More Muslim Mayhem

The Beeb reports that the Muslims are on another rampage of anger, fear, and hate as several die in an orgy of Muslim violence protesting the cartoons about Mohammed. Even the mayor of Kabul, Hamid Karzai, spoke out against the cartoons:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated his condemnation of the cartoons and called on western nations to take "a strong measure" to ensure such cartoons do not appear again. "It's not good for anybody," he told CNN.

"Strong Measure"? Meaning what, Hamid? Gasp! Censorship?

One thing the Beeb does leave out is any approximation of the number of rioters. How much does anyone want to bet that it was only a few hundred, thousand at most, rioters who are doing so only at the urging of extremist imams?

What I want to know, is why do Western Governments respond to this? Why do they issue the clucking statements deploring how horrible these cartoons are to appease the barbarian Muslim mob? Western governments should tell the Muslim world, "We don't control our press. Deal with it." Muslims are free to educate Westerners that the images are offensive, publish cartoons is their newspapers making fun of Jesus, Buddha, or Moses. But, come to think of it, would Jesus with a bomb on his head cause a stir? Probably not. It would be so ludicrous that Christians would just laugh. Perhaps the brouhaha surrounding these cartoons is that they strike so close to the truth. Then again, Muslims could also stop bombing people.

The Cato Institute, a rightish, libertarian outfit has published a piece called Is "Old Europe" Doomed? In typically wordy and wonkishly written catospeak, the answer is "Maybe". Birth rate and the negetive birthrates of many Western democracies are becoming quite the talk at many thinktanks. However, to put it clearly, I believe that unless White Europeans increase their birthrate, European states dramatically reduce the size of their welfare states, and immigrants are assimilated within European culture, liberal secular Europe will enter a period of terminal decline within 50-100 years and probably within my lifetime. The only way I think this could be avoided would be for Europeans to re-discover their Christian roots and I really do not think this will occur.

Away from politics for a moment, I bought a new snowboard and the thing is kick-ass. I was riding a '99 board and while I still like it and will keep it for sentimental reasons, the new deck is sweet. Nothing like just you in the mountain (or small hill for many of the East Coast places). I was in Stowe, VT for the week and riding there was just amazing. I missed snowboarding when I was in Kuwait and to me there really isn't any sport as fun.