The future's so bright I gotta wear. . .

dark goggles to prevent my eyes from being burned out by the coming atomic fireball.

From The Brussels Journal:

The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: "We are watching the world of yesterday."

Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate himself. "I am too old," he said. However, he urged young people to get out and "move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent inhabitable."

Many Germans and Dutch, apparently, did not wait for Broder's advice. The number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already surpassed the number of immigrants moving in. One does not have to be prophetic to predict, like Henryk Broder, that Europe is becoming Islamic. Just consider the demographics. The number of Muslims in contemporary Europe is estimated to be 50 million. It is expected to double in twenty years. By 2025, one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families. Today Mohammed is already the most popular name for new-born boys in Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other major European cities.

Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose islamization. "The dominant ethos," he told De Volkskrant, "is perfectly voiced by the stupid blonde woman author with whom I recently debated. She said that it is sometimes better to let yourself be raped than to risk serious injuries while resisting. She said it is sometimes better to avoid fighting than run the risk of death."

In a recent op-ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard (23 October) the Dutch (gay and self-declared "humanist") author Oscar Van den Boogaard refers to Broder's interview. Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the islamization of Europe is like "a process of mourning." He is overwhelmed by a "feeling of sadness." "I am not a warrior," he says, "but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

[Snip]

Some of the people I meet in the U.S. are particularly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. They are correct when they fear that anti-Semitism is also on the rise among non-immigrant Europeans. The latter hate people with a fighting spirit. Contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit.

This is why they have come to hate Israel and America so much, and the small band of European "islamophobes" who dare to talk about what they see happening around them. West Europeans have to choose between submission (islam) or death. I fear, like Broder, that they have chosen submission - just like in former days when they preferred to be red than dead.

See, I'm not the only one warning Europeans who love freedom to get out.

The United States needs to welcome these freedom loving Europeans. Many of them would love to come here. They already speak English and they are already educated and skilled with years of work experience. That the immigration policies of the US favor ignorant Third World peasants who will at best sweep floors and at worst found multi-generational welfare dynasties goes beyond being "a shame" and enters the territory of full-blown psychotic delusion.

Old Europe is dying. On its rubble will be built "Eurabia" the new Islamic caliphate which will be the greatest threat to what is left of the free world since Hitler. The reason that they will represent a greater danger than the old Soviet Union or our contemporary Islamofascists is the historic tendency of Islamic conquerors to borrow cultural elements from their conquered subjects.

For example the "Arabic numbers" which we use today, are not Arab at all. They are Hindu. The Arabs who conquered India assimilated (Borg like) their numbering system and some of the mathematics which the Hindus had worked out. They entered Western Europe after the reconquest of Spain.

Muslims borrow other things as well. For example the excellent artillery with which Mehmet II reduced the walls of Constantinople. The Eurabian Muslims will not be able to sustain the technologically advanced civilization of modern Europe (nor do they wish too) however they will be able to cherry-pick those elements which serve their long term agenda.

For example the French, Germans and Italians between them have the ability to build excellent warships up to and including aircraft carriers. They can build tanks and armored fighting vehicles which rival those built in America. They can produce very good jet fighter aircraft and bombers. And last, but certainly not least, thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems which can deliver them over intercontinental distances.

There is a military tradition in Europe, especially Germany, which, when divested of the hand wringing guilt over their colonial past, has every potential of rising again in the service of the vision of an Islamisized Übermensch.

All of this augers poorly indeed for Eastern Europe which is just emerging from the devastation of 60 years of communist oppression. These cultures which have the first-hand experience of slavery and are embracing freedom with a passion which should put Americans to shame are depending on membership in the European Union for both their economic futures and as a measure of security against an increasingly totalitarian Russia. Ireland, which is showing signs of becoming the business capital of Europe because of its rejection of much of the anti-business socialism of the continent also has reason to be worried.

When Western Europe, including the UK, falls to the mullahs then Islam's "bloody borders" will be on Eastern Europe's doorstep and Ireland's shores.

Just think of it. A European Union ruled by the religious vision of Iran equipped with nuclear submarines and ICBMs.

Not every entertainer is a moron

Blackfive had this up yesterday:

Seawitch sends this awesome video of Aussie lass Beccy Cole who is singing "Poster Girl" in response to some of her fans who disagree with her supporting the Diggers, the Australian soldiers fighting in The Long War.

Amen to the sentiment and it's a damn fine song too.

Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs

Europe's Muslim problem

There is an editorial in today's Washington Post which begins well, but ends in nonsense. Here is the good part:

A YEAR AGO this week, riots erupted in mostly Muslim suburbs of Paris and other French cities, underlining the alienation of a subculture that makes up 8 percent of the country's population but has suffered from chronic unemployment and discrimination. One year later, that alienation -- and the threat of violence that comes with it -- appears to have worsened, not only in France but across Western Europe. French police are facing what some call a "permanent intifada" in Muslim neighborhoods, with nearly 2,500 incidents of violence against officers recorded in the first six months of the year. Some of these now take the form of planned ambushes: On Sunday a gang of youths emptied a bus of its passengers, set it on fire, and then stoned the firefighters who responded.

