Every year since 2001, September 11 is "una giornata particolare" (a special day) or, as Flemish news anchor Martine Tanghe once said, "the most famous date of the year". For those who consider the U.S. to be the navel of the world, September 11, 2001 was a day when everything changed. The problem of Islam, that had already made millions of victims elsewhere, had made a further three thousand in the U.S. The rumors about jihad, somewhere in distant lands, suddenly became very real.

Obama lost his way. He is drowning in economic problems: unemployment doesn’t fall, au contraire; the economy is in a virtual standstill; the Government debt reaches dangerous heights; the yearly deficits are just plain immoral, and the dollar is weak. He still believes it’s the government’s task to create jobs by pumping borrowed money into the economy. The friendly explanation is he has no clue how a free market economy works. The more stringent view is he hates the free market and wants to destroy it. Today, people are not any more afraid to ask: Why does he repeat the same failed policies over and over again?

When noble principles serve to package a nasty content.

Following the fall of Tripoli, the “Guide” continued to imitate Hitler’s reassurances of “final victory” from his last bunker. Meanwhile Algeria has allowed the smarter members of the Gaddafi family to enter its territory. The generous host country resists the extradition of the “fugitives” –not “refugees”- to Libya whose courts are eager to have them. The protection extended is justified by citing humanitarian reasons. The benign terminology harks back to the right to refuge agreed upon in the aftermath of the last world war when millions were displaced by government persecution.  

Adam Smith

The present dispute on Adam Smith's legacy is picking up steam while pitching against each other Labor, Liberal and Conservative luminaries on both sides of the pond. And the recent riots in the UK have lent it further virulence. Over the last years the controversy has spread worldwide between intellectuals such as former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and numerous free market champions, most of them followers of the late Milton Friedman.

Beyond the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looms another signal date in the annals of global jihad. That date is September 20, when the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas is expected to petition the United Nations for statehood.

What would a U.N.-ordained Palestinian state have to do with global jihad? Practically everything, because such statehood would mark a major victory in the long war on Israel's existence. And, whether unadmitted or unimagined, it is Israel on which the axis of Islamic jihad turns.

When “It” Does Not Work, The Management Must Be Changed.

1. Voters, attention. Here is a simple suggestion to guide your political input on the economy. “When an approach fails you need to change the business plan and the management.”

Did you know that in Denmark, the poorest 30% pay 14.1% of all taxes and the richest pay 48.7%  -- while in the United States, the poorest 30% pay just 6.1 % of all taxes and the richest 30% pay a whopping 65.3%? The surprising thing is not that the richest pay most of the taxes but that the U.S. has nearly the most progressive tax system in the world, while the Scandinavian countries have about the least progressive tax systems, contrary to commonly held belief.

A couple of weeks ago, the historian David Starkey made a comment [video] on the riots. Starkey denounced the "particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture [that] has become the fashion", and he concluded that "the whites have become black". He has been widely denounced for what he said, not least because he referred approvingly to Enoch Powell.

Professor Starkey is able to defend himself. What concerns me and the Libertarian Alliance is how our increasingly totalitarian ruling class regards Enoch Powell as some kind of Emmanuel Goldstein, the people's enemy number one in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Even if nothing controversial in itself is said, to speak of him without visible and ritualistic loathing will bring you under suspicion of thought crime.

Watching the ferocious criminality displayed during the riots in British cities during the past weeks, one might be forgiven for thinking that this explosion of mob violence was taking place in some dilapidated god-forsaken Third World country. The horrific scenes of homes and businesses of ordinary Britons going up in flames will not be easily forgotten. Property was smashed up with brazen impunity, cars burned, and there was looting on a truly massive scale. Not only businesses, banks, post-offices, off-licenses, newsagents and luxury-goods shops but also restaurants, pubs and cafes were comprehensively trashed. The video-recordings often show hooded looters replete with bundles of “free” sports goods under their arms, emerging from shops with big grins on their faces. Looters helped themselves to everything from flat-screen TVs and mobile phones to iPads, laptops and a wide variety of electronics.

Here are three things we need to know about the Libyan "rebels" that our governments aren't telling us.

One: The inspiration of the Libyan war is as much anti-Western as it is anti-Gadhafi.

The "Day of Rage" that kick-started the Libyan war on Feb. 17 marked the fifth anniversary of violent protests in Benghazi, which included an assault on the Italian consulate during which at least 11 were killed. The 2006 mayhem, as John Rosenthal has reported, during which consulate staff was evacuated after 1,000 to several thousand men tried to storm and burn the building, may be linked to the Italian TV appearance two days earlier of Italian minister Roberto Calderoli. It was then that Calderoli, in defiance of worldwide Islamic rioting against cartoons of Muhammad in a tiny Danish newspaper, revealed he was wearing an undershirt decorated with such a cartoon. In remarks widely reported in Arab media, Calderoli explained that "the gesture was a matter of a 'battle for freedom.'" The minister said: "When they (the cartoon rioters) recognize our rights, I'll take off the shirt."