It's a busy day for me today, so limited posting. If there's one thing I would recommend you read today, it's Greg Djerejian's analysis of the current state of the presidency, including some recommendations for Bush.

Later today, President Bush is expected to announce his new SCOTUS nominee. John Hawkins organized a poll among conservative bloggers asking for their most favorite and least favorite candidates. The results are here. The preferences are quite clear: Janice Rogers Brown and Michael Luttig are the favorites, while everyone hopes that we're not going to have a sort of Miers-replay with an Alberto Gonzales nomination. PoliPundit conducted a similar poll earlier.

It's all becoming a little bit too predictable when it comes to putting forward names, so here are my surprise nominees: Theodore Olson and Maureen Mahoney.

UPDATE: It's Samuel Alito.

This is what I wrote shortly after the Bali bombings earlier this month:

The ethnic and wealthy Chinese are always the first to bear the brunt of mob violence, but it’s equally easy to organize mobs to ransack and terrorize some Christian outposts on Sulawesi or the Moluccas.

It happened again this weekend on Sulawesi where three Christian girls were beheaded by six machete wielding men. There’s little to add to my original post about religious tensions in Indonesia, they can be dormant for decades but when someone feels it’s time to ignite the fire the results can be very ugly. Michelle Malkin has a good round-up and Andrew Sullivan has a link to some very disturbing pictures.

UPDATE: Leon de Winter - who has moved his Free West blog to the website of German newspaper Die Welt (why?) has more comments and some thoughts on an imaginary Reuters report he read following the beheadings.

Dan Drezner links to an interesting piece in Time which argues that Europe is probably the area where the jihadist threat is most potent. That point has been made here before on more than one occasion; although initially I felt that al-Qaeda and affiliated groups would remain quiet in order to drive some sort of wedge between the US and Europe. Yet, even after a series of terror attacks in Old Europe there is no overall sense on the “European street” that it should be part of an American-led war on terror, or at the very least develop a joint strategy.

There is a very good reason for that as the economic, social and cultural complexities demand a unique solution for Europe itself. The problem is that neither those in Europe that have woken up to the new realities, nor those that adhere to the dated multiculturalist approach have figured out which pan-European approach would work best to dislodge or neutralize the domestic Islamist threat.

Al-Jazeera launched a new channel for children last month and the Amsterdam cable-TV service on Friday announced it had purchased the rights to start broadcasting it. Dutch cable services add and delete their offerings based on demand and other input from the public - remember the case where CNN risked being booted off for being too pro-American - and Al-Jazeera for kids probably reflects the changing market in The Netherlands. A representative from the cable network however felt it necessary to put some politically correct varnish on their decision:

"A Lebanese boy wants to recognise himself in the kids shown on television and that just isn’t possible with American comic strip characters."

Fine. Here are my thoughts. Firstly, kids from whatever cultural or religious background like and recognize American comic strip characters – which is why they’ve become the money printing global franchises they are - and the argument that Arab kids don’t identify with them is absolute patent nonsense. Secondly, it doesn’t require a lot of imagination to see how some of Al-Jazeera’s cartoon characters can be creatively programmed to deliver some interesting cultural and political messages to little Arab kids in Amsterdam. I leave it to your imagination to determine what these could be, but here’s Rakan, a sort of Egyptian superhero:

Even the stories featuring Rakan, who survived a Mongol invasion of Mesopotamia and was raised by a mystical saber-toothed cat, distantly parallel more recent events. His country is a constant target of invasion -- by Mongols, Turks and Crusaders. If the place and mayhem sound like Iraq, so be it.

Thirdly, apart from American or Arab content there is local TV, the preferred route to finally achieve a little measure of integration, but if you have Superman and Rakan on the telly, why go Dutch? And finally, kids shouldn’t be watching mass entertainment on TV for any pro-longed period of time anyway, but that battle was waged and lost ages ago it seems.

Of course, you can’t stop market forces and an increasing demand for Arab culture in Europe’s capital is a reflection of that very mechanism. Failed integration policies are a key reason such demand is still there and the moment Rakan starts taking his orders from OBL it will be time to dump Al-Jazeera Kids from the cable service as free speech does have its limits. Programming the minds of young children with an anti-Western message is one of them.

