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One of the most important elections of our time will be approaching soon, and it is not taking place in the United States. Tony Blair has finally, reluctantly, decided that the British people, who have not been conquered since 1066, will be allowed to have a voice in handing over their national sovereignty to the fascist Franco-German cabal in Brussels. There’s a fascinating interview on Uncommon Knowledge featuring the historian Paul Johnson, who says of the EU:

I would personally prefer it if Dutch lawyers and German lawyers had played a greater part in the thinking behind all this because they’ve both got good traditions. If you look at the tradition of constitution-making in France, of course, it’s one lurching from one disaster to another and that is true of most Latin countries. But the Germans created Teutonic law before anyone else, certainly Northern Europe. And that is the basis of the English legal system. And that, of course, was a common law system and the English system underlay the American Constitution. So you can trace all back to German. But this is a constitution done by Latins and I think Tim made very shrewd and true remark which I entirely endorse, which is the French and Europe–the moment the French lose control of Europe, they will smash it to bits. They haven’t yet lost control of it by no means, I don’t agree with Tim there.

But sooner or later, they are bound to lose control of Europe and it’s going to cease to be an instrument of French domestic and foreign policy. The moment they are satisfied that they have lost on a major battle, they will withdraw from Europe and smash it up. So Europe is not something you can take for granted because it cannot exist without France, geographically and in lots of other ways, it’s too near the center. Europe is a provisional creation just as those Napoleonic states were of the French. And when it ceases to be useful to the French, they will smash it up.

I’m not entirely sure that Johnson is completely correct on this, as I suspect that an important element of the EU is to serve as a modern secular Holy League against the Turk. The mandarins of Europe can read demographics studies as well as anyone, and whereas no single European nation has the ability to do much about what is beginning to be viewed as the Islamic problem, the EU would provide both the scope of power and territory to do so. As Johnson says: “Europe defined itself for most of its history against Islam, against the Muslim world. So it’s a huge leap for us and for them to accept the idea that you can be a Muslim European. You know, in the Middle Ages, people would have thought that was like saying you can be a male woman.”

Then again, in Johnson’s defense, it’s impossible to deny that the French broke the Stability and Growth Pact without even blinking the moment that they found it obstructing their domestic policy. So, in any case, here’s hoping the Brits have the wits to reject the EU’s so-called constitution and go it alone again.

Hudson comments: “But the truth is that at this point, the jihad is not yet a direct threat to America’s existence.” Uh Huh. By the way, anyone seen those unaccounted for suitcase nukes around anywhere?

Do you think that the suitcase nukes would be any less a threat to America if the global jihad did not exist? Does America have no other enemies? Furthermore, from a historical point of view, the loss of a city or two does not rise to the level of imperiling the nation’s existence – from external forces. Many, many countries have lost entire cities through destruction or enemy occupation and survived. The fact that America is so fortunate as to not have experienced this does not change the fact that such attacks are eminently survivable for the vast majority of the citizenry.

I can, of course, envision a scenario where a suitcase nuke or three is planted, justifying a martial law situation that could, in the wrong hands, extinguish what we know as America. Moreover, the global jihad need not be involved, unless one requires a plausible patsy. But an internal threat such as that would be conspiracy theory of the first order, and that way lies madness. The point is that by itself, the global jihad is not yet in a position to win its war against America, nor will it be for at least another 50 years. As a nation, we are in no serious danger from the jihad until Europe falls. At that point, however, there will be a real question as to whether the war is winnable. But it is not winnable as it is now being fought either; this is nothing but a delaying action and, more than anything, a warning shot.

RM writes: What has truly becoming stunning about the media is the way news shows interview other news people instead of the news makers and just sit there and confirm each others’ bias.

Or better yet, smugly affirm each other’s notions, from their position of objective Olympian majesty. This is one reason why I have zero interest in pursuing appearances on the news shows. The idea of subjecting myself to discussions featuring the length of a fruit fly’s life cycle and the ntellectual depth of a mosquito-breeding swamp puddle makes me shiver. I simply have no any interest in a medium where “I disagree with your facts” is considered an effective rebuttal.

News that purports to be entertainment is neither.

