The Baby Bust and Falling Fertility: Europe on Life-Support

People Power

Family Feud

"When [Rocco] Falivena took office in 2002 for his second stint as mayor [of Laviano, Italy], two numbers caught his attention. Four: that was how many babies were born in the town the year before. And five: the number of children enrolled in first grade at the school, never mind that the school served two additional communities as well. “I knew what was my first job, to try to save the school,” Falivena told me. “Because a village that does not have a school is a dead village.” He racked his brain and came up with a desperate idea: pay women to have babies…"
--NY Times: No Babies?

Red Planet Cartoons' latest theme is one that will surprise Eco-Weenies: Western Civilization's baby bust.

While eco-warriors are preaching the many ill-effects that humans have on Mother Earth, RPC demonstrates that Earth Firsters might have too many trees in front of them to see a barren, Western Civ forest.

Around the time that President Kennedy went to Germany and gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, Europe represented 12.5 percent of the world’s population. Today it is 7.2 percent, and if current trends continue, by 2050 only 5 percent of the world will be European.

As Mark Steyn, the Paul Revere of Western Demographic Decline, points out in recent Wall Street Journal article, It's the Demography, Stupid, "In 1970, the developed world had twice as big a share of the global population as the Muslim world: 30% to 15%. By 2000, they were the same: each had about 20%."

Can these trends continue for another 30 years without having consequences? Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world.

Though Steyn is best-known for his chronicling the abysmally-low fertility rates of Western Europe in 2005's best-seller, America Alone, he was not the first.

Phillip Longman's 2004 article for Foreign Affairs, The Global Baby Bust, put the problem in front of many readers for the first time. In it, Longman documents falling fertility, not only in Europe, but also other countries traditionally associated with high birth rates.

By some estimates, the world's fertility will fall below replacement levels by 2050, if present trends continue.

Which ought to send Al Gore into a fit of ecstasy: with less drivers, there will be less pollution from less cars.

And less people to notice any difference.

by Mondoreb
image: Red Planet Cartoons
Source:
* People Power

Financial Jihad

[The message at Red Planet Cartoons read: "A color version of this cartoon will be available Tuesday." We don't think it affects the message of the cartoon. Color will just make it more vivid.]

Red Planet then goes on into detail.

Muslims — individually and in pressure groups — are using British libel laws and Canadian “human rights” laws to limit what is said about Islam, terrorists and the people in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere who are funding groups such as al-Queda. The cases of Rachel Ehrenfeld and Mark Steyn prove the point.

So what's Freedom of Speech if you can be sued for calling a "terrorist" a "terrorist"?

Or calling "al-Queda"--"al-Queda"?

Or a "muslim" a "muslim"?

It goes on to lay out what happened in the ridiculous case of author Rachel Ehrenfeld.

Ehrenfeld is American, her book was written and published in America and she has no business or other ties to Britain. Under American law, the Brit courts would have no jurisdiction over her. But about two-dozen copies of her book were sold there through the internet. Bin Mahfouz sued her for libel in the Brit courts where the burden of proof is the opposite of what it is in US courts: the author has to prove that what is written is true, rather than the supposedly defamed person proving it is false.

Think about that for a moment. Under the US Constitution political writing — free speech — is almost unlimited. To gain a libel judgment a politician — or someone suspected of terrorist ties — would have to prove that the story or book was false. If that person were a public figure such as Mahfouz, in order to get a libel judgment he’d not only have to prove that what was written was false, he’d also have to prove it was published maliciously.

The rest of the story, plus a Link-A-Palooza of other stories on this disturbing trend against Free Speech.

The entire Kafka-esque scenario is laid out at Red Planet Cartoons' Financial Jihad.

And later today, it will all be in surreal color.

by Mondoreb





Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Canada: Hockey, Maple Leafs and Thought Police

Canada's Thought Police by Red Planet Cartoons

Red Planet Cartoons has an excellent backstory on the Mark Steyn Vs. the Canadian Thought Police.

It relates the story of Steyn, author of #1 best-seller America Alone and five Muslim law-school students who utilize the one Western idea radical Muslims seem to embrace: the lawsuit.
[Note: I saw the "one Western idea radical muslims embrace" phrase somewhere the last few weeks and can't remember where.]

That a government agency would even hear this case is evidence of the grip that Political Correctness has on the Great White North, at least the portion that resides in Ottawa.

Read "Canada's Thought Police" at Red Planet Cartoons. And if you haven't already, read America Alone by Mark Steyn.

