Roger Simon interviews Senator Joe Lieberman, here.

UPDATE: Roger has some background notes that are definitely worthwhile reading. And, one of my readers commented as follows:

Independent minded Democrats are moving toward the fringe.

Independent minded Republicans are moving toward the center.

In the short run, this is better for the Republicans, but in the long run it is worse for them. I believe the odds of a national (third way) realignment are increasing.

It has been a while since I discussed the disappearing center and to some extent that theory still holds. It is just that a new center is emerging.

It happened in the US and now it is Canada's turn, the westward shift:

For the first time, the combined population of British Columbia and Alberta has surpassed the number of people living in Quebec, growth that could translate into more Western political influence.

[ ... ]

Political observers believe the population growth in B.C. and Alberta may boost what many see as inadequate federal representation for the West.

A total of 64 members of Parliament are chosen from B.C.and Alberta, compared to Quebec's 75 seats.

Todd Hirsch, with the Canada West Foundation, predicted the West would eventually catch up.

"When they do redistribute seats in the House of Commons, it'll be adding seats to certain provinces, probably to Alberta and British Columbia," said Hirsch.

In the US this westward move was one of the key enablers of Reagan's ascendancy and the ability of the Republican Party to become the dominant political player. We won't see the exact same thing in Canada, but the last federal election did indeed inaugurate a shift to the right, engineered by a man from the west. Expect a continuation of this trend, and, a more conservative Canada.

Michelle Malkin writes about how the Bratz culture is corrupting our young girls and how we need to find better role models. Couldn't agree more. But she ends with a remarkable mea culpa:

Not that it's so easy. I confess I broke down and let my 6-year-old daughter have a Bratz lunchbox. Now she wants to be a Bratz doll for Halloween, an idea that warrants only one word (a word not said often enough): "No."

And sure enough, what did the Dorsmans do a few months back after being pressured by a six and four year old? They made a Bratz birthday cake for the four year old. It was a Baby Bratz one, but still. Bad, bad, bad.

While many were cheering its rocky start and predicting its early demise, few were willing to acknowledge its potential and eventual success. Since I know a thing or two about early stage ventures I was confident that persistence and trial-and-error would at some point yield results for Pajamas Media. That is also Michael Malone's take at ABC News Silicon Insider:

That's why, longtime readers of this column will remember, I cheered the arrival of Pajamas Media, the first real aggregator of the blogosphere.

Pajamas got off to a shaky start — stumbling just enough to satisfy those who had predicted it to fail but eventually finding its legs.

Now that the mainstream media have moved on to other stories, Pajamas is pulling in hundreds of thousands of readers each day, all drawn to its attractive mix of stories, viewpoints and, increasingly, videos.

Right now, especially on the big international stories, nobody covers events from more perspectives and with greater nuance than Pajamas Media.

More endorsements to come, no doubt.

This week:

Opposition left-wing parties Labour PvdA, green-left GroenLinks and Socialist SP clashed with coalition partners the Liberal VVD and Christian Democrat CDA in discussions over purchasing power, the AOW old age pension and healthcare.

Leading the charge was PvdA leader Wouter Bos, who said the Netherlands was suffering morally despite the pleasing economic recovery. He said the lack of understanding between Native Dutch and immigrants has increased, the same as the differences between the rich and poor.

As discussed before Labour leader Wouter Bos is an old acquaintance of mine and I have always considered him to be a fairly clever and pragmatic Blairite rather than a traditional social-democrat. Before going into politics he worked at Royal Dutch/Shell, giving him a solid grounding in what drives businesses in a global economy. As such Bos knows all too well that free markets and low taxes need to be embraced and I was a bit surprised to see him advocate the Swedish Model as something the Dutch should aspire to. That approach always reeked of placating his left-wing base and the outcome of the recent Swedish election must have given Bos pause to further advocate this as the solution for an economy that is otherwise doing quite well.

In addition, Bos has alienated himself from the traditional Dutch center by suggesting that mortgage rate deductibility and retirement at 65 are no longer sustainable. Kudos to him, but the complacent electorate is not at all interested in reality-based missives.

