European links
Mapping wine, beer and spirits belts in Europe.
Life imitating Art Garfunkel: political scandal in Ulster involving Mrs Robinson and much younger lover.
An employer in Britain told that she could not advertise for reliable workers because it discriminated against unreliable workers. Yes, it does: precisely the point, surely?
Norway does not seem to quite grasp this incentive thing finds an unexpected consequence:
that criminal foreigners who serve more than a year in jail will henceforth automatically qualify for welfare. After three years in prison, they will have a right to a government pension and to health coverage. This will be the case even if they have come to Norway illegally. In other words, it pays for foreigners to come to Norway and commit serious crimes - and the more serious the crime, the greater the reward.
Man ordered to pull down a house he had built himself for not getting planning permission.
Farmers protesting in Greece over big spending cuts.
Prince Charles proud to be a stirrer and treated as an enemy of the Enlightenment.
Crime statistics for (pdf) the UK. About Britain’s smallest police officer (she’s 4’10”):
While Port, of Devon and Cornwall police, revealed that he tackles the bigger offenders by hitting them low, Day said that ne'er-do-wells were often stopped in their tracks by the very sight of her.
I think that means she punches them in the goolies.
Protests in the UK about a proposal to have Muslims march through a town that honours British war dead denouncing British soldiers. Arrested Muslim claims calling British soldiers ‘murderers’ was not upsetting anyone because it is was simply the truth. Five are convicted. Pointing out a small inconsistency in their free speech defence.
About how female genital mutilation continues in the UK:
The police face growing criticism for failing to prosecute a single person for carrying out FGM in 25 years; new legislation from 2003 which prohibits taking a girl overseas for FGM has also failed to secure a conviction.
Experts say the lack of convictions, combined with the Government's failure to invest enough money in education and prevention strategies, mean the practice continues to thrive.
French youths celebrated the new year by torching 1,137 cars.
About the dangers confronted by critics of tendencies within the Muslim communities:
In her Monday post, Hege suggested that if all the influential newspapers in Europe had published the Danish cartoons, “it would have been much more difficult to build up the increasingly brutal climate we see now all over Europe: the fact that people are not just the subjects of attacks, and of attempted murder, but are denied virtually all personal freedom in their daily lives, so that Westergaard cannot set foot outside his home without the police on his heels, just as Robert Redeker is living underground in the homeland of Voltaire.”
About the trial of Geert Wilders for speaking his mind:
To read the official summons addressed to him-a sitting member of the Dutch Parliament and the head of a major Dutch political party-is all but surreal. It is to feel as if one has been hurled back into a distant, pre-Enlightenment era; it is to feel that in one fell swoop, the illusion of freedom in Europe has been extinguished. …
The charges are itemized. First, Wilders is charged with having “intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” Second, with having “incited to hatred of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” Third, with having “incited to discrimination . . . against people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” Fourth, with having “incited to hatred of people, i.e. non-Western immigrants and/or Moroccans, based on their race.” And fifth, with having “incited to discrimination . . . against people, i.e. non-Western immigrants and/or Moroccans, based on their race.”
Supporting these charges is a long list of statements from Wilders, many purely factual, others opinions that follow logically from those facts. Among them: “The demographic composition of the population is the biggest problem of the Netherlands” and “those Moroccan boys are really violent. They beat up people because of their sexual orientation.” Absurdly, among the statements cited in support of the charges against Wilders are his direct quotations from the Koran in Fitna, such as “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers in fight, smite at their necks; at length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them” and “Fight them until there is no dissension, and the religion is entirely Allah’s.” The summons also mentions footage shown in Fitna of imams preaching against unbelievers: “What makes Allah happy? Allah is happy if non-Muslims are being killed” and “Destroy the unbelievers and polytheists, your (Allah’s) enemies and the enemies of the religion. Allah, count them and kill them up to the very last of them. And do not spare a single one.”
In short, Wilders is charged with stating facts about Islam and its adherents; drawing logical conclusions from, and forming opinions based reasonably on, those facts; correctly quoting the Koran; and making a film that shows actual imams doing actual preaching and that shows other Muslims expressing violently hateful opinions about Western liberties, gays, Jews, and so forth. And for having done these things, Wilders is deemed by the public prosecutor to have offended Muslims and incited hatred and discrimination against Muslims and other non-Western immigrants, and thereby to have committed serious crimes punishable under the laws of the Netherlands.
The indictment (pdf) (in English). Interview with Wilders.
