Posting has been very light here over the past week and that will continue for a few more days since we've got a few national holidays ahead of us, and all three of them have some significance for me:

Special Administrative Region (SAR) Establishment Day

Dominion or Canada Day

Fourth of July

Wherever you are, enjoy it and I will see you again next week!

Norm Geras has finally released the much anticipated results of his moviestar poll and there are, as Norm says, quite a few surprises. For instance, the absence of Robert Duvall and Natalie Wood from a list of not less than forty-six moviestars is, to be frank, highly questionable. The poll results diverged significantly from my submission:

1. James Stewart
2. Robert Duvall
3. Greta Garbo
4. Edward G. Robinson
5. Anthony Hopkins
6. Clint Eastwood
7. Ingrid Bergman
8. Catherine Deneuve
9. Jessica Lange
10. Natalie Wood

Note that I divided my ten votes equally of five male and five female actors and that did have some impact on my final list.

Yes, I am still here and there a lot of things going on at the moment that warrant comment but I've just been very busy with other things. There are a number of important business opportunities for which I've had to prepare proposals as well as a number of meetings that demand some solid preparation. But the blog is still on my mind, so there will be more later.

Like Kate, I was exploited as an adolescent as I was forced into hard labor. You know, working the assembly line in a metal sheets factory, in a candy factory (where the sweet stench of flavouring materials would almost make you puke) and of course, the good old newspaper run. My parents were adamant that I get exploited, for if there's one important lesson to learn is that if you want something badly, you work for it. That's how I earned my numerous rail trips through Europe and many other things on my wish list.

But it in addition to cash and a lesson in life it had one other material benefit. Long after the rigors of hard underage factorywork were behind me and, instead of stinking clothes, I was wearing a nice suit and fashionable tie it became evident why. Grilled by some executives of the company I wanted to work for in the City of London I related the work experiences of my teenage years. It impressed them visibly for it said something about character, responsiblity and the ability to understand the value of money, the latter being a somewhat vital asset for a career in finance. It helped turn the interview and it probably contributed to securing my first real job. But some disagree and think otherwise:

Critics are warning that the new regulation will make it easier to exploit adolescents, who are already considered more vulnerable than older workers.

Labour groups have condemned the change, saying it strips away another level of protection for adolescent workers. "They're children, they don't know their rights in the workplace," Gil McGowan, a spokesman for the Alberta Federation of Labour, said. "They are much less likely to stand up for themselves against a bullying employer."

There's little doubt some of our rights were violated, I clearly remember being booted out of the manager's office at the candy factory when we asked for the vacation pay that we were legally entitled to. We never got it and went dutifully back to work. But, we learned from it. As I've mentioned before, the destruction of our society will not come from the outside. If we continue to unlearn vital skills and if we take away responsibilities from our children we are raising a generation destined for disaster. But there's hope:

Kim Alessio, 14, welcomed the change, which led to her landing a job on Thursday at Earls, an upscale chain restaurant in Edmonton.

"I don't think it matters about your age," Alessio said. "I think maturity is the biggest point and that's what they are looking for when they hire you."

I am sure there are more kids like Kim. Get out there and work. The experience will go a long way.

Anyone wondering where I stand on the flag burning amendment, well, I strongly oppose it and agree with Steyn. The latter is as usual on good form:

Banning flag desecration flatters the desecrators and suggests that the flag of this great republic is a wee delicate bloom that has to be protected. It's not. It gets burned because it's strong. I'm a Canadian and one day, during the Kosovo war, I switched on the TV and there were some fellows jumping up and down in Belgrade burning the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. Big deal, seen it a million times. But then to my astonishment, some of those excitable Serbs produced a Maple Leaf from somewhere and started torching that. Don't ask me why -- we had a small contribution to the Kosovo bombing campaign but evidently it was enough to arouse the ire of Slobo's boys. I've never been so proud to be Canadian in years. I turned the sound up to see if they were yelling ''Death to the Little Satan!'' But you can't have everything.

Nope, you can't.

This weekend's linkage is focused on the blogroll which I have retooled a bit. There are a number of newcomers and they all had good stuff this week:

Neo-Neocon has an excellent post contrasting the Bushies with the Kennedys and wonders if the "extreme privilege" that many use to describe the lives of the Bush offspring is not just a qualification fueled by pure envy.