In Britain, the London bombings of 2005, which were executed in part by native-born Muslims, have been succeeded by this summer's arrest of another group of native extremists who allegedly plotted to blow up airliners. Two Lebanese residents of Germany were accused of trying to bomb passenger trains. The threat of violence by Muslims angered by perceived insults, whether from the German-born pope or the director of a Mozart opera, has become more frequent.

Europeans are slowly growing more aware that a major part of the global struggle against Islamic extremism must take place in their own countries -- and not just in faraway Afghanistan or Iraq. . .
.

As I said this is the good part. Muslims in Europe are not only not assimilating very well the problem is getting worse. Young Muslims who were born in European countries to parents who were also born in Europe are less assimilated than their grandparents who were born and raised in North Africa or the Middle East.

European nations import Muslims to do manual labor not to compete with native Europeans in the professions. To that end employment offices in European nations will assist college educated and qualified Muslim professionals find work as grocery baggers, but not physicians, attorneys or college professors. If they want to do that kind of work they are told to go home.

European nations provide little sense of identity to Muslim immigrants and their children. Into this vacuum steps radical Islam. Mosques funded by Saudi Arabia teach radical Whabbi Islam in all its hatred of the West. Some young Muslim men become radicalized and join terrorist cells like the London bombers. Others cherry pick elements from Islamic culture which serve their selfish interests. Theodore Dalrymple writes of young Muslim men in Britain who could not recite an Islamic prayer to save their lives, but practice the brutal domination of women, sometimes including having multiple "wives" and justify it by the Koran and the example of Mohammed.

Now for the stupid part:

. . . But their governments, media and political elites still appear to be a long way from coming to grips with the challenge. Rather than seeking to address the larger alienation of mainstream Muslims, European leaders often appear to do the opposite -- by challenging the culture of Muslims and defending gratuitous insults of Islam.

So by insisting that Muslim men follow the law and not murder their daughters for shaming the family by thoughtlessly allowing themselves to be raped or by defending the right of magazines to publish cartoons are furthering the alienation of Muslims?

I think not. The Koran tells Muslims that the faithful are destined to rule the world. All non-Muslims have an absolute duty before God to either convert, accept dhiminitude or die. There are no other options. Muslims are taught that a nation which has a Muslim community of any size is Muslim property. They are told that they welfare payments and other government benefits which they receive are an acceptable form of the jizra, the head tax which non-Muslims must pay for the privilege of staying alive.

The Islamic religion itself is a primary factor in the alienation of Muslims. As long as Islam is granted a privileged status and its communicants are allowed exemptions from the standards of behavior which other members of society are held to Muslims will be encouraged to see themselves as a -- superior -- class apart.

One recent but hardly isolated example came from Britain's House of Commons leader, Jack Straw, who criticized Muslim women for wearing veils and said he asked those who visited his office to remove them, on the grounds that they impede "communication." It's hard to believe that veils are the biggest obstacle to communication between British politicians and the country's Muslims; and it's even harder to imagine Mr. Straw raising similar objections about Sikh turbans or Orthodox Jewish dress. True, the Labor Party MP was reflecting -- or maybe pandering to -- the concern of many in Britain about the self-segregation of some Muslims. But veils -- which are also under government attack in France and Italy -- are not the cause of that segregation, much less of terrorism. Attacks on Muslim custom by public officials are more likely to reinforce than to ease the community's alienation.

Making them wear the veil is not the worst thing that Islam does to women, but it is the visible symbol of all the degradations which Muslim women are forced to endure. When the Canadian government entertained a stupid proposal a few years back to allow Canadian Muslims to set up sharia courts within the Islamic community to handle the affairs normally dealt with by Canadian family courts the parliament was deluged with letters from Muslim women begging them not to subject them to the tyranny of the mullahs.

Mr. Straw and other European politicians could contribute far more to combating radical Islam if they focused on those who actually foment intolerance among European Muslims -- as well as those in the mainstream community who promote prejudice against Arabs and South Asians and their descendants. Muslims in Europe should be invited to embrace the countries where they live on their own terms. They should be expected to respect laws and freedoms. But politicians would do better to work on dismantling the barriers Muslims face in getting educations and jobs rather than those that distinguish Islam from the secular majority.

True assimilation is not embracing a nation of your own terms. It is adapting yourself to a nation so that it may embrace you on its terms. Muslims, if they are to remain true to their faith, cannot respect the laws and freedoms of the countries where they live. They are commanded by their founding prophet to bend the entire globe to the will of Allah, by persuasion if possible but by force if necessary.

The part about helping Muslims get better educations and jobs would be a good idea, except for the fact that educational opportunities are already widespread in Europe, at taxpayer expense. And as for jobs the welfare states of Europe deny opportunities to everyone. Most of Europe is suffering from chronic double-digit unemployment brought about by confiscatory taxation and labor laws which make hiring new workers a dangerous gamble.

