Who wants to listen to the phone conversations of officials in the Greek government including the Prime Minister?

They'd like to know that too.

Unknown eavesdroppers tapped the mobile phones of Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, five cabinet members and dozens of top officials for about a year, the government said on Thursday.

Illegal software installed at Greece's second biggest mobile phone operator, Vodafone Greece, allowed calls to and from about 100 phones to be recorded. Most belonged to the government but one was owned by the U.S. embassy in Athens, officials said.

"The phones tapped included the prime minister's, the whole leadership of the defence ministry and the whole leadership of the public order ministry, some foreign ministry phones, one former minister, now in opposition, and others," government spokesman Theodore Roussopoulos told a news conference.

The reasons for it and who did it are undoubtedly fascinating, but so it HOW they did it.

The eavesdropping was accomplished by means of a few lines of malicious software code inserted into Ericsson telephone software that accessed the conference calling feature, conferencing in 14 prepaid mobile phones (which because they are prepaid, are largely untraceable...)

Technically, this isn't very hard to do, but it does require some remarkable access to administration and possibly even root access username/password combinations, not to mention physical access to the phones themselves.

The implications of this story are far more extensive that would appear at first glance. We are used to the idea of "computer viruses", but the new reality is that many new kinds of devices are providing a range of eavesdropping opportunities and other potential malicious activities. If you have TiVO, you basically have a computer running Linux OS with an unattended dial-out. TiVO or Direct TV already uses it to catalog your viewer preferences, but someone with access to administrative or root access permissions could very easily reprogram the unit to dial an illicit outside number to dump your logs, or plant logs falsely indicating a preference for hardcore porn.

DSL routers, PDAs and even celluar phones are all basically the same generalized hardware design running commerical operating systems. Its a remarkable technological development, with interesting ramifications for privacy issues.

I said it was easy, but that is misleading--what's hard is getting into the system, which generally requires inside knowledge and even then is restricted to a hierarchy of access permissions. Over and above that, a malefactor has nearly an impossible job insuring that no one else discovers the modification. There is little doubt that Ericsson employees discovered the malicious code through existing security precautions such as system log entries or internal diagnostics.

Its important to consider the total security paradigm, which usually extends well beyond the device itself.

Take for example the wing-nut conspiracy theory that the Republicans stole the 2004 election by rigging electronic voting machines. Technically its possible, practically it would require a conspiracy of immense proportions with absolutely no leaks ever. There are four or five vendors of voting machines, and states generally have an inventory that consists of models from many vendors, some older, some new. To cover the bases, evil Republicans would have to, not just inflitrate, but completely restaff the engineering departments of every voting machine manufacturer with podpeople. Software development is usually done in teams of several people, so you can't just have one guy in there sticking in malicious code--everyone has to be in on it, including managment, service personel and every other person that could conceivably run across the anomaly.

As the Greek experience suggests--eventually someone notices something and the jig is up.

Nevertheless, the increasing prevalence of innocuous electonic appliances with generalized hardware and operating systems does provide evil-doers with some new tricks.

Sappho Manifesto: Greeks say Its Bush's fault...

Spy.org: Suspicious suicide by Vodafone employee...

Blue Life or Green: The receivers were all located downtown...near the American embassy...

Discarded Lies: Cell phones of the PM and his wife were tapped.

It bears mentioning that the U.S doesn't need to insert malicious code into your phone--it can already listen to every cell phone conversation in Greece simultaneously and have a super computer isolate, catalog and store the conversations of individuals, including of course the PM and his wife.

We've all seen the pictures of Muslim protestors holding up signs promising the most vile acts of violence against the Danes. What do you think happened to those people?

Undoubtedly they went home for a meal of couscous and watch a little telly.

On the other hand, a 61 year old retired German businessman is going to jail for a year because he printed the word Koran on toilet paper.

The Conservative Voice

An early political lesson was taught to me with the parable of the boiled frog. Through a frog into boiling water and he'll jump out lickety-split, but put the frog into cold water and gradually turn up the heat, and the frog will remain quiesant until cooked.