EU Rota , an American who devoted his blog to European affairs is baffled after realizing that this week's Supreme Court ruling means that socialism is alive and well not just in Europe, but in the US too.

Mike Talley from Wunderkraut has launched a sub-blog where his wife is keeping a diary about the planned adoption of their Chinese daughter. It's a move I deeply respect, especially given the fact that the Talleys have already three children of their own.

Booker Rising is made by and for black conservatives and moderates. They've linked to me often, and I am always intrigued that they label me as a "moderate-conservative", as in Europe many think I've lost it and are part of the "radical right". Like me, the Bookers keep a close eye on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's career.

The Head Heeb made it to the roll as I had hoped to get access to more analysis on Israel's disengagment from Gaza, but instead as probably the only blogger out there Jonathan gives us an update on how Chad is tinkering with its constitution..

I've been reading LA-based writer Cathy Seipp's blog for quite a while and it has above all, variety. This week a post about social cues which left me wondering how to interpet being served with wine in tumblers?

Marc Cooper - in LA too - is disgusted by what's going on in Zimbabwe and provides a useful link to one of his students who's in South Africa and blogging about it.

Fjordman points to yet another great example of how the European bureaucracy sets its priorities: washing instructions now run the risk of being banned.

Dan Morgan of No Speedbumps voted against Clinton twice but applauds the old president's common sense about Iraq.

And finally Wilisms who takes a close look at the state of affairs in California. Arnold Schwarzenegger ran a campaign on taking on special interests in a state that is built on special interests and that may give him a unique legacy.

A clueless Canadian right is struggling with some very bleak poll numbers which - common sense would have it - should look very different after the revelations of ongoing corruption perpetrated at the highest levels of the Liberal government. Not so:

A national survey completed Monday pegged Liberal support holding steady at 37 per cent, compared with 25 per cent for the Conservatives and 20 per cent for the NDP. The Decima Research poll provided to The Canadian Press suggests the Liberals have recovered in public opinion following damaging public testimony at Justice John Gomery's inquiry into the federal sponsorship program.

Rather than taunt the Liberals over the unconstitutionality of their actions, play up Tapegate, or claim Canada's healthcare system is another gulag maybe, just maybe, Canada's conservatives should consider what is keeping the Liberals so well liked in the polls:

1. Low inflation and low interest rates;

2. A booming real estate market;

3. A stockmarket outperforming US markets.

And while unemployment is higher than in the US, it's nowhere near some of the ratios seen in other mature economies like France or Germany. Imagine what Canada would look like if it had implemented some very basic economic reforms (allow bank mergers, curb union influence, privatize more crown corporations) like other nations (e.g. Britain) have done. The cold north would be an economic powerhouse.

The only route to unseat the Liberals is a severe recession which is increasingly likely with budgets like this. But it will take time my friends, time.

Many of of you have quizzed me in the past on how the Dutch criminal justice system works, but I never took the time to explain it to you and how it differed from the Anglo-Saxon jury system. The arrest of a Dutch judge in the Natalee Holloway affair has prompted Arjan to briefly explain how it operates and to admit, somewhat embarassingly, that it's indeed largely based on the French legal system.

Following the announcement yesterday of the arrest of yet another member of the Hofstad-Group (those behind the Van Gogh killing) we will probably see many trials in the months ahead, and hopefully some convictions. Now you know how they're obtained in a jury-less system.

So there was little time for blogging. A quick scan revealed that almost everyone was linking to the interview with Oriana Fallaci and I will leave you with my favorite excerpt:

We know why all the other civilizations have collapsed--from an excess of welfare, of richness, and from lack of morality, of spirituality." (She uses "welfare" here in the sense of well-being, so she is talking, really, of decadence.) "The moment you give up your principles, and your values . . . the moment you laugh at those principles, and those values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period."

There's enough of an optimist in me to know that it will be a while before we reach the abyss, but the outlook for the future these days is a bit bleak I have to say.

With that, I'm off to bed. See you tomorrow.

It’s a pity that the Economist’s piece on Hong Kong’s new chief executive Donald Tsang is subscriber only for the accompanying photo is a classic. For those of you that haven’t seen it, in the 1997 picture Tsang kneels, and Prince Charles knights the future Beijing-approved leader with a sword. A Chinese man kneeling for a royal Brit, hardly material for a Beijing endorsed career but Sir Donald has managed it by carefully maneuvering and playing up the essential skill-set for the job: deep loyalty and relentlessly pursuing the one thing essential for Hong Kong’s prosperity and Beijing’s relatively magnanimous approach: stability. On top of that he’s got an asset that his predecessor didn’t: Hong Kong people like him. It’s not democracy but in Hong Kong for now, it’s as good as it gets.

