A quote from a French article by F. Bousquet, translated on David Orland’s blog, 14 April 2007

One thing is obvious: integration is impossible unless it takes account of Islam. Islam is consubstantial with Arabness. It is not up for negotiation in exchange for successful integration. Integration, if it is to happen, will occur by means of Islam. They will become French but not free-thinkers, Buddhists or Catholics. This is why, in their view, Philippe de Villiers [a French traditionalist Catholic] is badly mistaken. Not so Le Pen. With Le Pen, one does not sense the hostility regarding Islam that infuses a good part of the French right. The FN is seen much more as an anti-immigrant party than as an anti-Islamic one. The fight against immigration remains at the heart of its program. However, these immigrants are in the process of becoming the very substance of its electorate. That is the paradox. Le Pen’s positions on Islam and foreign policy have something to do with it.

Muslim arrestees held in a windowless cell in The Hague have been praying West instead of East, facing Washington DC instead of Mecca. The Dutch press agency ANP revealed today that the compass which the Dutch police painted on the ceiling of the cells in the Segbroek police station to enable Muslim criminals to pray towards Mecca pointed in the wrong, opposite, direction. A police spokesman said a mistake had been made. The mistake has meanwhile been rectified.

A quote from Tony Blair in the Callaghan Memorial Speech in Cardiff, 11 April 2007

What we are dealing with is not a general social disorder; but specific groups or people who for one reason or another, are deciding not to abide by the same code of conduct as the rest of us. This came home to me when, at the recent summit I held on knife and gun crime, the black Pastor of a London church said bluntly: when are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it. […]

Arrestees who are being held at the Segbroek police station in The Hague have a compass in their cell which shows them the direction to Mecca so that they know which way to face when praying. The compass is painted on the ceiling of the cells.

Why can’t the Dutch give Muslims a moral compass as well? That’s what they really need.

Francis Fukuyama believes we are still at the End of History, and the end is called the European Union. I don't know whether the EU spells the end of history, but do I suspect it could spell the end of Europe:

The history at the end of history
By Francis Fukuyama

The “End of History” was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organization. Following Alexandre Kojeve, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU’s attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a “post-historical” world than the Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty and their military.

For almost four decades, Muslims have been the fastest-growing segment of the population in Western Europe. As a consequence, the Muslim vote is becoming ever more important. This first became apparent in the September 2002 general elections in Germany, when Socialist candidate Gerhard Schroeder beat Conservative opponent Edmund Stoiber with the slightest of margins -- barely 8,864 votes. Germany is home to almost 700,000 Turkish-German voters -- in addition to nearly 3 million non- (or rather not-yet-) voting Turkish immigrants. The Muslims voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Schroeder.

A quote from Euractiv.com, 11 April 2007

Christian Democrats urge Parliament to defend Slovakia’s ‘flat tax’ regime against future EU harmonisation […] A draft declaration, to be submitted to Parliament by the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) in May, declares “the sole authority of the Slovak Republic to decide on the personal income tax and corporate taxes”.

The declaration urges Bratislava to reject “any legally binding acts and other acts of the European Communities and European Union that might concern the harmonisation of such taxes, of their tax base, structure or system […] or against any motion to set a new [European] tax”.

A quote from Hamish McRae in The Independent, 11 April 2007

Could Scotland “go it alone”? It is a tantalising prospect, provoked I think more than anything else by the example of Ireland, which has seemed to have prospered as an independent country in a way that it could not have done had it been part of the UK.

[…] The plain fact here is that Ireland has boomed because of inward investment and that has been the result mainly, not entirely, because of favourable corporate tax rates. […] The ability to use tax competition as a weapon is something that large countries find hard to do because the losses, initially at least, are likely to be larger than the gains. For small countries it is different. The amount of inward investment you need to attract to offset the loss of revenue from the existing corporate base is more attainable.

A quote from Gilbert Kreijger at Reuters, 8 April 2007

A new stained glass window in a Dutch cathedral that contains an image of the World Trade Center attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people was blessed on Sunday by a Dutch bishop.  The window, built up of about twenty different panes with representations of heaven and hell, has the WTC pane at the bottom showing "hell on earth", its maker Marc Mulders said. (...)

The window in the Sint Jan cathedral in Den Bosch, a city in the south of the Netherlands, has attracted the attention of the world's media press because of the Twin Tower image, pastor Geert Jan van Rossem said. (...)

A small crowd applauded and praised the window's bright colors when the bishop revealed the stained glass window.

After a long (well they get the Thursday as well) Easter Break, the European Parliament got back to work today with a bang.

The Education and Culture Committee was honoured to host two whole Commissioners at its meeting today, Madams Reding and Wallström. They were here to witness voting for a name for a new European Parliament film prize. This prize is the brainchild of Gerard Onesta a French Vice President of the Parliament and will naturally be funded by the taxpayer.