Take the Pepsi Challenge

There is no longer any such thing as a slow news day, as the jihad claims innocents in stomach-turning attacks, somewhere in the world, at least once daily. Of course, you'd never know it if your only source of information is the dead-tree media. But out here in the post-MSM world, perpetual low-intensity conflict is a given. The steady drumbeat of beheadings, car bombs, genocide, and murders moves one not to shock, which is long gone, but to a slow, angry boil. That so little is being done to resist any of it. That so few are moved to fight back. That so many are rooting for the wrong side.

To reorient our moral compasses, I strongly recommend this outstanding post at the Transatlantic Intelligencer. Compiled during the height of the Cartoon Wars, it presents the 12 Danish cartoons -- each in juxtaposition with one cartoon from Der Stuermer, and one recently published in Le Monde. You know, the same French paper that proclaimed "We are All Americans" on 9/12.

Then, compare thereligionofpeace.com ("Islam will be a peaceful religion when Muslims stop preaching hate, stop killing in the name of Allah, and stop remaining apathetic to the violence") with www.religionofpeace.com ("the purpose of Islam is to save humankind from the anguish of this world and the world to come. Therefore the Prophet's mission was to establish justice and peace on earth and to offer guidance for salvation in the Hereafter.")

Study them closely, and ask yourself where this is all going.

Then ask yourself what you're going to do about it.

A Professor Connected to Reality!

Lemme guess. A professor of English? Government? Psychology? Gender Studies? Riiight. It's no accident that the soft, fuzzy disciplines produce academics with soft, fuzzy minds. Here we have a professor of mechanical engineering whose applied logic is no less rigorous in real life.

With the possible exception, of course, that he sent this fantastic e-mail straight to MSU's Terrorist Coalition Muslim Students Association. Fatwa in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . :

Dear Moslem Association: As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intened to protest your protest.

I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian chirches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavain girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.

This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsul you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests."

If you do not like the values of the West -- see the 1st Ammendment -- you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially, I. S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Bravo, Professor Wichman. Hope you sleep next to a loaded .45.

One if by Land, Two if by Sea

British Euroskeptic Richard North is in a pissy mood today -- and that's when I like him best: Going Backwards.

. . . given that the political classes are both so inept and detached from the realities of everyday life, it has come to pass that the only meaningful political activity left to ordinary people is to watch politicians squirm. The more one can engineer such situations the better, which makes voting BNP the obvious option. It is equally destructive, but has the same entertainment quotient as dismembering flies.

Eventually, one hopes, dissatisfaction will build up to such an extent that it will turn a quiescent, cowed population into an active, rebellious force, which will re-impose democracy on the political classes, and demand change. But, like many, we are not holding our breath.

What is particularly depressing, at the moment, is that we lack a credible opposition though which our energies can be channelled. A bad government is tolerable, to an extent, if there is prospect of change and there is hope of something better on the horizon.

But when we have both government and opposition refusing to engage on the issue, then we are deprived of any “legitimate” mechanism for expressing our dissatisfaction through the democratic system, and no means by which we can secure change. Parliament, therefore, ceases to be an expression of the will of the people, but a barrier to it.

. . . Thus, in terms of our campaign against the European Union, we are going backwards. No longer is there any mainstream political party which will even address the concerns of a huge proportion of its electorate.

This echoes similar sentiments from last week:

On the ground, what we see, progressively is the growing inability of government simply to govern, whether at local or national level, combined with a complete take-over by the apparatchik – rule by officials, whether at local, national or supranational level. And, in this process, political parties and politicians seem irrelevant to the extent that it matters not what colour they come in – they are simply not worth voting for.

In effect, therefore, it is the vote that has been debased. No longer is there any direct (or even indirect) relationship between casting a vote in the ballot box and securing change at any level of government.

I derive no satisfaction from it, but I can't help being reminded of the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party, Sam Adams' circular ("no taxation without representation,") Patrick Henry's famous speech ("give me liberty or give me death,") and, inevitably, the battle of Lexington & Concord.

North's own book details the astonishing destruction visited upon Britain over the last 30 years by the kleptocracy in Brussels, from which the American eye discerns one thing in particular: we went to war against the British over far less.