It is highly unlikely that Europe can solve its problems with unassimilated Muslims. To correct the problem would require to do things which they find anathema. Ending their experiment with socialism with the enthusiastic embrace of capitalism. Putting aside their cultural guilt over their colonial past. Reconnecting with their Christian roots. Abandoning their suicidal adherence to milticulturalism and moral relativism and recovering a sense of pride in their own history.

As I said, things which the European elites would find anathema.

Trans-Europeans

Ed Laskey has a good essay up on The American Thinker about how the Democrat Party is taking the place of the Ku Klux Klan and the various neo-Nazi organizations as the home of American anti-Semitism.

One of his points is that the Democrats are becoming more "European" in their outlook:

Many of the Democratic elites (John Kerry, among them) spent considerable amounts of time during their formative years overseas or in Ivy League universities. Recall John Kerry’s summers in (where else?) France; or Clinton’s coterie of fellow Oxford graduates. They took deep draughts of the trans-Atlantic ideas that are held in common with European elites. Ivy League universities are clones in many ways of European universities: they often exchange professors from time to time, teach from the same material, and have the same ideological mindset that they inculcate in their students. This commonality has been deepened after college by frequent attendance at international conferences, ceremonies, and cocktail parties. The echo chamber and group think effect has taken hold; in this small universe a common mind-set developed. This process can be called in homage to one of the factors that facilitated the process, the Concorde convergence.

However, the Europeanization of the Democratic Party elites goes beyond this dynamic. In many ways, the coastal cities and the rarified environs that the elite play in are very similar to Europe’s major cities. The brilliant urban theorist Joel Kotkin calls these generally East coast cities Euro-America . He writes,

“Euro-America has always existed in pockets, most particularly among the East coast’s intellectual, cultural and social elites”.

He traces this strengthening trend from the early 1800s to contemporary America. He continues,

“Today the embrace of European values and perspectives also reflects profound economic and social similarities between Euro-America and the continent.”

While they may be losing population and stagnating,

“neither Europe, nor its America simulacra, should be dismissed. Resting on great accomplishments of generations past, they enjoy a near monopoly in major media and top universities”.

Kotkin also noted that these Democratic powerhouses are becoming increasingly estranged from the political and cultural norms of the rest of America. We can call these elite leaders not metrosexuals, as Howard Dean might; instead we can call them trans-Europeans. As Kotkin says, they seek “inspiration from abroad.” (or approval from abroad, as in John Kerry’s “Global Test”)

I can't find anything there to disagree with.

All this brings up an interesting point. Abraham Lincoln told us that "a house divided against itself cannot stand". How much longer with the American "house" be able to continue functioning with the internal divisions which are currently ripping it apart?

The other side

A response to the Michael J Fox ad which is airing in Missouri:

The mind of the madmen

From Front Page Magazine:

Sudan has long been a bloody frontier between Islam and Black Africa, haunted for centuries by Arab slave traders. The British Empire signed a convention with Egypt in 1877 to outlaw slavery in Sudan. After the British took control of Egypt in 1883, progress was made freeing slaves there, but London decided to withdraw from Sudan. The British governor of the Sudan, Sir Charles "Chinese" Gordon, who opposed withdrawal, was killed in 1885 when an Islamic messiah claiming to be the "Mahdi" captured Khartoum. Slave traders who had gone into hiding flocked to the Mahdi's standard, eager to see the British withdraw.

According to both Sunni and Shi'ite traditions, the Mahdi will arise shortly before the day of judgment and transform the world into a perfect Islamic society. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have described the Mahdi's appearance: "The black banners will come out of the east, and they will slaughter you in a way that no nation has ever done before."

The Sudanese Mahdi died of natural causes, but was succeeded by his lieutenant, the Khalifa. Popular agitation in England to avenge Gordon led to Gen. Horatio Kitchener's famous victory at Omdurman in 1898. Kitchener's imperial army of 26,000 (only a third of them British, the rest Egyptian and Sudanese) defeated some 50,000 Dervish. The Khalifa fled the battlefield, but was hunted down and killed. Prisoners were paraded in chains, and the Mahdi's tomb demolished, to demonstrate in no uncertain terms who was the stronger power in the region.

Today, Shi'ite Muslim radicals such as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iraq militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr predict the Mahdi's return is imminent. Al-Sadr has even named his militia "The Mahdi Army." The Shi'ites believe the Mahdi is the 12th Imam, who has been hiding for 1,100 years.

Speaking to the UN General Assembly in September 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad called for "the emergence of a perfect human being who is heir to all prophets and pious men. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace." He repeated this call in his 2006 UN address, ending it with the plea "make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause."

Mr. Ahmadinejad believes his task is to hasten the Mahdi's coming. As mayor of Tehran, he worked to prepare the city for this climactic event.

Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis has noted: "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers." The Mahdi is coming back to cleanse the world with fire and sword, a process that will be started by his followers before his actual appearance. It is hard to deter people who believe they are on a divine mission.

Iraq is a battlefield in this struggle. The sixth Shia Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, is reported to have said: "Before the appearance of the one who will rise...the people will be reprimanded for their acts of disobedience by a fire that will appear in the sky...It will swallow up Baghdad, and will swallow up Kufa [where al-Sadiq is buried]...Death will occur amid their people and a fear will come over the people of Iraq, from which they shall have no rest." This is a fair description of the campaign of death squads and terror waged by Muqtada al-Sadr, whose loyalty is to the Tehran theocracy.

U.S.-led forces have bloodied the Mahdi Army on several occasions, but in another example of strategic malaise, have not been given the green light to eliminate this threat. On Oct. 20, the Mahdi Army seized control of Amarah, a provincial capital from which the British withdrew in August. And Mr. Ahmadinejad continues to defy the West over his nuclear ambitions, claiming he has not been swayed by UN sanctions on North Korea.

It is difficult in the midst of 21st century materialism for Americans to accept that foreign leaders would act on the basis of such irrational beliefs. Yet, history is filled with such episodes. Fortunately, history is also filled with examples of fanatics defeated by those not intimidated by their violent delusions.

If the Islamofascists win this war a main reason will be the inability of post-modern, post-Christian European and American elites to make themselves believe that a national government could be motivated by religious faith.

What not to do in Iraq

Jed Babbin explains why partitioning Iraq would be a bad idea:

Partitioning Iraq is an approach that could earn an A+ in a graduate course at the Kennedy School of Government, but will get an immediate F in the real world. An independent Kurdistan -- the presumed northern section -- would violate the agreement President Bush made with Turkey before the invasion. The Turks would invade because they believe (with much justification) that an independent Kurdistan would seek to expand into northeastern Turkey. Shia southern Iraq would be swallowed by Iran, and the middle -- Sunni Iraq -- would become part of Syria or a Syrian satellite terrorist state like Lebanon. Even if Iraq's neighbors wouldn't invade or interfere (an assumption that would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous), only Kurdistan could possibly survive as an independent state. The other two would lack either the economic resources necessary to survive or the political unity to function, or both.

It's hard to argue with that. If Iraq existed in a vacuum partitioning would be the best possible answer. People who hate one another and do not wish to live together should not be forced to do so. However Iraq does not exist in a vacuum. It occupies a place in one of the most dangerous and volatile regions of the earth. Destabilizing Turkey would serve no one save Osama bin Laden and Babbin's analysis of where the Shia and Sunni states would wind up rings true as well.

Trying to bring democracy to Iraq was an experiment which always had a better than even chance of failure. But it absolutely had to be tried. We needed to know (the kind of knowing that only can come from experience) if an Islamic country could be successfully brought into the civilized community of 21st Century nations.

If the current crisis in Iraq is not the last push of the "insurgency" throwing all their resources into an all-or-nothing bid to influence the US elections and get the Surrender Party elected. If it is truly a sign that nothing like a secular democratic state can coexist with the Islamic faith then we need to know this.

We need to know it because it means that we will need to reorganize our entire society around the principle of total war. Just as we did in the two World Wars of the 20th Century. There are 1 billion Muslims in the world and if they can't make peace with the modern world then the modern world will have to crush them. Since the US is the only free nation left on the globe with the both the means to fight a real war and the ability to summon the national will to fight a real war the burden will fall on us.

Pick a side

Back during the Vietnam War Ramparts Magazine published an issue with a photograph of a child holding an NLF (Viet Cong) flag on the cover. The caption was, "alienation is when your country is at war and you want the other side to win".

The left liberals who control the Democrat Party are no less alienated today than they were during the Vietnam years. This is why the terrorist "insurgents" in Iraq are pulling out all the stops in their efforts to damage the Bush Administration and ensure a Democrat win next month.

It does not matter to them that they will be unable to sustain the current level of operations for very much longer. It does not matter to them that they are consuming resources, both material and human, at a rate far higher than they can replace.

All that matters to them is that their allies in the American government and news media are poised to take control and hand them the victory that they realize that they can never win on the battlefield. A victory that they believe will signal the end of the American "empire" and the beginning of the world wide Islamic caliphate.

Of course the first people they will shoot when they gain power in the US will be the left liberals who handed them their victory on a silver platter. For you see, no one loves a Judas. Even those who benefit from a traitor's actions despise the traitor.

From their lips. . .

From: NewsMax.com:

Is Fidel Castro dead?

According to Brazil's leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he is.

But perhaps Lula misspoke.

Last Thursday, Lula expressed disappointment that Castro had not implemented a "democratic opening" in Cuba.

"I am a lover of the Cuban revolution," Lula said in an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

"I only regret that Fidel Castro did not carry out a process of political opening while he was alive," Lula added.

Some reporters have dismissed the statement as a slip of the tongue.

