On hiatus

Enjoying a much deserved (well, that is my contention, and I stick with it) vacation abroad. Away from computers and into the great wide open.

Service will resume in 10 days, or so...

What motivates a greenie?

Jeremy Clarkson has tested Honda's own version of the Toyota Prius (or 'Smugmobile' according to highly respected author and scholar Jeremy Clarkson), and it isn't all that it promises to be. In the Times mr. Clarkson has a three page savaging of this hatchback for the sanctimonious. Read it here, it contains a few good laughs.

It also has this stunning revelation of what is the root cause of the climiticians zeal:

Of course, I am well aware that there are a great many people in the world who believe that the burning of fossil fuels will one day kill all the Dutch and that something must be done.

Didn't know that, did you?

The death of parliamentary democracy

On EU Referendum we get a deeper look at the significance of the scandal over the expense accounts of members of parliament and the resignation of the Speaker of the House, Michael Martin. Rather important are the observations on the role of the EUnion in this affair, citing the hand over of parliamentary power to Brussels per the various EU treaties as the root cause for the rot in the system.

It was [the European Communities Act] which enables governments to implement what is now EU law, often encompassing hundreds of pages of provisions which dwarf all but the most ambitious Bills. And so convenient did the government find the process that it has adopted it for most of its legislation, effectively robbing Parliament of its meaning.

It is this loss of authority that lies at the heart of the current crisis. Long before it broke, people already had begun to realise that much of what went on in Westminster was a hollow charade. The "expenses" issue is simply the "rock" on which the crashing waves of public contempt have broken.

Thus, fixing the expenses system is going to have no effect whatsoever. Even purging the current Parliament and replacing it with a brand new, squeaky-clean cast of actors would not make the slightest bit of difference. Parliament has been broken for decades and fiddling with the petty cash system is not going to mend it.

As observed by EU Referendum, the sacrifice of the Speaker will do nothing in remedying the systemic rot in the parliamentary democratic system that has ruled the British Isles for so long. Instead, it will likely finish off what meager anorexic vestiges of democracy Britain has left.

However, since Parliament has largely been relegated to "procedural and ceremonial" matters, it is only appropriate that the Speaker should be allocated a similar role. But a Parliament which is no longer in charge of regulating its own affairs – and thus disempowered - can no longer lay claim to regulating the conduct of government.

In the fullness of time, I suppose, the new body – which we could call the Parliamentary Regulatory Agency Temporary (or "Offtrough" for short) – will have to be brought under the control of the about-to-be formed European Parliamentary Regulatory Agency. Clearly, under the Single Market, different rules cannot be allowed for different national parliaments.

Then the take-over will be complete, with Speaker Martin being remembered for his scorched earth policy which finally destroyed the very idea of an independent parliament in Westminster.

If the diagnosis is correct (and I see no reason to doubt it) there is a lesson to be learned for other parliamentary democracies, like our own Dutch parliamentary monarchy. We've been co-opted into this system a good time longer then the UK. Moreover, consecutive governments have shown a blind eagerness to join every and any silly idea coming from the EUnion federalistas. Hence, with our own Second and First Chamber being hollowed out, much as British parliament is, we will likely see a repeat of sorts here in the Netherlands of the depressing spectacle we're witnessing across the Little Pond. Unless parliament is dedicated to defend and regain it's independence, it is of no use. And we all sit around, watching it crumble, untill there is nothing left and we can begin our lives as sad little subjects of the region North West of a 'post-democratic' EUnion.

The capital of Eurabia?

From the Italian Catholic magazine Chiesa, we get an outsiders view of the impact of islam on the Netherlands in general and Rotterdam in particular.

Here entire neighborhoods look like the Middle East, women walk around veiled, the mayor is a Muslim, sharia law is applied in the courts and the theaters. An extensive report from the most Islamized city in Europe.

Go over and read it for yourself. It is a bit of a depressing read, however. Listing a number of incidents, partly covered on this blog as well, together in one piece just shows how far we've let ourselves be backed into a corner.

