Saint Patrick was a Roman who ended up beyond the Empire’s westernmost border. When the Empire collapsed its Christian legacy was preserved in Ireland thanks to Patrick. From Ireland Patrick’s spiritual sons, Columba, Aidan and other holy men, eventually brought the ancient heritage back east, to the lands where it had originally come from.

One thousand years ago Scandinavians were the barbarians of Europe, spreading fear and extracting “Danegeld” from their more civilized neighbors. In the 21st century Scandinavians are peaceful and soft-spoken, and the roles seem to have been reversed with certain newly arrived immigrants. There are claims that immigration costs Sweden 40 to 50 billion Swedish kroner every year, perhaps even several hundred billions, and has greatly contributed to bringing the Swedish welfare state to the brink of bankruptcy.

Since 1 March people who want to settle in the Netherlands are required to pass a preliminary exam at the Dutch embassy in their native country. This so-called “integration test” includes a film which exposes the would-be immigrants to scenes of kissing homosexual men and topless women. The message is that “If you can’t tolerate gay lifestyle and public nudity, you can’t come.”

Today, leftist students in France continued their demonstrations against France’s new labor law. They do not want any “Anglo-Saxon” conditions. However, they do not know what they are talking about. This is a scene from earlier this week:

A student who attempted with numerous others to take over the College de France university, near the Sorbonne university in Paris, sits and cries on the street after clashes with riot policemen Monday, March 13, 2006. The French prime minister's vow to press on with a new labor law that has sent students into the streets drew fresh criticism Monday from unions and the opposition Socialists, who said President Jacques Chirac should intervene. The top two unions of high school students called for classroom protests starting Monday. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Yesterday Denmark’s Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to press criminal charges against Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the twelve cartoons (see them here, halfway down the page). He upheld the earlier decision of a regional prosecutor who maintained the drawings were protected by the legislation on freedom of speech and did not violate bans on racist and blasphemous speech.

Today the Austrian EU Presidency is organising the 8th European Consumer Day, in cooperation with the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). The date marks US President John F. Kennedy’s declaration to the US Congress on 15 March 1962, when he spoke in support of consumers and spelled out four fundamental consumer rights (the right to safety; the right to be informed; the right to choose; the right to be heard).

Like New Orleans, Amsterdam has had periods of past glory – evident in its many well preserved buildings from centuries back. But it has also been subject to major floods and other calamities over the last 900 years.

That Amsterdam has managed to overcome similar adversity enables it to provide a role model for New Orleans as it attempts to recover from hurricane Katrina and a long legacy of corrupt government.

Last month, when Microsoft opened up the source code of its Windows Server operating system in an effort to appease the European Union, we warned that appeasement never works: When you try to bribe the school bully he comes back the next day.

Anyone interested in the current antitrust regulation is curious to know whether the European Commission will follow through its threats to impose fines amounting to 2,000,000 euro per day against Microsoft. One can only hope that Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes will see sense, but unfortunately that does not appear to be the case.

Am I the only one who is a tad concerned about the new RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) Policy for Europe? I hope not. This year data retention legislation was introduced by the European Parliament and now we have the execrable Viviane Reding at a major conference in Hanover burbling about the Commission’s new consultation on the electronic tagging technology.

The European Union would be great, if only France was not part of it. Despite what one might think about the EU, often described as a French toy, Paris is most effectively countering every effort to promote a true integration of the European internal market. It all began with the long-standing opposition to liberalizations in key sectors, such as energy, that resulted in a weak implementation of market opening. Then it was the Bolkestein Directive’s turn – the directive, that was aimed at liberalizing services throughout Europe, was dramatically revised by the EU Parliament, and its impact was much softened. Again, French MEPs played a key role in the neutralization of what might have been a beneficial revolution for European consumers.