Flyttedag

Ja, så sker det.

Jeg synes ikke rigtigt, jeg har været leveringsdygtig i reelle tirader i efterhånden lang tid. Dermed er overskriften på denne blog også holdt op med at være dækkende.

Jeg holder derfor flyttedag, og vil for fremtiden være at finde på bloggen Observant.

Vi ses

Henrik

"Islam er en fredens religion"

Måske den fred, man finder på en kirkegård. Fra en almindelig torsdag i november:

Afghanistan: Afgjan "rebel attacks" kill nine

Argentina: Buenos Aires bomber "identified"

Irak: Bomb attack on Baghdad restaurant

Jordan: "Al-Qaeda link" to Jordan blasts

Frankrig: Curfew for riot-hit French towns

Indonesien: Bali bomb maker confirmed dead

Henrik

"Ofre"

Jeg har den sidste lille uges tid ikke postet ret meget på bloggen, og den næste uge ser heller ikke så lovende ud - den er totalt pakket, desværre.

Der er idag imidlertid en historie, der får blodet til at koge i mine årer.

Ingen kan vel efterhånden have overset, at de muslimske indvandrere i Frankrig er gået amok, og nu på 10. dag hærger landet. Flere tusinde biler er blevet sat i flammer sammen med gud ved hvor mange skoler, børnehaver og andre offentlige bygninger. En handicappet kvinde er også blevet overhældt med benzin og sat ild til. Hun overlevede, men med alvorlige forbrændinger.

Alle har hørt om de to knægte, hvis selvpåførte dødsfald udløser det hele.

Men hvem har hørt om Jean-Claude Irvoas (51)?

Jean-Claude Irvoas var ude at køre en tur i sin bil med kone og datter, og steg ud af bilen for at tage et billede. Istedet blev han overfaldet af tre arabere og tævet ihjel for øjnene af sin familie.

Det burde være nok til at få mit blod til at koge, men Observers behandling af sagen får det næsten til at fordampe. Fuld offerrolledyrkning af de to knægte i toppen af artiklen, komplet med deres uskyld og "devastated" familier. Helt nede i bunden, i de sidste tre afsnit, kommer følgende:

Yet in a country where 28,000 cars have been burnt on housing estates this year alone, Sarkozy's gamble for the intolerant right-wing vote could still pay off. In today's Le Monde, the Interior Minister is unrepentant in a personal opinion piece titled 'Our strategy is the right one'.

Last week, on the day Bouna and Ziad were killed, Jean-Claude Irvoas, 51, got out of his car in Epinay-sur-Seine to take a photograph. As his wife and daughter sat in the car, Irvoas was attacked by three men, said to be Arabs from a nearby housing estate, and savagely beaten. He died in hospital later that evening. While speaking of the perpetrators, Sarkozy speaks to France's 'victims' - and they don't live in Clichy-sous-Bois or Aulnay-sous-Bois.

If in the past the 'louts' were forgotten, it looks like they could now be used as pawns by France's politicians.

En dræbt familiefar, hans sønderknuste kone og datter kvalificerer ikke til et enkelt afsnit, ikke engang til at være ofre, de er det kun i anførselstegn - "ofre" - og er uanset kun en brik i en ond, ond højrefløjspolitikers søgen efter intolerante højrefløjsvælgere.

Jeg har lyst til at brække mig.

UPDATE:

Til dem der, som jeg, har lyst til at lade Observer/Guardian høre for det her, er der følgende adresser at vælge imellem;

• Nyhedsredaktionen - home@guardian.co.uk
• Udenrigsredaktionen - foreign@guardian.co.uk
• Læsernes redaktør/ombudsmand - Ian Mayes, reader@guardian.co.uk

Henrik

Dem kan man ikke andet end grine af

Islamiske mindreværdskomplekser bliver mere og mere tossede. Nu er der tilløb til dannelse af en organisation, der skal tvinge FN til at gå væk fra den alment anerkendte kalender, der udgår fra Kristi fødsel.

The facts: The United Nations Organization that supposedly speaks and rules impartially for all nations of the Earth, is still using the Christian calendar which is viewed as being disrespectful for all other religions of the world. ..


Why should Muslim or Buddhist countries have to participate in a world’s organization that denies their dignity by using another religion’s calendar?

Isn’t the use of this Christian calendar by the UN evidence that this organization is a puppet whose strings are pulled by the western Christian powers? ..

The proposed action: To put enough pressure on your national government so that they, in turn, force the UN to be respectful of non-Christian countries and people by adopting a non-religious official calendar.

How can your own government betray your Muslim faith by accepting to ratify treaties at the UN using the Christian calendar?

Hvad blev der af buddhisterne og de andre religioner?

Isn’t the UN clearly saying that the Christian faith has superiority over the Muslim faith? If not, why impose on Muslim governments the ratification of official UN documents using the Christian calendar?

Kærestens reaktion (hun har studeret litteratur): "Det der er fuldstændigt lige som feminisme. Det er akkurat lige så søgt". Opfølgeren kunne hun ikke andet end grine af:

After so many years of Christian insults to the Muslim through the UN’s approval of a Christian calendar, the UN should render justice by asking for at least 20 years of Muslim calendar… But forgiveness may make us accept apologies from the UN and the use, from today on, of a non-Christian neutral calendar.

Nej, hvor er han storsindet.

Henrik

En noget vigtigere historie

I et indlæg i Post-Gazette prøvede Jack Kelly for nylig at irettesætte MSM for ikke at dække det reelt nyheds-værdige i Irak - at de irakiske sikkerhedsstyrker bliver stærkere og stærkere, og at de irakiske "oprørere", selv om de stadig kan slagte uskyldige i dusinvis dagligt, er ved at tabe krigen.