No, the prime ministerial hopeful must have sensed that there are no points to be scored on economic matters and that is why he undoubtedly has opened up the debate that seemed to have been somewhat neglected: integration and moral decay. These are real and pressing issues, but they have conveniently been swept under the carpet by the larger parties given their propensity to divide the electorate and arouse some unwanted emotional outbursts. It is also the territory where the divided Dutch right is currently playing, although Bos will have to put a somewhat different slant on integration than for instance Marco Pastors and Geert Wilders.

However Labour is still ahead in the polls, but its comfortable lead is shrinking, while the incumbent Christian-Democrat/VVD coalition appears to be capitalizing on its decent economic record. It is to be hoped that the left and the new right can add some sizzle to the campaign by talking about how the nation’s wealth generating capabilities can be applied to building a better and sustainable nation, at peace with itself and its immigrants

NOTE: Bos laid out his vision for the future in a booklet entitled “This country can do so much better” which I read on my most recent flight from Amsterdam. His sentiments about the nation’s ability to do better are absolutely correct, but to date Bos has failed to offer some real substance as to how the Dutch should get there. He’s got less than two months to articulate that. Stay tuned.

"Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"Because the subtext of what you have done in this particular situation is that you have chosen fear over art, silence over expression, cowardice over originality.

And I'm terribly sorry, Europe, but I choose Mozart" - Victoria Barrett

In the city of Rotterdam a Dutch developer has launched a plan to build an Islamic hospital:

The hospital will adhere to Islamic traditions and customs. Food will be halal, there will be separate wards for men and women ands female patients will only be treated by female doctors and male patients by male doctors.

Now it should be noted that the system of Dutch pillarization – explained here – in theory allows for this sort of institution to be established, were it not for the fact that modernization and secularization have essentially ‘depillarized’ the nation. While there used to be numerous Catholic, Protestant and Jewish care facilities, few if any of them are still around. It is not an overstatement to argue that only one socio-religious pillar is still standing; in fact it is relatively new and rapidly growing. The contemplated hospital in Rotterdam is a very clear example of that trend.

The vocal reaction from opponents - one Rotterdam city councilor warns against a return to the Middle Ages - are therefore understandable. At a point in time when real effort is being made from left to right to get Muslims to modernize and to integrate into western society, self-imposed separation in an impenetrable pillar that comprises schools, clubs and now hospitals can only be the portent of an increasingly and deeply divided society. As it happens, the word for that dreadful phenomenon was coined in Dutch.

UPDATE: The nurses' uniforms have already been ordered ...

One of the reasons that the phenomenon of self-censorship is spreading so rapidly is that Western leaders have chosen to remain quiet on the subject. Yet, there are signs that this is changing, the Danish prime minister remained steadfast in his support of those that exercised their right to publish the cartoons depicting Mohammed, now German Chancellor Angela Merkel has publicly questioned the cancellation of Mozart’s "Idomeneo":

Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house cancelled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

"I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam," she told reporters. "It makes no sense to retreat."

Artists, theaters, publishers and writers have the primary responsibility to see to it that their works of art are made public, unhindered. If certain media outlets, in this case the theater in Berlin, obstructs this very basic right to free speech political leaders need to speak out and come to their defense. Merkel has met a crucial test, one that her predecessor probably would have failed.

UPDATE: The Danes weigh in with a timely "I told you so":

"Here we go again. It's like deja vu...This is exactly the kind of self-censorship I and my newspaper have been warning against," said Flemming Rose, culture editor of Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper, which met a storm of Muslim protest after publishing satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad last year.

He said bowing to fears of a violent Muslim reaction would only worsen the problem: "You play into the hands of the radicals. You are telling them: your tactics are working. This is a victory for the radicals. It's weakening the moderate Muslims who are our allies in this battle of ideas."

There was a time when I got e-mails suggesting that European governments should pay all Muslim immigrants an amount of money sufficient enough to get them to move back to their country of origin. A buy-out literally, but one that is not only impossible to implement and somewhat morally abject, one that is also economically dangerous. The Dutch economy for instance would grind to a halt if some 7% of the population: (a) wrecked the national budget by cashing in on these 'go home bonuses' and (b) all decided to go leave instantly.

Yet, there are some that actually go voluntarily and maybe they are discovering ways to bring the benefits and opportunities of free trading democracies to stagnant Arab economies. Consider this:

Mimoun a young Moroccan entrepreneur from The Netherlands wants to start a cookies factory back in Morocco. By emigrating to Morocco he plans to start a new life.

