Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero deserves a special award for transatlantic chutzpah. During his recent visit to Mexico, he ended the state dinner held in his honor by toasting Mexican President Felipe Calderón with a sterling example of post-modern pontification for which Spanish leftists are so famous: “There is no wall that can obstruct the dream of a better life,” Zapatero proclaimed.

Sweden’s gradual descent into the abyss continues. It isn’t stated in the article what ethnic (or religious) background the “youths” in this case have, but they frequently tend to be you-know-who:

“Youths” Attack Ambulance in Sweden

Canadians in the province of Ontario have learned that their government handed out $32.5 million of their tax dollars during the 2006-2007 fiscal year, in a manner that was “not open, transparent, or accountable.” According to a damning report from the province’s auditor-general, James McCarter, the money was given in grants through the province’s Immigration and Citizenship Ministry, to various cultural, religious and ethnic groups who would be likely to support Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty in the upcoming (October) provincial election.

A quote from The Independent, 5 August 2007

We have nothing to fear from al-Qa’ida. Christian fundamentalists are the real extremist threat. That’s the message from the writers of a new play being shown at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. […] The writers said that, while there is public discussion about the dangers of radical Islamic groups, the influence of the Christian far right is underestimated. “I’ve been very sensitive to extremists in other religions, particularly Islam, being demonised,” said Badham. “I find the Christian right groups that are enormously powerful in our own culture a larger numerical threat than extreme Islam. […] Bush is from the religious right and he has the bomb; that terrifies me far more than the potential of other extremists to get their hands on nuclear weapons. In the religious right it is the self-appointed moral majority that sets its own rules, and anybody opposing them is labelled unpatriotic and shouted down.”

Here is an interesting comment about Multiculturalism posted at a website in, of all places, Bangladesh: “Multiculturalism is an unnatural and unhealthy condition that can only afflict countries in national decline. (…) Greed and corruption will characterise the government coupled with oppressive measures directed against its citizens. Lies and deceit will be the stock in trade of media, politicians, and educational institutions.” Multiculturalism “is used to prevent a national consensus among the electorate. It erodes values, cultures, beliefs, religions, ethnic habits, etc. ensuring a swirling river of discontent upon which the multiculturalists rides. It is a perfect method of ensuring that there can never be accord, unity, or a commonly shared destiny among those ruled.”

A quote from Heather Mac Donald at City Journal, Summer 2007

Mozart’s lighthearted opera The Abduction from the Seraglio does not call for a prostitute’s nipples to be sliced off and presented to the lead soprano. Nor does it include masturbation, urination as foreplay, or forced oral sex. Europe’s new breed of opera directors, however, know better than Mozart what an opera should contain. So not only does the Abduction at Berlin’s Komische Oper feature the aforementioned activities; it also replaces Mozart’s graceful ending with a Quentin Tarantino–esque bloodbath and the promise of future perversion.

A quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Der Spiegel, 23 July 2007

Isn’t it a luxury for the West to be pushing Russia aside now, especially in the face of new threats? In my last Western interview before I returned to Russia (for Forbes magazine in April 1994) I said: “If we look far into the future, one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the USA will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.”

Warning: The content of the following may be disturbing

A quote from EU Observer, 3 August 2007

Fresh details are emerging on last month’s release of Bulgarian nurses from detention in Libya, with French daily Le Monde reporting the medics were allowed to leave Libya only after they signed a statement saying they would not sue Tripoli for torture. [...] [B]efore leaving Libya on board a French presidential airplane on 24 July, the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were obliged to declare in writing that they would not take any legal steps against the Libyan government for torture, maltreatment and abusive detention.

A quote from the Dutch press agency NIS, 4 August 2007

A district court in The Hague on Friday advised the State to have a Moroccan criminal investigated by a ‘transcultural’ psychiatrist. This met the demand of the criminal. The Moroccan was convicted in 1995 of attempted manslaughter of his wife. He was given one year in jail plus forced psychiatric treatment for an unspecified period (TBS).

In an earlier essay I noted that the preponderant nature of war had been changing over the past half century or so, from international wars between states to civil wars within states. History does not suggest that this state of affairs will continue forever.   Indeed, liberal democracy faces currently two major challenges: (A) the terrorism emanating from radical Islam and (B) the renewed rise of non-democratic great powers. The first threat is the more immediate one. But, it is the lesser of the two, because it originates in stagnant and backward societies that are largely living on the economic rent from natural resources and that pose no military threat to developed societies.  However, their potential use of acquired weapons of mass destruction does present a serious and growing menace.  Nevertheless, it is the second threat in the form of the return of authoritarian great powers (specifically China and Russia), that is likely to be the major threat to liberal democracy’s survival in the foreseeable future.