But not everyone is sure.

Since mid-September, Cuban media have not released any pictures or vidoes of the ailing communist dictator.

"I think what he said is that he thinks; he thinks that Fidel is dying," Miami's NBC 6 quoted author and political analyst Carlos Alberto Montaner as saying.

We can only hope.

The UK continues to unravel

From The Scotsman:

ONE of the founding fathers of Scottish devolution is calling for England to be given its own parliament to reflect a "growing sense of national identity".

Canon Kenyon Wright, who chaired the Constitutional Convention that paved the way for the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, will this week argue that England has the same "claim of right" to its own legislature as Scotland.

Advocates of an English parliament are gearing up to use next year's 300th anniversary of the Act of Union between England and Scotland to focus public attention on England's constitutional position.

At the House of Lords tomorrow, Canon Wright will address the first meeting of what campaigners hope will become an English Constitutional Convention, closely based on the cross-party body that helped deliver devolution to Scotland.

If the English get their own parliament then what, exactly, will remain of the United Kingdom?

Also, I'm sure that a Scot or Welchman would point out that the English MPs outnumber the combined representatives of Scotland and Whales to the point that the national parliament is an English parliament.

The true face of Islam

Victor Davis Hanson's website has published a review, by Bruce Thornton, of Ephraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism. A History. It is a long and interesting review. I recommend reading all of it, but here is the part which I found most interesting:

Osama bin Laden must be placed in this long, continuous tradition of Islamic imperialist ambitions sanctified by the faith's universalistic pretensions. His declaration of jihad against a United States, spurred as well by his reading of America's spiritual corruption as evidenced by its ignominious retreat from Somalia in 1993, is not, as Karsh notes, a "novelty": "Declaring a holy war against the infidel has been a standard practice of countless imperial rulers and aspirants since the rise of Islam. Nor does bin Laden's perception of jihad as a predominantly military effort to facilitate the creation of the worldwide Islamic umma differ in any way from traditional Islamic thinking." The difference is that "military effort" now necessarily consists of attacks by terrorists rather than armies. In short, bin Laden has not "highjacked" or "distorted" Islam, as Islamic propagandists and Western apologists for jihad have it, but rather has acted consistently with its traditional beliefs.

I have said this before on this blog. The reason that those who wish to "reform" Islam will have a hard time is that the Islamofascists are accurately interpreting the Koran and faithfully following the example of Mohammed.

This conclusion should be sobering to us all, but particularly to Europeans who have, through a neurotic nexus of spiritual exhaustion, colonial guilt, and multicultural sentimentalism, allowed Muslim immigrants to preach a virulent hatred of the West in schools and mosques frequently subsidized by state welfare payments. The goal of Islamic global triumph "need not necessarily be pursued by the sword; it can be achieved through demographic growth and steady conversion of the local populations."

I believe that this is a big part of the reason that Europe is lost. Sometime between 2035 and 2050 it will have become Eurabia an Islamic caliphate under sharia.

Today's laugh

Patrick at Born Again Redneck posted this picture and it was so good I had to steal it.

Hijinks across the pond

or "How Braveheart became Limpwrist"

From The Scotsman:

The Glasgow city council's publication, "Language Matters: A Guide for Good Practice", contains many pearls of wisdom:

"Sexism continues to disadvantage women both as service users and employees. The use of sexist language, whether spoken or written, reinforces this discrimination," it declares. All staff, it orders, should now stop their sexist ways.

The guide offers a full list of the most shameful examples of sexist-speak. Top of the list are endearments.

"Don't assume it is acceptable to address women by endearments such as 'dear', 'pet' and 'love' when you would not address men in such a way," the guide instructs. "Don't refer to women as 'girls', for example, 'the girls in the office'."

It adds: "The term 'ladies' should only be used in situations where the parallel term 'gentlemen' is used."

All references to a person's gender should be avoided, the guide goes on. "A person's gender is rarely relevant to the job they do, so don't use 'lady' or 'woman' to highlight gender inappropriately, for example 'woman driver', 'lady curator', 'lady councilor', 'woman director'. Similarly don't add 'ess' to the end of job titles
as in 'manageress' or 'stewardess'."

"Some words and phrases such as 'manpower' and 'man the office' exclude or ignore women. Use inclusive terms like 'staff' and 'workers' and 'staff the office'."

With communication dealt with, the guide moves on to terms of address. The old custom of referring to a married couple as Mr and Mrs John Smith is completely barred, the guide declares. "Women have names too!" it exclaims.

Equally, the requirement for women to reveal their marital status through the term 'Mrs' or 'Miss' is condemned. "If the woman does not offer her preferred title, assume Ms", the guide instructs.

The suffix 'man' is completely out. Job titles like storeman and clerkess should be replaced with 'storeperson' and 'clerical officer'.

And then there is the man on the street. "The word 'man' is often used as a general term when it is actually intended to mean 'people'. 'Human beings' or the 'human race' is preferable to 'mankind' and the 'ordinary person' replaces the 'man in the street'."