Then you'll better understand why elements of radical Islam, including law students north of the border, feel it necessary to shut up Mark Steyn.

As well as those who agree with him.

by Mondoreb
[image: redplanetcartoons]
Source: Canada's Thought Police





Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Steyn, America Alone: PC Crowd, 2 Muslims Seethe, Everyone Else Laughs

What! Did You Say "Demographic Trends"!
I'll teach you to spout demographic trends, you bigot!

Winter weather got you down?

You say you're stressed out and need to laugh?

Then head on over to Unqualified Offerings!

When the Politically Correct attempt an argument, it's almost a guarantee that hilarity will ensue.

There's merriment immediately during Unqualified Offerings's, Sympathy for the Devil: Mark Steyn's America Alone.

The piece's author, Jim Henley, apparently defines "bigot" as anyone who points out demographic trends.

Oh.

And disagrees with Jim.

bigot: n. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. --Ask.com "I knew Steyn was a bigot..." --Jim Henley, differing with Steyn on politics prejudice: n. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. "The excerpt from Mark Steyn’s America Alone that ran in Maclean’s last year is far more blatantly racist than I figured it would be when I began reading it. --Jim Henley, explaining why he always reads before forming an opinion of anything

More sweet reason from PC Jim.

I knew Steyn was a bigot, with a 1920s obsession with demographic decline. (Cf. Tom Buchanan in Gatsby, who can’t stop talking about Rise of the Colored Empires, “by this man Goddard.”) But I imagined Steyn was more adroit in his use of code words and deniability feints. No! “Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes” is merely the most spectacular example of - not code words. I’m not completely shocked that Steyn would write with such frank bigotry, or that Regnery would publish it. I’m somewhat surprised that an establishment organ like Maclean’s would run it.

"I'm not Politically Correct.
I feel like such a bigot every time I read America Alone."

Hurry, catch your breath, there's more!

Mark Steyn is a racist douchebag in addition to being a ridiculous figure, which in a way is good, because the case for free speech can’t rest on the idea that speech is harmless or misunderstood or otherwise inconsequential. Speech is dangerous. It does things. If it didn’t, why would we talk at all? There are a lot of reasons not to sanction Steyn or Maclean’s for what he wrote, or even to have a process that presents the possibility. For one, it’s naive to think that the political process, which is all about the deployment of relative power, can sustainably suppress the expression of the strong in favor of the expression of the weak. But my favorite this morning is, I’ll be damned if I’ll give Steyn and his ilk the satisfaction of victimhood.

Jim said "douchebag"!

Poor Jim Henley.

He got all worked up--even got to wax righteously indignant--and one is still patiently waiting for him to explain Steyn's bigotry.

We don't learn anything about all that, but we do learn some things about Jim Henley and Political Correctness: don't disagree with him.

You're a bigot.

And don't write a best-selling book that make the odd Muslim seethe.

You need muzzled.

And Jim will cheer.

And throw in a heapin' helpin' of steamed Jimbo--for free!

Who knew Henley was such a multi-tasking fellow?

Policial Correctness is all about sweet-tempered guys like Jim deciding what the rest of us can read or think. If we don't think like them, we're racists and douchebags and bigots. In Canada and on Jim's cool blog, this PC stuff is all the rage.

Isn't PC a funny idea?

We told you you'd laugh.

by Mondoreb
[images:inimagine; yandy; katiebailey]

Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Multicultural Problem: What's Your Favorite Color?

Multiculturalists have plenty of signs to follow
What's a committed multiculturalist to do when you've accumulated so many aggrieved groups and have to judge among whose cause is more important?

I mean, besides hold a Democrat Party fund-raiser.

Mark Steyn reports on an interesting exchange that took place last week. It highlights the problem of 'too many colors in the multicultural rainbow'.

[Australian News reporter Pamela Bone to selective feminist, Germaine Greer, in Melbourne]:

I then asked why it was that Western feminists seemed so reluctant to speak out against things such as honour killings.

Greer: "It's very tricky. I am constantly being asked to go to Darfur to interview rape victims. I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?"

Questioner (me): "Because it's so much worse there."

Greer: "Who says it is?"

Questioner: "I do, because I've been there."

Greer: "Well, it is just very tricky to try to change another culture. We let down the victims of rape here. We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast."

Steyn then remarks, "Too "tricky" to speak out against honor killings, and you can't teach an old feminist new tricks."