The one year anniversary of the Theo van Gogh murder is coming up and you can expect a longer piece here this coming Wednesday as well as a radio appearance by yours truly on the same day to talk about the murder and its aftermath.

Some have already started commemorating and Rogier van Bakel posted his remembrance of Van Gogh up yesterday, contrasting the filmmaker’s death with a questionable column in the Guardian.

Today the NYT looks at the planned remakes of three original Van Gogh movies by Steve Buscemi, Bob Balaban and Stanley Tucci. These productions will, contrary to public perception, not deal with politics, immigration or religious issues but instead explore the themes of Van Gogh’s original work: complicated relationships between men and women. The American team that will now produce these remakes have confirmed that their focus will be on giving Van Gogh the North American audience that during his short life he never got. This was underlined by Dutch actress Tara Elders and Van Gogh’s longtime partner Gijs van de Westelaken:

Ms. Elders particularly lamented that van Gogh was cut down just as he was getting ready to try making films in America. "He didn't like the Dutch film industry, and it didn't like him," she said. "The way he made films with three cameras and would win prizes while others felt he was ruining the film industry."

Mr. Westelaken added, "He was not waiting for government subsidies." Van Gogh, he said, would utter an expletive instead and say: "Film it now. Low budget buys you freedom."

And the freedom to pursue creativity, no matter how intolerable and unacceptable it was to some, was the hallmark of Van Gogh’s life and work. More analyis and commentary next week.

Some refreshing perspective about the Plame affair.

Roger Simon:

It's obvious too that the Plame Affair is not at all about some minor not-so-covert CIA official, but about Iraq. It is a replaying of the war on other turf.

Mark Steyn:

Well, I would hope that there are no indictments, because I don't see that there is anything significant about the Valerie Plame leak that makes this leak so much more important than all the other leaks that have come out...the CIA has been leaking against this president for years, for example. I don't understand why leaking the name of Valerie Plame, which isn't a crime, should be the most important leak ever to come out. The real issue here is that Joe Wilson should never have been sent to Niger on that mission in the first place. The president was right on this. British intelligence, French intelligence, and even a former prime minister of Niger agree that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. Why have we got into a huge criminal investigation, defending some obscure matter relating to the spouse of a buffoon, and an unqualified fraud who basically lied about everything he discovered in Niger?

The actual number for fiscal 2005 is 2.6% and not the 4.1% that was quoted here before. Thanks to my readers for pointing out that the number from the Economist that I used earlier was not correct. However, it seems that the Economist uses forward looking numbers and this is their latest projection:

Given the lack of political will to cut discretionary spending and increase taxes, the White House and Congress will find it near-impossible to offset the cost of the Gulf Coast reconstruction effort. Federal finances, therefore, will remain weak, with the deficit expected to reach 3.9% of GDP in 2005/06.

I’ve inaugurated a new category, something I rarely do. Still it was time to find an appropriate term to group all the posts that deal with cultural relativism, cultural pessimism, moral depravity and all other related indicators that tell us that if we don’t pay attention and are prepared to act, it may very well be all over, and sooner than we think. Yesterday, we witnessed another assault on a time–tested western tradition and the more we allow relativists to chip away at what binds us, the sooner our society will crumble. Yes, I almost sound like David Warren, but as opposed to him I do have the belief we can turn the tide if we really want to.

Yesterday, one of my favorite conservative columnists, Peggy Noonan, weighed in on the same issue, arguing that the inability of the elites to lead us may well result in some form of collapse:

Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than non-elites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

It’s a pessimism that I find hard to accept but I agree with Noonan – read the whole piece with spoilt teenagers and failed education – that we are in a very difficult spot, socially and culturally. One of my readers e-mailed about this very topic earlier this week, after a depressing dinner with some guests who in his opinion were a little too relative about America’s traditions and accomplishments:

This evening, and your pacifist link have lead me back to some earlier thoughts we have discussed. Where are our generation’s leaders? Both political/cultural sides in the US feel bankrupt to me. And there is a lot of bitterness, a lot of confusion and dare I say, stupidity.