There is hope for the sane, however:

Despite the aim of lifting women out of the pit of prejudice, some were not impressed. Entrepreneur Michelle Mone said: "Councils and government are making it impossible to run businesses and then they come out with nonsense like this.

These people with their sandals and their flowery dresses - they need to get a life and stop wasting people's time. If someone doesn't like being called 'love' in a workforce then the door is open. Go and work somewhere else."

Richard Cook, director of the Campaign Against Political Correctness, added: "Now that this document is in print as a guide to staff it could be used by more zealous managers looking for an excuse to discipline employees."

A "Campaign Against Political Correctness"! Imagine that, the spirit of Wallace must not be totally dead.

Oh to be in France

From The Brussels Journal:

A quote from French Conservative presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy on RTL radio, 22 September 2006

I would like to say one thing, in what is my conception of the Republic, security is the responsibility of the State, I am against militias, I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I’m trying to make you think about that. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he’ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you’re risking your life. If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined, because killing someone over a theft is not in line with the republican values that are mine. The private ownership of firearms is dangerous. I understand your exasperation for having been burglarized two times, I understand the fear that your wife and daughter may have but the answer is in the efficiency of the police and the efficiency of the judiciary process, the answer is not in having guns at home.

There are so many ways one could comment on this.

I'll limit myself to this: In the case of France he may have something of a point. Note this line, "If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he’ll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you’re risking your life." Since the only place that an average French citizen would have had the chance to learn to use a firearm would have been by serving in the French Army then it is highly likely that any conceivable opponent would be able to "use a weapon more effectively".For those born into and raised in a culture with a single-minded dedication to surrender and appeasement; to all of a sudden be expected to behave like a free human being is, perhaps, a bit much to ask.

The French just need to finally admit openly what the rest of the world (outside of Europe) has known for years. That they are a lesser order of creation than true humanity and get it over with.

Day by Day

Everyone be sure to check out Sunday's Day By Day comic. Click the window to the left or click this link.

Chris Muir has created a brilliant parable on the different attitudes toward the war held by liberals and conservatives.

Is history repeating itself?

From The Washington Post:

Attacks and sectarian fighting have flared beyond Baghdad in recent days -- from Amarah in the south to the Tigris River town of Balad and the northern city of Mosul -- in some cases requiring the urgent intervention of U.S. forces. Sunni insurgents have also been staging bold military displays in cities and towns in the vast western province of Anbar, which a senior U.S. military officer this week described as "an al-Qaeda stronghold."

The eruption of violence around Iraq comes as thousands of U.S. reinforcement troops are tied down in aggressive operations to secure Baghdad, where attacks have nevertheless surged 43 percent since midsummer in a trend that an American general there this week called disheartening."

At least 75 U.S. troops have been killed so far in Iraq this month -- the highest daily rate since January 2005. The United Nations has said that more than 100 Iraqis a day are being killed in raging sectarian violence.

It is not an accident that this is happening during the run-up to an American election.

It is becoming fashionable to compare the current escalation of violence in Iraq to the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam. I believe that to be an apt comparison for the following reason:

What Americans came to call the Tet Offensive (because it occurred during the Vietnamese lunar New Year holiday, called "Tet Nguyen Dan") was called the "General Offensive" by the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) insurgents who planed and executed it.

Briefly here is what the Viet Cong planned and what actually happened.

The communist forces believed, because Marxist doctrine told them, that the people of South Viet Nam would rise up and overthrow the capitalist government if only they were shown that it was possible. To that end virtually the entire fighting force of the NLF was mobilized in an operation timed to coincide with the Lunar New Year celebrations.

On the night of January 30-31, 1968 they struck in an attack having two objectives. One, gain control of the major cities and two, to bottle up US forces in their bases so that they would not be able to interfere.

Once American forces were engaged and unable to intervene in the cities the Viet Cong operators began to systematically murder those whom thy considered to be upholding South Vietnamese government rule. Police officers and their families, South Vietnamese military officers and government officials and their families. Even school teachers who were seen as friendly to the government were executed.

This was to demonstrate to the South Vietnamese people that victory over their government and its US allies was possible and inspire them to rise up. With the vast majority of the population in rebellion and the South Vietnamese government destroyed the Americans were expected to have no choice but to withdraw their forces and recognize the new united Viet Nam which would be governed from Hanoi.

It failed miserably. The Viet Cong were forced to face the fact that the people of South Viet Nam did not support them and did not share their goals of reunion with the North under communist control. However this realization came too late to save them. They had committed virtually their entire military force to the operation. They had come out in the open and were engaging the South Vietnamese Army and the US military in a conventional battle which they could not possibly win.

The NLF was for all intents and purposes destroyed by the Tet Offensive. From that point forward the war was fought between the US and South Vietnamese and the North Vietnamese Army.

The Tet Offensive could very well have ended the war with a victory for the United States and the South Vietnamese government except for one thing. The news media in the United States took the deliberate and calculated decision to misrepresent the facts of the Tet Offensive and its results to the American people.