[ ... ]

Many well-educated and well-integrated, second generation Moroccans like Mimoun leave The Netherlands. They don’t see many economic opportunities and feel unwelcome in The Netherlands. In Morocco they seek to start a new life.

These well-integrated second-generation immigrants are probably the one group that Europe does not want to lose as they can be instrumental in helping the rest of their ethnic and religious group make that important transition. Still, if they are able create economic opportunity in countries like Morocco, they may prove themselves to be as valuable there as they could have been back in their adopted home country.

NOTE: I translated ‘stroopwafels’ as ‘cookies’ but those of you familiar with this Dutch delicacy will know that is not correct. There is no English word for it, 'syrup waffles' is probably the best one, but think of it as two thinly baked pieces of dough which are glued together by a thin layer of molasses or syrup. I used to buy them at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on my way back to London and Hong Kong and they were an instant hit with foreign colleagues who thought it was a unique delicacy. Well, it is up to Mimoun to prove that he can unleash the same excitement in Morocco and turn it into a profitable venture.

Andrew Sullivan is more than a little disgusted over the Bush administration’s fiscal profligacy. The end of small government conservatism it appears. Well, not so in Canada where the Harper government is extraordinary careful in managing the huge surpluses that the country’s economy keeps spewing out:

The Stephen Harper government racked up a $13.2-billion surplus for last fiscal year, all of which will go toward reducing the national debt.

This is one of the largest single debt repayments in Canadian history. It will help bring Canada's debt down to $481.5-billion.

And:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Treasury Board President John Baird announced the surplus Monday afternoon, when they also announced cuts to government spending this year and next.

It should be noted that this is one brave move in handling the budget, especially considering the fact that Harper and friends are still in minority territory. While throwing the Canadian electorate some appetizing bones - the GST cut in particular – they have remained principled bookkeepers. If following an early election next spring they will get a parliamentary majority the temptation of radically cutting taxes could be too much even for Harper, but judging from these fresh numbers, he has some room.

Here is an excellent example of social engineering that through its arbitrary and mandatory nature will no doubt have a detrimental effect on companies' and shareholders’ ability to effectively manage their affairs:

Within the next year, the 510 Norwegian companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange must have 40% of their respective board seats occupied by women. Any company failing to comply will be booted off the OSE. For now, the law passed in 2002 only applies to publicly traded companies. But the government is considering extending the law’s reach to cover family-owned companies as well.

While I do understand the background to that European penchant to get women to work, it is hard to see how such an objective can be achieved by such drastically enforced legislation. The only way to encourage more female representation on boards is to let the market do its work and build boards based on merit and achievement. Women have advanced rapidly in terms of career development and achievement over the past few decades, so I don’t see why this process needs to be artificially accelerated by some overzealous nordic legislators.

Secondly, while measures like this will throw a bit of a challenge in front of large publicly traded companies; they will make life for medium and small sized businesses all that much harder. I have been closely involved in building boards for a number of early stage technology forms and if they had to comply with what is now on the table in Norway, their difficult first years would have been even harder.

Finally, I could make a lame joke about Patricia Dunn, but I won’t.

Michael Barone looks at how the US is changing and how no one was able to accurately project the current trends. Therein lies a sliver of hope for Europe: there is potential for the various doomsday scenarios to be debunked. Immigration patterns may change and yes, the joy of having sex without contraceptives may eventually be rediscovered.

Is coming to an end soon as Gordon Brown is preparing himself to take over the reigns which may actually happen sooner than Blair has envisaged it. The reason I keep coming back to this affair is not only its high entertainment value as a political drama. Blair's early retirement will probably herald a significant shift in US-British relations and by extension in US-European relations.

Not sure if this falls into the category of 'better late than never', but it does indicate a willingness to take a clear stance and relegate cultural relativism to the sidelines:

The president of the European Commission expressed disappointment that European leaders failed to defend Pope Benedict XVI over his recent remarks about Islam, in comments published Sunday.

Jose Manuel Barroso said that while Europe must take the threat of Islamic extremists "very seriously," it must not confuse tolerance with "a form of political correctness" that puts others' values above its own.

"I was disappointed that there weren't more European leaders who said, 'Of course the pope has the right to express his point of view,'" Barroso told Germany's Welt am Sonntag weekly. "We must defend our values."