In arguably one of the most hilarious posts I've read in a long time Kim Du Toit explains that he will make some adjustments to the content on his blog in order not to scare away potential investors for his software business. But even for Kim there are limits: he refuses to become an "effete National Review-style girlyman essayist". Read the whole thing.

One of the basic flaws of going to war in Iraq was not the decision itself, but the way in which it was sold to the public, something I argued a lifetime ago in Iraq: A Venture Pitch. The reason I bring this up again is that the entire left to right commentariat is weighing in on the Downing Street Memos and the opinions range from the poor and predictable 'impeach Bush' to the informed and sober 'what's new here?'. The latter position seems to be the most compelling one and Jeff Jarvis sums it up nicely:

Of course Bush had decided to invade Iraq long before he said so. No one is surprised by that. The scandal here is not that he invaded Iraq -- a policy decision about which reasonable and unreasonable people can disagree -- or that he was determined to do so as soon as he took office -- what politician doesn't have hidden agendas? -- but that he did such a bad job selling it before and after the fact.

In fact there's a vast array of books and articles widely available which document the decision path leading up to the war as well as a description of the planning that was involved in it (Tommy Franks' American Soldier comes to mind). Again, you can fault Bush for delivering the wrong speech, you can fault Rumsfeld for allocating insufficient troop numbers, but neither the US leaders nor their British counterparts ever acted in bad faith in ousting Saddam.

More here.

In anticipation of Bernhard Goldberg’s new book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, John Hawkins conducted a poll of the right-of-center blogosphere to see who they thought was screwing up America. The results are here and the list surprises me somewhat. If there are two things that are screwing up the United States - or any other Western democracy for that matter - then it’s the marriage of moneyed interests and politicians, and the debased aspects of a consumer culture teetering on the edge of good taste.

As such my submission featured both the Clintons, but also Tom Delay who I believe was under justifiable scrutiny recently precisely because of unethical behavior that linked politics and cash. Rightwing bloggers should examine their home turf too when cleaning the American house which isn't necessarily screwed up by Democrats only. Entrenched interests, both left and right, have a habit of ruining great democracies.

As for culture, no entertainment personality made John’s final listing unless you count Michael Moore as one. Yet, they should be a major feature as conservatives should remind themselves that it’s not gay America that is making a mockery of marriage, but the likes of Britney Spears who together with Paris Hilton featured very high on my list. Both women have done everything they can to take cultural consumption to even lower levels: more sex, more stupidity, recycling old tunes, as long as it sells big, it's cool. As for Michael Moore, he didn’t even feature on my shortlist since he’s not screwing up America but rather his own artistic record with highly implausible assertions and ludicrous theories. He's a joker that spices up the political debate with patent nonsense and as such should be considered an American asset. What we should ask ourselves is why it is that people like Moore can become extremely successful multi-millionaires. The answer to that question is more likely to point us in the direction of who is really screwing up America.

READER COMMENT:

I agree with the thrust of your post in citing societal trends, rather than a Gang of 100 as the source of America's ills. However, I would offer a slight disagreement of the two you cite: The most dangerous strains in US society arise from 1.) people who lie in order to effect large changes in US society, and 2.) the capture of government's fiat power by economic rent seekers.

Good point(s).

Some movie industry experts weigh in on Hollywood's dearth of quality. The filmbloggers over at Libertas have some thoughts as does Roger Simon who today makes the clear point:

Hollywood box office is off this year by a fairly disastrous nine percent (accounting for ticket price inflation). Marketing people will give dozens of explanations but the reason couldn't be more obvious: The movies - with a few exceptions - are hugely predictable and unimaginative. In other words, who would want to go?

Time to take a risk and give a new generation of daring filmmakers and screenwriters a chance.