Sitemeter seems to indicate that we have a few new folks dropping by today. Please make yourselves comfortable and feel free to peruse the archives and make a comment or two. Don’t mind the Pan-Galactic Gargler he’s always like that. Try to stay out of the way of the White Buffalo, and the hot blonde in black is Space Bunny. If you’re looking for those other blogs I mentioned in today’s column, they’re right here:

Blackfive: the Paratrooper of Love

From the Halls to the Shores

Citizen Smash

Mises Economics Blog

The Evangelical Outpost

UPDATE: Don’t mind the regulars. They can get a little weird from time to time, but I promise you, we do often have intelligent and scintillating debates here. However, the comments following this particular post do not happen to be among them. As was once said of Camelot, it is a silly place. Nota Bene: if someone carrying an M-60 happens to grunt at you, just smile, say “nice to meet you, Bane” and back away slowly. If you don’t show fear, turn your back or speak poorly of the USMC, you should survive the encounter.

It’s hardly a secret that I’m tremendously disappointed, though not surprised, with the left-liberal governance of George Bush and the Republican Congress over the last three years. The Republican Supreme Court too, but that’s another matter. While Joseph Farah is rather less sanguine on the matter, I see no reason to change my assertion that George Bush will thump Jean-Francois Kerry in November.

First, even if the market tanks, it’s done well enough since October 2002 that he’s got enough cushion to make it through the election. Second, no matter how badly the war on method goes, it’s unlikely to have a serious effect one way or the other. Third, a terrorist event will actually drive people towards Bush, not away from him. Fourth, homogamy has normal people increasingly leery of the social left.

Fifth, and most important, Jean-Francois is going to be forced to repeatedly open his mouth in public, on television. If his performance on Good Morning America is even close to typical, he’ll make the Dukakis drubbing look respectable. Karl Rove and company must be drooling like starving coyotes eyeing a fat, legless chicken when they think about the upcoming debates.

1. Predictions of blood-bath every time carry laws are discussed. Never happens in any state.

2. Static tax revenue models. They’re always surprised when tax hikes don’t bring in expected revenue.

3. Stadium financing. Every economic study shows public-funded stadiums don’t boost local economy. This never stops sportswriters from claiming a pot of gold awaits the next tax-increment financed structure.

4. Political spectrum. Everything is posed as progressive vs. conservative, no matter what the status quo.

5. No coverage of adult or Christian entertainment, which combined equate to at least 30 percent of the entertainment industry. Entertainment coverage reads like a pretentious, outdated Tiger Beat.

6. Covering the WNBA. The league is a pure parasite and arena football has a bigger following.

7. Refusing to recognize, much less serve, the conservative 50 percent of their potential market.

8. Quoting government bureaucrats as legal experts. They get played every single time.

9. An almost complete ignorance of ancient, medieval and modern history. Quite impressive, really.

From the Washington Post: U.S. Marines have postponed plans to mount an attack against insurgents holed up here and instead will attempt to regain control of this violence-wracked city without a full-scale offensive, military commanders said Sunday. Concerned about the repercussions an attack could generate across Iraq and the Arab world, senior U.S. military and civilian officials said they had decided to try to confront a band of hard-core Sunni Muslim insurgents, who have effectively taken over Fallujah, by having Marines conduct patrols in the city alongside Iraqi security forces. The new strategy, reached in consultation with the White House over the weekend, represents an effort by U.S. officials to avoid a military incursion that could entail urban combat, civilian casualties and a wave of retributive strikes outside Fallujah, further poisoning relations between Iraqis and U.S. occupation forces.

I’d like the “we are at war” crowd to stop its blind cheerleading for a moment and imagine battalion-level tactical decisions being made by the Roosevelt administration during WWII. Did anyone stop for five seconds to worry about whether sending the 4th Infantry into Cherbourg was going to generate repercussions across Nazi Germany and the Axis world? Every week that goes by strengthens my suspicion that 1) the enemy may be at war with us, but we are not at war with it, and, 2) the present administration is going to be judged a miserable failure with regards to the prosecution and long-term effects of its undeclared war.

Clearly neither the nation nor its leadership is prepared to fight an open war against those who have repeatedly declared war on America. Therefore, it is better that we do not do so, but instead bring the troops home from around the world, secure our borders, expel the many fifth-columnists who are here illegally or temporarily and wait until the global jihad either collapses of its own self-contradictions or grows until it can no longer be ignored. Imitating the Israeli Two-Step and attempting to win hearts and minds in what is a revival of a 1300-year religious conflict is simply stupid and is doomed to failure. The fact that America is now irreligious does not mean it will be able to opt out forever; it’s not as if the Byzantine Empire or medieval Christendom was a collection of quiet Bible-studying evangelical prayer groups either. But the truth is that at this point, the jihad is not yet a direct threat to America’s existence.