If there’s a moral vacuum then it has been there for quite a while, we’ll have to go back to the 1960s to look for its roots. Apart from Reagan in America and Thatcher in Britain I can’t think of any recent political leaders in the west who have been able to define the purpose of our being and our willingness to fight for it. The 9/11 wake-up call has lost its effect and the man who for a brief moment looked like he was able to lead the western world in its new and dangerous struggle is now the symbol of a presidency that is rapidly unraveling. That must have, at least partly, inspired Noonan’s lament. It’s no time for pessimism, but optimism without a coherent plan and new political zeal is equally likely to lead the trolley of the track.

UPDATE: A reader observes:

I think you underestimate the scope of the piece by Peggy Noonan. This is a former speech writer for Reagan. She has always been that person on the talkshows that said "this is the administration finding themselves", etc. In this piece she has basically abandoned the concept of the competent presidency. I believe that this article yesterday would have been a huge matter had not the Miers withdrawal happened. Either way, I still think that Peggy Noonan's article should get more attention. This is a deeply connected woman with massive experience who, as far as I can tell, has lost almost all hope. This is a big deal and I think the blogosphere should be covering it.

Agreed. And it will be covered and debated here.

From the politically correct crowd that sought to ban snowballs from playgrounds and replace Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays, a new target has been found in Halloween. A Toronto school board released a memo to its principals this week stating that Halloween celebrations could be disrespectful to some children, notably Wiccans. Money quote:

"Many recently arrived students in our schools share absolutely none of the background cultural knowledge that is necessary to view 'trick or treating,' the commercialization of death, the Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious beliefs, as 'fun,' "

Well there you have it. Some genius figured out that Halloween isn’t really a pagan tradition but a “Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious beliefs”. The question of course is, what’s next of the agenda of our cultural relativists. The Easter Bunny? Santa Claus himself?

Despite the controversy, an outcome that not too many were willing to put their money on given this administration's solid track record of staying the course in the face of adversity. In most circumstances a commendable approach, but this particular nomination started to create deep fissures in the conservative movement and, equally important, impact the credibility of this president. Conservatives can now rightfully claim a victory, as well as take credit for creating the groundwork for a new, viable and potentially more conservative candidate with at the very least an impressive judicial track record. For the Bush team it is a humiliating setback and for the first time since coming to office it is now under attack from a number of different directions. It has lost the strength of the initiative and that could create some serious paralysis, barely a year into the second term. Not a good sign.

It's a busy week, so there is not that much time for updating the blog. And if I do, I am running behind the main news cycle, as well as some of the other noteworthy stuff. The good news to which I was a bit late is that Pajamas Media has appointed its man in Europe, Franco Alemán aka Jose Guardia or better still, Barcepundit. In his Pajamas Profile he explains what drives his blogging quest:

The angle the media chooses to report has consequences, because people can only build fully informed opinions and then make fully informed decisions when they get two sides of the issues. This one-sided coverage helps to explain, for example, the overwhelming anti-war sentiment in Spain, and at least partially explains Zapatero's surprise victory in the polls right after March 11.

I read the various Pajamas Profiles religiously, not only are they an entertaining read, there is actually something to be learned from the various life histories and opinions that have now assembled themselves under the Pajamas umbrella. If you haven't read it already, my profile is here.

How pacifism evolved into anti-patriotism and how Churchill came to be viewed with suspicion. Can the US learn some lessons from interbellum Britain?

A few weeks ago, a reader sent me a link to an article written by Judea Pearl (Daniel Pearl’s father) about anti-Zionism and why it is essentially a racist doctrine. Rather than linking it for its own sake I set it aside, only to use it today as there’s some highly relevant context following Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad call that it was time for Israel to be "wiped off the map". It wasn’t just some rhetoric to stir up the base, no, an entire conference, entitled "A World without Zionism" was dedicated to annihilating Israel. Again here’s Pearl:

As a form of racism, anti-Zionism is worse than anti-Semitism. It targets the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people, namely, the people of Israel, who rely on the sovereignty of their state for physical safety, national identity and personal dignity. To put it more bluntly, anti-Zionism condemns 5 million human beings, mostly refugees or children of refugees, to eternal statelessness, traumatized by historical images of persecution and genocide.