A reader wonders about the supposed benefits of a European union, especially the part about economic growth and the often heard theory of the old continent being “a counterweight to the US”, and writes:

And I can't help but think EU integration has not helped economic growth. Sure, it has helped to raise the lagging member states economies, but it terms of unlocking dramatic pan-Europe growth, I don't see the success. Nor does it seem a necessity to do so. I know the logic goes make EU one market and it will thrive. But is one market with a huge bureaucracy sitting on top of it going to be more efficient than a fragmented market with myriad bureaucracies? Maybe, but is it a necessity for EU integration in order to have economic growth? I think not, there are many things the member states can do to become more competitive, they just prefer not to at the moment. As for becoming a counterweight to the US, what exactly does that mean? Maybe I'm blinded by being an American, but what exactly are they to counter?

One of the issues of comparing European numbers with US numbers is the faulty assumption that the EU is one economic and political entity, and we are thus erroneously lumping countries as diverse as Holland, Greece, Latvia, Britain, Sweden and Italy together in one basket. All these countries have very distinct fiscal and economic policies so we should look at them on an individual basis in order to see that there are European success stories as well as European basketcases. But I would agree, even if you group some of the mature north-western European nations together their performance lags that of the US in terms of growth, unemployment, economic freedom etc.

It will be hard to argue that trade harmonization, open borders and one single-currency are offset by an emerging central bureaucracy. But it’s true that all these single market initiatives haven’t brought the economic nirvana that some predicted it would. Competitiveness as my reader argues starts at the level of the nation state and until the time there’s one European super-state – and that may now be a very distant prospect – we should compare economic performance on an individual, national, basis.

As for the counterweight theory that is hardly a European dream. It’s a vision of which some European nations had a taste in the past when they could lay claim to be an empire (Portugal, Spain, Britain, Germany, even the Dutch had a brief taste of it) but who have now traded these illusions in for a more pragmatic way to be part of today’s world. Only one country is still reluctant to come to terms with that and picked the EU as a vehicle to reinvigorate these antiquated dreams.

One of my concerns about presidential rankings is that they are always influenced by the time during which they are put together and by the inevitable manipulation that’s involved in them. One other important aspect is that the record may be so overtly negative that we fail to see the beneficial influence that some poorly rated White House occupiers may have had. The latter is true of course for Richard Nixon who is now it seems, finally, up for reconsideration.

It’s hard to see how we today are going to write admiringly about a big-spending, department building, 1970s conservative, but since Bush’s track record isn’t that different the time may be ripe for it. But seriously, the Watergate affair has for too long been hanging over Nixon’s unique track record in international relations. And it’s a skill he applied long after leaving office: an often underreported fact is that he regularly supplied Reagan with succinct and extremely helpful foreign policy memos that the Gipper often took to heart. It’s doubtful the Watergate stain will ever be washed away, but it would be interesting to see some more revisionist works of Nixon’s presidency.

Another, real, gulag. This one operated by the Iraqi insurgency:

Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis.

The American military has found torture houses after invading towns heavily populated by insurgents - like Falluja, where the anti-insurgent assault last fall uncovered almost 20 such sites. But rarely have they come across victims who have lived to tell the tale.

Saddam's weapons, jihad manuals, torture handbooks, what else are those freedom fighters hiding?

Earlier this weekend I finally got around to watching The Aviator, but the Scorsese epic left me deeply unimpressed. Decent script, some good acting but in the end not that special at all, certainly not worth all the hype it got when it was released. That unfortunately seems to be the case for many Hollywood productions these days and Michael Totten comes up with a very sound analysis of Tinseltown’s deteriorating and disappointing products. Downfall was indeed one of the better movies of the year, my review of it is here.

NOTE: Similar concerns are echoed at Jackson's Junction.

Via Andrew comes this interesting essay from Frank Furedi about the arrival of the populist movement. In the US it has left Democrat leaders wondering how on earth it’s possible that blue-collar voters can support the Republicans, while on the old continent the Eurocrats are baffled as to why citizens are able to vote against a project that they should know “is best for them”. On both sides of the ocean the populist movement is deeply despised because it is creating electoral shockwaves that complacent elites failed to foresee and which are hard for them to counter in a creative and constructive way:

One reason why the political class so dislikes populist movements is that it experiences them as a direct challenge to its values and worldview. This clash of values became evident during the recent referendums in Europe, where it was obvious that the 'No' campaigns were speaking a language that was morally and emotionally incomprehensible to the political class. The political class talked of subsidiarity, transparency, efficiency, human rights and protocols, while their opponents were discussing the problems of everyday life. By their very existence, the 'No' campaign calls into question the values of an increasingly technocratic and managerial oligarchy.