Let's meet the director who has brought sharia to the Dutch theaters, Salaheddine Benchikhi. He is young, modern, confident, and speaks perfect English. "I defend the decision to separate the men from the women, because here there is freedom of expression and organization. If people can't sit where they want to, that is discrimination. There are two million Muslims in Holland, and they want our tradition to become public, everything is evolving. Mayor Aboutaleb has supported me."

I didn't know that last part, by the way. Maybe I need to revise the earlier, somewhat favourable opinion of the man.

(thanks to Martin Bosma)

Politicians: Worse then car salesmen

Between climate hysteria, the EUnion, the Turnip and cultural marxist coddling of everything and everyone human nature normally resists, politics is not what it used to be. For years the debate about the 'chasm between politics and citizen' revolved around the question of how to 'better explain' the decisions in parliament to keep the citizens involved.

But as for instance the ratification of the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty showed, despite a resounding 'NO!' in a referendum: When push comes to shove the citizen does not matter, only career prospects matter.

But 'the citizen' is getting fed up. Binnenlands Bestuur, a magazine for government workers reported today that the trust in politicians is at an all time low. Only 12% of the Dutch trust our members of parliament, putting them below football players (18%) and even car salesmen (14%).

Below is the entire list.

1. Firemen - 93%
2. Airline pilots - 91%
3. Nurses and paramedics - 91%
4. Doctors - 89%
5. Pharmacists - 87%
6. Farmers - 82%
7. Teachers - 76%
8. Police - 65%
9. Judges - 56%
10. Meteorologists%
11. Priests/ministers%
12. Taxi drivers - 44%
13. Lawyers - 40%
14. Travel agents - 34%
15. Journalists - 34%
16. Union leaders - 33%
17. Financial advisers - 18%
18. Football players - 18%
19. Car salesmen - 14%
20. Politicians - 12%

What is surprising about this list is the high score that journalists manage to achieve...

The important thing about the low score is that this isn't a government approval score only (our current government couldn't count on being very popular right from their dreary start). No, this score covers all politicians, coalition and opposition. Apparently we don't trust any of them father then we can throw them.

This state of affairs doesn't spell a lot of good news. Best case scenario would seem to be everybody going about their daily business, while paying as little attention as possible to the unreality based drama emanating from The Hague. Much more likely is a scenario where our small, swampy corner of the world descends into either a state of low-level anarchy or (as present tendencies would indicate) one of soft tyranny.

Of course neither state of affairs will be sustainable. It would only mean a postponement of the inevitable (bloody insurrection or civil war), with the added costs in human misery that such would cause. In general, it would seem to be fair to pause and realise: 'Houston, we have a BIG problem!'.

Yet our current crop of 'leaders' seem to be unable to adjust their 'political reality' to the day-to-day reality that the average Netherlander experiences. Just today, our intrepid PM, in an interview with Metro, excoriated Wilders' supposed lack of 'answer to "the problems" around the integration of Muslims'. Yet, when he maintains that

tough action is already being taken against rioters, sentences are being stepped up, recidivists are tackled severely. (...)

Balkenende acknowledges that Moroccan youths often misbehave. "I get far too many letters from people who dare not go on public transport and who are afraid on the street. This must not be happening."

the average citizen will recognize this for what it is: pretty talk, but very cheap. "This must not be happening", indeed. Yet it does, dear Jan-Peter, yet it does.

Moreover, back in the real world our Labour minister of the Interior, Guusje ter Horst, is seriously suggesting cuts in the police budget that would reduce the number of officers on the streets, to battle the effects of the financial crisis. Thus Jan-Peter Balkenende, in the eyes of a large majority of Netherlanders, gives the impression of being just another 'empty suit', using empty promises in a vain attempt to placate an ever more sceptical electorate.

How long do they think they can keep this up before something awful happens?

A terribly expensive disaster

Denmark is arguably first and foremost when it comes to the implementation of wind harvested electricity. Thus the experiences with wind energy in Denmark may serve as an example for the rest of the green inclined world.

But the news isn't all that good, as Michael Trebilcock describes in the National Post.

Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).

The experience in Germany is similar, where additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery. Thus it is that academics are now estimating that more wind turbines may actually lead to an INCREASE in CO2 emissions, due to the extra plants one needs to back up the turbines in times of reduced wind. Added to that are the environmental impact effects of the turbines themselves on wildlife, farm animals and the landscape.

That would not be so bad if the electricity produced on wind farms was reasonably priced. But the price per kWh is the highest of all alternatives. Additionally, the jobs created in the green sector do not offset the jobs lost due to increased energy costs and diversion of tax money to green subsidies. A study focussing on Spain calculated that for every job created in the green subsidized sector, 2.2 jobs were lost elsewhere.

This is why Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it "a terribly expensive disaster". One can only agree.

(h/t De Dagelijkse Standaard)

The first crack

We have reported before about the smoking ban in the Netherlands, and the attempts to have it overturned (or upheld, as the case may be). See here and here.

At the time we reported how judges in Breda ruled the smoking ban in bars and cafés in breach of Article 1 of the Dutch constitution. The court in Breda said the smoking ban treated the owners of cafés with and without additional personnel differently. According to the court this amounts to a breach of the non-discrimination principle laid down in Article 1 of the Dutch constitution. ence, it acquitted the owner of the Victoria café in Breda, voiding the 1200 euro fine and a lock-down of 6 months.

In the aftermath Minister Klink (p) vowed to appeal the verdict. About the then upcoming hearing at the Breda appeals court, where the first blow to the smoking ban was struck, we predicted at the time that our government would see to it that it

will undoubtedly have received guidelines from the Justice department, pointing out the treaty obligations we as a nation have in implementing every brain fart emanating from the hallowed halls of Brussels, by the time the appeal hits this august body.

How wrong I was! I usually hate that, but in this case I can happily (if somewhat flabbergasted) report that the Breda appeals upheld the decision of the lower court: Appeal court overturns smoking ban.

Small cafes without staff do not have to comply with the ban on smoking, the appeal court in Den Bosch ruled on Tuesday.

The court said there are 'no clear legal grounds for introducing and upholding such a ban in small cafes and bars,' the Telegraaf reported on its website.

That means the tobacco law which came into effect in July 2008 does not apply to small cafes without employees, the paper quoted the court as saying.

Especially the verdict that there is 'no clear legal grounds for introducing and upholding such a ban in small cafés and bars' must really hurt!

Al this means that in practice small pubs without personnel are breaking out the ashtrays again. The minister has vowed yet again to go to appeal before the Court of Cassation (the Supreme Court, if you will). In theory these learned justices may still overturn the verdicts by the Bread Court and Appeals Court. But given the hue amount of public resentment against the ban, it Court of Cassation also may just be moved to interpret the law in a favourable manner.

Later this week there will be an emergency session of Second Chamber, called by the liberal conservative VVD and Geert Wilders' PVV. The former want guarantees from minister Klink that small café owners are henceforth left alone. The latter, unsurprisingly, want the whole ban lifted. A lot of commentary is about heaping scorn on the poor minister, with some even suggestion the minister should resign over this resounding defeat.

Rather dismayingly: Nowhere in the reporting on this surprising verdict can we find any hint about the presence of that large, gold-starred, blue elephant in the room. To repeat ourselves (and yes, I do get tired of reading myself, sometimes): In all of this minister Klink is nothing more then a mid-level functionary doing the bidding of our real masters: the EUnion. Measured against the discretionary powers he has in matters such as this, Klinks ministerial salary is a gross overvaluation of his position.

And that is also why this verdict today is of some importance: Here a Dutch Appeals rules the blanket ban 'suggested' by the EUnion in violation of the law, despite the fact that the law says we have to abide by the treaties. They in turn spell out the supreme authority that the unelected cabal of bureaucrats in Brussels. More then that, it would seem to me that todays verdict reinforces similar verdicts in Belgium, Germany and elsewhere. Hence, today's verdict is a direct challenge to the bosses in Brussels. It is an assertion of national power over transnational dictat.