The aging parent, who might have learned from the child, has instead chosen to learn all the same lessons anew. The child forgives, but despairs. Godspeed -- and let us know when you need guns.

Scandinavia's Suicide Note

The inimitable Fjordman shouts: WAKE UP.

. . . Sweden is a semi-totalitarian country. It’s all about façade. On the surface, Sweden is a tolerant nation and peaceful democracy. In reality, there is massive media censorship by a closed elite that is scared of having a debate about immigration. There are even physical attacks on critics of immigration by Leftist extremists, something which has been largely ignored and thus quietly approved by the establishment, until it now even targets parties in Parliament. No dissent is tolerated. Opinion polls have revealed that two out of three Swedes doubt whether Islam can be combined with Swedish society, and a very significant proportion of the population have for years wanted more limitations in immigration. Yet not one party represented in the Swedish Parliament is genuinely critical of the Multicultural society or the current immigration policies. The Swedish elite congratulate themselves that they have managed to keep “xenophobic” parties from gaining a foothold while the country is sinking underneath their feet. No, Mr. Jagland, we have nothing to learn from Sweden except hypocrisy to perfection. We should study them only in trying to avoid letting them drag us down with them when they fall, which they will.

. . . In general, my impression is that a rapidly increasing part of the population distrusts Muslims. Only massive media censorship conceals this fact, and I suspect the same goes for much of Europe. However, Aftenposten seem to have forgotten an article they printed five years ago. In 2001, two out of three charged with rape in Norway’s capital were immigrants with a non-western background according to a police study. Norwegian women were the victims in 80 percent of the cases. A leading member of the Liberal Party (Venstre), Odd Einar Dørum, demanded all the numbers be put on the table: “A scumbag is a scumbag, regardless of skin color”. From 2001 to 2005, Dørum was Norway’s Minister of Justice, and nobody has seen these statistics since 2001. The number of rape charges in Oslo have continued to rise. There is ample evidence of brutal gang rapes, something that used to be rare in Scandinavia, being committed by immigrants against native girls.

Not only have the authorities done nothing to stop this trend of racist attacks against native Norwegians, they have taken steps to increase crackdowns on “racism” by the natives. In 2005 Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament, passed a new Discrimination Act, prepared by then Minister of Integration, Erna Solberg, who earlier called for the establishment of a sharia council in Norway. The act says in pretty clear words that in cases of suspected direct or indirect discrimination based on religion or ethnicity, native Norwegians are guilty until proven otherwise. The immigration spokesman for the right-wing Progress Party, Per Sandberg, feared that the law would jeopardize the rights of ordinary, law-abiding Norwegian citizens. Reverse burden of proof is combined with liability to pay compensation, which means that innocent persons risk having to pay huge sums for things they did not do. FOMI, a Norwegian anti-Islamic website, was recently charged with “racism and spreading Islamophobia” for translating one of several articles by Frontpage Magazine, with comments, about a Muslim rape wave in the West.

Bruce Bawer, author of recently published book “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,” devotes a good deal of space to European media in his writings, which is appropriate. Norwegian Prime Minister and leader of the Labor Party, Jens Stoltenberg, has stated that “journalistic diversity is too important to be left up to the marketplace.” The government is still running two out of Norway’s four national TV channels, and three of its national radio channels.

. . . For some strange reason, Bruce Bawer’s book has so far been widely ignored by Norwegian media, despite the fact that Bawer lives in Norway and that his work is being read with interest by experts and laymen on both sides of the Atlantic. Could it be that Mr. Bawer has touched upon some sensitive issues that the sophisticated Norwegian press don’t want to talk about? Michael Moore’s books criticizing the USA were translated into Norwegian and sold very well. Any chance this will happen to Bawer’s book, criticizing Europe?

Mr. Jagland worries about the possibilities of a new kind of powerful Fascist movement in Europe, and quite frankly, so do I. But there is no need for this to happen if people feel that their elected leaders uphold their interests they way they are supposed to do. However, when a government can no longer guarantee, within reason, the safety of its citizens, that government’s days are numbered and that system of government’s days may also be numbered. It took centuries of hard and ingenious work to build our civilized Western society, yet judging from current events, it may take just a few short decades for this civilization to commit collective suicide.