The entrenched political classes and their supporters in the media and academe have too much at stake - their credibility for one thing – to hastily adapt to new political realities and absent sound arguments they will often hastily embark on ill-defined counter attacks. A good example is the late Pim Fortuyn who was smeared as a fascist and more recently the right-of-center blogosphere received the honorable distinction of “digital brownshirts” from a former presidential candidate.

It’s hardly new and it will be used again and again. Comparisons to Nazi Germany may seem frivolous on this side of the ocean, but in Europe they are a very potent tool to help alter the dynamics of a political debate. Let me give you a recent example. The well-known Dutch writer Geert Mak produced a little booklet called “Doomed to Vulnerability” earlier this year, in which he tried to put the Dutch nation’s reaction to the horrendous Van Gogh murder into perspective. While it’s an interesting read, it doesn’t take Mak very long to arrive at the crux of his argument when he describes the anger of the unsettled Dutch populace:

History never repeats itself. What we do know from our bitter experiences as Europeans, is that processes of radicalization can go in any given direction. The disdain for the “soft” parliament, for intellectuals that ‘do not understand the people’, for justice and rationality; the leaders that promise a new unity and a liberalization of their fears; the existing political parties who in their silence and opportunism help create a vacuum in which these types of movements originate: we have see it all before. What people say here and there, what a few columnists write, it can all become reality, proper government policy, packaged in formal policies and civil throne speeches.

In popular language this phenomenon of describing your political opponent has been given a name, “demonizing”, and by painting current populist sentiments and politicians who play to these sentiments as a re-emergence of fascism, Mak too easily steps away from bringing up solid political arguments to counter what he sees as the populist threat. After the Dutch and French ‘no’ the fraught yes-camp equally tried to disqualify the electoral outcome as cheap and uninformed sentiments that could spell a deep and dark danger to Europe's society.

Now that years of correct political thinking and unquestioningly accepting that what is “good for us” are under sustained and critical attack, expect the vested elites to fight back vehemently using whatever means possible. It will create a very poor debate destined to steer society away from finding creative and new solutions to old problems. That in turn will indeed lead to more radicalization as Mak argues, but rather than applying that to the populists it will become the hallmark of those desperate to cling to power. North Americans, but especially Europeans, will be in for a very bumpy ride with some very nasty politics until hopefully some new equilibrium is achieved. The current populist movement has told us clearly that the old one is broken beyond repair.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers, feel free to look around, drop an e-mail (top right hand corner) and from time to time, return.

I haven't had the time to keep monitoring the aftermath of the EU referenda but others have. The Economist Intelligence Unit has produced a must-read summary (hat tip: Norm) based around 20 regularly asked questions about Europe after the "non" and "nee" votes earlier this month. It basically addresses everything you need to know - for now - and it echoes many of the themes that were discussed here earlier. To give you a flavor:

For the next two years, however, until there is a new French president, no new initiative is likely to come from France. It will be preoccupied with a more narrow defence of its perceived interests. In Germany, the situation is different. Mr Schröder's decision to hold an early general election means that the Christian Democrats are almost certain to control the government after September, with Angela Merkel as the new chancellor. Party spokespeople have already indicated that, in government, they intend to use Germany's huge potential for influence to make changes in foreign policy, at least two of which may not be welcomed by France: to improve relations with the US and to be more critical of Russia.

In the meantime, the EU leaders got together for their summit in Brussels this week and EU Rota has a round-up of media reactions following the first day of deliberations. Hint: they're not exactly upbeat about the the prospects of the European dream.

Meetings in Brussels continued today with budget negotiations on the agenda and it seems that there too divisions and differences are setting the tone.

These things take time, but it appears that the Dutch have finally lost their patience with radical jihadists:

Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk has ordered three imams accused of being a threat to public order and national security to get out of the Netherlands.

The trio have been accused of preaching a militant anti-western message at Al Fourkaan mosque in Eindhoven and allowing young people to be recruited for Jihad. They will be expelled if they do not leave the country voluntarily, Verdonk has vowed.

Islam is not the enemy, but the radical fringe that seeks to pollute it. The US will serve as the test-case for successfully conducting the war against terror, the Dutch are the test case for successfully integrating a troubled Muslim population into mainstream western life. Keep an eye on both, together.