Barroso also urged Europeans to encourage moderate Islamic leaders to take a stronger stance against the extremists.

"The problem is not the comments of the pope, but the reaction of the extremists," Barroso said.

Encouraging.

And there is another good debate about Europe and its challenged future on the Blow Week in Review, this week featuring Mark Steyn, Glenn Reynolds and Austin Bay.

… Maher Arar, a Canadian national of Syrian descent, changing flights in the US in September 2002, detained and deported to Syria by US authorities where he was held captive and tortured before being released. He is now back in Canada and making frequent media appearances to discuss his case. This has been front page news in Canada for months now and I find it somewhat surprising that only now it is getting traction in the blogosphere, the reason probably being that Maher Arar was a suspected terrorist, making it difficult for some to advocate the man's rights.

An excerpt form a post I wrote more than two years ago and yes, bloggers continue to be relatively mum about this issue apart from a select group of American left-of-center blogs keen to acquire some ammunition in the ongoing torture debate. This however is not strictly a torture case, but it warrants some critical examination in a way that should be of interest to both the left and the right.

As most of you know, Maher Arar was fully exonerated earlier this week by an independent Canadian commission of inquiry which ruled that Arar has been the victim of inaccurate RCMP intelligence reports and deliberate smears by Canadian officials. Note that these reports were provided to US officials who wasted no time to deport Arar to Syria (he holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship) and that the smear emerged following Arar’s return to Canada after a less than pleasant stay in one of Boy Assad’s prison facilities.

There is just too much here to capture in a brief narrative – and you have to make a distinction between the Canadian and American angle here - but let me summarize what is significant:

1. The deliberate smears did their work to the extent that many commentators – and that includes me – while being aware of the problematic behavior of both Canadian and US officials either neglected to defend Mr. Arar or at least presume his innocence. There always was a whiff of jihadist guilt associated with the man, so why bother? Looking away was the better option, an attitude that continues to this very day. Yet, for the sake of honoring independent judicial inquiries we now have to accept that Arar is not guilty of any crime and that he did not deserve the abuse meted out to him by the Canadian, US and Syrian governments.

2. As Majikthise points out, the damage to counter-terrorism operations is phenomenal. There can be little doubt that RCMP heads are going to roll over this affair and even if they don’t, Canada’s venerable police operation will think twice before sharing information with US counterparts. No prizes for guessing what this will do to the already challenged cross-border security situation on the 49th parallel.

3. Like the Hirsi Ali case (where Dutch neocon minister Verdonk ditched Hirsi Ali out of political expediency) it turns out that those who we believed to have staked a certain position in the debate over Islam, terrorism and all that comes with it, would not necessarily remain pure in adhering to that position. The same is true here, but the reverse. Canada’s left-of-center Liberal government (defeated in early 2006) was responsible for this fiasco by adopting an almost Rumsfeldian recklessness in handling this terror suspect. At the same time it wasted no opportunity to distance itself from the Bush administration in order to placate a testy and not overly pro-American electorate. Odd and duplicitous behaviour.

4. In a way this affair also echoes the themes I touched on earlier this week. We can’t under any circumstance allow jihadist terror to put us in a position where the lives of Muslims in general are deemed to be of lesser value. We may not realize it, but the very necessary break with politically correct multiculturalism has gone to an extreme where exactly that is happening. Muslim minorities in western societies need to be assisted and compelled to become the Jews of 17th century Amsterdam, not the Jews of 20th century Warzaw.

5. And torture? Not sure here. There is a good argument to be made that the US simply deported Arar based on immigration law and that there was no arrangement to let its ‘friends’ in Damascus extract some information from the Syrian-Canadian suspect. Seriously, since when have we partnered with Damascus in fighting terror?

So there you have it. My gut feel tells me that we will never learn the real truth here, but the Arar affair provides us with a microcosm of things that can go wrong when pursuing terror suspects. Obfuscating the truth, imperiling future security operations, dishonesty, political expediency, nascent racism and a dose of physical abuse. Incredible failure, highlighting a level of moral ineptitude that will cost us dearly in fighting jihadism.

With two months to go to an election two Dutch ministers have resigned over a fire at Schiphol airport that killed 11 illegal aliens last year. An inquiry found that both the Justice and the Housing, Planning & Environment ministries failed in their responsibilities. Michael van der Galien at TMV has the details.