. . . Norway celebrated 100 years as an independent state last year. Judging from the new Discrimination Act and the runaway Muslim immigration, perhaps the anniversary should be called “From independence to colonization”. At the same time as their women are no longer safe in the streets because of immigrant gangs, the authorities respond by making Norwegians de facto second-rate citizens in their own country. They use their own people as stepping stones for their personal careers in the UN bureaucracy, lecturing about how to create the perfect society while their own citizens find it increasingly hard to live in their major cities. We have no significant colonial history ourselves and denounce all forms of colonialism, but are supposed to smile when we are colonized ourselves.

. . . Norway is probably the only major oil exporting country on the planet that has managed to remain a stable democracy with low levels of corruption. By any standards possible, we’re one of the most successful cultures in the world, our largest flaw, which could eventually bury us, probably being our naivete. So why on earth should we quietly watch while our country is subdued by the most unsuccessful cultures in the world? The most basic instinct of all living things, even down to bacteria level, is self-preservation. In 2006, you have a natural right to self-preservation if you are an amoeba, but not if you’re a Scandinavian.

With current trends remaining unchanged, native Norwegians will be a minority in their own capital city within a couple of decades, a situation that has never happened before since the foundation of Oslo a thousand years ago. Judging from all experience with Muslims previously, non-Muslim Norwegians will be ruthlessly persecuted, either cornered into a civil war or forced to flee from what was once their country. Newcomers move into an area and brutalize the natives who have become too soft to uphold themselves. There is nothing new about this scenario; it has been going on for thousands of years, as long as mankind has existed. It is the harsh law of nature. What is unique in this case is that the original inhabitants of this country are forced to fund their own colonization and eventual extinction by their own leaders, who portray this as an act of “tolerance.” I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened before.

Heavily edited for length, but the whole thing is absolutely worth the read.

It's Here

The convergence of multiculturalism, Islamic supremacism, and unaccountable bureaucracies is rapidly leading to the only logical result: Tyranny.

Islamic groups and governments are pressing ahead with a campaign to have international organizations take steps, including legal ones, to provide protection for their religion in the wake of the Mohammed cartoon controversy.

In a drive pursued largely away from the headlines, the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC) is promoting the issue at the United Nations and European Union, and having some success.

The executive council of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) this month approved an agenda item entitled "respect for freedom of expression, sacred beliefs, values and religious and cultural symbols."

Introduced by more than 30 Islamic states and the subject of considerable debate, the motion explicitly tied freedom of expression to "respect for cultural diversity, religious beliefs and religious symbols."

. . . The Saudi-based OIC secretariat is spearheading the international campaign of response to what it has called "wanton provocation and reckless, blasphemous libertarianism cowering behind so-called freedom of the press."

. . . The UNESCO move is just the latest illustration of the way the OIC and its 56 member states are using the cartoon episode to apply pressure on the West to comply with Islamic norms.

The matter was being taken up in exchanges with the E.U., " as well as with various international and regional intergovernmental organizations and NGOs."

The OIC said it was pursuing a "strategy to take initiatives at various international organs to contribute to the formation of an international legal framework" aimed at preventing a recurrence of the cartoon crisis. The action at UNESCO was a component of this strategy.

. . . The Islamic campaign has won sympathetic responses from some senior U.N. and E.U. figures.

"Your anguish over the publication of insulting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed is clear and understandable," Secretary-General Kofi Annan [who is Muslim] said in a message read on his behalf at an OIC gathering in Istanbul this month.

While he said all should speak up for freedom of worship and freedom of speech, he added: "We must exercise great sensitivity when dealing with symbols and traditions that are sacred to other people."

Addressing a meeting of European imams in Vienna, Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik of Austria - the current E.U. president - also referred to the cartoons. "Freedoms do have limits that should not be overstepped," she told 300 Muslim religious leaders from across the continent.

At the same gathering, the head of the E.U.'s official anti-racism body bemoaned what she said was a "dangerously high" level of anti-Muslim discrimination in Europe.

