Joel Shepherd

I just received this e-mail from the young Australian science fiction author Joel Shepherd, who recently returned to Australia after having lived in France for a while.

Hi Paul
Some months ago I wrote some stuff on Instapundit about the French riots, you might recall. I also was writing an article on Liberté Chérie, France’s leading libertarian organisation. I was hoping the mainstream media might pick it up, but no joy... so I've put it on my blog instead. I learned some things writing it, I thought libertarian-minded people might enjoy reading it.
cheers
Joel Shepherd

Here is Joel’s article:

Few publications are as American as Reader’s Digest. Somewhat incongruously, however, RD feels compelled to bestow a “European of the Year” Award. Yesterday the magazine announced that this year’s European of the Year Award goes to the Dutch member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

According to RD “Hirsi Ali is the person who best embodies the contemporary expression of Europe’s values and traditions.” Bob Low, RD’s European Bureau Chief of Reader's Digest, commented: “It has taken a young woman born outside Europe to show Europeans the sort of courage and determination that is needed to confront extremism and to uphold the values of tolerance and justice that we hold dear. We are proud to honour her.”

This weeks’s Newsweek has an article on the merits of the Scandinavian model, with additional pieces on Sweden and Denmark, allowing readers to vote on whether or not “the Swedish socio-economic model is in trouble.” Newsweek thinks it is a rather sexy model, but regular readers of this website know that we do not think the Scandinavian model (this one, not these ones) is pretty.

After reading our analysis, one of our readers, a university professor, provided an explanation for why the Scandinavian model has been in decline since the 1970s. He wrote:

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes continues her fetish of wanting to peek into other people's windows. It is refreshing to watch the officialdom of the EU unhinge themselves when dealing with a private sector company they cannot bluff, bully, and/or cajole into toeing the line.

Given that Neelie seems destined to be consumed by her predilection for Windows, some free advice to Microsoft in handling the EU's war on success:

Europe has not yet suffered from bird flu, but it suffers from an even more debilitating economic flu – excessive government dependency. That dependency is sapping both its economic vitality and its spirit and has grown most acute in the core of Europe: Germany, France and Italy.

Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko only has to look in the mirror and see his pockmarked, disfigured face – the result of chemical poisoning – to know that the KGB is still in charge in Moscow. Since the beginning of this year we all know it, too. Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom cut the supply of gas to Ukraine after the latter refused to pay the new price Russia is charging Kiev: a rise from 50$ to 230$ per 1,000 cubic metres of gas.

If you hang around long enough, the wayback machine coughs up this one from the Financial Times, circa 13 January 1982:

SECTION I; Pg. 14
HEADLINE: Study of sanctions’ impact on pipeline
BYLINE: By David Tonge in London

WESTERN officials are to meet in Washington later this week to discuss the precise implications of U.S. sanctions against the Soviet Union on the construction of the 5,500km Siberia-West Europe gas pipeline.

In the 1930s Russia robbed Ukraine of its food supplies. The Kremlin deliberately created a food shortage. Ukrainian grain was collected and stored in grain elevators that were guarded by the Soviet army and secret police units (the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB) while Ukrainians were starving in the immediate area. The result of the man-made famine of 1932-33 was the death of 7 million people. The famine was instigated by the Russians to break the spirit of the Ukrainians and force them into collectivisation and submission to Moscow. “Let us do it again,” Vladimir Putin, a former officer of the KGB, the Soviet Gestapo, and a worthy successor to Josef Stalin, said today.

The Brussels Journal has been closely following the Danish cartoon affair. Unlike the meanstraim media, who (apart from Denmark) are not interested in the case, we think it is very important for the future of Europe. Today we received a long email from a Muslim reader explaining why he takes offence at two of the twelve cartoons (see them here) published last September in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Islam prohibits depictions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. When a Danish author complained that he could not find an artist to illustrate his book about Muhammad, the paper decided to ask Danish cartoonists to draw them pictures of the prophet. Our reader’s letter is published below. But first, the latest events in this ongoing case.

This week Alan Reynolds wrote about the “European antitrust extortion,” arguing that “the European Union is a relative novice in using threats of antitrust enforcement to collect cash and dispense favors. But inexperience is no excuse for running amok.” Reynolds is right on.