Say what you want, if something goes seriously wrong government ministers in Europe in general tend to take responsibility and hand in their portfolios. In the US and Canada in recent years we have witnessed too many scandals and disasters where elected officials managed to get away with a few obligatory excuses and carried on as if nothing had happened. Not good. Ministerial responsibility is a cornerstone of parliamentary democracies.

But the recoil of many Dutch people from Hirsi Ali suggests that the tolerance about which Holland preens is a compound of intellectual sloth and moral timidity. She was more trouble than the Dutch evidently think free speech is worth.

[ ...]

But Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate. After two generations without war, Europeans "have no idea what an enemy is." And they think, she says, that leadership is an antiquated notion because they believe that caring governments can socialize everyone to behave well, thereby erasing personal accountability and responsibility.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali coins a new term for the old continent while having lunch with George Will. A riveting read.

For getting fatter. In France.

The One Netherlands party presented its list of candidates today and it includes one Muslim, Hikmat Mahawat Khan as well as one candidate with a Turkish background, Secil Arda. Khan is already billed in Dutch media as a ‘critical Muslim’:

“Muslims will have to take a more critical look at themselves, argues Khan. “Some demand to apply for a job wearing a burka and if they don’t get the job they expect to get welfare benefits” was a comment he made to newspaper Trouw recently.

He is furthermore angered over the anti-gay attitudes of Moroccan youths in Amsterdam, radical mosques and more recently about the hospitality with which Holland welcomed the radical imam Mohammed Anas Noorani Siddiqui.

So, One Netherlands leader Pastors not only distances himself from the irrational and xenophobic zealots that have emerged on the right, he positions immigrants as instrumental to a new and possibly more creative approach to integration. Decades of hands-off, soft multiculturalism has created disengagement, deprivation and finally, radicalism. Among the rubble of these policies we will have to find the talent that is prepared to make hard choices and willing to roll up its sleeves. They are not going to go away so what better approach is there than to get them on board to help build a new Europe. Confrontation and forced alienation can never be an option.

Here is more good news from Muslims who are willing to abandon the intolerant radicalism and embrace freedom and western values, and, empower women. Take a look at Al Qasemi College, which is the first institute of Islamic higher education in Israel:

Speaking at campuses, mosques, and the homes of Muslims, the Al Qasemi faculty said that it is time for Muslims to quit blaming others and examine their own responsibility for the troubles of Islamic civilization; time for Arab Israelis to call themselves Israelis, not Palestinians; and, above all, time for women to have full equality with men in the Muslim world.

So it is possible after all. (via Myrtus)

This is the first in what will be regular updates from the Dutch election front, the frequency of which will no doubt increase closer to the November 22 voting date.

Today the remnants of the ruling coalition of Christian Democrats (CDA) and VVD, led by prime-minister Balkenende presented the budget on the traditional third Tuesday of September. And, not entirely surprisingly in an election year, things are looking good:

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said that years of belt-tightening have given the country a strong foundation to capitalize on global economic growth. "I have always said there would be sweetness after the bitter times," he said.

The budget plan featured spending of €156.8 billion, or $198 billion, 1.5 percent higher than this year, but still included a projected budget surplus.

The budget outline represented the opening salvo of the election campaign, with the governing center-right government offering sweeteners to business and the public, while the center-left opposition complained that the Netherlands lagged behind the rest of Europe.

The opposition is probably unwilling to acknowledge that the Dutch currently have the lowest unemployment rate in the EU and that in terms of GDP growth this year are turning in a number that is quite close to the EU average. But all these numbers are rather meaningless to voters unless they see some actual increases in their net disposable income and this is what this budget sets out to do. It will allow the CDA and VVD to frame the core theme of the campaign by arguing that things are on track and moving in the right direction. And compared to other nations the tightening of the Dutch belt has been rather painless, even by Dutch standards.

So does this mean this election is the ruling coalition’s to lose? Maybe. Their polling numbers have been abysmal to date and to get both parties in majority territory appears to be an uphill struggle, at least so far. This budget could give them the opportunity to get some momentum; still I would suspect that they need a third party to continue their stay in office. But, it’s still early days and an awful lot can happen over the next two months. Stay tuned.