Non-jewish bloggers have been doing it for years, but now a number of high profile Canadian business executives have launched an initiative that seeks to combat anti-semitism. BMO Financial Group President and CEO Tony Comper, who started Fighting Anti-Semitism Together, or FAST, this week explained why:

"That is why we founded FAST ... as one way of crying: Enough! And why we recruited an all-star cast of non-Jewish Canadian business leaders," Comper said, citing what he called a record 857 reported incidents of anti-Semitism in Canada in 2004.

The seminal incident for Comper was news coverage of anti-Semitic attacks in Toronto, saying he was struck by the "tepid" community response that followed.

That precisely has been the root of the problem, the application of selective outrage which in turn is reflected in media coverage. And kudos to Comper for pointing out very clearly the origins of some of the present day anti-semitism:

During his address, Comper also waded into the murky waters of Mideast politics, saying today's "sophisticated anti-Semites" wrongly suggest that Israel's treatment of Palestinians is comparable to Adolf Hitler's treatment of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

Which again goes back to the very selective coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by news and opinionmakers. It's hard to assess the impact of this laudable plan but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

UPDATE: It's high time for similar initiatives in Europe and Britain.

Ed Morrissey takes on the proposed media-makeover that Canada’s conservatives have planned for their embattled leader Stephen Harper, and compares the media strategy to the one adopted by Reagan.

Sure, going over the heads of the traditional media to appeal to the average citizen is a useful strategy for any political leader, but for Harper it comes a bit late in the day. He’s has been leader for a number of years now, he has lost one election and failed to force another one at a time when his Liberal opponents were in dire straits. If you want to compare Harper to American politicians here’s one that’s more apt: John Kerry. Whenever the Massachussets senator stumbled in the polls last year his advisors came up with another gimmick to let John connect with the people: turn up in fast-food joints, appear in hunting gear, they did whatever it took to let John be the person Americans would like and let him be the person that he really wasn’t. The outcome of such artificial make-overs are that voters recognize them for what they are and they usually respond in dismissive fashion.

So let me extend the Gipper analogy for it definitely clarifies a few things vis-à-vis Stephen Harper: (a) Reagan had a vision and a unique ability to share it with the American public (b) Reagan often suffered bad advisors but knew how to get rid of them in time (John Sears comes to mind) and (c) Reagan knew when to play the centrist card and understood that social conservatism was not a vote winner. Stephen Harper fails on all three counts. I agree with Morrissey, Canada’s conservatives need to read up on conservative success stories, otherwise they will indeed remain an opposition party for a long time to come, and a poor one at that.

If Europe is worrying over its demographic challenges, maybe it's time for them to take a look at Australia where a baby bonus has helped spur fertility rates. It's hardly a new concept, Singapore, the world's laboratory for social engineering has had a similar scheme for years.

Getting cash is hardly the right reason to procreate and a society may end up with a lot of new babies born in families that see the birth of a new child as a good deal in financial terms but nothing much beyond that. It's mystifying that many see a child as a financial burden, then decide to have one, and expect the taxpayer to pick up the bill. If societies fail it's because its citizens are actively outsourcing personal responsibility to others, an increasing and depressing phenomenon in probably all Western societies. Maybe that's something to address first.

Still catching up with stuff and there are a lot of interesting things in the mailbox. One comes from Booker Rising who have analyzed Hirsi Ali's political preferences by rating certain policy areas and concludes:

Her mix of fiscal and social moderatism, and foreign policy neo-conservatism is almost unique among most prominent feminists.

It's a struggle to find out where the Booker folks got their numbers from, but their overall conclusion makes sense if we look at Hirsi Ali's positions on a number of issues. Read it and make your own judgement.

The Dorsman family spent the past six days on a ranch in northern British Columbia. It was an amazing experience, in the middle of nowhere: after leaving the main highway we had to drive some 40 miles on unhardened road to arrive at the ranch, too far away to link the few residents to the power grid and where neighbors live some 30 miles apart. On top of that a gun would come in quite handy if you happen to come across a bear and his cubs, we were fortunately in the car when our paths crossed that of a giant black bear. Yet in that environment people have eked out a living, often very successfully, as ranchers, loggers or both.

