Yesterday the Brussels judiciary searched the offices of the Muslim Executive of Belgium (MEB). The MEB is an official organisation, whose 17 members are democratically elected by the Belgian Muslims. It acts as the official representative of the Belgian Muslims and distributes the government subsidies to support the Islamic religion. At least 33,000 euros have disappeared from the books of the MEB. Last week, the MEB offices were also searched after it was discovered that the MEB transferred money to the bank account of Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist who is serving a prison sentence of ten years for an attempt to bomb an American military base.

This is what can happen if you give the Nobel Peace Prize to a still active businessman: he tries to use the PR around the prize ceremony to push through a transaction.

Second-generation Muslim immigrants in Europe marry people who have arrived straight from their parents’ homelands, rather than immigrant youths of their own ethnic background who have also grown up in Europe. Research by Hilâl Yalçin and Ina Lodewyckx of the University of Antwerp reveals that almost three quarters of the Moroccan and Turkish community import their spouses from Morocco and Turkey.

A quote from Tom Carew at his blog, 18 December 2006

On Monday evening, Dec 18, 2006, the Irish State-owned RTE 1 TV […] broadcast a 1-hour report on the Jihadi risk within Ireland. […] Firstly, there is a Jihadi propaganda operation active in Ireland. Secondly, there is, within the Muslim community in Ireland, high-level sympathy for Jihad. Thirdly, there is a small (15%-19%) element in this community, which supports such terror. Fourthly, several active Jihadi terrorists have been identified with Irish links. Fifthly, a significant Al-Qaida figure is based in Dublin for some 25 years, and has acquired Irish citizenship.

[…] Re 3, […] This level is broadly similar to several UK surveys, and suggest a pro-terror base of at least 8,000 in Ireland, quite enough to generate scores of active terrorists, and hundreds of active auxiliaries.

More on this topic:

Hungary: The Past is Back to Rule the Present, 31 October 2006

Communism Killed 100 Million People and All I Got Was This Lousy Democracy, 25 September 2006

A quote from The Daily Mail, 18 December 2006

Halal meat is being served to pupils in [British] state schools without their knowledge, even if they believe the religious slaughter is cruel. Parents have reacted furiously after being sent letters telling them their children’s school dinners have been all-halal for ‘some time’. […] The meat was introduced at four schools in the Reading area with a high proportion of Muslim pupils. But parents of non-Muslim pupils – between 20 and 50 per cent of the schools’ roll – say they were not consulted. […]

A spokesperson for Reading Borough Council said: “The decision was taken several years ago. Schools thought it was the appropriate choice for their multi-cultural community. […].”

A theatrical adaptation of Voltaire’s masterpiece Candide, or Optimism, now running at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris through the end of the calendar year, is drawing panegyrical reviews and figures to be a smash hit with its French audience. Of course, it’s 2006, which means that the action will not take place in Bulgaria, Portugal, Surinam, or El Dorado , as Voltaire would have it, but rather exclusively in the United States. Bewigged characters in this comic operetta prance about in front of the White House and President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, and rather than encounter South American natives and Westphalian soldiers, they meet up with Mormons and hippies. 

Economic growth, what's it good for?  The answer should be obvious.  But is it obvious?  In recent decades, as (post-) industrial countries have reached high levels of per capita income, economic growth has often gotten a bad name.   The critics have come in many different stripes, but the bulk of them seem to be in the ‘green’ corner, and others could be lumped together under the label of ‘moralizers’. The latter label can often be applied to some ‘greens’ as well.  

Fjordman has pointed out that reported rape rates in Oslo are 6 times the level they are in New York.  Comparing crime rates across borders is notoriously difficult, primarily because of the different definitions of different categories of crimes (e.g. is a suicide a murder or not ?), but also because of different approaches to policing: rape reporting to the police varies from country to country and it seems the way the police treat victims has a large impact on the likelihood of reporting. I was curious about the true situation, but unsure what to believe of the official MSM gospel about crime, i.e. that Europe is a haven of peace compared to the USA, so I spent some time trying to understand what was really going on. This is what I have found.

The Today programme on radio 4 is running a listeners poll to find the most unpopular law in Britain. The Christmas Repeal invites you to nominate the piece of legislation you would most like to see scrapped. You can vote online.

This is a huge step forward from two years ago, when Radio 4 wanted us to squeeze yet another law onto our already crammed statute book (in the event, listeners plumped for a Bill to allow householders to shoot intruders, but the Labour MP who had promised to propose the winning entry in Parliament backed out).