Mens han gjorde det gik han imidlertid åbenbart selv glip af en nyhed af enorm værdi, selv om den faktisk er med i hans indlæg. Læs selv - jeg har fremhævet det vigtige:

Al-Qaida has claimed credit for a large, sophisticated attack Monday on the two hotels in Baghdad where most foreign journalists and many defense contractors stay.

The attack failed, but it was a near-run thing.

The Palestine and Sheraton hotels are across a short street from each other, adjacent to Firdous Square, a traffic roundabout where the statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down on April 9, 2003.

The attack involved three suicide bombers and an unknown number of other fighters. The attack took place at dusk, over a span of four minutes. Several news organizations were tipped off in advance, and cameras were rolling.

Fangede i den? Når "oprørere" og journalister arbejder sammen på en sådan måde er det ikke usædvanligt, at de amerikanske tropper ser mere og mere skeptiske på de medier, hvis sikkerhed de beskytter med deres liv, mens medierne sviner dem til. Kelly fortsætter:

The view of many that the news media are the insurgents' allies was reinforced by a Reuters story Tuesday that equated the suicide attack to the incident in April 2003, when a U.S. tank fired on the Palestine Hotel, killing two journalists. (The hotel had not yet been taken by U.S. forces, who were fighting Saddam's men in the streets. The journalists were on a balcony. One was pointing a camera at the tank. At a distance, a television camera looks a great deal like a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.)

Henrik

I Katrinas kølvand - De næste katastrofer i USA

I kølvandet på orkanen Katrina har net-magasinet Wired sat sig for at lave en liste over de ti katastrofer, der står næst efter i køen - og der er masser af katastrofefilms-potentiale i den:

America's Next Top Disasters

Ranking determined by likelihood and potential impact

1. Levee Failure in the Sacramento Delta
2. Flooding in the Upper Mississippi
3. Indian Point Meltdown
4. Earthquake in Missouri
5. Eruption at Yellowstone
6. Tornadoes in Dallas
7. Landslide at Mount Rainier
8. Tsunami on the Eastern Seaboard
9. Massive Power Failure in Boston
10. Rupture in the Alaska Oil Pipeline

Rupture in the Alaska Oil Pipeline

The Alaska pipeline was built to withstand everything its designers could think of. But the supports for the pipeline are anchored in permafrost, which is now melting. Up to a third of the uprights are out of alignment, and more will be at risk if the thaw continues. A pipeline break would jeopardize 1 billion barrels of oil per day - 17 percent of the nation's capacity.
Likelihood: Low. (Admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it.)
People affected: Entire US population, potentially

Landslide at Mount Rainier
According to the US Geological Survey, Mount Rainier presents the "greatest volcanic hazard" in the Cascade Range because there are so many people in its shadow. The USGS says an eruption could melt Rainier's glacier, sending rivers of volcanic mud and ash - a moving wall of cement - toward Puget Sound.Likelihood: Medium. Such slides occur once or twice a millennium. It's been 550 years since the last one.People affected: 2.4 million
Eruption at YellowstoneYellowstone's pretty geysers and hot springs are powered by one of the world's most active volcanic systems. Previous eruptions buried most of North America - really - from Arkansas to Oregon, Canada to Mexico. The next one could do the same.
Likelihood: Low. But not zero.
People affected: Depending on the size of the eruption, anywhere from tens to hundreds of millions

Levee Failure in the Sacramento Delta
Next to New Orleans, the capital of California is more dependent on levees than any other US city. Built on the banks of a river, most of Sacramento is 15 to 20 feet below water level. According to UC Davis geologist Jeffrey Mount, there's a better-than-even chance that the levees will fail by midcentury, jeopardizing the water supply of 22 million Americans.
Likelihood: High. 66 percent in the next 50 years.
People affected: 22 million

Flooding in the Upper Mississippi
When you try to contain a river, you're bound to spill some. The very qualities that made the banks of the Mississippi the perfect place to start a village also make it the worst place to build anything permanent. The river produces spectacular floods about once every 20 years, no matter what we do to stop it.
Likelihood: High. The last great floods were in 1993, so we're coming due.
People affected: 72 million - everyone in the Mississippi floodplain

Tornadoes in Dallas
The National Weather Service is worried about a tornado cluster over Dallas at rush hour. The fear: A big twister traps 87,000 people in their cars and causes nearly $3 billion in property damage, making it the one of the most destructive tornadoes in US history.
Likelihood: Medium. Dallas has dodged the bullet. So far.
People affected: 5.7 million

Masssive Power Failure in Boston
A dearth of new power plants combined with a growing population means that New England is poised for summer blackouts by 2008. A blackout caused by a heat wave, like the one that hit Chicago in 1995, would be wicked bad.
Likelihood: Medium. Depends on whether new power plants get built.
People affected: 14 million

Indian Point Meltdown
In the mid-1950s, it seemed like a good idea to have a nuclear reactor 35 miles from Manhattan. Now it doesn't. When sirens sound and the evacuation orders come, even the rich may not be able to leave, since half of New York City dwellers don't have access to a car.
Likelihood: Medium. There could be one accident in 600,000 years of operation, or it could happen tomorrow.
People affected: 21 million

Earthquake in Missouri
In 1811, New Madrid, Missouri, saw the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the lower 48; it rang church bells as far away as Boston. A large temblor along the fault line would hit St. Louis and Memphis, which lack effective earthquake building codes.
Likelihood: High. 90 percent chance of a magnitude 6 or 7 quake in the next 50 years.
People affected: 3.7 million

Tsunami on the Eastern Seaboard
A small volcanic Canary Island called La Palma controls the fate of the East Coast. A 1949 eruption caused the western side of the island to slip a few yards into the Atlantic. In a future seismic event, the 500-billion-ton ridge could slide farther into the ocean, resulting in a mega-tsunami that would strike the East Coast.
Likelihood: Low. Might not happen for a few thousand years, if ever.
People affected: Everyone on the eastern seaboard

Henrik

"Politisk korrektheds-udrydder"

Angantyrs Hjørne har spottet en opmuntrende udvikling i New Zealand på initiativ fra National Party (New Zealand Herald via Angantyrs Hjørne):

National has created the menacing-sounding role of "political correctness eradicator" to counter the Government's "PC" culture that it says is eroding New Zealanders' rights and freedoms. The role is the creation of party leader Don Brash, who has given Wayne Mapp, ranked number 14 in the National line-up announced yesterday, the eradication job.