The media presented the Tet Offensive to the American people as a massive defeat for American and South Vietnamese forces and proof that the US could not win the war.
Let me say this again. The US news media chose to mount a giant propaganda campaign of disinformation in order to spin a spectacular American victory into a defeat. This was the beginning of the end for US involvement in South Viet Nam. The communist victory in Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos – the re-education camps, the killing fields and the Boat People all flowed inevitably from the decision of Walter Cronkite and his friends to lie.

This is the connection to events in Iraq. The “insurgents” in Iraq have learned lessons from history, some valid and some not. The invalid lesson is this that the Red Army’s loss in Afghanistan brought down the Soviet Union. It played a part, but it was not the primary reason for the USSR’s collapse.

The valid lessons which the Islamists have learned are that the American news media is an enemy of the American nation and will work to destroy it. Another lesson they have learned from contemporary American events is that the Democrat Party is also an enemy of the American nation and will work against its interests. They have also learned that the American public has a short attention span and will not continue to support a war that does not produce a quick victory with few losses.

Taken together these lessons, both the valid and invalid ones, tell the Islamofascists that if they will commit their forces to a massive assault in Iraq in the period leading up to the November elections that the American news media will do all in its power to magnify their gains and American losses in order to create the impression that the war cannot be won and that continued involvement is a waste. The terrorist forces hope that this will bring Democrats to power in the US legislature because they know that Democrats will withdraw US forces from Iraq allowing them to overthrow the still weak elected government and install a Taliban style theocracy.

This, they believe, will be the beginning of the end for the United States. If American will retreat from Iraq they believe that all they will need to do is apply pressure by dramatically ramping up terrorist attacks against American targets and we will go the way of the USSR.
That this is not true is of no consequence. They believe it and people act on their beliefs. A loss for the US in Iraq will invite one 9/11 type attack after another.

The Islamofascists have likely committed the great majority of their forces to the current operation. If we destroy them, as we certainly will given enough time and support from back home, it will likely end the “insurgency” in Iraq.

Unless the American people panic and elect the Surrender Party next month.

More Fall foliage

Taken from the roof of the Washington Co. courthouse in Johnson City, TN.

As was this.

These next ones are from the North Carolina Welcome Center on the NC/TN state line.

In Western North Carolina it is hard to locate something somewhere without a good view.

I think that's a maple tree. If not Patrick can correct me.

This isn't colorful, but I like the shot.

Finally, have you ever wondered where Christmas trees come from?

This is a Christmas tree farm in Avery County, NC. A large percentage of the nation's Christmas trees are grown in this region. It is also the srubbery capital of the nation.

If you ever have to appease the Knights Who Say Nee you will know where to go.

Cox & Forkum

Heath Shuler, lying sack of garbage

Heath Shuler is running for congress in the 11th congressional district of North Carolina against incumbent Charles Taylor. Taylor has a long record of service representing the people of Western North Carolina and has been a priority target of the NC Democrat machine for years. They have even gerrymandered his district in order to unseat him and failed. This year they have brought in a millionaire carpetbagger from neighboring Tennessee to attempt to unseat him.

Heath Shuler is a former NFL quarterback who has managed to parlay his name recognition and pretty-boy looks into a real estate fortune in the Knoxville, TN area. Shuler is running a highly negative campaign and Taylor is responding in kind.

This is not a problem for me. I realize that politics is a knife fight, in a sewer and that people who play nice lose. I’m OK with that.

What I am not OK with is the fact that Shuler, in his lust for power, is running an ad which goes beyond simply lying and crosses into the “Serpent in the garden” level of falsehood.
I’m talking about Shuler’s attempt to turn Taylor’s support for the national sales tax into a negative. Shuler is running an ad in which he accuses Taylor of wanting to “make everything more expensive in order to give a tax break to the rich and corporations”.

The truth about the national sales tax is this. If enacted it would eliminate all federal taxes except the sales tax. It would do away with the IRS completely. It would send a rebate check every month to every household equal to the amount sales tax that a person living at the poverty level would have paid the previous month multiplied by the number of people living in the household.

That way the poor would pay no federal tax whatsoever. In fact no one would pay federal tax on the amount of money they made up to the poverty level. People would be taxed only on the income they had over the poverty level.

There would be no personal income tax. No corporate income tax. No capital gains tax. No death tax. Every purchase you make has tax payments built into it. Whether you are buying a car, a house, a new Glock, a week’s worth of groceries or paying your rent you are paying the corporate income taxes for every business in the chain of production.

If you buy a new Ford Taurus you are paying Ford’s tax and the tax for the mining companies who dig the iron that makes the steel and the glass companies that make the windshields and the textile companies that make the seat covers and the petrochemical companies that make the plastic that goes into the dashboard and every other thing that Ford buys to build its cars out of.