Yes, Pope Benedict XVI fits into that long line of polemicists who have in- or unintentionally run afoul of the Muslim world as Der Spiegel argues here. Rushdie, Hirsi Ali and of course Theo van Gogh come to mind. But if we use that analogy than almost immediately it becomes evident that the Pope’s comments have most likely not been that inadvertent after all. At least I believe that this pontiff is far too clever and experienced to have miscalculated the impact of his comments, he was after all the ideological force behind his media savvy predecessor, John Paul II.

The question now of course is if the free wrold needs to rally behind what Christopher Hitchens calls a “moribund church” or the force of secular reason in dealing with radical Islam. The Pope has put his option the table, but I fear that there will not be that many takers. On the other hand we know that reason and secularism are, despite their compelling nature, not exactly providing the morally strong cohesion that we need going forward. And therein we find the hard problem: the West remains far more divided than its current opponents who despite their own internal divisions have embraced something that we seemed to have lost a long time ago. Like him or not, our German pontiff is probably one of the few to have articulated that particular weakness.

Our good friend Myrtus alerts us to the fact that in Amsterdam Jews and Moroccans are planning joint celebrations as this year’s Ramadan coincides with Rosh Hashanah. It’s only a plan, sure, but there are snippets of positive news coming from Europe and this certainly is one. What’s more, I believe that it is our duty to report on these developments amid the endless and depression inducing claims that a ‘clash of civilizations’ is imminent. We’re in a tough patch, but there are signs of hope and it is at our peril if we ignore them.

Another key example is that immigrant Muslim women in western societies are beginning to make progress. And like the last time I visited The Netherlands, another emancipated Muslim woman graces the cover of one the major Dutch weekly newsmagazines this week:

Under the headline “Hooray for the Muslimas” the weekly Elsevier explores how Muslim women in The Netherlands have increasingly been able to set themselves on a track of progress and nascent liberation. On the cover of the magazine we find kickbox champion Soumia Albahaya who as it happens hails from my hometown of Vlaardingen. She explains:

"It is difficult sometimes as a Muslima. You have to prove yourself twice as much. Most of the time I get positive reactions from the Moroccan community about my career in sports. One time a Moroccan man shouted that I didn’t belong in the ring, but in the kitchen. Whatever. Above all, you have to believe in yourself and fight for yourself. That is the only way to accomplish things. But I am not sure if all Muslim women have figured that out"

The first thing that occurs to me when I read something like this is that Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s call for liberation actually refers to a tentative process that is now well underway. The enablers of this phenomenon however are not the government, nor the left which continues to be very absent when it comes to arguing the rights of women from immigrant nations, according to the article.

No, real life needs such as getting income in the door are increasingly pre-empting tradition and honor: some Muslim men gladly trade a headscarf for a paycheck it seems. Of course it is not without its internal challenges and the clashes between Muslim men and women over this issue underline how much the struggle with Islam is actually taking place among Muslims themselves. Free markets are excellent conduits for such social progress. Soumia’ story is testament to that, let’s see if she reaches as far as that other great Dutch female kickboxer.

So, an at times unreal and emotional week has come to an end and I managed to get back home safely after another ten hour flight. Thanks again for all your e-mails.

In between family business I did manage to find some time to get up to speed with developments in The Netherlands, and needless to say it was a week in which there was no shortage of interesting stuff. Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner commanded the headlines with his suggestion that if two-thirds of the Dutch electorate wanted sharia they should get it and, the election campaign is slowly switching into gear. I will return to Donner later, but first let’s take a look at an interesting meeting I had at Pim Fortuyn’s former residence, below.

Of course, the question has been asked who will take on the legacy of Pim Fortuyn now that the remnants of his old party have more or less disappeared. As I pointed out before, Rotterdam politician Marco Pastors who is a former business and political associate of the slain professor, is the most likely person to fill that ideological and political void. He launched his new party last month and last week I met Pastors at the old residence of Fortuyn. It is a beautiful and stately home that was purchased by a real estate tycoon who has seen to it that the house remains in exactly the same state as in the days Fortuyn lived in it until he was murdered. Even after four years, it was chilling to see the politician's schedule and the papers of that fateful day in May on his desk.