Mark Steyn, the thinking man's Ann Coulter, is desperately trying to warn the frogs that the water is getting warmer.

It's not surprising when you're as heavily invested as the European establishment is in an absurd equivalence between a nuclear madman who thinks he's the warm-up act for the Twelfth Imam and the fellows building the Israeli security fence that you lose all sense of proportion when it comes to your own backyard, too. "Radical young Jewish men" are no threat to "Arab-run groceries." But radical young Muslim men are changing the realities of daily life for Jews and gays and women in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo and beyond. If you don't care for the Yids, big deal; look out for yourself. The Jews are playing their traditional role of the canaries in history's coal mine.

Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well:

''We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law.''

Stated that baldly it sounds ridiculous. But, simply as a matter of fact, every year more and more of the world lives under Islamic law: Pakistan adopted Islamic law in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Four decades ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it's in the grip of sharia, and the other half's feeling the squeeze, as the death toll from the cartoon jihad indicates. But just as telling is how swiftly the developed world has internalized an essentially Islamic perspective. In their pitiful coverage of the low-level intifada that's been going on in France for five years, the European press has been barely any less loopy than the Middle Eastern media.

What is remarkable about Steyn's article is that for all its alarmist tone, its basically inarguable, unassailable, and impossible to ignore. This isn't Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer demagoguing on the "inevitability" of UAE shipping in CAST containers of nuclear material to irradiate the east coast--this is demonstrated public fact.

Frankly, from a strategic perspective, large scale terrorism in the U.S. isn't just unnecessary, its counter productive.

We don't know how far 9/11 set back the global Islamic caliphate, but set it back it did--al Qaeda is more of a hindrance to Islam's progress than a facilitator. As Steyn's piece (and many before this) make clear, all Islam has to do is bide its time as Europe's silly liberal-Democrats are slowly cooked.

Radioblogger transcript on Hugh Hewitt's discussion with Mark Steyn on this subject.

The Queer Conservative

Slobodan Milosevic has died in prison.

H/T Jawa Report

(We're number one!)

German media is the most anti-American in Europe.

Not surprisingly, there is a deadly aversion against those who would so much as suggest cutting or even eliminating the taxes flowing through the umbilical cord. America, with its diverse, rough-and-tumble, private-sector media and emaciated public broadcasting, is seen as an anathema. There is great favoritism in Germany towards (and willingness to forgive/circle-the-wagons around) those who staunchly support taxation for public broadcasting. They tend to find themselves left of center: The SPD, the Greens, the PDS/WASG and sometimes the CDU. These parties are populated with, and led by, the same 68ers who shared formative experiences with those sitting behind the editors' desks of so many German newsrooms today. There is a clear but unspoken symbiotic relationship at work. The result is political bias. The lack of influential alternative media only exacerbates the problem, especially when it comes to foreign reporting.

Got it in one.

Canada's institutionalized anti-Americanism is the result of a similar dynamic--the mere existence of the U.S. poses an enormous threat to a socialist regime.

Russian Communist leader, Gennady Zyuganov blames the Bush administration for the spread of bird flu in Europe.

"The forms of warfare are changing. It's strange that not a single duck has yet died in America - they are all dying in Russia and European countries. This makes one seriously wonder why," Zyuganov said at a press conference at the Interfax main office on Tuesday.

I've visited France on and off since I was 20 years old. Early on, it was rare to meet people who spoke more than a few words of English. You spoke French (or Arabic) or you didn't speak at all. Germany on the other hand was a rather difficult place to speak German--so many people spoke English and wanted to "practice" that it was hard to find anyone willing to put up with fractured "Deutsch" and resisting the urge to switch to English.

In the intervening years, France has become far more like Germany in this respect--English is so widely-spoken that its hard to develop French language skills for beginners. Nevertheless--if you are an American who speaks French, particularly good French, you will be treated like royalty. Its a high compliment to say the least.

