A perspective on the German theses-signers that had escaped...

Me, certainly; Francisco José Fernández de la Cigoña notes today:

They've lost 76 German speaking theologians, in 21 years. In 1989, 220 subscribed to the Cologne Declaration, which was a redaction of the Protestant theses.  Two decades later, they've only been able to find 144 to sign up for the abolition of celibacy, the priesthood for women, lay involvement in the making of bishops...

Progress of a sort. Brick by brick, verdad.

It really is remarkable how a thing...

Can be perceived in two differing and rather contradictory ways; I tend to think of Europe as a mainly urban and ex-urban stage whereon a tragedy of decadence and moral ruin has continued to run, less and less profitably, for fifty years, run in a way contrary to its own self-interest, divesting itself of the remaining relics of its former Christianity (which had sustained the production for the previous nineteen hundred years) while the Turkish government, apparently, sees a discothéque for Christan gentlemen that it wants to be added to the guest list for. Pft.

At Davos today, the Turkish vice-premier Ali Babacan today said that he regretted the lack of progress in the process of the adhesion of Turkey to the EU, deploring that the latter has become a "Christian club" that is "turned in on itself". 

Speaking after a panel at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Ali Babacan judged that "the politics of 'the open door' no longer exist" in the EU. "We had always thought that the European Union was a grand project building peace, but lately the process of its enlargement is purely and simply blocked", he said. 

"One of the greatest reasons why Turkey hasn't become a member of the European Union is that it is a Christian club. This is very dangerous in our eyes", he remarked.

Return Constantinople to the Greeks, to the Christian world, and then we will think about opening up social clubs together, is my rejoinder to Mr Babacan. While I do not seriously believe that the Turks must hand back Constantinople as a prerequisite to continued peaceful and profitable relations with the West, the fact that it is the Europeans who must cede this and allow that, and so on and so forth, rather galls; they can't even allow the Ecumenical Patriarch to freely exercise his office.

Mr Hedegaard must be a fascist...

Of some variety since he is in the Danish law courts being prosecuted for insulting Islam.

My counsel has instructed me that in cases brought under Article 266b, the only thing that determines whether one is convicted or not is a matter of the perceived insult whereas one is barred from proving the truth of the statement....

I think things are not quite so bad in this country. Not quite, not yet.

The sad list of European lands that have legalised euthanasia...

Is only going to lengthen, I'm afraid. @AnnaArco g a.

An interview with Bat Ye'or on the publication...

Of her new book L'Europe et le spectre du caliphat was published here on the site of the interviewer, Véronique Chemla; translation of a part of the conversation is here, at GalliaWatch.

Certain crimes result in the forfeiture of certain civil rights...

And ought to continue so to do; this act of cruel grotesquerie in the UK (apparently, Eurolaw is forcing the British government's hand, which I guess means that our beloved brothers and sisters on the Continent already stand by and let the criminals fling dung in their faces, at least figuratively) is very offensive, really.  There is a campaign underway in this country to restore to convincted felons the right to vote et cetera (the fact is that such things vary from state to state, and in the federal, jurisdiction): except perhaps in California and in the Ann Arbors of the country I doubt that felons are going to be relieved of any significant consequences of their crimes any time soon, thank goodness.

Let's suppose that the 'conversation' is represented accurately...

And has made it through the traitor's hands also more or less accurately (I don't read at Klein Verzet regularly enough to be familiar with its authors); what should one make of the Turkish minister's remarks to MEP Madlener?

... The confrontation between Bagis and Madlener took place last May in a meeting between Turkish and EUnion parliamentarians. During that meeting Madlener asked some pointed questions about the refusal of the Turkish government to meet with a delegation of Dutch parliament that included Geert Wilders.

'You are good friends with Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad, while you shun my party's leader. It is a disgrace.'

Bagis is reported as answering:

'Racism is a dangerous disease from which Europe suffers much. It is clear there are still people suffering from it. Mr Madlener, we will cure you.'

According to Madlener this was the most noteworthy moment of the meeting, yet someone scouring the minutes would look in vain for it....

The post's original and major point was of course that the EU bureaucrats will happily edit out of the record--out of the 'record', in several different senses--whatever doesn't suit their purpose, without any especial regard for the truth.  "We will cure you"; what did the gentleman mean by that? For all I know, it may be perfectly obvious from the original German, Dutch, or Turkish, but I rather doubt it; Google Traduction is not good enough with the Dutch of De Volkskrant.

Ubicumque et semper...

Is the incipit of the motu proprio that his Holiness will have published Tuesday, erecting the new Council for New Evangelisation.  I for one am praying for the success of the dicastery's efforts and for Mons Fisichella, who is not a heretic.

Herr Hans-Rudolf Metz confirms my suspicion that English-language bureaucratese...

Is not as amusing as German-language bureaucratese.

The Catalans have banned bullfighting...

Thereby burnishing their Euro credentials; Gerald Warner notes certain inconsistencies of spirit, and that the English don't throw donkeys from church spires (which must refer to some event or practice the well-informed people know about...).  @Londiniensis g. a.

I don't quite understand the ICJ's ruling...