Beate Winkler, head of the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, said E.U. governments should provide time for [Islamic] religious programs on public broadcasters and support mosque construction.

Participant Turfa Bagaghati of the European Network Against Racism -- an E.U.-funded NGO -- told Islam Online it was time Muslims pressed "for their rights, like enacting laws banning aggression on Islam."

E.U. external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner also addressed the Vienna meeting, saying that both freedom of religion and freedom of expression were "non-negotiable."

But she added a qualifier only in the case of freedom of expression, saying "it does come with responsibilities and should be exercised with the necessary sensitivity to others."

The E.U. will next month hold a "Euro-Med" seminar of xenophobia and racism in the media, bringing together representatives from the E.U. and the predominantly Muslim countries of North Africa and the Middle East.

In another development, it was reported last week that E.U. bureaucrats are drawing up a "lexicon" of terminology to use when referring to Islam. Words like "Islamist" and "jihad" are under review, as is the phrase "Islamic terrorism."

For now, Ursula, Beate, and Benita will keep recommending enormous concessions as fast as they possibly can. However, they will at some point realize that Islamists will not be satisfied until shari'a is law and the dhimma enforced. The question is, will they come to that realization before or after they're required to wear full black chadors?

ROP Agitators in NYC

Last Thursday, the Islamic Thinkers' Society held another rally in NYC, this time outside the Israeli consulate. While it consisted of the predictable calls for the nuclear extermination of Israel, posters depicting the black flag of Islam flying over the White House, and fevered cries of "Allahu Akbar," it really must be seen and heard to comprehend the raw evil. Article, video.

In case you missed ITS' "Operation: Desecrate American Flag" last June, here's info and video about that too.

And here's a link to ITS' website. Better not click on the "Non-Muslim Section," because there you will find an "Invitation to Islamic Belief." You see, in Islamic law, Muslims must first offer infidels the opportunity to convert before making war on them. If said infidels refuse the offer, well, then it's open season. Bin Laden feels the call to da'wa has already been made to the West as a whole, and we've defiantly rejected it.

It's that simple.

They Just Don't Get It

Today I received an invitation to a conference in London entitled "The Changing Faces of Jihadism: Profiles, Biographies, Motivations," put on jointly by British and Norwegian defense experts. The title page of the 4-page PDF file has a security camera picture of one of the four London subway bombers. So far, so good.

Then we get to the introduction:

Europe is faced with a sustained challenge from militant jihadism. Most worryingly, the emerging networks seem to defy everything we thought we knew about terrorism: their structures are loose, and the profiles of individual jihadists don’t seem to reveal any striking similarities.

Right. Aside from they fact that they

(a) are males between the ages of 18 and 35;
(b) are fanatically dedicated Muslims indoctrinated by an imam, in prison, and/or jihad websites;
(c) have often visited Pakistan or Afghanistan for "religious instruction;"
(d) usually have piles of jihadi snuff videos and/or audiotaped sermons in their apartments;
(e) associate with other like-minded individuals; and
(f) frequently have bank balances that cannot be accounted for by their family status or employment;

why yes, it's a total mystery. The introduction goes on:

Are there no patterns to be discerned? Or does the absence of any shared characteristics indicate how little we understand the phenomenon?

I'm thinking yes. Then I continue to the list of speakers -- almost entirely university professors, none of whom I recognize. But one speaker's name jumps out:

Sir Iqbal Sacraine, Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britain.

These amateurs can't even spell his name correctly, much less grasp the concept of taqqiya. I halfheartedly finished scanning the rest of the short (271-word) introduction, which is filled with phrases like "better understanding," "developing effective methods," "facilitate strategies of engagement," and "facilitate constructive debate and exchange."

Now, if it had words like "pitchforks," "torches," "resistance," "deportation," and "death cult," I'd be interested. So, uh, yeah. Good luck with that.

