Alex Allan back apparently

See here. Apologies, it’s a tabloid.

wahlkabine.at political orientation thingy

More FPÖ in the international press (this time BBC)

From over here:

…the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) calls for “Real Representatives instead of EU Cheats” and “Our Country in the hands of Christians,” over the slogan “Payback Time”.

In one of the grand basement rooms of Vienna’s enormous town hall, Andreas Moelzer, the Freedom Party’s lead candidate in the elections, speaks to his audience of 150 or so pensioners about the asylum seekers who never go home, scrounging foreigners and an overcentralised, meddling Brussels.

The claim, made by political opponents after his party ran an advertisement opposing Israeli entry to the EU, that the Freedom Party is anti-Semitic is, he says, “nonsense…the discussion [about Israeli accession] was already there”.

But Islam is a different matter. “We are opponents of Islam, we are very strong opponents of Islam.” It is not, he says, a religious dispute, but a cultural issue.

Some in his audience are more extreme. In the question and answer that follows his speech, one speaker talks about how Turkish women are using their fertility as a weapon. Another says the answer is sterilisation. There’s some nervous laughter, but it didn’t seem like a joke. Mr Moelzer makes no comment, offers no rebuke.

The FPOe has bobbed up and down in the polls over the past few years. In 2004 it picked up a measly 6% of the vote. But last year in local elections it soared to 18%. And now it seems to be dominating the debate in the European election, largely because the major parties have so little to say to an electorate unwilling to be enthused by the EU project.

“Unfortunately Austria joined the European Union at the very time that the negative effects of the globalisation process began to hit this country,” says Hans-Peter Martin, independent Austrian MEP and author. That, he says, led people to associate the problems springing from globalisation with the EU.

“And, as far as the EU is concerned,” he goes on, “there have been a lot of expectations when Austria joined, and most of them have not been met. There were unsubstantiated promises that everything would become cheaper, everything would be safeguarded at the same time, and that has not been true.”

The analysts are wary of calling this election. But on one thing nearly everyone, from pro-European pressure groups to parliamentary candidates, agrees. The Austrian people and the EU do not get on at all right now. And that must play to the benefit of the Freedom Party and its candidates.

FPÖ in international press

Getting there slowly.

According to the EuropeanVoice,

Switzerland’s Tages-Anzeiger writes that the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) is running advertisements against EU membership for Turkey and Israel – even though nobody has suggested that Israel should be a member. The party is using slogans like “Abendland in Christenhand” – the Occident in Christian hands – for its election campaign for the European Parliament.

Wo bist du?

blunt-cut hair

He pressed a button. A wall of books opened, and I walked like a lamb into that bustling pleasure palace known as Flossie’s. Red flocked wallpaper and a Victorian decor set the tone. Pale, nervous girls with black-rimmed glasses and blunt-cut hair lolled around on sofas, riffling Penguin Classics provocatively. A blonde with a big smile winked at me, nodded toward a room upstairs, and said, “Wallace Stevens, eh?” But it wasn’t just intellectual experiences. They were peddling emotional ones, too. For fifty bucks, I learned, you could “relate without getting close.” For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartok records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master’s, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine’s over Freud’s conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing – the perfect evening, for some guys. Nice racket. Great town, New York.

From The Whore of Mensa by Woody Allen (Thanks Mike -> Tom)

“The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known” by Craig Murray

Over here

Wishful thinking for 2009 (John Pilger in New Statesman)

‘January: Tony Blair is arrested at Heathrow Airport as he returns from yet another foreign speaking engagement (receipts since leaving office: £12m). He is flown to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes for his part in the illegal, unprovoked attack on a defenceless country, Iraq, justified by proven lies, and for the subsequent physical, social and cultural destruction of that country, causing the death of up to a million people. According to the Nuremberg Tribunal, this is the “paramount war crime”. The prosecution tells Blair’s defence team it will not accept a plea of “sincerely believing”. Cherie Blair, a close collaborator who has compared her husband with Winston Churchill, is cautioned.’

Datamining to catch terrorists

Apparently it wouldn’t work, say the following groups of the US National Academies:

• Committee on Law and Justice (CLAJ)
• Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT)
• Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB)
• Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS)
• Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE)

in this book: Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework for Assessment.

[via The Register]

Henri Frédéric Amiel’s journal—a couple of quotes

(Wikipedia entry over here; translation of journal here.)

Stimulus oriented versus stimulus independent thought?

“[...] respect in yourself the oscillations of feeling. They are your life and your nature [...]. Do not abandon yourself altogether either to instinct or to will. Instinct is a siren, will a despot. Be neither the slave of your impulses and sensations of the moment, nor of an abstract and general plan; be open to what life brings from within and without, and welcome the unforeseen; but give to your life unity, and bring the unforeseen within the lines of your plan. Let what is natural in you raise itself to the level of the spiritual, and let the spiritual become once more natural. Thus will your development be harmonious [...]“

Society

“[...] what we call “society” proceeds for the moment on the flattering illusory assumption that it is moving in an ethereal atmosphere and breathing the air of the gods. All vehemence, all natural expression, all real suffering, all careless familiarity, or any frank sign of passion, are startling and distasteful in this delicate milieu; they at once destroy the common work, the cloud palace, the magical architectural whole, which has been raised by the general consent and effort.”