Dr Mapp, who holds a PhD in international law, gave a speech in June about getting rid of the politically correct culture. This impressed Dr Brash so much he decided to create the role. In that speech Dr Mapp said political correctness ran counter to the "basic freedoms of society".

"A person, an institution or a government is politically correct when they cease to represent the interests of the majority and become focused on the cares and concerns of minority sector groups."

Mon ikke det er en ide til Fogh?

Henrik

Valgsvindel i USA

Vandrehistorier om republikansk valgsvindel (især under præsidentvalget i 2000) har en fast plads i den radikale venstrefløjs myte-verden. I dag faldt jeg over denne historie:

Currie has been accused of irregular election practices in several lawsuits, and a review of election results, property records and databases of registered voters uncovered procedures that experts and other election officials described as questionable.

Among findings by News reporters were ballots cast by people registered to vote at abandoned and long-demolished buildings; a master voter list with 380,000 incorrect names and addresses -- including people who have died or moved out of the city; and a practice of hand-delivering ballots from senior citizens and disabled voters that were filled out in private meetings with Currie's paid election workers.

Republikanere, der fusker med valget i Florida i 2000?

Nej da: Detroit i 2005, en højborg for det Demokratiske parti. Der er meget mere i artiklen, blandt andet denne passus:

State law requires cities and townships to turn in election results to the county by 11 a.m. the morning after the election, and 42 of Wayne County's 43 municipalities complied. But Detroit's results were not turned in until nine days after the election, Jenkins said.

When the results arrived, eight of 24 poll districts and 52 of 100 absentee ballot districts had irregularities; mainly, they recorded more or fewer votes than names taken down on election night. When two separate recounts were requested by losing City Council candidates, county canvassers deemed 40 of 107 precincts selected for recount couldn't be recounted due to irregularities such as broken ballot box seals and numbers of ballots not matching the number of votes recorded on election night. That meant candidates had no way of determining the legitimacy of the vote in nearly 40 percent of Detroit's precincts selected for recount.

Føj dertil, at problemerne under præsidentvalget i 2000 fandt sted i amter med demokratiske valg-ansvarlige, samt massiv demokratisk valgsvindel under 2004-valget i Washington (staten, ikke byen - eksempler her og her) og Wisconsin, og et billede begynder at tegne sig.

Den historie får vi bare ikke - det er jo ikke onde republikanere, der står bag.

UPDATE:

Nå ja, mens jeg er i gang med det: Der er også gode indikationer på, at Kennedy blev præsident i 1960 på baggrund af massiv valgsvindel i Texas og Illinios. I forvejen fik han færre stemmer end Nixon gjorde - ikke ulig Bush´s situation vis-a-vis Gore i 2000-valget.

Henrik

Dagens gode historie

Fra BBC:

Uganda's economy has improved to such an extent that the African nation no longer qualifies for aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Det bliver nok bare ikke slået så stort op - Uganda har ikke bare gennemført alle IMFs markeds-økonomiske reformer og frivilligt genindført flerparti-demokrati, men har også med succes brugt kristne værdier som for eksempel afholdenhed til at bekæmpe spredningen af AIDS.

Henrik

Mere multi-kultur: australsk politi skal tolerere islamisk hustruvold

Herald Sun via Little Green Footballs:

POLICE are being advised to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and habits.

Officers are also being urged to work with Muslim leaders, who will try to keep the families together.

Women’s groups are concerned the politically correct policing could give comfort to wife bashers and keep their victims in a cycle of violence.

The instructions come in a religious diversity handbook given to Victorian police officers that also recommends special treatment for suspects of Aboriginal, Hindu and Buddhist background.
Some police officers have claimed the directives hinder enforcing the law equally.

Police are told: “In incidents such as domestic violence, police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims.”

They are told it would be appreciated in cases of domestic violence if police consult the local Muslim religious leader who will work against “fragmenting the family unit”.

Ja, for vi ved hvad der sker hvis man "fragmenterer" visse muslimske familier. Hint: det har noget med "ære" og en pludselig død at gøre.

For et par uger siden var Australien også leveringsdygtig i denne historie, hvor en flok muslimske pakistanere stod anklaget for en serie af masse-voldtægter mod Australske piger. Én af dem mente, det var et oplagt forslag for hans handlinger, at hans traditionelle (læs: islamiske) kultur gjorde ham til en "tidsindstillet bombe".

Jo da. Men hvorfor i alverden så lukke dem ind i Australien i første omgang?

Henrik

Borgerkrig i Frankrig

Fra The Observer, Guardians søndags-udgave:

Hundreds of French youths fought with police and set cars ablaze in a northern Paris suburb early yesterday morning in a second successive night of rioting. ..

Firefighters extinguished more than 30 burning cars and dozens of dustbins pushed into makeshift barricades on Friday night and Saturday morning as running battles in the streets of the north-eastern suburb pitted more than 200 riot police against scores of hooded youths. At least one shot was fired at the police, 19 people were detained and 15 officers and one journalist injured, an official spokesman said.