It remains to be seen how the EUnion and their gophers in our government respond. But, as Elsevier reported (NL), minister Klink has already stated his tacit support for 'creative solutions' to circumvent the smoking ban. Solutions such as serving the drinks from a back room or storage locker, so that customers in the main room can freely light up. Is out local government tiring of Brussels meddling? Is the impending total failure of the smoking ban the first real crack in the EUnion?

Hope springs eternal... And until then:

The real question

With the upcoming elections for the European Parliament (around KV and elsewhere better known as the toy parliament), you'd expect the daily news shows to focus on some of the more pressing issues surrounding the EUnion and it's institutions. The actual status of the Constitution Lisbon Treaty (dead or undead) aka The Turnip, for instance.

But noooo, the most pressing issue seems to be whether Neelie Smit Kroes get to keep her EUnion commissariat. She, by the way, recently repeated the lie (or a very selective reading of the truth, if you prefer that post-modernist euphemism) that 'the EU does not have more civil servants than a medium-sized Dutch town'. We've dealt with that claim before here.

Some lip-service is paid to the 'democratic deficit' of the EUnion, somehow suggesting that the fraction of zero is something other, something more, then zero. For a deficit to exist there must be a democracy that is deficient. And deficient or not, democracy is not what the EUnion is or does. Period.

In two complementary posts, EU Referendum deals with the notion of 'democratic deficit'. The first post is in reaction to some airheaded pontification of a left-wing columnist I've never heard of. When this particular airhead suggests taht the only way to remedy the 'deficit' is to go out and vote, Mr. North answers by putting the finger on the sore spot that is 'democracy' in the halls of Brussels:

Of course, some "citizens" sent the union a message, in the French, Dutch and Irish referendums. And a fat lot of good that did. Sending a bunch of low-grade nonentities to join the gravy train in Brussels delivers precisely what message?

The second post is a report on a debate held in the UK, with the title "Westminster or Brussels: Who rules Britain?". To mainland European eyes it is something of a wonder that such debates would actually be held. I mean, why can't we have a debate in De Rode Hoed in Amsterdam around the title "The Hague or Brussels: Who actually rules the Netherlands?".

Of course, as Mr. North also points out, the question is readily answered. The Hague as the administrative centre of the Netherlands has been rendered to nothing more then a collection of gophers for the EUnion, receiving instruction from Brussels and the duty (by EU treaties) to execute them.

So the debate spun out around the real question of the evening. And I dare say it is a question we all (we bland huddled citizens of the EUnion) should contemplate thoroughly in the coming years.

The real question was whether this was something to be approved of, deeply disliked or sort of approved of, if serious reforms are introduced.

This is a serious question, going to the heart of our own commitment to freedom and democracy, since

without anyone noticing it, our parliamentary system has been destroyed with power handed over to other institutions that neither the parliamentarians nor the people of this country can control, through treaties and ECJ decisions.

This is the fundamental question. Whether or not we still have anything to say about the direction of our own country has already been answered for us. No we don't. The question now is: Do we approve of being sold out to an undemocratic, potentially tyrannical (1) regime that is accountable to no-one? And if not, what are we going to do?

Anyway, if you want to read more about the nature of the 'democratic deficit' I highly recommend the two links given above. Read it all, as they say.


(1) And that potential is very real. With no checks and balances whatsoever built into the system, corruption is already well-established with the EUnion. Now we just have to wait for some-one to use that for his own particular power play. And if Friedrich Hayek is to be believed (and I don't see why one should not believe him) it is just a matter of time. Such is human nature, alas.

Sunday linkage

Some links we thought interesting for your perusal:

The Lambeth Walk has a depressingly accurate appraisal of the current situation in this swampy corner of the world: Can the Netherlands be saved?

From earlier this week, by way of Gates of Vienna: The destruction of Dutch culture.

A few days old already, but we haven't had the time to blog it. Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote an op-ed for First Post: Europe has surrendered to islam.

Former EU chief accountant: The EU is is irredeemably corrupt and unreformable.