About the Kosovars and their putative independence; so far as I can tell, it is legal to recognise the state of Kosovo, and the Serbs need to give up their attempt to legally force the Kosovars back into Serbia, but if they (the Serbs) or any other nation don't want to recognise Kosovo qua sovereign, that's fine, too. The more sovereign states (e.g. Flanders, Catalonia, Brittany, Somaliland, whatever the Basques called their patria...) the better, so far as I'm concerned.

The Flemings and the Walloons seem to be set on going their separate ways...

If today's election results are a good indication, which, pft, they probably are not; and, in any event, it doesn't make a great lot of difference if Europa has one or three territorial jurisdictions in the Belgian lands.  Le Soir with the latest results is here.

It is important to note that the N-VA, which appears to be winning about a third of the Flemish vote, is not the Vlaams Belang, the more radically Right party that is accused of all sorts of evil and anti-Islamist plottings and thuggishness.

Oh, the poor Europeans...

Whose daughters can no longer be given away in marriage by their fathers; David Pryce-Jones blogs at National Review on the EU Gender Equality Bill:

... One provision of this preposterous and impudent measure is that fathers are no longer allowed to give away their daughters in the traditional church ceremony. Apparently that is to treat daughters as chattels. The whole European Union is on the point of breaking up, Greece is in flames and the Germans about to rebel, several countries in the eurozone are bankrupt beyond redemption, the euro itself has failed and soon there may be no currency for Europeans to trade in--and the giant statesmen of Brussels come up with a prohibition on fathers giving away their daughters in marriage as fathers have done in country after country, century after century....

I expect that the various national Equality Bills will soften the hardest edges of this Eurononsense but, pft, when the entire edifice collapses this, too, will pass.

My sentiments exactly...

John Hinderaker on the New York Times's 'revelations' about the socialist experiment in Europe. Tsk.

Christopher Booker yet again sounds an alarm...

At the tragedy, and potentially far worse tragedy impending, of the European politicians, the 'Eurozone', and the abyss.

... Greece was just the antipasto: Italy, Spain, Portugal and others are now hanging over an abyss of debt which scarcely all the money in Europe could fill – created by countries living way beyond their means, thanks not least to the euro's low interest rates. The only possible consequence of the collapse of one of the world's leading currencies, leaving Europe with no money to trade in, would be utter chaos.

What we are witnessing here is a judgment on the entire deceitful and self-deceiving way in which the "European project" has been assembled over the past 53 years. One of the most important things to understand about that project is that it has only ever had one real agenda. Everything it has done has been directed to one ultimate goal, full political and economic integration. The headline labels put on the various stages of that process may have changed over the years, such as building first a "common market", then a "single market", finally a "constitution". But by far the most important project of all was locking the member states into a single currency....

I shall miss my wine-rubbed goat cheese from Spain and my Pellegrino water from Italy and my good Irish butter when the collapse comes but reckon that I'll have more significant worries at that point.

Why aren't the media interested in the 'hidden history of evil'...

Written about in the current number of City Journal by Claire Berlinski? the principal subjects of her essay have hundreds and thousands of documents connected with the collapse of the USSR and its communist regime but Western publishers are evidently not much interested. 

... Indeed, many still subscribe to the essential tenets of Communist ideology. Politicians, academics, students, even the occasional autodidact taxi driver still stand opposed to private property. Many remain enthralled by schemes for central economic planning. Stalin, according to polls, is one of Russia’s most popular historical figures. No small number of young people in Istanbul, where I live, proudly describe themselves as Communists; I have met such people around the world, from Seattle to Calcutta.

We rightly insisted upon total denazification; we rightly excoriate those who now attempt to revive the Nazis’ ideology. But the world exhibits a perilous failure to acknowledge the monstrous history of Communism. These documents should be translated. They should be housed in a reputable library, properly cataloged, and carefully assessed by scholars. Above all, they should be well-known to a public that seems to have forgotten what the Soviet Union was really about. If they contain what Stroilov and Bukovsky say—and all the evidence I’ve seen suggests that they do—this is the obligation of anyone who gives a damn about history, foreign policy, and the scores of millions dead.

Perhaps after Mr Obama is retired to private life, those willing to invest the funds in publishing all of the texts Miss Berlinski discusses will come forward. 

That terrible place, Iceland...

Is once again, perhaps, to be the occasion of catastrophe and bloodshed and inhuman violence. @londiniensis g a.

'How Europeans See the United States'...

Is very amusing, really. I particularly liked, 'what Europeans know about Hawaii... Lost is filmed here'.  Stupid superficial so-called adults, pft.  It is quite true that half of my co-workers aren't going to be able to tell me anything about Hungary, Andorra or Slovenia: but they don't imagine that they are members of a socio-cultural elite superior to those folks, either. 

Poland and Russia have an opportunity for a 'new start' in their relations?

Or is the same old game being played?  Anne Applebaum and her husband suggest that the answer to the first question may be 'yes'.  Ever since Mr and Mrs Sikorski publicly thought that Roman Polanski was a worthy object of their compassion I have regarded them both as rather deficient in a good sense of judgment but....

I no longer want to emigrate to Denmark and work in the Carlsberg brewery...

Because management won't let me drink all shift long anymore. Tsk.