Life imitating Art Garfunkel: political scandal in Ulster involving Mrs Robinson and much younger lover.
An employer in Britain told that she could not advertise for reliable workers because it discriminated against unreliable workers. Yes, it does: precisely the point, surely?
Norway does not seem to quite grasp this incentive thing finds an unexpected consequence:
that criminal foreigners who serve more than a year in jail will henceforth automatically qualify for welfare. After three years in prison, they will have a right to a government pension and to health coverage. This will be the case even if they have come to Norway illegally. In other words, it pays for foreigners to come to Norway and commit serious crimes - and the more serious the crime, the greater the reward.
Man ordered to pull down a house he had built himself for not getting planning permission.
Farmers protesting in Greece over big spending cuts.
Prince Charles proud to be a stirrer and treated as an enemy of the Enlightenment.
Crime statistics for (pdf) the UK. About Britain’s smallest police officer (she’s 4’10”):
While Port, of Devon and Cornwall police, revealed that he tackles the bigger offenders by hitting them low, Day said that ne'er-do-wells were often stopped in their tracks by the very sight of her.
I think that means she punches them in the goolies.
Protests in the UK about a proposal to have Muslims march through a town that honours British war dead denouncing British soldiers. Arrested Muslim claims calling British soldiers ‘murderers’ was not upsetting anyone because it is was simply the truth. Five are convicted. Pointing out a small inconsistency in their free speech defence.
About how female genital mutilation continues in the UK:
The police face growing criticism for failing to prosecute a single person for carrying out FGM in 25 years; new legislation from 2003 which prohibits taking a girl overseas for FGM has also failed to secure a conviction.
Experts say the lack of convictions, combined with the Government's failure to invest enough money in education and prevention strategies, mean the practice continues to thrive.
French youths celebrated the new year by torching 1,137 cars.
About the dangers confronted by critics of tendencies within the Muslim communities:
In her Monday post, Hege suggested that if all the influential newspapers in Europe had published the Danish cartoons, “it would have been much more difficult to build up the increasingly brutal climate we see now all over Europe: the fact that people are not just the subjects of attacks, and of attempted murder, but are denied virtually all personal freedom in their daily lives, so that Westergaard cannot set foot outside his home without the police on his heels, just as Robert Redeker is living underground in the homeland of Voltaire.”
About the trial of Geert Wilders for speaking his mind:
To read the official summons addressed to him-a sitting member of the Dutch Parliament and the head of a major Dutch political party-is all but surreal. It is to feel as if one has been hurled back into a distant, pre-Enlightenment era; it is to feel that in one fell swoop, the illusion of freedom in Europe has been extinguished. …
The charges are itemized. First, Wilders is charged with having “intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” Second, with having “incited to hatred of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” Third, with having “incited to discrimination . . . against people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion.” Fourth, with having “incited to hatred of people, i.e. non-Western immigrants and/or Moroccans, based on their race.” And fifth, with having “incited to discrimination . . . against people, i.e. non-Western immigrants and/or Moroccans, based on their race.”
Supporting these charges is a long list of statements from Wilders, many purely factual, others opinions that follow logically from those facts. Among them: “The demographic composition of the population is the biggest problem of the Netherlands” and “those Moroccan boys are really violent. They beat up people because of their sexual orientation.” Absurdly, among the statements cited in support of the charges against Wilders are his direct quotations from the Koran in Fitna, such as “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers in fight, smite at their necks; at length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them” and “Fight them until there is no dissension, and the religion is entirely Allah’s.” The summons also mentions footage shown in Fitna of imams preaching against unbelievers: “What makes Allah happy? Allah is happy if non-Muslims are being killed” and “Destroy the unbelievers and polytheists, your (Allah’s) enemies and the enemies of the religion. Allah, count them and kill them up to the very last of them. And do not spare a single one.”
In short, Wilders is charged with stating facts about Islam and its adherents; drawing logical conclusions from, and forming opinions based reasonably on, those facts; correctly quoting the Koran; and making a film that shows actual imams doing actual preaching and that shows other Muslims expressing violently hateful opinions about Western liberties, gays, Jews, and so forth. And for having done these things, Wilders is deemed by the public prosecutor to have offended Muslims and incited hatred and discrimination against Muslims and other non-Western immigrants, and thereby to have committed serious crimes punishable under the laws of the Netherlands.
The indictment (pdf) (in English). Interview with Wilders.