Dutch Report: Don't Judge Islam

A Dutch think tank -- the tank in this case being a sensory deprivation chamber -- insists that Islam is compatible with human rights. The report makes many favorable generalizations about Islam, while warning against making any generalizations critical of Islam, as the resulting "us vs. them" divide is not just wrong, but dangerous. Comparably dangerous as subway bombings, murder in the streets, rapes, riots, and death threats, no doubt.

A new report submitted to the Dutch government has sparked controversy by arguing that Islam does not conflict with either human rights or Dutch values. The report is the fruit of three years' work by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), a think-tank in The Hague which advises the government.

Jan Schoonenboom, a member of the council who supervised the research, says it highlights the variety and dynamism of Islamic activism. While there are radical, jihadi trends, there are also more mainstream Islamic movements which are moving, albeit slowly, towards democratisation.

The Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a well-known critic of Islam, has said it lacks professionalism and undermines free speech.

On the contrary, Mr Schoonenboom told the BBC, by discussing Islam in this way the report is opening up serious debate and challenging widely-accepted stereotypes.

As usual, academics who are forever praising themselves for their courage and innovative analysis fail to recognize that their view is the stereotype that stifles debate and needs challenging. Which the Cartoon Wars did rather powerfully -- in just three weeks, rather than the three years it took to produce this fishwrap.

Behead Those Who Mock South Park!

WND reports that UAE-based Air Arabia has adapted the kiddies of South Park for use in their local advertising. Yup, they're really there. Parker and Stone could have a field day with these:








Comedy Central's ferocious legal mujahideen are said to be considering a formidable "jihad" of their own: the fearsome copyright infringement lawsuit.

Gratuitous Swipe at the Frenchie Foo Fag-Nasties

It will come as a surpise to no one that French PM Dominique de Villepin (who is a man) signs his name like a teenage girl. After all, he governs like one too.



Hat tip to the Transatlantic Intelligencer, which supplies a revealing analysis of the bird-shaped fluorishes. He's not a serial killer, or a homosexual (as far as I know) -- just boundlessly impressed with himself.

Islamic Slaughter in Belgium

Bystanders look the other way, priests blame society, police investigate how the victim may have provoked it, the media circumvents any mention of Islam, and the government allows unchecked "North African" immigration to proceed apace. Just another day in Eurabia.

Last Wednesday Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, was murdered in Brussels Central Station. He was stabbed five times in the heart by North African youths. They demanded that he give them his MP3 player. When Joe refused he was savagely murdered. The atrocity happened during the evening rush hour on a crowded platform.

. . . the murderers were filmed, however, by security cameras. Today, one week later, the Brussels police released the pictures. The police say they are looking for two youths aged between 16 and 18 years old. Joe’s murder has shocked the Belgians. For an entire week the police, the authorities and most of the media have tried to downplay the fact that the killers are Muslim youths.

Belgian citizens realize, however, that the murder has nothing to do with “indifference in Belgian society,” but everything with a group of North African youths terrorizing Brussels and the “indifference” of the authorities to eradicate this scourge.

. . . The Moroccan thugs do not care about life and they are used to slitting throats – a procedure they get to practise on sheep from a very young age.

Meanwhile in the UK, prison toilets are being rebuilt, at taxpayer expense, to placate the poor dears' tender sensibilities.

JAIL bosses are rebuilding toilets so Muslim inmates don’t have to use them while facing Mecca. Thousands of pounds of taxpayers money are being spent to ensure lags are not offended.

The Islamic religion prohibits Muslims from facing or turning their backs on the Kiblah — the direction of prayer — when they visit the lav. Muslim lags claimed they have had to sit sideways on prison WCs.

But after pressure from faith leaders the Home Office has agreed to turn the existing toilets 90 degrees at HMP Brixton in London.

One Muslim former inmate said: “The least the Prison Service can do is make sure people can practise their religion correctly in prison.”

Of course, practicing their religion correctly outside of prison is often what lands them there.

Terror Alert Level Elevated to "Bribe"

A curious report from Businessweek: France's Plan: Pay 'Em To Go Home.

As demonstrations intensify and legislation stalls in the U.S. over the status of illegal immigrants, France has been taking another tack. It's offering cash payments -- the equivalent of about $2,400 per adult and $600 per child -- to illegals who agree to return to their native countries.