Anti-Zionism also attacks the pivotal component of our identity, the glue that bonds us together — our nationhood, our history. And while people of conscience reject anti-Semitism, anti-Zionist rhetoric has become a mark of academic sophistication and social acceptance in Europe and in some U.S. campuses.

And some government-sponsored conferences in Tehran it appears, underlining just how the anti-Israel forces in the West have aligned themselves with the terror masters eager to develop their own private nuclear arsenal. At the rate at which countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Syria are rapidly losing their teeth and hardline credentials it is no surprise that one country is more than willing to fill the void. And one country to take the brunt.

Thanks to all of you who wrote or expressed an interest in, or suggested some links, about the teacher’s strike (or shakedown), which thankfully is over now. It is of course, not a local issue, hardly. It all comes down to economic freedom and that’s the category where I’ve put the many posts that dealt with the issue, so take a look there if you’re interested in (re)reading them. That interest taught me something as well, most importantly that the same problems are prevalent in the US, something which came as a bit of a surprise to me. One reader in Washington state observed:

We’ve been watching the BC teacher strike with great interest here in Washington state. In 2003 we had a district go on strike for 49 days – the longest in state history – despite clear precedent that teacher strikes are illegal. This year at least 5 local education unions threatened strikes in order to wring compensation concessions from the district negotiators. No elected officials were willing to challenge the union’s tactics.

And would that be because of the dominance of one party in that particular state? Or could it be that unions have such a hold on public opinion that parties from either side are reluctant to take on so obvious a problem? Or could it be that the social and economic make-up of places like Washington State and British Columbia produces a particularly perverted style of politics? Consider what James Na, of the excellent Guns and Butter blog and a former Seattle resident, has to say about it:

Alas, I think Seattle, like Vancouver, is following the San Francisco model, where the warped policies are turning the city into an enclave of rich, active retirees and the young, beautiful people crowd in a sea of poor, badly-educated underclass (including proliferating vagrants). Meanwhile, expensive real estate, lack of wide-scale industry and poor public schools force the middle-class out.

And if the middle class votes with its feet, then the market for simple and compelling free market thinking stands a good chance of evaporating for good. But hey, you got clean air and great views so who cares?

A civil rights champion, dead at age 92:

Parks' moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The boycott led to a court ruling desegregating public transportation in Montgomery, but it wasn't until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that all public accommodations nationwide were desegregated.

It's important to remember what she stood for and it is equally important to ensure that her name will never be abused to promote any other cause than the one she stood for: basic human rights.

What cronyism? It seems our corner store owner from Dallas, a strong favorite for the job, lost out to Ben Bernanke. He's got a impressive resume.

UPDATE: Marginal Revelution has lots on Bernanke, keep scrolling.

The debate on public schools continues. A reader - who has all the time as he's grounded by Hurricane Wilma - writes:

Surely the government knows what needs to be done? The answer is that the targets are set by the state Department of Education, and/or a Federal judge. And when you have only one group of people determining the course of education in a state, you are in essence putting all your eggs in that one DOE basket. How does the state DOE determine the targets? By consulting academic pedagogues, their own specialists, and, of course the relevant committee jurisdictions within the state legislature. The result is a set of standards that, no doubt, reflect the thinking of academics and legislators, but not necessarily the needs of the students. Notice, in the end, it is actually a VERY small group of people who are deciding what the "needs" are, and, therefore direction of EVERY school district in the state will be.

The upshot is that performance targets, to work in the schools, can only work if one can say: " We have carefully and truly identified the unmet needs of our customers (the student), and based our targets on those needs. Because of that, we can be sure that the targets will orient our investment, our workforce, management (administration) and the entire organization toward meeting those needs. If we have somehow misjudged what the customer truly wants, we can be sure we will receive feedback immediately in the marketplace, and we will, in such a case, immediately reassess and reorient our efforts to align with our customer's wishes"

The tragedy is, the energy and creativity of the teacher, the one person in the education supply chain that truly can see, and remedy, unmet needs in their students, is thwarted because of the package tour "if it is Tuesday, we must be studying statistics" approach guaranteed by a state-mandated curriculum.