An officer from police trade union Action Police CFTC called for help from the army to support police officers. 'There's a civil war under way in Clichy-sous-Bois at the moment,' Michel Thooris from Action Police CFTC, said. 'My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical nor theoretical training for street fighting.'

Clichy-sous-Bois is home to 28,300 people a large number of whom are recent immigrants from North or Central Africa (Nordafrikanere = muslimske arabere - Henrik). Most live in rundown, low-rise public housing estates. Unemployment rates are among the highest in France and many locals see the police as 'the enemy'.

Pt er der 3-5 millioner muslimer i Frankrig, og der bliver flere og flere.

UPDATE:

En lidt mere end et år gammen artikel fra National Review sætter franskmændenes problem i perspektiv:

We've been hearing a lot about no-go areas in Iraq. Well, just to put the matter into perspective, here is some data on no-go areas in France. (I'm obliged to Jerry Pournelle for pointing me to this.)

In Le Figaro daily dated Feb 1, 2002, Lucienne Bui Trong, a criminologist working for the French government's Renseignements Generaux (General Intelligence — a mix of FBI and secret service), complains that the survey system she had created for accurately denumbering the Muslim no-go zones was dismantled by the government. She wrote: 'From 106 hot points in 1991, we went to 818 sensitive areas in 1999. That's for the whole country. These data were not politically correct.' Since she comes from a Vietnamese background, Ms. Bui Trong cannot be suspected of racism, of course, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to start this survey in the first place.

The term she uses, 'sensitive area,' is the PC euphemism for these places where anything representing a Western institution (post office truck, firemen, even mail order delivery firms, and of course cops) is routinely ambushed with Molotov cocktails, and where war weapons imported from the Muslim part of Yugoslavia are routinely found.

The number 818 is from 2002. I'd go out on a limb and venture that it hasn't decreased in two years.

Note the French govt's response to these unpleasant statistics — they stopped collecting the statistics!

Hvad man ikke ved, har man ikke ondt af. Eller....

Henrik

Nu er bøger om svin også fornærmende for muslimer

Fra BBC:

A West Yorkshire head teacher has banned books containing stories about pigs from the classroom in case they offend Muslim children.

The literature has been removed from classes for under-sevens at Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley.

Head Barbara Harris said the books would remain in the school library for children to read.
Sixty per cent of the school's pupils are of Pakistani or Indian origin and 99% of these pupils are Muslims.

School library

Mrs Harris said in a statement: "Recently I have been aware of an occasion where young Muslim children in class were read stories about pigs.

"We try to be sensitive to the fact that for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive."

The head teacher sent a memo to staff saying fiction books containing stories about pigs should be removed from early years and key stage one classrooms.

Bemærk, at der intet er om, at det muslimske flertal på skolen faktisk har krævet bøgerne fjernet - det er rent kulturelt selvhad fra overlærerinden.

Henrik

Terror-celler sprængt i Danmark og Bosnien

Der begynder efterhånden at komme flere og flere detaljer frem i sagen om den danske terror-celle. Der er indtil videre 6 arresterede i sagen:

I Sarajevo, anholdt 19. Oktober:

1. En 18-årig mand med tyrkisk statsborgerskab, men dansk opholdstilladelse og bopæl i København.
2. En 19-årig mand med både svensk og montenegrinsk statsborgerskab og havde haft bopæl i Kungsälv i Sverige siden i sommers. Han var indvandret til Sverige med sine forældre i starten af 1990erne.

En tredje mand, en bosnier, bliver også arresteret den 19. oktober, men bliver siden løsladt igen. Den 28. oktober bliver yderligere fire mand anholdt i Storkøbenhavn:

1. En 16-årig dreng af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i Brøndby.
2. En 16-årig dreng af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i København.
3. En 18-årig mand af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i Brøndby.
4. En 20-årig mand af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl på Frederiksberg.

De er alle fire opvokset i Danmark, men kun én har dansk statsborgerskab. Tre bor stadig hjemme hos deres forældre. For de to´s vedkommende er deres konvertering til ekstrem islam først sket inden for det sidste års tid. Alle seks arresterede kendte hinanden på forhånd.

Efter hvad der hidtil er blevet offentliggjort, starter sagen for godt en måned siden, da tyrkeren fra Danmark og Montenegrineren fra Sverige sammen rejser til Bosnien. Takket være tips fra det svenske sikkerhedspoliti SÄPO (om montenegrineren) og den tyrkiske efterretningstjeneste (om tyrkeren) er de bosniske myndigheder stort set opmærksomme på de to terroristspirer fra starten af.

I løbet af de næste uger flytter de fra lejlighed til lejlighed mens de samler våben og sprængstoffer, og ender til sidst i en (deres tredje) lejlighed i Sarajevo-forstaden Illidza, som de lejer af en bosnier. Forberedelser bliver truffet til at sende våben og sprængstoffer til Danmark af det lager, de efterhånden har fået opbygget (automatvåben, ammunition, snigskytte-geværer og 30-35 kilogram sprængstoffer). Det lader til at have været tildannelsen af en del af de oplagrede sprængstofferne til et bælte til en selvmordsbomber, der gjorde udslaget for de bosniske myndigheder, og det bosniske politi slår til mod to adresser den 19. oktober.

Under razziaen mod tyrkerens og montenegrinerens lejlighed forsøger disse at forhindre politiet i at komme ind, og en af dem trækker en pistol. Begge overmandes dog og arresteres. Deres bosniske udlejer aresteres også, men løslades siden.