French pride in their culture and heritage is justified, but since the end of the second world war, they've been increasingly shocked to have been converted from cultural imperialists to cultural colonials as foreign cultures, particularly American culture has insidiously invaded "la Patrie". I recall in the very late seventies, seeing young people dressing like 50s greasers because of the enormous influence the movie "Grease" had over there. Now you see rapper chic everywhere. Its rather useless to explain to an irate Frenchman that this isn't American culture per se, but a very specific sub-culture with its own critics here in the U.S.A.

Apparently no one is more annoyed than Jacques Chirac, who as a young man had his own fascination with America and spent time here. In spite of speaking fluent english, he is well-known to eschew speaking it to the point of perpetuating the stereotype of gallic rudeness. Last year at a dinner with President Bush, he insisted on speaking French, requiring Bush to avail himself on an interpreter. Even more incredibly, he once insisted that French-speaking Tony Blair translate for him at a UN summit!

Of course, being rude to Americans is always a pleasure for Chirac, but he is finding that his own countrymen are abandoning the fight.

President Chirac and three of his ministers walked out of the room when Ernest-Antoine Seillière, the leader of the European business lobby UNICE, punctured Gallic pride by insisting on speaking the language of Shakespeare rather than that of Molière.

When M Seillière, who is an English-educated steel baron, started a presentation to all 25 EU leaders, President Chirac interrupted to ask why he was speaking in English. M Seillière explained: “I’m going to speak in English because that is the language of business.”

Without saying another word, President Chirac, who lived in the US as a student and speaks fluent English, walked out, followed by his Foreign, Finance and Europe ministers, leaving the 24 other European leaders stunned. They returned only after M Seilière had finished speaking.

The meeting was furnished with full interpretation services, and anyone in the room could speak or listen in any of the 20 official EU languages. Embarrassed French diplomats tried to explain away the walk-out, saying that their ministers all needed a toilet break at the same time.

This was more than a political statement, it was spontaneous frustration at the helplessness to resist the English-language steam-roller. Perhaps this was just the last straw after Chirac had to concede that the French international television channel would have to be broadcast in English if they hoped to have an audience.

Hopefully, Chirac doesn't watch reruns of Star Trek the Next Generation. In the 23rd century, we will have French starship captains--but they won't speak French...

If you think politics is bad in the country, trying running France.

Chirac has about a year left in his term and his health is bad, and so two ministers in his own government are in a shooting war in order to succeed Chirac--de Villepain is in the hot seat right now with his proposal to loosen up regulations for employers so they can fire lazy-ass young French. Sarkozy is standing by with a bucket of kerosene to make sure de Villepain burns to a nice crispy crust.

A nationwide strike cancelled flights, curtailed trains and buses and disrupted other public services throughout France Tuesday morning, as authorities dispatched 4,000 law enforcement officers onto the streets of Paris in preparation for the largest demonstrations in three weeks of protests against labor reforms aimed at young people.

An estimated one-third of the flights at Paris area airports were cancelled and virtually all other flights were delayed because of striking air traffic controllers, airport authorities said. Half of the suburban commuter trains in Paris were not running and one-third of the national train network was shut down by strikers, rail officials said. Commuter train, bus and streetcar services were limited in most French cities, according to initial reports.

Student and worker unions have called protest marches throughout the day Tuesday in at least 100 French cities, with unions bussing thousands of people into Paris for what is expected to be the largest demonstration. Police positioned at train and subway stations in Paris detained numerous youths disembarking from suburban trains, witnesses said.

Law enforcement authorities blamed youths from poor, suburban neighborhoods for inciting violence at the conclusion of protest demonstrations in Paris last week. Both sides in the conflict viewed Tuesday's general strike and demonstrations as pivotal in the standoff, which threatens President Jacques Chirac's government and the presidential ambitions of his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, the author of the contentious law, due to take effect next month. Chirac has cancelled all scheduled visits outside of Paris this week to address the mounting crisis, according to French news reports.