Get it? Companies do not pay tax. Taxes are a business expense that they pass along to their customers and the end use buyer (the guy who drives the car) winds up paying ALL the taxes.

The national sales tax eliminates ALL those hidden tax payments in favor of one 23% tax added at the cash register. Under the “Taylor Tax”, as Shuler calls it, EVERYBODY who earns above the poverty level pays in proportion to the amount he spends. Since rich people spend more than poor people they pay more.

It literally can not get fairer than that.

And did I mention that there would be no IRS?

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Yet Shuler is attempting to turn this into a negative!

That 2 point whatever “earthquake” we had the other day. . . That was my head exploding when I heard the Shuler ad.

The national sales tax is right up there equal with effective border control and winning the war as a GOOD THING and lying sack of garbage Shuler is trying to poison the well by painting it as some kind of give away to the plutocrats.

Listen up Shuler, you great steaming pile of weasel feces, the national sales tax is bigger than you and your piss ant political career. It is bigger than Congressman Taylor. It is bigger than Republican or Democrat. So lay the frak off of it! You want to lie about Taylor so you can slime your way into the House because you heard somewhere that it was easy for a congressman to get laid in DC go right ahead. Taylor’s a big boy and can give as good as he gets, but keep your grubby mitts off the best idea anyone has had in this country since Pat Henry said, “give me liberty or give me death”.

For more information click the Fair Tax Fans button on my sidebar.

The MSM's latest voter suppression effort

Here is the latest mainstream media attempt to demoralize Republicans and affect the outcome of next month's elections.

From The Washington Post:

The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.

Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to
keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence.

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates are hammering Republican candidates for backing a failed Iraq policy, and GOP defense of the war is growing muted. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released this week showed that voters are more confident in Democrats' ability to handle the Iraq war than the Republicans' -- a reversal from the last election.

Few officials in either party are talking about an immediate pullout of U.S. combat troops. But interest appears to be growing in several broad ideas. One would be some kind of effort to divide the country along regional lines. Another, favored by many Democrats, is a gradual withdrawal of troops over a set period of time. A third would be a dramatic scaling-back of U.S. ambitions in Iraq, giving up on democracy and focusing only on stability.

Makes it sound like a done deal that we're getting out of Iraq, right? Which "senior Republican" do they use for a source?

One point on which adherents of these sharply different approaches appear to agree is that "staying the course" is fast becoming a dead letter. "I don't believe that we can continue based on an open-ended, unconditional presence," said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, a centrist Maine Republican. "I don't think there's any question about that, that there will be a change" in the U.S. strategy in Iraq after next month's elections.

That's right. Olympia J. Snowe. One of the small number of liberal RINOs in the Senate who, as Ann Coulter said about her fellow RINO Lincoln Chaffee, are too stupid to realize that they are Democrats.

What might someone who might actually be in the loop on the Administration's Iraq plans have to say about this?

White House officials describe the current turmoil over Iraq policy in Washington as an expected byproduct of the upsurge in violence. Press secretary Tony Snow yesterday dismissed a dramatic about-face in policy -- such as a division of the country or phased withdrawal -- as a "non-starter" and called the idea that the White House will seek a course correction in Iraq "a bunch of hooey."

Bush has been adamant that the United States will not withdraw its troops until the Iraqi government can defend itself.

So let's see. A left-wing RINO who only is only about one half step from being a declared enemy of the President says one thing about what the Bush Administration is planning and the President and his official spokesmen say the opposite and the press chooses to believe. . .

I have to admit that part of this has me torn. I have believed from the very first that the best solution to the Iraq problem was to divide the country into three states, Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurd. The only reason that this was not considered was the objections of Turkey. The Turkish government feared that their own captive and oppressed Kurdish population, which lives in the part of Turkey which is adjacent to the Kurdish part of Iraq, would want to join the new Kurdistan.

Malcolm X once observed that if you could remove every last trace of racism from American society that most White people would still prefer to associate mainly with other White people and most Black people would still prefer to associate mainly with other Black people. Because it is a human trait to prefer the company of others whom we consider to be "our own kind". There is nothing wrong with this, it is not evil and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

The fact is that most of the violence in Africa stems from the fact that the borders of the nations were drawn in an arbitrary way by the European colonial powers and cut across tribal boundaries, forcing different tribes to share the same nationality.

Even though the three state option would be the best solution for Iraq it probably will not happen because of the Turkish problem. Anything which destabilizes Turkey would probably lead to a Turkish civil war which would certainly lead to a new Islamist government taking power. Instead of Turkey being a nation which is, on balance, more good than bad (if only slightly) we would end up with another Taliban-style regime. This time in a larger, much more wealthy nation located on the very edge of Europe.

When all factors are considered the best Iraq policy continues to be "stay the course", even if that isn't what people want to hear.

At the end of the day I would still rather have the Islamofascists who are determined to fight the Americans fighting our soldiers on Middle Eastern soil (and being slaughtered by them in the thousands) than fighting our civilians on US soil (and slaughtering them by the thousands).