De bosniske myndigheder giver også et tip til deres danske kolleger under efterforskningen, hvorefter PET begynder telefon-aflytning af i hvert fald de fire fundamentalister, der siden arresteres. Da politiet mener at have en bekræftet mistanke til de fire slår de til mod adskillige adresser den 27. oktober og arresterer 25 mennesker. Ud over de fire drejer det sig om 21 venner og familie-medlemmer, der dog løslades hurtigt.

Under husundersøgelserne beslaglægges blandt andet 200.000 kroner i kontanter, computere, mobiltelefoner, adressebøger og telefinlister. I tiden efter foretages talrige yderligere husundersøgelser, men indtil videre er der ikke foretaget flere arrestationer.

Det er så her, vi står nu.

Hvis nogen har brug for links til nogen del af det ovenstående kan jeg kontaktes gennem kommentar-sektionen.

Henrik

Fra det multikulturelle overdrev

Fra Jyllandsposten:

I går blev yderligere to anholdt i forbindelse med drabet på 19-årige Ghazala Khan. Faderen og onklen varetægtsfængslet. Politiet i Slagelse fortsætter jagten på familiemedlemmer og venner til den myrdede 19-årige Ghazala Khan, der sammen med sin nygifte mand blev skudt foran Slagelse Station for fire uger siden.

I går blev to venner af familien anholdt i København, og det skete samtidig med, at Ghazala Khans far og onkel blev fremstillet ved lukkede grundlovsforhør i Slagelse, sigtet for medvirken til drab. Dermed er fem nære familiemedlemmer heriblandt Ghazala Khans far, hendes bror, der havde fingeren på aftrækkeren, en tante og en onkel samt endnu et familiemedlem sigtet for drabet eller medvirken til det. Det samme var tre nære venner til familien.

Faderen udtalte sig så sent som onsdag - få timer før sin anholdelse - til Ekstra Bladet, hvor han sagde, at »hans hjerte fortsat gjorde for ondt til at tale om sagen.«

Efterforsker stadigHos politiet i Slagelse, der bistås af Rigspolitiet i opklaringen, arbejdes der på højtryk.

»Vi kan fortsat ikke udelukke, at vi skal have anholdt flere. Der er en ret stor efterforskning i gang, og der er en grund til, at vi er meget lukkede i sagen,« siger vicekriminalinspektør Leif Vinther, Slagelse Politi.

Bare de får hevet problemet op med rode.

Henrik

De nye puritanere

Fra The Observer, The Guardian´s søndags-udgave:

'Something very interesting, indeed radical, is happening to Britain,' confirms Jim Murphy, associate director of the Future Foundation, the trends forecaster which coined the term 'New Puritan'. 'If you look at the way our lives are filled with different kinds of social opprobrium, a lot of people are increasingly under ethical pressures which influence their choices.'

According to the Future Foundation, we are increasingly curbing our enthusiasm for profligate consumption, and health and environment-threatening behaviours. Gone is the guilt-free pleasure-seeker, to be replaced by the model well-meaning citizen, the New Puritan - a tag interchangeable with neo-Cromwellian, if you really want to seal its 17th century origins - who thinks through the consequences of activities previously thought of as pleasurable and invariably elects to live without them. Think of it as the dieticians' favourite adage, 'a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips' given socio-economic resonance.

Arguably, these personal codes of conduct would be an arresting enough story on their own, but the New Puritan's curbs must also be extended to other people's behaviour, and wherever possible enshrined by legislation - for New Puritans do not fear the nanny state. According to Murphy, 'In common with all important movements, this one has a silent march. It's under-noticed and under-observed.'

Such stealth might suit elements of the movement quite well, especially when it comes to tackling the menace of the Sports Utility Vehicle. Part of the New Puritan brief is to penalise those who make poor choices on behalf of the rest of society - in this case the gas-guzzling, emissions-generating Montessori wagons that choke our town centres. In Paris, the well-supported rage against this particular machine comes in the form of Les Degonfles (The Deflated), a clandestine team who, in the dead of night, run round deflating the tyres of SUVs and splattering them with mud. Les Degonfles aim to deflate about 40 SUVs a week.

In the UK, the job of deterring SUVs has fallen to Sian Berry, a rational and reasonable young woman who runs the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s and spends her spare time posting offending vehicles with fake fixed penalty notices. Granted, this is lowintensity warfare; but if governments won't legislate - only Sweden has brought in plans to ban non-registered 4x4s, in Stockholm - then the New Puritans will go it alone, with only their principles for company.
Admittedly, these principles vary. But you can guess that a New Puritan does not binge drink, smoke, buy big brands, take cheap flights, eat junk food, have multiple sexual partners, waste money on designer clothes, grow beyond their optimum weight, subscribe to celebrity magazines, drive a flash car, or live to watch television. And the list is likely to grow longer: research by the Future Foundation has found that 80 per cent of people agreed that alcohol should not be allowed at work at all; 25 per cent said snack products should not be offered at business meetings; more than a third agreed that we should think twice before giving sweets and chocolates as gifts to family and friends, and a further 25 per cent thought that 'the government should start a campaign to discourage people from drinking alcohol on their own at home' (this rises to 41 per cent in Scotland).

These are all statistics that I find comforting, but it's obvious that this wave of opprobrium-bearers makes Jim Murphy more than a little uncomfortable - his original report on the phenomenon bears the pejorative title Assault on Pleasure.

'Ten years ago, many of these propositions would have been preposterous,' he says. 'My mother, for instance, would have thought it a terrible blow not to give a child sweeties; now the debate centres around whether it's in any way acceptable to do that. And by 2015,' he ventures, 'global tourism could be in decline, because taking a flight to Costa Rica is considered a terribly irresponsible thing to do.' Murphy also points out that a significant proportion of people agree that 'food companies should be made to pay a levy to the NHS for the cost of treating obesity'. ..