Sounds ominous. Frontpage Magazine discusses the nine signs of militant Islam. The identification of these signs was an American effort, however the signs manifest themselves primarily in Europe.

It was a big construction site when I visited last Christmas, but on Friday George Bush formally opened the latest exhibition in Ronald Reagan’s Presidential Library in Simi Valley. Visitors can now visit the Air Force One that served seven US Presidents, the last one of which was Ronald Reagan. Despite the grandeur and spectacle of the current 747, aircraft connoisseurs and history buffs alike generally agree that there’s nothing like the real original bird, the 707.

While German coalition negotiations are ongoing - no, Merkel isn't there yet - there's more bad news on the horizon as growth projections have been revised downward, again. Yep, Schroeder's reforms were working.

Judging from some of the reactions I want to reiterate that I am not advocating a wholesale privatization of education, something that would be politically unpalatable in any jurisdiction. No, a public system should be needs driven, accountable and give parents and students options when it comes to making choices. These factors in turn should help to introduce some performance related targets for schools which should help in giving teachers a more market-based incentive scheme rather than the year-on-year blanket increases, enforced by unions, regardless of performance.

That is exactly where western democracies have been moving in recent years (note the emergence of school vouchers and the willingness of parents to go private if they don’t like what they see) and it is precisely this scenario that public sector unions fear so much. That’s been the key motivation behind the recent British Columbia teachers strike and the excessive militancy displayed by their union. It was all driven by the acute awareness that this could be one of the last chances to try and salvage a crippled and inefficient system that had benefited them for ages and which therefore should be preserved at all cost. Even if a portion could be saved from 21th century realities, then it would be worth the damage and inconvenience to parents and students alike. That’s also why the real issues where obfuscated and why the unions pushed forward a series of myths, all of which are succinctly debunked by Erin Airton.

Yet, there were few, if any, media outlets that were willing to look beyond these myths – apart from a few conservative bloggers and columnists - and consequently the union was able to retain a significant measure of public support, as some poll numbers indicated. Fine, but the blame for that rests not just with a heavily biased media, but also with a government whose ability to engage the public and drive its economic policies forward in a credible manner faltered hopelessly. As a consequence, it has been a baffling experience to listen to hardworking middle to higher income earners in the private sector who are serving up some of the talking points prepared by the union. Or who fail to make the crucial distinction between teachers and the radical union that claims to represent them. But some have taken action and with the help of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation are now suing the teacher’s union, the BCTF, for the failure to provide services. It's an important move that deserves respect, highlighting that there are committed people in Canada that are willing to stand up to the left's bullying tactics.

In summary, the immediate tasks ahead are to find to creative ways in ensuring that an excellent public education system meets the needs of a new economic era, while forcefully taking on the dark forces that seek to prevent such a natural move forward.

UPDATE I: It's over, finally.

UPDATE II: This is just hilarious, a union picketed by its own staff:

The school year has begun, but the Washington Education Association’s (WEA) labor battles are not over. In a strange bit of irony, the state’s largest and most powerful union is embroiled in a bitter dispute with its own employees over wages, benefits, and other employment policies. That’s ironic since its local affiliates habitually threaten individual school districts with illegal public sector strikes on a regular basis.

(...)

Apparently the WEA understands the importance of “fiscal responsibility” when it comes to its own bottom line, but could care less about the struggles facing local school districts or the taxpayers of Washington.

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Strike or Shakedown? (2)
Strike or Shakedown?

I’ve been glued to the screen for the better part of this week – not just blogging, I work too – so time for a little weekend break. Given what was discussed here over the past few days, a fitting thought from a regular reader:

One of the things that draws me back to your blog is your sense of a moral compass. I don't always agree with your reading of it, but I definitely agree it is something Western culture is losing. And I feel as well it centers around the fragmentation of our family structures. For example, I've definitely decided, when I have kids, my nights-work-day-college schedule has got to end. I want a 'family dinner' time. Like I had growing up, when we all ate together and the TV was off. And I've definitely decided I will ask my children each day, everyday "What did you learn today?" Because the only way they will survive and prosper is if they dedicate themselves to learning and growing. And they will definitely need to learn how to manage risk, I have a terrible feeling the world will be more risky for them than it has been for me.