It was a great opportunity to dive into some pressing issues and I tried to figure out how Pastors has been able to gain a position of respectability within the Dutch political scene following the initial hostility towards its new right-of-center players. He explained that after his (and Fortuyn’s) party’s huge electoral win in the 2002 local elections in Rotterdam their main objective was to keep the rhetoric down and focus on results. That would not only neutralize the party’s eager critics, it would also directly address the deep frustration over the political arrogance that had created such a disconnect between the city council and the local population. For a city that is known for its hard work and action-oriented culture, it was a fitting approach and Pastors was pleased with the rapid decisionmaking that ended a culture of endless debate and bureaucratic standstill. That record of success however was not fully underwritten by voters in the 2006 election, a good example of how fickle Dutch voters have become in a time that both the left and right agree is one of deep uncertainty.

So Pastors’ timing to leverage his local experience on the national scene appears to be timely, although he and fellow founder Joost Eerdmans had to rush to launch their One Netherlands party following the early fall of the Dutch cabinet over the Hirsi Ali affair. The trick for them now will be to move the debate in the right direction as so far it is not very clear what the core campaign issue for most parties is going to be. Judging from news reports, it won’t be integration as the NRC Handelsblad last week noted that most parties are relatively quiet about the topic and the public at large appears to be equally unmoved. But as Pastors pointed out, there may have been some fixes to immigration, integration is virtually untouched. Again an erratic electorate was given an opportunity to vent and now that anger and frustrations have been released many have probably convinced themselves that the issue is gone. The focus appears to be shifting back to mortgage rate deductability and extending the retirement age beyond sixty-five. To his credit, it is the left’s foreman Wouter Bos who has been daring enough to raise these key issues, something the centrist Christian-Democrats and right of center VVD have been very keen to avoid.

If minimizing damage is going to be the central theme for most parties, then I would give Pastors a decent chance at winning a significant number of seats in parliament. His track record in Rotterdam indicates that voters eventually tire over obfuscating pressing matters - whatever they are - and are willing to take a risk on drastic change. The question is if two months are sufficient to accomplish that.

Whatever shape the campaign is going to take, its unpredictability and potency for political change will not only be the creation of its current contestants, but also of the man who never lived to see the current electoral challenge. When I closed the gates of Pim’s old residence behind me one thing seemed very clear: it is going to be an extraordinary campaign.

Related
The Divided Dutch Right
A Troubling Dismissal
Peaktalk's Fortuyn Files

The blog interruption this week is the result of an emergency visit back to The Netherlands to support my family back home in dealing with a tragic loss this week. However sad the circumstances, it was encouraging to experience, and contribute to, the resolve and strength that the family displayed in dealing with the loss of my aunt, my mother’s youngest sister. As most of you know, I have been away for a long time but the emotional bonds are deep and above all worthwhile preserving, no matter the distance.

Internet access is sporadic, we’re camping out at my aunt’s house and she was no fan of technology. Still, I do find time to catch up with events here in The Netherlands and later next week will probably brief you on some interesting developments. Thanks for the e-mails, links and suggestions, I read them all and will use most of them when regular updates resume.

Europeans actually prefer to work longer than most governments and unions think is good for them, according to this TCS column. It surprises me, but maybe the average European worker is more astute than those that claim to represent them. The choice between working longer hours and not working at all is increasingly an obvious one. Again, global competitive pressures and the influx of more than just plumbers from Poland will materially change the way Europeans work. Let’s see if the regulators in Brussels are able to keep up with that reality.

Or good, depending on how alarmist his message needs to be in order to get the global warming message across. It appears things may not turn out as bad as they have been portrayed so far. Be prepared for more revised warming projections down the road, science and emotion don't mix very well and they certainly yield unreliable forecasts.

UPDATE: Interestingly, Michael van der Galien argues today that Al Gore deserves for respect for standing up for global warming. Well yes, but it is (a) incumbent upon Gore to present his audience with credible numbers and (b) for his audience to be aware of the former Vice President's propensity to the embellish issues that he cares about.

The anecdotal evidence of Europeans abandoning their continent in search of safer and greener pastures overseas is, well, anecdotal. Here are some interesting numbers which indicate that most European nations still run a positive immigration/emigration balance and that The Netherlands, one of the few to run a negative one is losing primarily wealthier and older people a significant number of whom are settling in other European nations.