If New Puritans want to spread their 'good' behaviour to the population at large then, it could be argued, they need a populist approach, which is where Jamie Oliver comes in. He might not be a fully fledged NP - what with the enormous bank balance and supermarket adverts - but his campaign to kick the junk out of school dinners has had a knock-on effect rivalled only by Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, which took McDonald's to task. When education secretary Ruth Kelly announced a nationwide ban on junk food in schools from next September, in canteens as well as vending machines, the Jamie Oliver effect was very much in evidence.
So, with a few grand gestures and some high-profile converts New Puritanism offers a powerful escape route from our impulsive, reward-driven lifestyles. It might just have the potential to stave off the horrors promised by an out-of-control consumerist culture in which, according to agrarian essayist Wendell Berry, 'The histories of all products will be lost. The degradation of products and places, producers and consumers is inevitable.'

Consider the New Puritan philosophy from this point of view and it can look like a blueprint for a rather noble kind of empowerment. Our New Puritans become less like neurotic killjoys and more like early adopters, with an enhanced ability to recognise the pitfalls of contemporary life. A battle is shaping up between the New Puritans and the old guard libertarians, but at the moment it's a vastly uneven one. The New Puritans might be a trend, but it's still a small one, swimming against a seemingly inexorable consumerist river.

But New Puritans shouldn't be deterred. As Oliver Cromwell, their ancestral spiritual leader, put it: 'A few honest men [and let's add in women for contemporary relevance] are better than numbers.'

Læs resten selv, inklusive et par portrætter af "Nye Puritanere" og en test for at se om du selv er en.

UPDATE:

En anden artikel om de nye puritanere, under titlen "The Assault on Pleasure".

Henrik

"Os" og "Dem"

Et vanen tro godt indlæg fra Thomas Sowell på Real Clear Politics:

A reader recently sent me an e-mail about a woman he had met and fallen for. Apparently the attraction was mutual -- until one fateful day the subject of the environment came up.

She was absolutely opposed to any drilling for oil in Alaska, on grounds of what harm she said it would do to the environment.

He argued that, since oil was going to be drilled for somewhere in the world anyway, was it not better to drill where there were environmental laws to provide at least some kinds of safeguards, rather than in countries where there were none?

That was the end of a beautiful relationship.

Environmentalist true believers don't think in terms of trade-offs and cost-benefit analysis. There are things that are sacred to them. Trying to get them to compromise on those things would be like trying to convince a Moslem to eat pork, if it was only twice a week.

Compromise and tolerance are not the hallmarks of true believers. What they believe in goes to the heart of what they are. As far as true believers are concerned, you are either one of Us or one of Them.

The man apparently thought that it was just a question of which policy would produce which results. But many issues that look on the surface like they are just about which alternative would best serve the general public are really about being one of Us or one of Them -- and this woman was not about to become one of Them.

Many crusades of the political left have been misunderstood by people who do not understand that these crusades are about establishing the identity and the superiority of the crusaders.

T.S. Eliot understood this more than half a century ago when he wrote: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

In this case, the man thought he was asking the woman to accept a certain policy as the lesser of two evils, when in fact he was asking her to give up her sense of being one of the morally anointed.

This is not unique to our times or to environmentalists. Back during the 1930s, in the years leading up to World War II, one of the fashionable self-indulgences of the left in Britain was to argue that the British should disarm "as an example to others" in order to serve the interests of peace.

When economist Roy Harrod asked one of his friends whether she thought that disarming Britain would cause Hitler to disarm, her reply was: "Oh, Roy, have you lost all your idealism?"
In other words, it was not really about which policy would produce what results. It was about personal identification with lofty goals and kindred souls.

The ostensible goal of peace was window-dressing. Ultimately it was not a question whether arming or disarming Britain was more likely to deter Hitler. It was a question of which policy would best establish the moral superiority of the anointed and solidify their identification with one another.

"Peace" movements are not judged by the empirical test of how often they actually produce peace or how often their disarmament tempts an aggressor into war. It is not an empirical question. It is an article of faith and a badge of identity.

Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace -- not for actually producing peace but for being part of what was called "the peace process," based on fashionable notions that were common bonds among members of what are called "peace movements."

Meanwhile, nobody suggested awarding a Nobel Prize for peace to Ronald Reagan, just because he brought the nuclear dangers of a decades-long cold war to an end. He did it the opposite way from how members of "peace movements" thought it should be done.

Reagan beefed up the military and entered into an "arms race" that he knew would bankrupt the Soviet Union if they didn't back off, even though arms races are anathema to members of "peace movements." The fact that events proved him right was no excuse as far as members of "peace movements" were concerned. As far as they were concerned, he was not one of Us. He was one of Them.

Henrik

En irakisk meningsmåling af tvivlsom kvalitet

The Sunday Telegraph kunne for et par dage siden afsløre, at det britiske forsvarsministerium havde fået foretaget en meningsmåling i Irak, der viste at under halvdelen af den irakiske befolkning (45%) mente, at angreb på koalitionsstyrkerne var retfærdiggjorte. Der er imidlertid flere problemer med avisens raport.

Til at starte med har jeg problemer med at stole på avisens upartiskhed, al den tid at den på trods af dusinvis af meningsmålinger om emnet kan påstå at lige præcis denne "demonstrates for the first time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than two and a half years of bloody occupation".

Der er også problemer med selve raportens trovædrighed, al den tid at intet bliver fortalt om metoden, den er foretaget efter, hvor stor en gruppe interviews der er foretaget, og hvor repræsentativ den er. Jeg tænker for eksempel på Kurderne, der udgør 20% af befolkningen og, takket være koalitionsstyrkerne, slap af med den diktator der kostede over 100.000 af dem livet.