Very likely. See you Sunday.

Look, I am not overly particular about religion but I will stand up for the right of a five-year old to make an artwork featuring Jesus:

Antonio Peck, then a kindergarten student at Baldwinsville, NY’s Catherine McNamara Elementary School, originally turned in his poster-assignment to his teacher in 1999. It featured, among other things, a cut out picture of Jesus--something he reportedly thought applicable to the environment, and the assignment.

School officials however, felt otherwise. They rejected a first version of the poster and folded Antonio’s second attempt in half, in order to obscure the image of a kneeling Jesus they thought to be too religious in nature. In 2000, a New York federal court ruled that the school had the right to censor the poster on the grounds of separation of church and state.

The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals ruled this week that Antonio's constitutional rights were possibly violated and has now referred the case back to the court.

We’re in the final stages of the teacher’s strike it seems, now that both sides have accepted the recommendations of the mediator and the courts have fined the teacher’s union BCTF half a million dollars for their contempt of court:

Justice Brenda Brown of the B.C. Supreme Court said she based the amount of the fine on the fact it appears the teachers are about to return to work. She said otherwise the fine would have been "very significantly larger."

It’s a somewhat questionable ruling as of today there is no absolute certainty that the teachers will indeed return to work, as the union will vote over the weekend. It appears to be a small amount (around 4% of BCTF’s net cash position) especially given the fact that the striking teachers did breach – and continue to breach – the law for a period of two weeks. If the judge feels the imminent end justifies a lower fine than maybe there should been a conditional fine on top of the one she has just given. Still the judge made a very crucial point:

She said there are two misconceptions regarding the contempt -- that the teachers were defying an unjust law and that citizens have the right to breach a court order in defying an unjust law. "They do not," Brown said.

This outcome as well as the union’s “reluctant recommendation” to its members to accept the mediator’s recommendations point to an end of the conflict. And while organized labor and some media will do everything to spin the final outcome, it will be a government win which, given the illegal nature of the strike, was almost a given from day one. In fact, as The Shotgun points out, by foregoing pay during the strike, the teachers have essentially funded the compromise that is now on the table.

So, from a broader perspective was the disruption to the educational services worth it? Hardly. Although the unions lost it is absurd that a full two weeks were needed to arrive at this obvious point. Given the mixed public reaction it remains to be seen whether the people of British Columbia – as voters the ultimate arbiters - understand the need to reform provincial education and take a decisive stand against militant employee groups that benefit from antiquated and illiberal labor laws. While the Campbell government has taken a commendable stand, it hasn’t really been able to get its message across more effectively. You have to be able to communicate with the voters about the need and rationale for steady reform. Granted, the local media are deeply biased as even the more neutral outlets always take care in not offending or otherwise criticizing the unions.

The initial assessment is that after two weeks of closed schools, we have seen relatively weak court rulings, an overly careful media reaction and two battling parties who as a result are prone to lock horns again in the not too distant future. If it was really all about the children and the law - my position - then there should have been a far more direct approach from both the courts and the government. As for the BCTF, their intentions were clear from day one, it was about everything, but not the children.

Related:
Well, in Washington State they don’t need the government to get rid of unions with questionable political motives. In the Sprague-Lamont School District the teachers voted to decertify their union:

"because teachers were fed up with annual dues of nearly $700 per teacher, much of which was used by the W.E.A. to further social and political agendas they found offensive"

While I never attach too much value to poll results, they usually highlight interesting trends especially if the numbers project a clear trend. This poll is two months old, but it is still very revealing to note that the Dutch rate Terrorism (39%) and Public Safety (27%) as their two key concerns, well ahead of the traditional hot buttons, economy and healthcare. With the recent crackdown on a jihadist terror network and the upcoming first anniversary of the Van Gogh killing these issues will continue to dominate the headlines and consequently feed the responses of the once fearless Dutch.

Thanks for the many comments and e-mails. The breadth and historical depth of the phenomenon warrants a longer post, and for that I need a bit more time. Stay tuned.