"Le Manifestation" has a long tradition in France, so this development doesn't have the same meaning over there as it would here, but it is nonetheless highly problematic. De Villepain himself has been quoted as saying that reform appears to be against French nature, only revolution serves as a force for change and renewal.

The problem of course is that you can't really guillotine millions of French socialists.

I was amused to read the confident assertion of Clifford Coonan of the Independent that China's eclipse of the U.S. is inevitable.

The rise of China is posing awkward questions for the US, along with the realisation that its days as the world's economic superpower are numbered.

Some analysts see America entering a period of "managed decline" not unlike that which Britain has experienced since the end of the Second World War and the end of empire.

I've heard such sentiments most of my life, usually from the citizens of superpower wannabes (Germany) and former Titans (France, Britain). During the late seventies and early eighties, Japan was supposed to eclipse us. Post-Soviet, Germany contemplated a palace coup as well.

The musings are always taken very seriously by the various European ethnic sects, as they can't help but look to the future through the lens of the past.

The reality of hegemony is that it requires a distinct and unique advantage(s). What unique and distinct systemic advantage do the Chinese possess?

They are a developing country, apeing the example of what and who have gone before. Their progress notwithstanding, there is nothing new here, no new organizational principle, more effective institution or superior technology. They are apprentices of a system in which we are the masters.

Their "success" comes within a system that the U.S. has established and which they are now completely dependent on.

While its understandable that British socialists would dream of a super power that shared their ideological affinity (fascism?), its purely fantasy that nominates China as a rival to the U.S. Perhaps nothing drives that point home that the linear extrapolation of an economic growth rate that has China becoming the number one economy in 2045.]

Just a tad optimistic.

Europe abolishes "desperate" poverty.

In Summer 2004, the New York Times declared that the great day had arrived: Europe had eliminated -- nay, "abolished," as if by a legislative act-- poverty: or, at any rate, its "desperate" variety. "Even America's defenders must admit to the persistence of poverty amid plenty," the Times reporter Richard Bernstein wrote in an August 8 piece ("Does Europe Need to Get a Life?"), "and, by contrast, the abolition of desperate poverty in Europe."

Unfortunately the miraculous feat is achieved with Soviet-style tactics.

Thus, the EU statistical office, Eurostat, defines the poverty line -- or rather what it more gingerly describes as "the risk-of-poverty threshold" -- not in absolute terms, as in the US statistics, but rather as 60 percent of the median national income in each country. Thus, for example, the Portuguese "risk-of-poverty" threshold for a family of four gets set at around €10,000.

Given the massive disparities in income among European countries, this convention makes for some interesting results. Whereas, for instance, according to Eurostat, a German family of four is "at risk" of falling into poverty with an annual income of €20,000, a Romanian family of four only "risks" poverty with an income roughly ten times less.

Read the whole thing.

Get that finger out of my face or you'll lose it -->

The original caption for this photo was:

European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, center, confers with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before the start of the 13th ASEAN Regional Forum at Kuala Lumpur Convention Center (KLCC) in Kuala Lumpur, Friday, July 28, 2006.

Europe, as usual, is the supporting cast to a star vehicle. Of course, Europe continues to be in deep denial about their relevance to world affairs. The irony here is that Blair gets the "poodle" tag, but actually has influence within the White House. Solana and the EU have less than zero.

Will Europe help themselves by participating in a multinational force in the Bekaa valley where they might actually get shot at? Past experience suggests they will, but not effectively. If the strategy is to have a international force actually do something "military" in the region, then we are in for disappointment.

We hear about anti-Americanism all the time. Democrats think everybody loved us before George W. Bush got elected. I beg to differ--as a son of European immigrants fluent in German and French and have lived and worked in Europe, I think it would be fair to say that Europeans have a love/hate relationship with the U.S.

They hate McDonalds, but can't stop taking their kids there. Same with American movies, Disney, the U.S.A. itself. Every year Utah's national parks are filled with Europeans--who hate us.

But how do we feel about the French?