Multiculturalists have a problem: when all the supposedly put upon groups they champion are seeking preferred treatment--special speech rights and another cut of the government's dole--which one is first among equals?

When you don't have a favorite color, any will do. It works the same way for value systems: once you've rejected the West, any old thing can be best.

A simple solution would be the adherence to a simple creed. Other than "Expedience Rules!"

Something short and sweet and easy to remember. How about

"All men are created equal"?

Of course, this would immediately offend the feminist, lesbian and trans-gendered portion of their audience.

It's also too Western-centric, so that's out.

But clearly, "What's your favorite color?" won't do.

Germanine Greer, in the previous exchange, unknowingly suggests a new rallying cry of multicultural moral equivalence-mongers everywhere. Something to guide them when their way is unclear. How's this?

"It's tricky!"



by Mondoreb
Sources:
Australian News - Why stay mute on Islamic Sexual Apartheid?
The Corner - Feminist Fatalist

Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Beauchamp, TNR Take A Powder: 2 More Forgotten Brand Names

[image:cbsnews]

by Mondoreb

When you're looking for succinct, usually-hilarious reaction to news, you could do worse than read Mark Steyn, the doomsday-slinging prophet of European demographic decline. The revelation that The New Republic knew that its crack war zone reporter was not what he was cracked up to be gets the once-over from Steyn at the Corner:

No disrespect, Kathryn, but count me among those who raised an eyebrow over your five o'clock Scott Thomas Beauchamp post. It's not about Beauchamp "confessing". Given the alarm bells Beauchamp's original piece set off among those familiar with the subject matter, and given that the anecdote on which the entire premise of the essay hangs has already been determined to have occurred in Kuwait rather than Iraq, all The New Republic had going for it were its editors' insistence that (a) Beauchamp was standing by his story, and (b) the military were preventing him from speaking to them.

It has now been revealed that (a) Beauchamp declined to stand by his story, and (b) the editors spoke with him and knew this weeks ago. Presumably The New Republic's readers are relatively relaxed about the editors colluding in slandering the troops at a time of war: only uptight squares get hung up on that sort of thing. But they ought surely to be concerned at the abuse of trust perpetrated by the magazine against its own readers.

Steyn goes on to relate some facts about TNR's ownership.

Few remember that back in the early 1960s, the best-selling beer in America was--Carling Black Label? CBL's "Hey Mabel--Black Label" was much more recognized among consumers than Budweiser's "When You've Said Bud, You've Said it All".

For consumers of news and the truth, The New Republic is soon to be consigned to the forgotten name brand remainder bin.
TNR will then join CBL.

Back to Front Page.

"Meanie" Mark Steyn & "The Real War On Children": Answers Still Sought to Tough Questions

by Mondoreb

Three older men are sitting in the park
1st Man: It sure is windy.
2nd Man: No, no, it's Thursday.
3rd Man: Me too! Let's go get a beer!

Mark Steyn addresses last week's "debate" about the SCHIP veto vote. From the OC Register:

A couple of weeks ago, the Democrats put up a 12-year-old SCHIP beneficiary from Baltimore, Graeme Frost, to deliver their official response to the President's Saturday-morning radio address. And immediately afterwards Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and I jumped the sick kid in a dark alley and beat him to a pulp. Or so you'd have thought from the press coverage: The Washington Post called us "meanies." Well, no doubt it's true we hard-hearted conservatives can't muster the civilized level of discourse of Pete Stark. But we were trying to make a point – not about the kid, but about the family, and their relevance as a poster child for expanded government health care. Mr. and Mrs. Frost say their income's about $45,000 a year – she works "part-time" as a medical receptionist, and he works "intermittently" as a self-employed woodworker. They have a 3,000-square-foot home plus a second commercial property with a combined value of over $400,000, and three vehicles – a new Chevy Suburban, a Volvo SUV, and a Ford F-250 pickup.

That was the SCHIP "debate" in the nutshell: it was like the conversation of those three older men in the park. Republicans wanted to talk about the costs and consequences of the massive expansion of government health services. The Democrats were having an altogether different conversation.

Like a magician, they tried to misdirect the focus somewhere else completely different. First, Dems droned on, mantra-like, about the "the children". Lately, Democrats believe they could bring up a bill requiring all house pets in America to be spray-painted orange and, if they tagged "it's for the children" onto it, it would sail through Congress.

The Democrats have at last found a war they want to fight. Iraq and terrorism is all an Evil Dick Cheney plot, but the "war on children" is a cause sublime.