Yes, TV has lost most of its luster. Still, there are gems to be had and Donny Deutsch' interview yesterday with "conservative-libertarian" rockstar Ted Nugent and wife was absolutely priceless. There's no transcript of it online but if I find it I will link it. The bottom line: the Nugents enjoyed being thrown the kind of questions one can expect from a mainstream Manhattan media star who doesn't like gun ownership and "supports the war effor in Iraq, but ...". The Nugents, with a smile on their face, cruised comfortably through the interview while Deutsch was getting visibly irritated as he lost ground as the chat went on.

Next step for Nugent: a run to become Michigan's next governor. And Deutsch has political ambitions too.

In, of all places, Quebec. A group of business leaders, politicians and journalists released a manifesto arguing that the French-Canadian province - probably the most European juisdiction in North America - must take responsibility by implementing some much needed reform. The document got attention, not just because it reads like a conservative think-tank study saying what no one dares saying, but because one of its co-signatories is Lucien Bouchard. He is one of the province's most renowned politicians and sovereignists, and with this document departs from the deeply held belief that an independent Quebec will solve all the province's economic and social ills. Notable excerpts:

The report that he and the 11 other signatories produced offered plenty to make Quebecers squirm. For example, Quebecers "work less than other North Americans; they retire earlier; they benefit from more generous social programs; both individually and collectively, their credit cards are maxed out," the 10-page document says.

The group proposes a substantial increase in the rates Quebecers pay for electricity to help pay down the debt. It says massive investments in education and research are needed to make the province competitive. It recommends raising university tuition to match other provinces and reforming the tax system so there is less emphasis on income tax.

And to stay on this week's hot topic, some groups are going to have a hard time swallowing some of the proposed medicine:

The group did not include representation from Quebec's powerful trade union movement, which is understandable considering the manifesto's harsh words directed toward current union leadership. "Judging by the way some labour leaders behave today, especially in the public sector, is union action not often limited to the shortsighted protection of members' interests?" the report asks.

There's a term for observations like these. It's called "incipient common sense". One comment though, you can bet your bottom dollar that Canada's ruling Liberals will skilfully hijack this agenda of reform and carefully massage it into a palatable version for the next election. It seems they have already started.

Despite it being a Peaktalk core theme, I’ve never been able to come up with a comprehensive explanation for Europe’s anti-Americanism. Instead of finding one blanket theory that covers this phenomenon, there are different aspects that can help explain it, the first one was posted here. The second one is delivered by Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal who argues that the European perception of the moral equivalence between the US and the former USSR is a key explanatory factor. He concludes:

It reinforced the message of the “peace” movement of the 1980s that the Soviet occupation was basically on a par with the American domination of Western Europe. Now that the Soviet domination has ended, West European public opinion wants America out as well. It is a sentiment they share with the Jihadists.

While I agree with the basic premise that Belien puts forward, there are some notable differences among Europeans, which is why I keep on arguing that Europe has now become a multi-tiered continent and that it’s hard to come up with a “one size fits all” theory. Still, we’re building a broader explanation looking for the origins of anti-Americanism, and if readers can come with more suggestions I will post them, together with my own thoughts. The end result will hopefully be one detailed explanation of this bizarre, yet interesting phenomenon.

UPDATE: To be clear, European anti-Americanism should not be confused with Europe's Inertia. Anti-Americanism is only one aspect of that inertia.

Michael Yon will be on Pundit Review Radio this coming Sunday at 9:00 PM EST to talk about Iraq. Details here.

Howard at Oraculations updates us on the potential for the deal between the United Auto Workers and GM to fall through, and interestingly, the financial crisis in the municipality of San Diego caused by intransigent public sector unions. It seems that, in both the US and Canada, organized public employees are the last bastions of labor radicalism. It's probably easier to bully the taxpayer when you're providing an essential service than asking a consumer to buy an overpriced car to fund your retirement plan.

David Warren is a great conservative commentator, but somehow he always manages to weave a terrible dose of pessimism into his columns. That always undermines a potential call for action and the hope for a better outcome. It is by the way symptomatic of the conservative movement in Canada to which Warren belongs: dark, somber and unable to see or present a brighter future. As such it stands in stark contrast to their more optimistic and vibrant partners in America who have an inborn ability to see a better tomorrow.