Up until WWII, the U.S. could have been described as a francophilic country. We emulated French fashion and cuisine and dropped French linquistic affectations. We were grateful for the blood and treasure the French spent to secure our Republic. The French collapse under Nazi assault and the subsequent collaboration didn't exactlu create anti-French feeling, but rather a serious decline in respect for the French national character. France's post-war economic decline has seen its cultural influence all but disappear from the American scene. While Julia Child renewed the popularity of French cuisine, Asian, Italian and American southwest cuisine has taken center stage. In many ways, the whole country has turned eastward for its cultural influences and while European influences haven't totally vacated the premises, they have been and continue to be in steep decline.

Its not so much that we are anti-French as we are bored of the French. French culture has been a museum piece, and its not a very well run museum at that. When nude sunbathing on the banks of the Seine (a rather quaint French custom for as long as I can recall...) is banned because it affects Muslim sensibilities, you know that the culture's best days are behind them.

The only time France arouses real feeling is when the French pull one of their predictable perfidies in the realm of foreign policy.

To find the last plain-speaking French leader, it is necessary to go back to Napoleon Bonaparte. He said he was going to take over Europe, and proceeded to do so. No, scratch that. He said he was going to bring French liberty and equality to Europe, then crowned himself emperor. Subsequent French history offers us a sordid string of third world colonizations followed by bloody wars to hang on long after the time to relinquish colonies had passed, setting the stage for corrupt government and prolonged conflict in places like Vietnam.

More recently, we’ve seen the naked hypocrisy of Dominic de Villepin in the United Nations, braying about his humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people, while trying to ensure mass murderer Saddam Hussein remained in power to honor his French contracts.

The shamelessness of France knows no bounds. They have a domestic Arabic population and business interests in the Mideast to satisfy. They desperately want to be taken seriously as a major power. So they sat down with the United States and hammered out a peace plan. Then, before the ink was dry, they shrugged a Gallic shrug.

Its annoying, but you can't gin up a good hatred on the basis of such predictable posturing. In fact, I would hope that American foreign policy is constructed on the basis of, "the French will screw us, so lets build it into our strategies..." Unfortunately, I am not sure that occured this time around--an easy mistake to make I think because one would expect a chance for France to exercise "leadership" would be irresistable.

The lead up to the Iraq war saw perhaps this country's best shot at developing some real anti-Francism, but the boycott, as well intentioned as it might have been, was somewhat pointless after the realization that you'd be limited to boycotting Boursin and Motel 6.

So in the end, there isn't any meaningful anti-Francism in the U.S. because frankly, the French just aren't important enough to hate.

P.S. It struck me that I used the word "frankly" in connection with the French, which is somewhat ironic in this case. To be frank, refers to candid or outspoken speech. The etymology is directly connected to the Franks (French) who were as conquerers, free men, and given to speaking their minds without fear of retribution. Thus the Franks were associated with honest and sincere speech and to speak frankly, was to speak as a free man.

Perhaps we can invent a new adjective--frenchly: To mean not a word being spoken.

Try to google a French-language newspaper today in Beligum and you're going to have a problem.

Seems that Google has wiped out all reference to French language newspapers on the Belgian Google Site. (Belgium is a bilingual country, with Flemish spoken along the Dutch border and French along the borders with France and Luxembourg).

The action was taken to avoid a penalty of a million dollars a day as the result of a successful law suit by French language Belgian Newspaper Association. Seems they objected to Google caching stories that no longer existed on the original sites. A copyright violation?

Google appears to have been caught in a common legal trap. Belgium, as a sort of commercial beachhead for the European market, and the Belgians have been building a legal structure to fleece the newcomers for quite some time. If you're going to do business in Belgium, better consult a lawyer first.

Belgium is not North korea or China, but regardless of the reasons for wanting to control information, the outcomes are the same. Ironically, the French language newspapers may well have shot themselves in the foot. As the Canadians have learned the hard way, information, like water, always finds a way through. A media ban on the details of the the Paul Bernardo trial failed on account that the courts failed to recognize that 90% of the Canadian population is within broadcast range of American television stations. Last year's Gomery inquiry was also subject to a media blackout which didn't work out too well. Captain's Quarters got the blog-of-the-year award and a massive boost in readership for reporting the details of the Gomery commission to Canadians.