And lastly, the birth of a classic that remains contemporary today: 1984. The masterpiece that killed George Orwell.

A self-solving problem

One of the major points in Geert Wilders' PVV campaign is a substantial reduction in size of government and the civil servant corps. With employment law in the Netherlands being what it is, this would seem to be a very costly (severance pay, litigation, retainers) and nigh on impossible task.

However, civil servant magazine (yes, we have one of those) re.Public (NL) reports that more then half of civil servants employed by the national government will refuse to work for a PVV government. Some choice quotes from re.Public:

'Working for the PVV will result of a problem of conscience'
'I became a civil servant to do my bit building society, not to tear it down.'
'There are limits to the loyalty of a civil servant'

Thus it would seem that the problem of a bloated burocracy will be solved the day the first PVV minister or state secretary takes office. All those brave souls will no doubt tender their resignation at once and look for gainful employment elsewhere... After all, kicking around responsibility for a decision indefinitely is a skill highly sought after in the commercial sector (!).

If I were a mean and petty person, I would point out to these heroes of conscience that for those five years that the Netherlands were ruled by the Nazis precious few civil servants found the limits of their loyalty trespassed upon, even when the trains from Westerbork to Auschwitz and Sobibor started their regular schedule. But I am not, so I won't.

But I would like to point out that a civil servant is employed, not by a government, but by the people. The government only appoints them on behalf of all of us. If then the Dutch people by majority want a government that includes the PVV, I really don't see the moral justification of refusing doing ones duty. A government is democratically elected, after all (unlike the Seyss-Inquart 'government' of '40-'45, who could count on ready co-operation).

Much of this is confirmed by Rinus van Schendelen, professor Politicology at Erasmus Univerity of Rotterdam:

One of the demands of civil servants is loyalty to the boss. It's as simple as that. There is no legal basis whatsoever on which a civil servant can refuse to work for a PVV'er. That attitude is not of this age. Civil servants must respect the voter.

The PVV has in the mean time asked Interior minister ter Horst if a refusal of duty would breach the oath of office and what options a public administrator has to fire a civil servant thus breaching his oath. Just in case...

Reality bites... Again

Two pieces of news this weekend that show that in Amsterdam at least authorities are slowly waking up from their multicul slumber and look at the world with at least on bleary eye open.

First, police commissioner Leen Schaap, in an interview with Amsterdam daily Het Parool (NL) admits that the interminable aid given to 'youth' and their parent in the Amsterdam dsitrict Zuid-Oost has failed and is failing spectacularly.

'Boys that hung out on the streets just last year, are now committing armed robberies and burglaries all over the country,' says commissioner Leen Schaap, chief of police in Amsterdam South. He also has indications that the boys are trafficking drugs. 'The enormous aid operation set up in recent years, is all well and good, but the families where it truly matters are the families we don't reach. Thus we must conclude that the interminable aid as it currently is, is pointless'.

The police argues for sharpening the law so as to give aid workers more power of enforcement to get through to families that refuse of frustrate the help they receive.

District alderman Egbert de Vries added that about half of the families where problems exist with criminal 'youth' refuse help, because 'they don't like being confronted with their failings as unbringers'. One wonders: does he remember the Swiss example?

Second, this Saturday the council of Amsterdam district De Baarsjes (rather well-known to regular readers of this blog) has cancelled the co-operation with a number of mosques in the district. According to Elsevier (NL) in the 'contract', signed in 2004 by a number of mosques and the city district council, mosque authorities promised to 'engage' radicalising flock members. If criminal activity was detected, the mosques were to bring charges with the local police.

To the surprise of no-one but the Baarsjes council, the results of signing the contract has had zero result. No charges were brought and no radicalising youth were 'engaged'. Thus, the council has cancelled the contract. It would seem that Amsterdam authorities now have first hand experience of the concept of Ketman.

But all is not lost(!). District council president Godfried Lambriex will keep open the 'dialogue' on issues like radicalisation. Good luck with that.

