A quote from the press agency Ansamed, 5 September 2008

A judge from Rennes, in western France, agreed to postpone a trial due to the Ramadan, the sacred month of Islam, despite the protests of the lawyers for the civil parties. The trial had to begin on September 16 at the criminal court of Ille-et-Vilaine. The defendant is a Muslim accused of a series of abductions committed between 2000 and 2001 in Saint Malo and Rennes. The postponement was requested by the defendant's counsels. "The fast obligations of the Ramadan are strict and often those who observe them are in a state of severe weakness," lawyer Yann Choucq explained. The trial was postponed for January 19.

There is the Sarah Palin you saw on television, and there is the Sarah Palin I saw in the XCel Center here in St Paul, Minnesota. I don’t know how it played on TV. I don’t know what the news media said. I don’t know how the pundits assessed the speech. I don’t know what narratives the blogs are spinning. I only know what I saw. I only know what I felt. I only know what effect Sarah Palin had on the thousands of men, women and children assembled to hear her accept the Republican nomination for Vice President of the United States. I only know what word describes all that best.

The word is electric.

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Regular readers may well be aware that I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the use/misuse of language by the EU institutions. How people use what appears to be English words and grammatical structures but fail to convey meaning. It appears that I am not alone.

This written declaration has just appeared, penned by one of the Ind/Dem Members of the European Parliament, Vladimir Zelezny, great mucker of Vaclav Klaus.

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The serious work of the European Parliament continues. We received the following email missive from a female civil servant:

Dear Colleagues

The Bureau of the European Parliament adopted on 19 May 2008 the language specific guidelines for gender neutral language as outlined in the report by the High-Level Group on Gender Equality and Diversity.

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Germany finally elects a Eurosceptic. Bürger in Wut (BIW) is a new German political party, (its name translates roughly as Citizens in Rage) of a Eurocritical bent.

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George Handlery about the week that was. Elections are not about quotas. Violating agreements. Expand Nato? More “dialogue” instead of action or security by joining the gang? Real weapons to protect against real foes. EU centralization and its fans. Foreign policy hopes and practical reality.
 
1. Investors, beware! Russia’s rulers violate her financial and political agreements. For details contact BP, Georgia – more of the gullible to follow.

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This text is somewhat related to one of my older essays, about the history of cacao and chocolate. When I was younger, I was once told that regularly practiced cannibalism didn't exist in any society in modern times. This was a racist, colonialist lie invented by prejudiced Europeans. One example would be the former cannibal dubbed "Friday" and converted to Christianity in Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. As I grow older and wiser and investigate things for myself, I see how wrong this claim was.

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German Spectator is a regular survey of German mainstream media coverage of politics, religion and society, as well as of foreign policy, especially toward Europe and the United States.
 
Georgian Crisis Spurs German Identity Crisis
 
The Russian invasion of Georgia has opened yet another chapter in Germany’s decades-long self-identity crisis. German media are chock-full of armchair analyses that ponder whether Germany’s destiny lies with her “natural” partner, the Russian-led East, or with the “unnatural” American-led West…or perhaps somewhere safely in between. Myriad pseudo-introspective commentators are also advising readers on the role Germany could or should or may or may not have in resolving the conflict in Georgia.

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Perhaps the most revealing remark made during the crisis over South Ossetia was that by the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who attacked Russia in very strong terms for having reverted to “a 19th century approach to politics”.
 
Milliband’s hatred of Russia is built into his political DNA. His grandfather, Samuel Miliband, was a Warsaw-born Communist who famously fought in the Red Army but who then left the Soviet Union for Belgium when Stalin became top dog in Moscow. As a lifelong Trotskyite and supporter of world revolution, Miliband was disgusted by Stalin’s decision to create socialism in one country alone and by his de facto restoration of Great Russian nationalism.

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George Handlery about the week that was. Courses in terrorism might lead to pacifism. Accepting Jihad or being a racist. Sanctions should not anger the aggressor. The dangers of overreaction and under reacting. Atrocities pay. Are we in a process of strategic re-alignment? Fact and fiction: are only the rich getting richer?
 
1. Here a hilarious but also revealing tidbit from a small booklet “Die letzten Tage Europas/The Last Days of Europe” by H. M. Broder. Germany’s Minister of Justice, Brigitte Zypries finds it mistaken to prosecute individuals for having attended terrorist training camps. She feels that someone who participates in the program might react with a personal decision to renounce violence. (Such a person might even become a Quaker.) Later she altered her position. One should only punish those who take the course in order to become subsequently active. Broder concludes that, apparently, “one cannot know at the outset whether someone lets himself be trained as a terrorist because the Berlitz course in Esperanto at home was filled or because he simply wishes to measure up to his mother-in-law.” The sanctions for participation in terrorist training are therefore limited. An exception seems to be possible if someone enrolling sends Ms Zypries an affidavit. It should affirm that the enrollee not only wants training in terrorism but also intends to put the skills to be gained to practical use. No wonder that the book got the title it has.

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Carnage

Between Roppongi and Akasaka – the two fanciest precints in Tokyo -- there lies a somnolent spot, curiously underutilized for this, among the most expensive acres of land anywhere in the world. It’s the residence of a long-dead Japanese soldier, crouching under a shroud of weeping cherry trees in the shadow of Japan’s tallest and most fabulous building, the Midtown Project.

The opulent Midtown Project has a motto: “Introducing Japan’s newest significance to the world.” But right next to it, in this austere, smallish house built in 1902 with a red-brick stable and a compact garden, Japan’s oldest significance to the world may be found.

For Tom Cruise was not the last samurai. General Maresuke Nogi was.

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Many French websites have commented on the latest educational goals of Minister of Education Xavier Darcos, goals that should not really surprise anyone. Yet, every time I read such things I am shocked despite myself.

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George Handlery about the week that was. The Ossetes and the Abkhaz are saved: who will now save them from Russia? Order in the Caucasus not by kicking ass but by crushing skulls. Excuses regarding sanctions: we are prepared do anything to be able to do nothing. A brilliant insight: some terrorist trainees might become Quakers. The „Dictator‘s tantrum #3.

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The rise of the political class, a form of technocratic managemental breed of suited emissaries of the god risk avoidance and nudging paternalism wallers so well defined by Peter Oborne in his magisterial Triumph of the Political Class has left western liberal post-democracies with virtually nobody to whom one can support, or at the very least trust.

All decisions are compromisable, all positions changeable. Nothing is quite what it seems.

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Both Le Salon Beige and Yves Daoudal have reports on the decision by the administrative appeals court of Versailles to allow a mosque to be built in Montreuil. The original court decision in 2007 banning the construction came about as a result of a suit brought by the MNR (National Republican Movement), the right-wing political party led by Bruno Mégret, who has since retired from politics. That decision has now been overturned:

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