The government began to offer the payments last September but so far has found fewer than 200 takers. Now, law-and-order Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is urging officials to cut the program's red tape to make participation easier, according to the French daily Le Figaro, which obtained a copy of an Interior Ministry memo sent to local officials. But critics say the payments are too low to entice many of France's estimated 400,000 illegals to say adieu.

Meanwhile, France is getting tougher on those who don't leave voluntarily. Since 2002, the number of illegals expelled annually from the country has doubled, to 20,000 last year. At the same time, Sarkozy is spearheading legislation to make it easier for well-educated, highly skilled immigrants to enter the country.

Sarkozy, the front-runner in the 2007 French presidential race, is himself the son of an immigrant. His father fled communist Hungary in 1949 and was granted refugee status in France.

Impressive. There was room to take a jab at the US and toss in a non sequitur about Sarkozy's origins, but none for the words "Muslim," "Islam," or "jizya."

For a grown-up analysis, we turn to the intrepid Fjordman: The Fall of France.

Muslim blogs are calling for violence against the Jews, the whites and the well-to-do. They say, “We must burn France, as Hamas will burn Israel.” The growth of the Islamic population is explosive. According to some, one out of three babies born in France is now a Muslim. Around 70% of French prisoners are Muslims. Hundreds of Muslim ghettos are already de facto following sharia, not French law. Some have pointed out that the French military are not always squeamish, but there are estimates that 15% of the armed forces are already made up of Muslims, and rising.

Read the rest.

A Real Conspiracy

For its first six seasons, I was a dedicated X-Files junkie. When the movie came out, it sucked so bad, I never watched the series again. Lately, I've watched some old episodes, and the riveting conspiracies featuring the Smoking Man, Deep Throat, Marita Covarrubias, and Alex Krychek now just seem kind of gay. The great alien cover-ups that once seemed so suspenseful and plausible now come off like the hackneyed, ridiculous fantasies of the schizo-paranoid left. Yawn.

Especially when one considers one of the greatest, actual, real conspiracies of the 20th century. Imagine you are an American, of whatever (reasonable) political affiliation. Now imagine that back in the 60s and 70s, a group of senior US officials felt very strongly that the best way to solve America's social and economic problems was to cede a large chunk of US sovereignty to the UN. This transfer of power would be on the UN's terms, would not be subject to elections or referenda, would not be reversible, and would require the future transfer of other powers not yet defined.

If it was talked about publicly at all, it was couched as a benign free trade agreement, that would bring economic benefits like more jobs and economic growth. Imagine that, say, President Nixon had the whole deal negotiated, signed, and completed, with zero public input. That he directed a staff member to record the negotiations, a document which ran to 475 pages -- but which would remain secret for 30 years. It would be an astounding conspiracy reducing Watergate, Area 51, and the assassination of JFK to mere footnotes.

Sounds fantastic. But this is exactly what Prime Minister Heath did in the early 1970s, in gaining Britain's accession to the EU. The possibility was barely even mentioned during the campaign, so

it might therefore have come as a something of a surprise to most voters to learn that, within two weeks of the election, two of Heath's senior ministers would be in Brussels to begin Britain's negotiations for entry; and that, within three years, without any electoral mandate, Britain would have become a full member of the European Community.

Britain had twice applied for membership in the 1960s, but was blocked both times by French President Charles de Gaulle. But by 1973, Britain's accession date, the power of the EU had evolved significantly, with no British input.

It was true that, as in 1961, Britain had little choice but to accept the acquis communautaire [powers acquired by the EC, never to be returned], but the situation was now 'fundamentally altered.' In 1961, the acquis has consisted of little more than the treaties themselves. Since then, 'an almost inconceivable flood' of of new laws had been enacted, amounting to some 13,000 pages, for many of which the official translations would not be completed until after the treaty of accession had been signed.

It is difficult to overstate the implications. No one in their right mind would sign an employment contract that

(a) gave the employer at-will authority to alter its terms, in perpetuity;
(b) forbade the employee this right, or to quit;
(c) required the employee to pay, rather than be paid; and
(d) would not be translated into the employee's language until after it was signed.

