The Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) of the European Union is quintessentially a classic piece of socialism in action. Wealthy Northern European nations with broadly efficient farming sectors pay large net contributions to the EU which in turn distributes a high proportion thereof to nations with small inefficient farms. Result: a huge EU client base is created that will support the EU and the CAP through thick and thin.

Europeans have been hyperventilating over their self-perceived “victories” vis-à-vis the United States at the recent NATO Summit in Romania from April 2-4. “France and Germany Thwart Bush’s Plans,” ran a triumphant headline in the Hamburg-based Der Spiegel. “Europe Waits Out the Bush Administration,” read another. “Only One Lame Duck Here” said the London-based Guardian in commentary that waxes giddy about Russia’s growing stranglehold over Europe. “NATO Should Disappear” said the Madrid-based El Pais.

Yrsa Stenius, the Swedish press Ombudsmann, wants to press charges against certain bloggers. She is worried about developments on the Internet, where anybody can just write anything they want. She says this has gone too far. She fears this trend could even spread to the mainstream media, unless something is done and a legal precedent is established to rein in unruly bloggers.

A nude photo of Carla Bruni, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was sold at auction in New York last Thursday for 91,000 euros. The photographer had persuaded the seller, German collector Gert Elfering, to donate the money from the sale to charity. Elfering chose the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital Association in Cambodia. The head of the hospital, Swiss pediatrician and musician Beat Richner refused the money.

A quote from the Irish Daily Mail, 14 April 2008
 
A leaked email [sent to the British government by Elizabeth Green, a senior UK diplomat in Dublin, following a briefing from Dan Mulhall, a top offical in the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs] shows that [the Irish] ministers are planning a deliberate campaign of misinformation to ensure that the Lisbon Treaty vote is passed when it is put to the public as required by the [Irish] Constitution.
 
Foreign Affairs minister Dermot Ahern has even been personally assured that the European Commission will ‘tone down or delay’ any announcements from Brussels ‘that might be unhelpful’. […]

A quote from Hans-Gert Pöttering, the President of the European Parliament, in The Peninsula (Qatar), 14 april 2008
 
I will not accept this [equating Islam with terrorism] and we in the European Parliament do not accept that Islam and terrorism are identified as the same thing. We don’t believe in this idea and we reject this idea. […] I express my opposition to this film [Geert Wilders’ Fitna] and the same thing with the Danish cartoons.

A quote from Helga Zepp-LaRouche in Executive Intelligence Review, 7 April 2008
 
Professor Schachtschneider pointed out that it [the European Union reform treaty, a.k.a. the Lisbon Treaty] also reintroduces the death penalty in Europe, which I think is very important, in light of the fact that, especially Italy was trying to abandon the death penalty through the United Nations, forever. And this is not in the treaty, but in a footnote, because with the European Union reform treaty, we accept also the European Union Charter, which says that there is no death penalty, and then it has a footnote, which says, “except in the case of war, riots, upheaval” – then the death penalty is possible. Schachtschneider points to the fact that this is an outrage, because they put it in a footnote of a footnote, and you have to read it, like really like a super-expert to find out!

When Ronald Reagan died in June 2004, I wrote:

It's remarkable how European streets, squares and tunnels are named after Democratic presidents (the Kennedy tunnel in Antwerp, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt in Brussels, the Clinton Park in Roeselare), but how reluctant local governments are to pay the same honor to Republican presidents. When, if ever, will there be a Ronald Reagan Square in Belgium?

Asylum seekers desecrate a Catholic church in Brussels as they re-occupy the Church of the Beguinage. This first occured in 2000, when they trashed the place. Now, with the full permission of the parish priest -- this is, after all, the parish whose biggest event in the year is a Multi-Cultural Picnic in the square in front of the Church.

Outside the Church

In the wake of the trashing of China’s Olympic Torch Rally the Olympic Movement’s elite are themselves twisting like so many kebabs on a spit as they seek to be all things to all men.