When the debate shifted to the number of adults covered by this "children's" bill, Democrats and various ankle-biters turned the debate to the "meanies" and the non-story of Mitch McConnell's aide asking reporters to look into questions raised about the Frost's resources.

Again, the "debate" was about two sides talking about two completely different subjects. Steyn continues:

So what is the best thing America could do "for the children"? Well, it could try not to make the same mistake as most of the rest of the Western world and avoid bequeathing the next generation a system of unsustainable entitlements that turns the entire nation into a giant Ponzi scheme. Most of us understand, for example, that Social Security needs to be "fixed" – or we'll have to raise taxes, or the retirement age, or cut benefits, etc. But, just to get the entitlements debate in perspective, projected public pensions liabilities in the United States are expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of our gross domestic product. In Greece, the equivalent figure is 25 percent – that's not a matter of raising taxes or tweaking retirement age; that's total societal collapse.

Don't expect any response that includes anything so mundane as facts, figures or math. They'll be focused on how the mere act of asking these questions turns one into a "slimer", "smear artist" or constitutes a "jihad" against the kids. Steyn winds up on the point that will never be addressed by any current Democratic leader.

And so, in a democratic system today's electors vote to keep the government gravy coming and leave it to tomorrow for "the children" to worry about. That's the real "war on children" – and every time you add a new entitlement to the budget you make it less and less likely they'll win it.

Just like the Social Security "debate", every time someone raises the unconvenient question of running out of money, the shouting down of the "meanie" will begin by the New York Times and the running pack of liberal lackeys. Like those old men in the park, no debate can exist if both sides aren't on the same subject.

Mark Steyn and others raised questions this week; questions the Democrats deigned not to answer. Those questions will still need answered tomorrow. No matter how many times the subject is changed.

No matter how many times the inquisitive get branded as "meanies".



Back to Front Page.

Graeme Frost, HillaryCare, and "Meanies":Questions & Super Bugs in the System

[graphic:RidesAPaleHorse]
"You may remember that we tried to do that [pass her health care bill] in 1993 and 1994. We weren't totally successful, but I did not give up."

by Mondoreb

The headline didn't have the sensationalist bite that "Brain-Eating Microbes Kill Boy in Arizona Lake", but it did catch my attention.

Super Bug Kills 90 in UK

From CNN:
LONDON-- Nurses who didn't wash their hands and left patients lying in soiled beds were cited in an official report blaming mismanagement for the deaths of 90 people who contracted a bacterial infection in hospitals in southern England.

"Significant failings" at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday.

The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said.

"The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed," said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.

One notices the "Healthcare Commission", is a government entity in the U.K. charged with providing Britons with the English version of HillaryCare. While reading the story, a question arises: Why would trial lawyers support socialized medicine? One of the plaintiffs' bar's most lucrative scams is endlessly suing members of the medical profession over every unfortunate outcome even slightly connected with medicine.

Socialized medicine will substitute Il Duce Hillary for Doc Jones. When Clostridium difficile strikes in the U.S., where will the loved ones of the deceased turn for succor under HillaryCare 2.0? Trial lawyers won't be able to pay their 'faux-expert witnesses' on what they'll make attempting to sue the United States government. No answer quickly came to mind as to why the ambulance-chasing community would continue to write checks to a candidate taking the food off their table.

Back to Super Bug:

The report into the spread of the highly contagious bacterium said nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust were often too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement.

In recent years, Britain's superbug infection rates of bacteria like Clostridium difficile and MRSA have skyrocketed. In the 1990s, only five percent of in-hospital blood infections were from MRSA, the deadly bacteria resistant to nearly every available antibiotic. In past years, that figure has jumped to more than 40 percent.

A single snapshot from the European system that HillaryCare, EdwardsCare and other Democrat socialized health care schemes would have Americans believe is the latest ticket to a Socialist Workers Party paradise. And to any who offer evidence that government is not a solution here: the same dreary, droning chorus about how such evidence is the product of malevolence personified. Scratch the surface of any person questioning Dem poster child, Graeme Frost, and you'll find a--what? Another question?
Scratch the surface and perhaps you'll find Michelle Malkin:

To review quickly: We are now “meanies,” “hypocrites,” “slimers,” and “mobsters” for challenging the wisdom of taking money away from taxpayers of lesser means who are responsible enough to buy insurance before a catastrophic event in order to subsidize two-property, three-car families with four children in private schools and two parents who work “intermittently” and “part-time” who didn’t have the foresight or priorities to purchase insurance before a tragic auto accident.