Yet Britain signed exactly this contract with EU, and carefully didn't say much about it to their current employer at the time, the British people -- who are only now discovering what it all means.

I haven't been in the habit of doing book reviews, but this is the must-read story told in "The Great Deception" by Christopher Booker and Richard North. Any student of EU law is already aware that the major accomplishment of the "European project" has been the massive accretion of power to a distant, unelected elite. On some level, elected officials were aware that plans to turn over their country's treasury and independence to an appointed technocracy would be a tad controversial. So another prominent feature of The European Project has been the Orwellian euphemisms that fill officials' statements, to obscure the magnitude of their betrayal.

In the name of progress, Europe's parliamentary democracies are now subject to the ever-tighter grip of a capricious, secretive aristocracy. Why supranationalism should be the panacaea for plain old European nationalism has never been clear: in the end, it still results in tyranny. The Eurocrats won't be the masters for long, however, not at the rate Islamists are colonizing Europe -- a takeover encouraged, facilitated, and applauded by the elites themselves. Not since the decay of the Roman Empire has there been a ruling class so hungry for power, yet so careless with it.

Some Europeans tell me that Europeans and Americans shouldn't fight, because we share the same fundamental values. I appreciate the conciliatory gesture, but really, we don't. Beyond democracy and free speech -- which in Europe are increasingly being converted from tangible rights into theoretical ideals -- Americans demand transparency and accountability, and would have rebelled long before such a "project" got so far. The Kyoto Protocol, as well as Bush's "guest worker" program, are just such anti-democratic bilge, and in America, that dog don't hunt.

Ultimately, it's not about beliefs, but about disposition. In most countries, ordinary Europeans did not consent to the Brussels dictatorship, but they are not disposed to fight it either. It's true that a majority of French and Dutch voters rejected the EU Constitution last year. But for most of them, it wasn't because it would have extended and consolidated the EU's powers, but because it didn't go far enough. In this key sense, Europeans and Americans have very little in common. Millions of Europeans who sold the clothes off their backs to get to Ellis Island understood this; only the form, rather than the substance, has changed.

This doesn't mean that Americans should shrug and let Europeans lie in the bed they made. As in WWII, American heritage, and American security, depends on extricating Britain from this mess. One author of the abovementioned book, Dr. North, has a blog: go ye and read.

Still Here . . .

. . . just impossibly busy. I'll be over the hump this weekend, so thanks for your patience!

Meantime, there are two current news items I simply can't ignore.

Item 1, from the Scumbag Defense Lawyer files: Zacarias Moussaoui has been convicted, faces the death penalty in the sentencing phase . . . and his lawyers plan to put on the Chewbacca defense.

Court-appointed defense lawyers, whom Moussaoui has tried to reject, will summon experts to suggest he is schizophrenic after an impoverished childhood during which he faced racism in France over his Moroccan ancestry.

Like the Hippocratic Oath, defense lawyers have a duty to zealously represent their clients. However, this duty does not extend to fabricating stupendous propaganda that directly undercuts your own country's security (i.e., by reinforcing the myth that jihadis kill people out of low self-esteem).

The flip side is, if that's all they've got, Moussaoui will fry.

Item 2, from the Scumbag Academic Files: At a time when Islamists are actively trying to accomplish it, UT-Austin Prof Eric Pianka advocates the extermination of 90% of humanity. Not everyone. 90%. No doubt he envisions the surviving 10% to be enlightened intellectuals such as himself.

AUSTIN - A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead. Humanity's collapse is a notion he embraces.

Indeed, his words deal, very literally, on a life-and-death scale, yet he smiles and jokes candidly throughout the lecture. "This is really an exciting time," he said Friday amid warnings of apocalypse, destruction and disease.

6.5 billion humans is too many. In his estimation, "We've grown fat, apathetic and miserable," all the while leaving the planet parched. The solution? A 90 percent reduction.

"[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity," Pianka said. "We're looking forward to a huge collapse."

Pianka said, "Good terrorists would be taking [the Ebola virus] so that they had microbes they could let loose on the Earth that would kill 90 percent of people."

Thanks, dickweed, that's very helpful.