Socialist governments (and liberal Democrats) aren't too fond of free speech (witness the Democrats attempt at censoring "The Path to 9/11"...) and ironically, it appears that the media is more than a little threatened by it as well--even when its there own stuff!

Nicolas Sarkozy is widely believed to be the leading candidate for the French presidency and for good reason--Sarkozy has demonstrated an astute political sensibility, albeit somewhat different than Chirac's.

Just how different was made clear by his visit to the U.S.

While French politicians are traditionally cool towards America, Sarkozy spent much of a recent trip to New York and Washington extolling the virtues of the U.S. way of life.

The visit culminated in a brief meeting with the U.S. president, the encounter immortalised in a single photograph showing a grinning Sarkozy clasping George W. Bush's hand.

Unsurprisingly, his rivals view this as a mistake and have replied with the predictable rhetoric.

"My diplomatic policy would not consist of going and kneeling in front of George Bush," Socialist presidential front-runner Segolene Royal Told LCI television on Tuesday.

Some rhetoric is less effective that hoped. Sarkozy has developed a reputation for toughness and independency, so there is little chance that he'll get tagged with the "poodle" label.

On the other hand, Sarkozy isn't reckless--he has something in mind. While it has been common to run on an anti-American platform across much of Europe, has the worm turned? Anti-Americanism tends to increase in times of peace, when the U.S. is seen as a commercial, cultural and political rival, and wanes when Europe feels itself under threat. Sarkozy has been representing himself as France's best option to confront the increasing "lawlessness" in France (read Muslim unrest), and apparently he thinks aligning himself with the U.S., which has a clear and unambiguous stance on Islamic terror, has some significant political benefit.

The implications are very interesting--Is there a silent constituency in Europe that dreads the creeping dhimmitude?

Almost certainly.

So what about Tony Blair? That's not a fair comparison--Blair is best compared to Joe Lieberman--an outlier in his own party. Sarkozy isn't going against the grain of his own political constituency, he is in fact building one from scratch.

Its not so much that the U.S. would have a friend in Paris, but rather that Paris and Washington would be on the same page, which they certainly are not these days, regardless of Chirac's assurances.

Back in the late 1970s, I spent a year in France. I was somewhat surprised at the shear number of North African immigrants even back then. Whole cities like Roubaix near the Belgian border, were almost entirely Muslim. The government actively practiced segregation in public housing. With the shortage of housing after the second world war, the French erected soviet-style concrete housing projects called ZUPs (planned urban zones) consisting of twenty-story standardized apartment buildings. Arabs were placed in one building, French in another. Even then the French were in an uproar about the immigrants, although it had very little to do with their religion and everything to do with their cultural customs, which after all, weren't very French. Stories abounded about people raising goats in their apartments and similar "outrages".

Still, at the time, very little if anything was heard or seen of Arab violence other than petty theft by the young, which was indistinguishable from the petty theft of the native French adolescents.

Ten years ago, I was doing quite a lot of business in France and recall being at Charles de Gaulle airport about the time where Muslims were returning from the Hajj. What struck me was how unbelievably hostile immigration and customs officials were towards returning pilgrims, many of whom spoke poor French. I was more than a little nervous when it was my turn, but a white foreigner, particularly one that spoke good French, was an entirely different matter. It was jarring at how different my reception was as compared to that of my Muslim fellow travellers.

Three years ago, my son was sitting in a car in southern France, immobilized by a riot unfolding around him where young Arabs were going at the gens d'armes hammer and tongs.

There is a clear progression here, and there should be very little surprise that things have gotten to the point where young Arabs are burning over a hundred cars a night and are escalating their attacks on police and rescue services.

What is surprising is how the French seem intent on pretending that this isn't all happening.