Malkin couldn't possibly differ philosophically with the goose-stepping, "it's-my-right" hordes of lazy-thinking HillaryCare toadies. There are no questions here to be answered. One advantage of voting Democrat is that all your thinking is done for you: reduced into easily-remembered sound bites for the mainstream media. When you have the Left writing the rebuttal to any argument in American politics today, the script leans heavily on invective, inventive and otherwise.

Ultimately, it boils down to that same old questions, "Can the federal government run my life better than I can?" and "Why does anyone think that a government that has trouble delivering Uncle Frank's birthday card can deliver Uncle Frank's kidney operation?" As Mark Steyn put it:

Ultimately it's a reductive notion of liberty to say a free-born citizen can choose his own breakfast cereal and DVD rentals and cable package and, in the case of the Frosts, three premium vehicles, but demand the government take responsibility for all the grown-up stuff.

This week, stories of Super Bugs, trial lawyers, Graeme Frost, and left wing pejoratives provoked questions. But all one heard in the mainstream press was the music of the merrily-marching minions of socialized HillaryCare and its clones.

Don't look here for answers to those questions: a college football game beckons this afternoon and pigskins, not polemics, will be the main concern. No answers, but two more quotations will join the quote opening this post. One, by Hillary Clinton, is about how politics works. The other, by Tennessee Williams, is about how magic works.
Read them both and the reader may arrive at his own answers.

"The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible."

"Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. [A stage magician] gives us illusion that has the appearance of truth."

[HillarySlash graphic:Salon]
Hillary quotes & more here.
Tennessee Williams quote
Back to Front Page

Let Us Now Turn To: Page AK-47 in Your Sunday Steyn

[photos: itsonlyamovie & ligali]
by Mondoreb

If it were 200 years ago, none of you would be reading this: you'd be preparing to go to church services, as all God-fearing Americans of that time did; and the Internet would have been regarded, and rightly so, as a tool of the devil.

There were no thoughts of jihad and depopulation. No thoughts of thugs with turbans, festive suicide bubbling up from their hearts. With this in mind, let us harken to another era: a time of quiet, uplifting prayer and meditation. And with great joy and thanksgiving, let us now turn to page AK-47 and join in a rousing rendition of Our Sunday Steyn.

Princess Diana, millionaire conspiracy theorists and the Royal Family are themes in right wing madman(RWM) Mark Steyn's story'Princess Diana's Murder and Islamoparanoia' for the Orange County Register.

The story concerns a London court which convened last week to consider whether, and/or if, Princess Diana was murdered, whodunit, and the consequences. Sinister theories abound, some having to do with the Royal Family and probably the CIA and Mossad as well. The 'religion of peace', like so much news from the U.K. these days, plays a part. One can't be blamed for wishing a weapon were near.

Look, I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, and I'm entirely prepared to consider the possibility that Di got whacked. But not because she was dating a Muslim.

On hearing the news that the princess' new beau was a Mohammedan, the British establishment would have been more likely to pop the champagne than order up a hit team

A roller-coaster ride of narrative follows, taking the reader through some sordid details of the "People's Princess" life and death. A hard, sharp detour through the 2007 American political scene is next.

You see something similar in the persistent stream of e-mails from readers demanding to know why I don't refer to Barack Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama," that being his full dress handle. The argument is that, if you use his middle name, people will realize he's some sort of Indonesian madrassah alumnus, and his numbers will head south.

Well, his numbers seem to be heading south without any help from me. My correspondents might be better advised to demand that I start referring to Hillary Saddam Clinton. But that's not the reason I demur. Like Fayed, they're mistaking a virtue for a liability. If the Right were to start insisting that Sen. Obama is not the first African-American president-in-waiting but the first Islamo-African-American president-in-waiting, a big chunk of progressive voters would merely go: Wow! Even cooler.

After a few further twists and turns, with more one-liners than a Henny Youngman YouTube festival, the RWM demonstrates how the sad tale of Diana is a thumbnail of the worldwide strategic picture. How does he do it? Is it convincing?

The answer is worth another link. Say a prayer for the Internet, that you might read Princess Diana's Murder and Islamoparonoia in the comfort of your home. Finish your coffee. Flip the 'safety' off your gun.

Then take out that hymnal and sing.


Vote For This on FP: Miscellaneous Conservative Stories.



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