Art has been much in the news of late, perhaps surprisingly considering the economic downturn. But, then, perhaps it is in such times that we turn our gaze to larger than life depictions. The ancients sort their gods before the onset of war, and no doubt most of us have regained some courage on seeing the portrait of a great thinker, leader, or saint, or the depiction of some virtue.

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Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has just unveiled Spain’s latest contribution to fostering global peace and security. No, his government will not be sending more troops to help rebuild Afghanistan. And no, Spain will not be providing more vaccines to help needy children in Africa. Instead, the Zapatero government is the proud sponsor of a lavish decorative ceiling at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva.

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A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Obamania. The old continent is engaged in a collective swoon as a result of the election of Barack Obama as American president. The president elect’s every move and decision is the subject of slavish and adulatory reporting in the European press: will Obama continue to use a BlackBerry? What dog will the Obamas buy for the White House? What sort of armoured car will he travel in? People are giving private parties in European capitals to celebrate Obama’s election, while the new president has been invited to address the European Parliament and even to attend a European Union summit in April.

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Are we still living in a democracy? As an elected politician I am probably expected to say that we are. But are we?

Two years ago, in January 2007, Roman Herzog, the former President of the Federal Republic of Germany, caused quite a stir when in an op-ed article (Welt Am Sonntag, 14 January 2007) he wrote that democracy in his country is virtually non-existent since the European Union (EU) has stealthily eaten away all the national parliament’s powers.

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The French nationalist Right, as opposed to the establishment Right represented by Nicolas Sarkozy, has been splintering off from Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National for years. The latest open act of mutiny against the FN comes from Carl Lang, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), who has announced he will introduce his own list, in opposition to that of Marine Le Pen, in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2009.

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George Handlery about the week that was. The replacement of America as the superpower. Being nice with bad guys is dangerous. Ignored conflicts do not just “fade away”. The vicissitudes of making American foreign policy. Iran and Obama. Uncle to the rescue. Is Lithuania protesting too much?

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During his annual September pilgrimage to the shrines of global governance at the United Nations in New York, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero boasted that Spain’s per capita GDP has now surpassed that of Italy. “This depresses Berlusconi,” he joked of the Italian prime minister, adding that Spain was on target to overtake France “within three to four years.”

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We proudly present the printed version of "Defeating Eurabia", the first book by our appreciated contributor Fjordman. This compilation of Fjordman articles from Gates of Vienna, Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, The Brussels Journal and Fjordman's own (now defunct) blog has been updated and finetuned to reflect his current views on the islamization of Europe. It provides a thorough analysis of the causes and circumstances of the islamization process, a country-by-country survey and an optimistic concluding chapter with suggestions for the future.

The book is a paperback, containing 340 pages, 25 chapters and an index. It is published by BJ Books. This is the publishing spinoff of The Brussels Journal dedicated to publishing books by our authors. The book is available through Lulu.com, a print-on-demand provider. The price is EUR 34.95 or USD 47.17, though these prices may fluctuate with currency exchange rates. Shipping costs are not included. These may vary depending on the destination. Buyers in the US and the EU will typically pay between 3 and 5 dollars/euros for shipping.

Click here to buy Fjordman's "Defeating Eurabia" via Lulu.com

During the ceremony honoring the 70th anniversary of the death of Ataturk (d. Nov. 10, 1938), organized at the Turkish Embassy in Brussels, the Turkish Defense Minister, Vecdi Gönül, launched into an atrocious denial, praising the policy of what he termed the “deportation” of the Armenians, because it allowed the construction of the Turkish nation.

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President-elect Barack Obama is already facing his first global test. And it’s not coming from the usual suspects like Iran or North Korea, but from America’s “allies” in Europe.

European leaders have congratulated Obama on his election victory by sending him a six-page letter in which they benevolently “offer” the United States a “partnership of equals” in order to address global problems in the post-Bush era.

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With the election of Barack Obama, the “issue of race” has come to the fore once again in America’s media. In “multicultural” Britain it has long been a staple of the news. Yet, it was fascinating to see Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, say that it would not be possible for a Barack Obama to be elected in Britain, not because of the electorate – who, he said is open to the possibility of a Black prime minister – but because of institutional racism in the governing Labour Party.

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Does the financial crisis make clear that capitalism, the free market and the classical liberal ideology are failing? Of course not, whatever social democrat ideological veterans might proclaim. Socialism and its derivatives have been morally discredited since the fall of the Berlin wall and there is no chance for them of getting back. People get a grasp that there is something wrong with the way the system works for now, but not with the system itself, as a recent poll by FT/Harris suggests.

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I will publish a multipart essay on the history of optics at the website Jihad Watch later this month. One of the parts will be about the history of glass, a fascinating subject which most of us rarely think about. We often talk about how much we owe to the ancient Greeks, but when it comes to the use of glass, we owe much more to the Romans than to the Greeks.

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Last Tuesday, the Americans voted like Belgians. Obama is even more popular here than in the US. Last week, a poll among the students of the renowned University of Leuven (Louvain), the oldest in the Netherlands, showed that 98% of them preferred Obama as US president. For the past six years the university has been regularly polling its students on political issues. “The result has never been as unanimous as now,” Prof. Marc Hooghe said.

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Whether a joke or comment is racist or not, highly depends on who makes it. When Barack Obama tells a racist joke, journalists are laughing tears, but when Silvio Berlusconi tries to make a compliment (though as usual in his own peculiar way), they hang him in the highest tree.

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