Baby steps, I know, but that (some) Amsterdam authorities are finally, finally coming around to recognizing that the multicul way of dealing with problems is not paying dividends is encouraging. I just hope that new-found insight is lasting.

Rememberance and Liberation

Tonight we remember our fallen. At 8 pm local, two minutes of silence are observed nation wide (or, that is the idea, anyway) and numerous ceremonies at WW2 monuments around the Netherlands will be held in the memory of those that gave their lives in the battle against a totalitarian regime that specifically targeted Jews, christians communists, homosexuals and anyone else that did not wish to submit to the hate-filled ideology of this regime (and for once I am not talking about islam). ANd tomorrow is Liberation Day in the Netherlands.

Both days historically are dedicated to deliverance from the Nazi regime reigning during WW2. However, over the last years an unfortunate tendency has developed, in which we are told that we need to 'generalize' the meaning of both days to stay 'inclusive and modern'. Hence, Remembrance Day is presented by the organizing committee (Het Committee 4 en 5 mei) as a day to commemorate all victims of all wars. Presumably, this includes the facsimiles of human life populating the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Sadrists and Al-Qaeda jihadis in Iraq that perished at the hands of Allied forces.

As Stan de Jong (NL) observes: Commemorating everything is tantamount to commemorating nothing, making Remembrance Day an empty and dreary formality. No, if Remembrance Day is to be of continuing value, we should use it to keep alive the memory of all those that resisted tyranny and fought for our freedom. People who acted from a deep seated conviction that man is supposed to be free and any legitimate government answers to its subjects. People like Johannes Post (p), Hannie Schaft, Frits de Zwerver (rev. Frits Slomp) and all members of the Dutch Resistance during the Nazi occupation. Members of a tiny (too tiny) minority that stood up to dehumazing totalitarianism and braved the consequences. People to look to as an example of the alternative, of taking charge of your life and in what manner, free or unfree, you want to lead it. These, and all those who are like them, are the people the memory of who we need to keep alive. For ourselves our children and our childrens' children. There is no worthier reason to keep the 4th of May.

[UPDATE001] How not to celebrate Liberation Day: In Rotterdam the Liberation Day festivities were hideously marred by rioting youth, who apparently had planned their disgusting misbehaviour in advance. Adriana has the whole story over at Digital Journal.

Dutch police are not fond of pulling their guns - but on Wednesday, they were forced to fire warning shots to keep the crowd away from them. Some news reports claim that the riots were caused by a 'hard core of Feyenoord footbal club supporters' -- the police were encircled by the aggressive crowd and forced to fire a series of warning shots. No-one was injured. The festivities in Rotterdam's city centre ended abruptly afer this event. Since there's still an investigation going on, nobody knows who the rioters were.

First Queensday, now Liberation Day. Is this what the Dutch have come to? Thoughts of emigration surface yet again.

Fjordman file updates

[12 - 5] On Brussels Journal: Why Muslims Like Hitler, but Not Mozart.

It is instructive to consider the fact that Middle Eastern Muslims, too, had access to Greek musical theory, yet they decided not use it, just like they did not utilize the Greek artistic legacy. Both music and pictorial arts were integrated into religious worship in Christian Europe in a way that never happened in the Islamic world. In fact, it was Gregorian chant and the growth of polyphonic music in medieval European monasteries and cathedrals which established the musical tradition that would eventually culminate in the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven centuries later. There was no Mozart or Beethoven in the Islamic world, just like there was no Copernicus, Galileo or Newton.

[30 - 4] On Gates of Vienna: Sweden Tops European Rape League — But Why?

Ethnologist Maria Bäckman, in her study “Whiteness and gender,” has followed a group of Swedish girls in the suburb of Rinkeby outside Stockholm, where natives have been turned into a minority of the inhabitants due to immigration. The subjects “may encounter prejudices such as the idea that Swedish girls act and dress in a sexually provocative way or that blonde girls are easy.” Bäckman relates that several of the Swedish girls she interviewed stated that they had dyed their hair to avoid sexual harassment. They experienced that being blonde involves old men staring at you, cars honking their horns and boys calling you “whore.”

