A quote from The Times, 20 May 2008

Single women and lesbian couples won landmark parental rights last night as MPs voted to remove the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will replace the rule with a “need for supportive parenting” after opponents were defeated in two votes by unexpectedly wide margins. The Government had been prepared for defeat but won the free votes by majorities of 75 and 68. The decisions mean that the legislation will grant the most significant extension to homosexual family rights since gay adoption was sanctioned. [...]

A quote from Godfried Cardinal Danneels, the liberal Archbishop of Mechelen and Brussels (soon to be retired), in his farewell interview with the Flemish leftist weekly Humo, 20 May 2008

Humo: Thanks to Islam there is now more diffidence and respect for Catholicism, based on the principle that one must not give offence.

Cardinal Danneels: Indeed, that is something we have to thank Islam for. But I also find the Muslim sense of prayer a very positive example. Likewise, we can learn non-violence from Buddhists.

Last week, the Dutch police raided the home of Gregorius Nekschot (a pseudonym meaning “Gregory Deathblow”). Mr. Nekschot makes rude and often sexually explicit cartoons that poke fun at the multicultural society and at religious people, especially Muslims. The police confiscated his computer and a number of drawings. The cartoonist was also arrested and jailed for 36 hours but has meanwhile been released until his court case is due.

A quote from former topless model and "most beautiful minister in the world" Mara Carfagna, the Italian Minister for Equal Opportunities
 
I am aware that there is a lot of discrimination [of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals (GLBT)] in schools, universities and in the work place, and I believe that Italy has a duty to fight this attitude with resolution. Having said this however, the GLBT movement cannot expect homosexual couples have rights which are recognised as equivalent or similar to those which a heterosexual family is guaranteed and nor will they have the patronage of the government to demonstrate which is more about exhibitionism than anything else.

On 25 April a Brussels court sentenced [pdf] the “anti-globalist” (leftist) monthly magazine MO* to a payment of 1 euro in moral damages to the businessman George Forrest because the magazine had printed a cartoon on its front page depicting Mr. Forrest, who owns a copper empire in Congo, in the traditional costume of Congo’s former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

The court ruled that freedom of the press, as protected by article 25 of the Belgian Constitution, does not apply to cartoons because article 25, which dates from 1831, applies to “writers” but not to illustrators.

The goings-on in the French National Assembly and Senate have filled the French media and websites this past week. First there was the final vote on the bill to regulate GMO crops in France. To everyone's surprise the bill sponsored by Minister of Ecology and Environment Jean-Louis Borloo, went down in defeat creating a noisy media event. The defeat was trumpeted as a major and unexpected setback for President Sarkozy's UMP party.

A quote from the Islam in Europe website, 19 May 2008

Two villages in Malaga decided to ‘free” the last Moorish [Muslim] king of Al Andalus, Boabdil. Canillas de Aceituno (2,336 inhabitants) and Sedella (688 inhabitants) have approved changing their municipal coat of arms to remove the chain from around Boabdil’s neck, who surrendered Granada in 1492. According to the mayor of Canillas de Aceituno, Jose Manuel Aranda (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), […] “We have decided to remove a symbol with connotations of racism and slavery that deepens the struggle for dominion among races, senseless in a new, free generation.”

Some bits in the mosaic of our time are ignored because we look for boulders. This column presents issues that might deserve attention.
 
1. Capitalism scores! Again! A Masserati owner who is also a welfare client has turned up. Where else, besides in Capitalism, would this be possible? As there are no roses without thorns, this triumph over classical poverty creates some problems. If the poor have Masseratis, what will be allotted to normal earners? What will those get who could always afford supercars? Furthermore, what will be done about speed limits once the Masserati has become the “people’s car”?

A quote from the New York Post, 2 May 2008

A shocking 34 percent of mothers reported having had an extramarital affair after the birth of their children, according to a study released yesterday. More than half, 53 percent, of women polled in the “Sex and the American Mom” survey also said they had entertained the idea of straying on their spouses.

A quote from Lawrence Auster at his blog, 19 May 2008

[Andrew] Bostom in this book [The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism] appears to have performed on Islamic anti-Semitism the same indispensable operation he performed on Islamic jihad in his previous collection, The Legacy of Jihad. That is, he shows how the demonization of Jews – and the mandate to demonize Jews – have been central to the most authoritative Islamic writings from the start, and that Muslims in their hatred, oppression, dehumanization, and killing of Jews during the 1,400 years since then have simply been following the sacred dictates of their religion.