for $25,000, it has to date grossed $600 million).”
Michael Hiltzik debunks this:
What to think of these claims: Baloney.
Leaving aside that “Deep Throat” was financed by mobsters and that therefore any figures are suspect, logic and arithmetic alone are enough to tell you that its box-office gross could not remotely have approached $600 million.
We’re talking about a movie that was released in 1972, banned in half the country and generally exhibited in one theater at a time even in the biggest cities, such as New York and Los Angeles.
The average U.S. ticket price in 1972, according to the Motion Picture Assn. of America, was $2.05. By 1980, when the “Deep Throat” phenomenon was way played out, the average was still only $2.69.
For the movie to have made $600 million at the box office, in other words, it would have had to sell tickets to enough customers to populate the entire United States one and a half times over.
The No. 1 mainstream movie of the 1970s, by the way, was “Star Wars.” To date, its domestic theatrical gross is $461 million. You want to tell me that “Deep Throat” has sold more tickets than “Star Wars”?
Hiltzik talks about how readily these absurd numbers have been accepted and widely reported by MSM:
It should surprise no connoisseur of journalistic indolence to know that the press has accepted the $600-million figure as gospel for years. My newspaper database turned up no fewer than 200 references dating back to 1980. The majority have appeared in recent months, thanks to Universal’s publicity machine.
Not a single story attributes the figure to an authoritative source. Indeed, it’s always accompanied by weasel words such as “by some accounts,” “reportedly,” “said to be,” etc.
Have our reporters, editors and critics become so mathematically ignorant that a patently inflated figure like this no longer leaps out and demands authentication?
From the time Tilly Merrell was a year old, doctors told her family she would never have a normal life—or even a normal meal.
British doctors found that the food she swallowed went into her lungs instead of her stomach, causing devastating lung infections. They said she had isolated bulbar palsy, and their solution was to feed her through a stomach tube. Forever.
But having a backpack with a food pump wired to her stomach wasn’t much of a life for a girl whose favorite smell is bacon frying—a girl who once broke through a locked kitchen door in an effort to sneak some cheese. So her family got help from their community of Warndon, about 120 miles north of London, raising enough money to take Tilly, now 8, on a 5,000-mile journey they hoped might change her life, a journey to Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University.
Doctors at Packard were intrigued that she had no neurological symptoms often associated with the palsy. In all other ways, she was a normal child with a mischievous smile and a truckload of energy. After seeing her Feb. 7, they ran three tests and found out what was wrong with her.
Nothing.
She had infections, certainly, but they were long gone. And when she swallowed something, it went into her stomach, not her lungs.
...”I had a burger with cheese, bacon, egg and ham,” she said Wednesday, relishing the moment like a kid in a candy store. “And some hash browns with grease.”
But after being on normal food for more than a week, ice cream is the flavor of the month.
“She tried it at Sizzler,” said her mom, Amelia. “She liked it.”
Wednesday’s menu included a variety of items for breakfast at Denny’s, Tilly said. “Two strips of bacon—I can’t remember. My brain’s gone.”
Joel Mowbray has this revealing and eye-opening article in the Washington Times:
A controversial nominee to the post two-and-a-half years ago, [Saudi Arabia consular chief] Ms. Harty swayed a reluctant Senate to confirm her by pledging substantial reform at the agency responsible for improperly issuing legal visas to all of the September 11 terrorists. She has not made good on her word.
...Lawmakers were steamed about a program that [Harty’s predecessor] Ms. Ryan continued operating in Saudi Arabia for 10 months after September 11 called Visa Express, which allowed residents in the country that sent us 15 of 19 hijackers to apply for visas at private Saudi travel agents. On the eve of the first committee vote on taking the visa authority out of the State Department entirely, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell sacked Ms. Ryan and Visa Express was shuttered.
...Ms. Harty unintentionally indicated to Congress that she had no real intent to reform Consular Affairs when she conceded that she had never looked at the readily available visa applications of the September 11 terrorists. (Applications of four of the terrorists had been destroyed.)
Had she done so, she would have seen that at least 15 of the hijackers actually did not meet the legal qualifications for a visa, and in fact, the only reason they were invited into the United States is because they were Saudis. She would have discovered that Visa Express was merely a symptom of a dangerous policy welcoming all Saudi applicants, no matter how unqualified under the law.
But she didn’t care.
...Worst of all, though, is that Ms. Harty has not closed the open-door policy for Saudis seeking visas. She has, in fact, opened it wider. The refusal rates for Saudi nationals wishing to come here has dropped steadily during her tenure, falling below 10 percent in Riyadh last year.
...Saudis’ easy access to visas has not gone unnoticed by al Qaeda. September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly told interrogators that the reason 15 of the terrorists were Saudis was because they had the greatest ease getting visas.
With Maura Harty at the helm, that hasn’t changed. And as long as she sticks around, nationals of the country that sent us 15 of 19 September 11 terrorists will continue receiving the red-carpet treatment. If that isn’t grounds for firing, what is?
Joel further points out that Condi Rice just had the opportunity to replace Ms. Harty, and inexplicably passed it up.
Why is Maura Harty not taking better care of these vital national security matters?
Where else would I get a chance to talk to someone in or near Nepal who’s involved in the bizarre circumstances there, and have a meaningful conversation about it? It’s happening in the comments section of this post.