The challenges faced by our ranch hosts were manifold, but as opposed to many cityfolk I know, they have remained undeterred and optimistic. The mad cow disease pretty much ended the lucrative beef exporting business (interestingly Colby reports a potential first case in the US this week) and the mountain pine beetle is wreaking havoc on lumber prices. That's how tourism became the next option for revenue and that's how we ended up there.

So, the red state comparison doesn't come out of thin air. The ranchers have become suspicious of government policies and after the pine beetle disaster you can't expect them to roll out the red carpet for the environmentalists who in the recent past lobbied successfully against most sensible solutions. The absence of government however is most notable in the remoteness of the area, too far away to regulate. So the atmosphere and attitudes here are very different from what you encounter elsewhere in British Columbia and the place - and especially the excellent food served - had a distinctly American feel to it. We had a great week, thanks especially to our wonderful hosts, Dale and Yvonne at the Blackwater Spruce Ranch.

That's me on the left.

The valley where the ranch was located.

Nice view of one of the 1600 lakes in the area. Note the logged forest on the hills in the back.

Another view but if you look closer you can see the deep brown - dead - trees affected by the pine beetle.

Well, here's a close up of a tree affected by the beetle inflicted disease.

The one place to get gas and food in a wide radius. Excellent food, that is.

Lots of waters, streams.

And horses.

From a short trip to the countryside. Will have some more details and photos later.

Nothing major, but I will be taking a short break from the blog and return early next week. In the meantime, you can take a look at one of my book recommendations. See you soon.

Another Euro-critic (thanks to an attentive reader) echoes my sentiments on how Turkey can be instrumental in creating a new type of Europe, or "Let the Turks in to finish off the Euro superstate". Excerpt:

Blair’s first priority should be to make sure that Turkey does not get dumped off the path to accession in 2015. Over the past three years it has launched the most ambitious wave of reform since Kemal Ataturk founded the Anatolian modern nation. Turkey has also met in exemplary fashion EU membership requirements for upholding the rule of law, protecting minorities and enforcing competition.

With or without the EU, Turkey will be a winner. Economically, membership will provide a substantial net benefit to the union. Strategically and politically, Turkish exclusion would be a disaster. Its inclusion, though far from being unproblematic, would move Europe’s defensive rampart eastward and set a valuable precedent for reform elsewhere in the Islamic world.

To be clear, it's not an easy proposal to support a carefully orchestrated Turkish ascension, on the one hand there are (on the left) the Europhiles that are committed to build the superstate and who are probably too eager to let Turkey in, and on the other hand there are (on the right) those who think that excluding Turkey is sending the right signal to an already struggling Muslim world. Difficult though it may be, it serves two very distinct and positive purposes (foil the superstate and speed up reform in the Muslim world) and should therefore be pursued relentlessly.

Recent polling numbers (more detail here) - taken after the referendum - reveal that all the major paries would lose big time while smaller groups on the right and left would gain significantly. Notably the Socialist Party, an extremely scary left-wing outfit (a fringe party even in the 70s and 80s) that campaigned hard for a 'no' would end up with 14% of the popular vote. To add to the misery index, the president of the Dutch National Bank today presented a bleak annual growth figure for 2005: 0.4%. He added that more economic reform would be required which is telling as the Dutch have been one of the more pro-active reformers in continental Europe.

A shift to the left would automatically spoil any serious attempt at reform, but if elections were held today it unfortunately would be the most likely outcome. It goes to show you the difficulty of trying to reinvigorate the EU debate while simultaneously getting your economy back on track. It almost seems as if the two have found each other in an incredbile marriage of decline.

Posted at 12:00 AM by Pieter Dorsman | Permalink | Dutch Politics | TrackBack (0)

BOOK TAG

George of EU Rota has kindly tagged me. Here we go:

Number of Books I Own: Some 500, at last count.

Last Book I Bought: No idea. They come in bulk when Irene and I order our periodical Amazon delivery. The last book I got, as a gift, was Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Given its theme it's one I'll definitely read.

Last Book I Read: An End to Evil by David Frum and Richard Perle. It's been on the stack of "to read" for a year thinking I knew most of what the writers had to say already. I did, but it was still a good read. Frum on his own however, is better.

Five Books that mean a lot to me:

The Hidden Force, by Louis Couperus. From the turn of the century, this Dutch classic about love and hate is set during the colonial years in the former Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, and epitomizes the clash between two cultures. I don't know how the translation comes across, but going by the Amazon reviews it's not an easy read for some. The atmosphere it so vividly created has stayed with me until this day.