Da Sunday Telegraph citerer raporten for at 82% af befolkningen er "stærkt imod" tilstedeværelsen af koalitions-styrker, skulle det betyde at hver evig eneste araber i landet skulle være inkluderet heri, hvortil kommer hver tiende Kurder. Noget sådant virker ikke sandsynligt.

En yderligere brik i puslespillet er ophavsmændene til rapporten:

The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces.

Den berygtede Lancet-rapport blev udført på en lignende måde, og resultaterne af den er for længe siden blevet grundigt diskrediteret, blandt andet på bloggen her.

Bloggeren Seixon - en amerikaner bosat i Norge - har også undret sig lidt, og har sammenlignet rapportens resultater med UN Iraq Living Conditions Survey fra August 2004:

Opinions are much easier to change than real world situations. That's why I felt it was important to view the other results of this poll, which were:

Immediately after the war the coalition embarked on a campaign of reconstruction in which it hoped to improve the electricity supply and the quality of drinking water.

That appears to have failed, with the poll showing that 71 per cent of people rarely get safe clean water, 47 per cent never have enough electricity, 70 per cent say their sewerage system rarely works and 40 per cent of southern Iraqis are unemployed.

I love the qualifiers in use here, this "appears to have failed". Right. It just so happens that the UN did an Iraq Living Conditions Survey back in 2004, of 21,668 households. It is very doubtful that this research team from an Iraqi university had the same depth. So let's compare some of their findings!

1. Water

1. MoD Poll: 71% rarely get safe clean water
2. UNDP Study: 61% have stable safe drinking water, 30% have unstable safe water, 9% have unsafe water

2. Electricity

1. Mod Poll: 47% never have enough
2. UNDP Study: 15% stable, 7% rather unstable, 78% unstable, 0% none

3. Sewer System

1. MoD Poll: 70% rarely works
2. UNDP Study: 37% connected of which only 19% report frequent or always problems; ergo, 51% of those who are connected have frequent or always problems with their sewer system

4. Unemployment

1. MoD Poll: 40% of southern Iraq
2. UNDP Study: 10.8-19.5% of southern Iraq (depending on definition of unemployment)

Needless to say, the UNDP poll, even though it was conducted a year before the MoD poll, shows wildly different figures. Are we to believe that Iraqi infrastructure has gone so much backwards over the last year?

Tankevækkende.

Men alt andet vil det bedste være, hvis regeringen efterkommer SFs ønske, og spørger den britiske regering, om ikke man kan få udleveret den fulde rapport. Så kan vi bedre afgøre, om resultaterne er troværdige eller ej.

Update:

Kim har på Uriasposten også lidt om, hvordan dele af den danske medie-verden har forsøgt at spinne nyheden.

Henrik

Irak: Ekstremister bekæmper hinanden

Fra Reuters:

At least 21 Shi'ite militia fighters and two policemen were killed on Thursday when they clashed with Sunni Arab insurgents southeast of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.

Another five policemen and 12 members of the Mehdi army loyal to nationalist Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were wounded in the battle, which erupted after they tried to rescue a Mehdi Army member who was being held hostage, the official said.

"At least 21 members of the Mehdi Army were killed in the fight," a source in Sadr's office told Reuters.

Man vil måske huske al-Sadr som fundamentalisten, der to gange har forsøgt at bringe det sydlige Irak under sin kontrol med våbenmagt, og begge gange har set sin bande voldsmænd med automatvåben få lammetæv af amerikanerne. En journalist forsøgte sig dengang med at spinne den forhandlingsløsning amerikanerne foretrak (Sadr stillede siden op til valget i januar i år) som om Mahdi-militsen var for stærk for amerikanerne. Svaret kom prompte fra Brigadegeneral Mark Hertling:

"Softer stance? We took a hard line with these guys and killed over a thousand," Hertling wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press. "Concessions? We agreed to stop hunting down what was left of the militia long enough for them to disband."

Fra kampene om den enorme kirkegård der findes i/nær Karbala husker jeg især et interview i Jyllandsposten med en maskingevær-skytte i Mahdi-militsen, der i ramme alvor mente, at han bare skulle trykke på aftrækkeren, så ville Allah sørge for at hans kugler ramte fjenden.

Med den taktik er det ikke underligt, at Mahdi-hæren også i denne omgang har fået tæv.

Henrik

Lidt om Fox

Kim på Uriasposten har et lille indlæg om Fox News, som DRs Tv-Avis har beskyldt for at være loyal over for Bush. Problemet er, at DRs ansatte som sædvanlig ikke har begreb skabt om, hvad de udtaler sig om.

Fox er institutionelt set hverken venstre- eller højre-orienteret. Stationen er udelukkende seertals-orienteret, og Bush vil altid tabe i en kamp med dem. Se for eksempel præsidentvalgkampen i 2000, hvor det var Fox der kunne fortælle om Bushs tidligere erfaringer med sprit-kørsel. Tilsvarende var Fox om muligt også endnu hårdere mod Bush i kritikken af redningsarbejdet efter orkanen Katrina, end MSM var.

Et simpelt kig på dansk fjernsyn vil heller ikke ligefrem afsløre nogen republikansk propaganda i Fox-produktioner - hvem kan finde konservative kerneværdier i Simpsons, Paradise Hotel, Fear Factor eller serien med Al Bundy?

Nyhederne er tilsvarende populistiske, og går efter hvad der end måtte giver størst seertal. I sommers fyldte historien om den amerikanske pige Natalie Holloway, der forsvandt på den caraibiske ø Aruba og siden blev fundet myrdet således i ugevis Fox´ nyheder, og stationen sendte endda en reporter til øen for at reportere live fra efterforskningen af sagen i ugevis.

