Europe

Seth Barrett Tillman: This Is Not A Hung Parliament (with addendum)

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This is not a hung (UK) Parliament. When Parliament meets a majority of those voting will vote for the Tory leader (although by that time PM May have stepped down).
 
With 649 of 650 seats declared at this juncture (10 AM BST, June 9, 2017), the Tories have 318 seats.

[. . .]

That leaves the Tory leader (Prime Minister May or her successor) with a 318 to 314 vote on a no confidence motion and a majority of 4.
 
QED: No hung parliament. And did I mention that DUP, on which the Tory Government is likely to depend, as a practical matter, is proBrexit. What a time to be alive!

Read the whole thing.

Worthwhile Reading

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Sarah Hoyt:  Hereditary monarchy, feudalism, and a vicious cycle of crazy….coming soon to a country near you?

Why Danusha Goska left the Left.  Years of observing, and being subjected to, unpleasant and just-plain-nuts behavior.

There has been much discussion lately about the increased suicide rate and addictive behavior among white working-class men.  Here’s a collection of comments to a Huffington Post article on that topic.  (via The Arts Mechanical.)

In her ‘why I left the Left’ post, Danusha described the prevalence of hate, rather than a true desire to make things better, among today’s ‘progressives.’  That hate is very much on display in the Huffington Post comments.

The past of the future apocalypse:  Stuart Schneiderman reviews some predictions of doom from back in 1970.

An Interesting Theory on Muslim Immigration.

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I have been wondering why the political left, and to some extent the right, has been so enthusiastic about Muslim immigration. Islam is just not compatible with the liberal traditions of the West. So why the continued efforts to import Muslims ?

Here is a novel theory.

There’s no economic argument for importing Syrians or Turks. Muslims are overwhelmingly represented on the welfare roles. In Denmark, people from MENA countries make up 5% of the population, but consume 40% of welfare benefits. This is a story across Europe. It is not just the new arrivals. Turks in Germany have been there for a couple of generations and have been the worst performing economic group in the country. Estimates put the total working population at 20%, while the rest live off welfare benefits. Then there is the issue of sky high Muslim crime rates.

The incident in London yesterday made clear that assimilation is not going to solve the problem. The terrorist was British born. Most of the sexual abusers in Rotherham were British born to Muslim immigrants.

In September 2012, investigations by The Times based on confidential police and social services documents, found that abuse had been much more widespread than acknowledged.[24][25] It uncovered systematic sexual abuse of white girls by British Asian men (mostly of Pakistani origin)[26] in Rotherham for which people were not being prosecuted.

Not only were they not being prosecuted but the British authorities had been covering up the abuse for years Why ?

Is there popular support for importing these people, despite their uselessness as citizens? Again, there’s no data to suggest this is the case. European leaders could have put the issue to the voters, but they fanatically avoid it. In fact, anyone who dares run on the issue is branded a Nazi. Politicians love democracy when they are assured of winning. They avoid it when they are assured of losing. Therefore, it is safe to assume they don’t think this is a winner for them.

So, the politicians seem to favor the immigrants over their own citizens. Why ?

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Why does Germany do such monumentally stupid things?

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I was reading Arthur Herman’s column in the WSJ Decoding the Zimmerman Telegram, 100 Years Later and I began to think about all the really, really dumb things Germany has done. And it’s not as if the Germans are dumb. A look at the Nobel prize list makes it clear that there are many brilliant Germans. But if we go back in history and look at the political decisions Germany has made, it is a cavalcade of catastrophe. In the 19th century, Germany was the cradle of socialism, not all the ideas, but certainly the movement. Then it decided to unite Germany, not a bad idea in and of itself; but it then led to the idea that it should conquer Europe. In the process, it threatened the US with invasion by Mexico, bringing the US into the war and onto the world stage. And to top it, they put Lenin in a rail car and sent him to St. Petersburg launching the Soviet Union. Hitler then rekindled the idea of conquering Europe, including the incredible decision to invade Russia and then declaring war on the United States directly, creating an enemy that might have sat out the European war.

After suffering a defeat as devastating to Germany’s people as the Thirty Years War, Nato was created to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down. And for 70 years it was a success. Germany started well by establishing an economic powerhouse. It succeeded in reuniting Germany after the cold war was won by the US in spite of German handicapping. But since then it has made decisions with terrible consequences, not only for Germany, but for much of Europe. It has used the EU and the Euro to peacefully achieve, with American connivance, what it twice failed to do by violence. And the consequences have become deleterious at best for the rest of Europe. The Energiewende has been a catastrophe, leading to more pollution by increasing the coal and biomass burned to create energy and the highest electricity costs in Europe. Germany’s refugee policy has invited invasion by unassimilabe masses inimical to European culture and values. And a policy of minimal defense expenditures has led the Americans to consider getting out and the Russians getting back in. And now China has become Germany’s largest trading partner.

I have long felt that the EUropeans were more than capable of defending themselves and we should pull out of Nato to force them to do so and to save money. Why should we allow them to freeload? But now with the Americans leaving, the Russians returning, and the Germans rising, I am having second thoughts as I consider the possible consequences.

How Long?

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Hail, thou ever blessed morn,
Hail redemption’s happy dawn,
Sing through all Jerusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Edward Caswall, 1858 Hymn for Christmas Day (Also known as See Amid the Winter Snow)

I have a deep and abiding fondness for certain choral music; Christmas carols or even sort-of-Christmas carols, especially the English ones which weren’t part of my growing-up-Lutheran tradition. That tradition tended more towards the Germanic side of the scale, save for hymns by the Wesleys and Isaac Watts. The English Victorians … sufficient to say that a lot of such hymns and carols were pretty ghastly as poetry, music and theology combined, but time has done some sifting out and the best of them usually turn up in seasonal presentations like the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings’ College, Cambridge. I make a point of listening to the BBC broadcast of it, every year on Christmas Eve morning. I’ve become so very fond of some carols I’ve heard through that broadcast that I’ve made a point of searching out YouTube recordings of them to post on my various websites. All In the Bleak Midwinter is one, Once in David’s Royal City is another and See Amid the Winter Snow is another still. (Link here) I’ve replayed the video so often in the last few days, I have finally learned the melody by heart … and the chorus haunts me this particular Christmas. Sing through all Jerusalem, Christ is born in Bethlehem!

It’s not just that the UN has resolved, in the face of an abstention by the US, to back a claim by the Palestinians to Jerusalem, or that a Jewish infant born in Bethlehem these days might be a hate crime in progress according to pro-Palestine activists. Once a town largely Christian, most local Christians have been chased out, just as Jews and Christians have been from practically everywhere else in the Islamic world. Well, that’s the Middle East for you, everywhere outside of Israel. The ethnic-cleansing of everyone but Muslims of whatever flavor goes on, unabated in the Middle East accompanied by a chorus of indifference sung by the Western ruling class, who seem intent on an Olympic-qualification level of virtue-signaling.

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