Wild Swans, by Jung Chang. Read it on the eve of my deprature to Hong Kong in 1992 shortly after its release. Probably the best book on China's cultural revolution (a series of crappier ones followed shortly after Jung) and a riveting introduction to Chinese culture in general. Jung Chang has been silent for quite a while, but apparently she has been working on a weighty biography of Mao Zedong which will come out in October/November this year. That promises to be a must-read too.

O Jerusalem, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. Read it as a young teenager in the late 70s. This is one of the best historical overviews of the birth of Israel. What sticks in my mind above all however is how the under-equipped and under-staffed Jewish forces we're able to carve out a state against an overwhelming Arab force.

East and West, by Christopher Patten. The one book in my collection that was autographed by the writer. My term in Hong kong coincided with that of the colony's last Governor and Patten's book is poignant. His attempts to bring democracy to HK were ridculed as the Asian Model (little or no democracy = good for business) was the flavor du jour, but the subsequent financial crisis of 1998 proved Patten's points. Thriving markets need freedom of information, transparency and thus democracy. It's all condensed in this book.

1984, by George Orwell. No comment necessary I believe, it's been dicussed here before. By the way the year 1984 was one of the most boring and uneventful years of my life, but I fail to see the significance of that in relation to this book.

OK, time to pass the tag to: Mitch, Jeremy, Sari, Rogier and Matt.

Fareed Zakaria thinks that resistance to immigration, free markets and Turkey joining the EU were the essential feeders of last week's no-vote in both France and The Netherlands. As Peaktalk readers know, all these played a part but most likely a minor one and they can certainly not be considered to have contributed equally in both countries. Zakaria however does make a few rather sensible points about what the old continent really needs:

It needs more economic reform to survive in a new era of global competition, more young immigrants to sustain its social market and a more strategic relationship with the Muslim world, which would be dramatically enhanced by Turkish membership in the EU.

As we've learned from the French referendum outcome, the route to voter buy-in is likely to go through the further protection and implementation of certain social and economic rights, hardly the reforms Zakaria perceives to be required. In the immigration department there are similar problems, but chances are that reform on the economic side might go a long way to reducing the cost of a graying population. So the ability to force through drastic economic measures (work longer hours, later retirement, less taxes, more privatization) in turn will dictate the extent to which human capital needs to be imported from elsewhere as we can't really count on hedonist Europeans to start producing more babies themselves.

That leaves us with Turkey. In the past I've argued strongly in favor of forging an alliance with the secular bridge between Asia and Europe. That argument was based on an EU consisting of free-trading and sovereign nations that were capable of controlling and managing their borders. To such a union Turkey would be a phenomenal addition and at the same time it would provide an enormous boost for democracy and economic growth in the Muslim nations of the near east. However if the current Euro-elites prevail and create an economically statist federation and pursue with their current agenda unchanged, then an admission of Turkey could spell a potential demographic and economic disaster which may be hard to undo.

With Tony Blair suspending the British ratification process and calling for a debate in Europe , the British are now well positioned to pursue and promote a more Thatcherist view of Europe. Here's a good analysis from the otherwise pro-European Dutch NRC Handelsblad:

Following the French referendum and the heavy losses suffered by Schroeder’s SPD in Nordrhine-Westfalia both leaders are now more or less lame ducks.

More importantly, it has been a while that a British government was able to play such a strong hand in shaping Europe according to its wishes. For decades Britain was not more than a difficult appendage to Europe that was only capable of effecting delays in the process of unstoppable integration of an increasingly closer Europe. During its presidency of the EU in the coming six months Blair can prove that his country is able to play a constructive role. And if he plays the game of diplomacy skillfully then the new Europe will undoubtedly have a British flavor.

It seems a tall order but a damaged Chirac and a retirement-ready Schroeder supported by an emboldened Euroskeptic public have provided a unique opportunity for those wishing to reshape Europe or at the very least have a meaningful discussion about it. For that, Blair will need all the help he can get from other leaders based on the continent. He conquered Basra, can he conquer Brussels?

UPDATE: Read this column by Claire Berlinski too.

Natural disasters, mass immigration, corruption, wars, all factors that in the past have contributed to the weakening of once great empires. There was one other famous accelerator of societal decline. What was it? Oh yes, nepotism.