One of the notable shifts is that Europe’s demographic crunch is mitigated by a huge influx from Eastern Europe, take a look at these numbers from the UK:

According to official figures last month, 447,000 eastern Europeans officially came to Britain registering for work in the past two years, compared to Home Office predictions of fewer than 20,000. Most of the workers are young and single, with 54% from Poland.

My guess is that with a security clampdown on immigration from Muslim nations there will be a renewed focus of the former Soviet empire as a source of skilled – and highly motivated – workers. Of course, they will initially be equally rejected by many of their hosts as they will prove to be a very competitive force on the labor market, disrupting fairly stable working and compensation arrangements. And for Europe that can only be a very positive development in the long run.

A difficult relationship continues, and continues to amaze:

European countries have been refusing to allow planes carrying IDF supplies to refuel at their airports, according to the El Al Pilots Union.

Italy, Britain, Portugal, Spain and Germany refuse to allow El Al cargo planes transporting US military equipment to Israel to land and refuel, El Al Pilots Union chairman Itai Regev wrote in a letter sent Sunday to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

He said El Al's 747 cargo planes frequently carry crucial military supplies to Israel, but European policy forces the planes to carry barely half of their 90-ton capacity because of the inability to refuel en route

Not sure if there is such a thing as a European policy on this, in fact I really doubt it, but it is odd to note that the aforementioned nations are apparently on the same page when it comes to hindering Israel. The Dutch have confirmed that they do not apply any restrictions on El Al cargo flights.

Andrew Sullivan is back from his sojourn, part of which he spent in Amsterdam. I was looking forward to some interesting observations, but alas, even our Sully is stuck in the same old rut when it comes to defining things Dutch:

It was nonetheless eye-opening to visit a free country, compared with the U.S. Observing people actually allowed to relax over a joint and a cappuccino in a coffee-house, or buy some soul-expanding mushrooms at small, regulated stores as common as Starbucks was a reminder that not every society is terrified of pleasure or freedom or happiness.

It depends on how you define freedom, but compared to the US and Canada, the Dutch are probably overregulated and overtaxed to an extraordinary degree, so let's keep things in perspective. Yes, this is probably a function of being one of the world’s most densely populated nations, but also because of a predominant culture that in the post-war years came to believe deeply in relieving the individual from as much responsibility as possible, the nanny state in full swing. Yet, that overarching and impersonal state at the same time retreated to let individuals flourish completely unhindered in their own domain. Sounds paradoxical, but there is no other way to explain it I think: we take care of you and you can essentially do whatever you like. The breeding ground of hedonist man.

Note that I am not opposed to drug legalization, on the contrary, but the Dutch model has somehow created sizeable groups of people that are devoid of any moral or normative compass. Consider the latest, from today’s news:

The CNV Companies Union raised the alarm about the aggression with which ambulance staff and paramedics are confronted. Last month one paramedic was assaulted in Amsterdam. This happened after he decided to treat a woman who had become unwell, something that was not fully appreciated by bystanders.

"The aggression is often the result of wrong expectations the public has about the work of ambulance employees", according to Jaap Jongejan of the union. He thinks it is time for a campaign to raise the awareness among the public about what ambulances and paramedics do.

Note how Jongejan finds the solution in launching an “awareness campaign”, that great tool with which the welfare state seeks to educate its citizenry. It’s beyond belief to learn that a new phenomenon of randomly assaulting emergency staff is the topic, but there’s probably no telling what you reap if you engage in unfettered social experimentation. And there’s more:

This spring the department of Social Affairs announced that 60% of ambulance staff has been subjected to violence. According to the latest numbers a figure that has increased significantly since.

Now, there is probably no direct no correlation between smoking pot and attacking paramedics. Still, the increasing absence of basic moral and responsible behavior I believe can probably only be found in the toxic realm of an unbound citizenry and a state that has totally misread its role in a modern society. However free the Dutch are, the excesses of that freedom now beg for the state to enforce at least some normative behavior among its citizens, and that I am afraid will take more than just a simple awareness campaign.

There is one snippet that I want to share with you before the weekend starts:

Hirsi Ali considers it paradoxical that she is seen in the US as a bridge-builder between the West and Islam, but in the Netherlands as a polemicist. "The Dutch have difficulty with dissenters. They prefer to team up with the like-minded."

Lots more of this in the months ahead.

Enjoy, see you next week.