I realize that this is not a popular view, either with my fellow libertarians or pro-war conservatives. Still, I have no agenda except to advocate individual freedom in America and I am simply commenting on the facts as best I understand them.

Charles Stross writes: This week, Gardner Dozois stepped down as editor of Asimov’s SF Magazine, after about 19 years at the helm. His replacement, Sheila Williams, is already editor there and indeed has worked on Asimov’s for about as long as (if not longer than) Gardner, so it’s not as if things are adrift: Gardner’s simply spent a long time there and wants to spend more time on his own writing. (Lest we forget, not only did he win about fifteen Hugo awards as best editor — he won a couple for his stories, in the dim and distant past.) This news comes less than a month after Dave Pringle announced that he was stepping down as editor of Interzone, after a similar duration. (Interzone is being sold as a going concern to Andy Cox, who will be editing it in parallel with The Third Alternative.)

Why do I get a slight shiver at this news?

Interzone was where I sold my first stories, back in the 80’s, under the editorship of Dave Pringle. Asimov’s SF is where I really broke into the American market after 1999, via Gardner’s auspices. Gardner in the US and Dave in the UK probably published the first short fiction of about 50% of the successful SF writers who came to notice from 1980 onwards! Saying this is the end of an era is, I think, an understatement — it’ll go unnoticed in the mass media, but some of those authors have gone on to have massive effects outside the genre. It’s one of those defining moments that will potentially change the entire shape of our genre, thirty years down the line.

I tend to be more interested in writing my own stuff than reading three or four SF novels a week the way I used to as a teenager, but I’ve certainly read my fair share of Asimov’s mags, having had a subscription on two separate occasions. While I don’t always agree with Mr. Dozois’ choice of short fiction – how is it that I can publish novels and comic books but can’t get a short story in print – I own too many copies of his annual Best Of SF collections not to have some regard for him. Asimov’s may improve, it may decline, but it certainly won’t be the same.

Pat Buchanan writes on WND: “If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me,” William Kristol has told the New York Times. The Weekly Standard editor added that the neoconservatives may just abandon the Right altogether and convert to neoliberalism…. The day after Kristol said he preferred Kerry to conservatives skeptical of committing more troops to Iraq, this item appeared in the Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Kristol thinks Mr. Bush should use the revelations [from the Woodward book] to shake up his war cabinet by firing Mr. Powell … along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has pushed for smaller deployments of U.S. forces than some critics, including Mr. Kristol, think wise.”

As regular readers know, I believe that it is either necessary to pull out of Iraq and focus on defending the borders or grasp the nettle and fight the war that has been declared on America for the last 20+ years. However, the current crew is manifestly the wrong gang to fight either the war on method or the clash of civilizations war that will likely, in the end, prove unavoidable. If you can’t even name your enemy, much less deal with its self-admitted fifth column, you’re the wrong man for the job.

Kristol’s statements has some interesting implications, however, for how one views Kerry. They demonstrate a strong indication that the neocons believe Kerry will be even more enthusiastic about fighting wars abroad than Bush has proved himself to be. I have never bought into the notion that a Democratic president will be hesitant to fight any war, because Democrats love the notion of expanding central power and using war as an excuse to do so. There’s a reason why the term Isolationist Right exists, after all, while the idea of an Isolationist Left sounds like a contradiction in terms.

However this plays out, I won’t be sorry to see the neocons switch sides again.

First-year English teacher Phillip J. Fox, 23, of Groton, was arrested April 13 on charges of fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. Police opened the investigation after receiving a complaint that Fox had sexual contact with a female student at the school. Last year, math teacher David G. Simonin, 53, of Watertown, was arrested during an Internet porn sting. He resigned and is out on bond as the investigation continues. And in 2001, history teacher Bret P. Devino, 30, of Waterbury, was charged with having sex with a teenage student and sexually assaulting another. He was fired and has completed a jail sentence…. “Parents shouldn’t be overly worried, as long as they know we’re on top of this,” said Sgt. Fred Sprano, who is head of the police department’s youth division.

Now there’s an unfortunate turn of phrase. But I don’t see why parents should be concerned about this either. After all, the school district was promising their children would receive sex education from the start. You’d think these conscientious teachers, who are willing to provide hands-on personal instruction, would be awarded medals, not arrested. If they are guilty of anything, they are only guilty of giving too much.