Der hvor Fox faktisk har højreorienterede tilbøjeligheder grunder det faktisk i, at de dominerende stationer i den amerikanske tv-verden - ABC, CBS og NBC - i løbet af de amerikanske 68´eres "Lange March gennem Institutionerne" er blevet overtaget af venstredrejede elementer på samme måde som DR blev det i Danmark. Som resultat blev den amerikanske befolkning bombarderet med venstre-vinklede indslag årle og silde. Da Fox derfor kom til og søgte seertal var der én stor séer-skare, der ikke fik sine behov dækket: dem til højre i det politiske spektrum. Det er indretningen af de redaktionelle holdninger efter denne kerne-séer-gruppe, der giver indtrykket af, at Fox - efter europæiske og venstreorienteret demokratiske forhold - bliver anset for at være ideologisk højreorienteret og principielt pro-Bush.

Det har bare ikke så meget med virkeligheden at gøre.

For sjov kan man også tage et kig på Rupert Murdochs valgbidrag (Rupert Murdoch ejer Fox). Siden 1987 har Murdoch sammenlagt bidraget med godt 285.000 dollars til politiske kampagner. Af disse er rigtigt nok lidt under 160.000 gået til Republikanerne, men samtidig har Demokraterne fået over 80.000. Dertil kommer, at en del af de penge, demokraterne har fået, er gået direkte til de mest venstreorienterede af slagsen - Edward Kennedy, John Kerry og Dianne Feinstein.

Det er også værd at lægge mærke til, at Murdoch faktisk havde bidraget med flere penge til demokrater lige op til 11. September. Hele republikanernes overvægt er kommet til derefter.

Henrik

Flere tomme trusler fra islamiske ambassadører

Fra Jyllandsposten:

På et møde i Den Saudiarabiske Ambassade onsdag var det ventet, at ambassadørerne ville enes om at tage kontakt til de politiske ledere på Christiansborg for at få dem til at tage moralsk stilling i sagen, der har skabt stor opstandelse i muslimske miljøer.

Men Egyptens ambassadør Mona Omar Attia sagde efterfølgende, at sagen ikke længere var et direkte anliggende for ambassadørerne, men at den ville rulle videre blandt de store, muslimske verdensorganisationer.

- Man kan forestille sig, at der snart kommer en reaktion fra The Arab League, siger Mona Omar Attia.

Taget i betragtning at Arab Leagues medlemslande fem gange i streg er blevet tævet sønder og sammen af et land på størrelse med Jylland tror jeg nok, vi med sindsro kan vente på deres "reaktion". Arab League har uanset ikke været leveringsdygtigt i meget andet end frådende antisemitisme og tomme trusler siden dens grundlæggelse, så mon ikke vi bare skal sætte knappen på mute og grine i skægget over "reaktionen".

Henrik

Muslimske ambassadører truer med flere breve

Fra Jyllandsposten:

Den danske regering kan se frem til at modtage breve fra regeringerne i flere muslimske lande. ...

»Vi vil nu overlade sagen til vores regeringer, og den danske regering kan forvente at modtage breve fra nogle af landenes regeringer,« siger repræsentanten for det palæstinensiske selvstyre i København, Maie F.B. Sarraf.

Jamen dog. Flere breve? Det er da meget praktisk for herboende frimærkesamlere og genbrugspapir-grossister, men alligevel. Det er næsten synd, de bare ikke fatter, at de er fuldstændigt til grin.

Henrik

Israel skal udslettes

(Fra Jyllandsposten):

Irans præsident, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gik i går til verbalt frontalangreb på Israel og forlangte, at den jødiske stat »slettes fra landkortet«.

I en tale til ca. 4.000 regimetro studenter i Teheran - alle klædt i sort og med grønne pandebånd - forudså den iranske præsident en bølge af palæstinensiske angreb, som vil »fjerne dette stigma«, underforstået Israel, fra Mellemøsten.

Som havde man lyttet til anbefalingerne fra Teheran, sprængte en palæstinensisk selvmordsbomber sig senere på dagen i luften på et marked i den israelske by Hadera og dræbte mindst fem israelere.

Islamisk Jihad tog skylden for terrorattentatet, som var det første inde i selve Israel, siden israelerne i september rømmede Gaza. Ifølge den islamistiske organisation var der tale om »første del« af en hævn for Israels mord på en af gruppens ledere på Vestbredden søndag.

Her skal man måske indføje, at fyren der bleb slået ihjel anslarlig for adskillige terrorangreb på civile i Israel. Tilsvarende bestod Islamisk Jihads "hævn" i at sprænge en falaffel-biks i luften.

Den ultrakonservative iranske præsident, som vandt en jordskredssejr ved valget i juni,

Her skal det så tilføjes, at "jordskreddet" bestod af massiv valgsvindel og udbredt lede ved den fundamentalistiske og fennemkorrupte præst Rafsanjani.

Formuleringen om at slette Israel fra landkortet stammer fra den islamiske revolutions leder, ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, og bruges bl.a. som slogan, når Iran fremviser nye langdistanceraketter.

»Enhver, der anerkender Israel, vil brænde i den islamiske nations raseri. Enhver, som anerkender det zionistiske regime, har accepteret den islamiske verdens overgivelse og nederlag,«

Man kan selvfølgelig også bare som Ahmadinejad lade som om den islamiske verden faktisk ikke har lidt nederlag - endda hele ti gange siden 2. Verdenskrig.

Men samtidig må man også håbe på, at han ikke kan holde sig i skindet med hensyn til at provokere. Al den tid Israel har 2-400 atomvåben til sin rådighed skal de nok kunne svare igen på det meste :-)

Henrik