[23 - 4] On Brussels Journal: Why We Need Germany.

I’m tired of people who are busy losing this world war because they are still obsessed with the previous one, which ended generations ago. Anti-Nazism has mutated into a permanent witch-hunt on an imaginary enemy. The notion that “neo-Nazis” constitute a prominent group today is nonsense. The most dangerous people by far are those running the European Union, who are busy dismantling European civilization and enlarging the borders of the EU to include the Middle East and North Africa, thus flooding their own countries with tens of millions of Muslims and other hostile aliens without consulting the native population. This makes the EU the largest criminal entity on the planet, preoccupied with destroying an entire continent, dismantling the greatest civilization that has ever existed and replacing the native population with others.

[23 - 4] On Jihad Watch: A Critical Look at The House of Wisdom by Jonathan Lyons.

Jonathan Lyons is not too reliable or balanced in his writings about the history of science, either. He admits that none of the scholars in the Islamic world ever did anything as bold as placing the Earth in orbit around the Sun, as Copernicus did, but he claims that “highly sophisticated Arab scientists” facilitated this great breakthrough. So why didn’t these Muslim scholars make the same breakthrough on their own when they had the same starting point?

[21 - 4] Away from his usual haunts, on La Yijad en Eurabia: A History of Mechanical Clocks‏

While the early production of mechanical clocks was centered in countries such as Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France and England, tiny, landlocked Switzerland was eventually to become more closely associated in the popular imagination with the production of mechanical clocks and watches than any other nation in the world. During the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, the reformer Jean Calvin (1509-1564) in Geneva had no use for ornaments and vanities in a city that once had a strong jewelry manufacture, but strict Calvinists were willing to make an exception for watches.

RECENT FJORDMAN
Why Muslims Like Hitler, but Not Mozart
Sweden Tops European Rape League — But Why?
Why We Need Germany
A Critical Look at The House of Wisdom by Jonathan Lyons
A History of Mechanical Clocks‏
The Self-Defeat of the United States
Mathematics and Religion
Islam and the Decline of Greek Culture: A Critical Look at John Freely's Book “Aladdin’s Lamp”
“The House of Wisdom” by Jonathan Lyons: A Brief Review
Islamic Jihad vs. the Western Way of War
Alhazen, Kepler and the History of Optics
Why Asians Didn’t Invent Space Travel
The History of Optics, part 6
The History of Optics, part 5
The Decline of the English-Speaking World

More Fjordman files here.

Hello... Goodbye

If anything, this photo (AFP) shows unequivocally why Turkey does not belong in a league of civilized nations, including the EUnion: Turkish PM Recip Erdogan held a face-to-face with Muqtada Al-Sadr, the cretin that tried to import the Islamic Revolution to Iraq at the behest of his Iranian masters. In the process he was responsible for dozens of killings of fellow Iraqi citizens. After two years of hiding out in Iran Al-Sadr resurfaced in the company of Turkish PM Erdogan.

According to The Telegraph:

Mr Sadr, a Shia extremist who leads the Mahdi Army militia, is believed to have spent the last two years in Iran. In 2004, his gunmen began an uprising against American troops in Baghdad and British forces in the Shia heartland of southern Iraq and Mr Sadr briefly became the leading opponent of the foreign occupation.

But his militia suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Iraq's new army last year and Mr Sadr's followers have since turned to mainstream politics.

urkey has a vital interest in bringing stability to neighbouring Iraq and curbing Iranian influence. Mr Sadr met both Recep Tayyip Erodgan, the Turkish prime minister, and President Abdullah Gul in Ankara on Friday.

The talks concentrated on "security in Iraq and the promotion of links between the parties", according to Anatolia, a Turkish news agency.

Security in Iraq... Somehow those words sit well in a sentence that includes the name Muqtada Al-Sadr. And as for Turkey: Do we really, really want a fellow EUnion member state that treats the uncivilized, primitive likes of Al Sadr as serious partners in peace and security talks?

h/t Gatewat Pundit