Anyway, Warren does it again in what otherwise is a great column (via Kate) about Dutch immigration and integration minister Rita Verdonk, where he coins a new verb, “verdonking”. A great idea, but as always it ends on a sour note. Read the whole thing.

The teacher's strike continues and the rhetoric from the union leadership is increasingly becoming unhinged, more evidence that rational behavior is probably the last thing one can expect from this teacher's union. Mark Milke, one of the better local pro-free market commentators sums it up in one excellent column.

UPDATE: There are people googling "Jinny Sims = Castro" and end up here. Sims is the teacher's union leader and she loves historical analogies, alluding to Mahatma Gandhi in one recent interview, while teachers on strike invoked Mandela, Parks, and in an act of total ignorance, Walesa. Again it underlines the totally inept rhetoric that is supposed to support the strike, and in my view it is indicative of the quality of the political debate in British Columbia. The average citizen here – both those on the left and the right – are clueless about what is at stake, the historical context, or the economic dynamics. It’s similar to my native Holland: turn your back on it, and hopefully it will go away, it’s not really my business. It’s a pathetic attitude that produces very mediocre results and terrible political discourse.

Of course, Sims can’t even stand in the shadow of any of these great political and civic leaders. She comes across as someone from the lower ranks of her organization who with a bit of media talent, some incendiary rhetoric and hard-handed tactics secured her position, a process all too typical of far-left or far-right movements. No visionary material at all. Sims immigrated to Canada in the mid-1970s from Britain, so she totally missed the Thatcher revolution and its decisive impact on organized labor, and from that perspective she is truly a political anachronism. In British Columbia there’s a huge market for that sort of talent. With that in mind we do indeed have to go back some decades to find appropriate historical analogies and Castro may not be that far fetched at all.

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Disagreement, something that is rare in the Peaktalk mailbox:

Whatever one's general beliefs on abortion, the position of strongly rejecting pre-natal testing is, from a conservative point of view, wildly irresponsible. It is a simple fact that, with improving medical technology, a large proportion of the profoundly mentally disabled outlive the "loving parental care" and intimately suffer the fate, at best, of public care. If parents can establish an adequate annuity at birth to cover a decent level of lifetime care for such a profoundly disabled child (a huge if), then one can make a moral case for knowingly bringing such a child into this world. Anything else is nothing but parental selfishness and egoism. Bauer claims to have a " very clear ethical sense of the ethical boundaries that surround the creation of life." Really? Then one can only assume that she is a rather unusual "conservative" in favor of the kind of ever more massive welfare state required to totally ensure the decent care of such individuals.

Well that once more highlights that the battle lines are not simply drawn along the left-right or liberal-conservative divide when it comes to issues like this. I have yet to meet a conservative who would favor abortion in order to keep healthcare costs under control. As a matter of fact, rare diseases and deficiencies, while costlier on an individual basis, are not likely to materially impact private or public healthcare budgets, precisely because of their rare occurrence.

One other reader pointed me to the fact that in Britain there has been one case where a doctor was investigated for allegedly aborting a 7-moth old fetus because it had a cleft palate. The prosecution in the end failed, but it was a case that was (and is) relentlessly pursued by Joanna Jepson, a young Church of England curate. When the courts determined that the doctors could not be prosecuted as they had acted in good faith, she noted bitterly:

How can we put such little value on life? The history of the 20th century and the chilling horror of the Nazi eugenics programme - supervised by doctors "in good faith"- show only too clearly what can happen when supposed imperfections are deemed to negate the right to life. As a society, we now seem to be saying that the only measure of a life's worth is whether it is wanted or not.

That is grave and unsteady ground to be on, particularly given the advances in the treatment of premature babies. The 28-week-old foetus aborted in 2001 would have had around a 91 per cent chance of survival outside the womb. Imagine, that the mother in question had given birth to this baby, two months prematurely. Would we still condone the killing of her newborn child because she couldn't cope?

Clear enough.

Oradour-sur-Glane, Lidice, Putten. Rural villages, all caught in an unfortunate confluence of events which ended in horror. Read and watch this gruesome account of what happened in the village of Dujail in 1982.

UPDATE: Day one of the trial.