Plusieurs incidents graves ont eu lieu dans la nuit de mercredi 25 à jeudi 26 octobre dans la banlieue parisienne. Alors que les violences s'étaient concentrées ces dernières semaines sur les forces de l'ordre, des groupes d'individus s'en sont pris à des bus et à des automobilistes en Seine-Saint-Denis, dans l'Essonne et dans les Hauts-de-Seine. Ces incidents, qui paraissent prémédités, interviennent à la veille de l'anniversaire de la mort de deux adolescents à Clichy-sous-Bois, le 27 octobre 2005, qui avaient provoqué plusieurs semaines de violences.

For those that don't speak French:

Several grave incidents took place during the night of Wednesday the 25th and Thursday the 26th of October in the Parisian suburbs. Although the violence has been concentrated these last few weeks on law enforcement, the groups of individuals have taken up with buses and automobile drivers in Seine-Saint-Denis, Essonne and in Hauts-de-Seine (Paris suburbs). These incidents, which appear premeditated, come on the eve of the anniversary of the death of two adolescents in Clichy-sous-Bois (one of those segregated Arab neighborhoods), on October 27, 2005, which provoked several weeks of violence.

Le Monde does dare mention what everyone already knows--that these are Arabs youths, but what is really remarkable is how the paper attributes a year's worth of Arab violence all over France to a greivance over the death of two young lads.

Its too bad Mark Steyn doesn't speak French, because that country definitely needs his brand of unblinking analysis about what is really going on in that country.

It is simply no accident that young Arabs are attacking law enforcement--often armed with handguns (where would they get those in gun-controlled-to-death France?) and public transportation. What they are doing--effectively I might add, is creating zones of control--areas where there is no police presence and no means of entering or leaving the area except through checkpoints.

Why might they want to do that?

We only have to look at the Iraq insurgency to get a glimpse into the strategy. When the insurgents had control over Fallujah, that area became a staging ground for IED and car bomb construction, importation and stock-piling of weapons and of course a safe haven for your basic terrorists. No surprisingly, we've seen the same thing in southern Lebanon for years, Waziristan on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and most recently in Gaza.

Notably, in the same article, we find that buses don't run in certain suburbs after dark.

It doesn't really matter how or why this intifada got started in France--it matters where it will end up, and France's unwillingness to even acknowledge that there is a problem is truly disturbing.

..but not to the French. You know who disturbs them? Who they've taken measures to repress?

The Jehovah's Witnesses.

Yeah, there a real threat to the state...

UPDATE: A somewhat different view of France's actions and future.

Clearer heads prevail, at least for now.

Continue beyond the fold:

In the wake of a Europe-wide blackout last night, Europe is discussing a European power authority to go with the already unified power grid.

That's probably not going to do much to prevent future incidents of this sort, but any excuse to expand the Euro bureaucracy.

Now if they can just do something about the heat...

Possible, but unlikely in my view.

Ségolène Royal moved a step closer to becoming the first female president of France early Friday, crushing her two male rivals for the Socialist Party nomination in next April’s election.

With most of the vote in, Ms. Royal, 53, a regional president and former minister, won 60.6 percent of the vote of the party’s nearly 219,000 members in an unusual primary.

Mme Royal is a fine-looking woman by French standards--a fact that she is leveraging with bikini shots, but France has two cultural dynamics and a number of national issues that argue against a victory in the presidential race.

In French presidential politics, the president embodies the soul of France. There is a certain messianic expectation of the President, a characterization as 'l'homme providentiel' (man of destiny). In the ultimate Mommy-state, the President is France's penis--its pretense at masculinity.

What may surprise a lot of Americans is that despite the socialist politics of France and Germany, they are exceptionally chauvinist societies--women serve men--sexually and in every other way. The sense of male entitlement is overwhelming. I've been in meetings where women who spoke three and four languages served coffee and biscuits to male counterparts who were idiots by comparison. This is less about men oppressing women, than a deeply entrenched culture that creates these expectations in both men AND women.

A woman as prime minister--absolutely. As president?

I sincerely doubt it.

Ralph Peters has an interesting dissenting view from the Eurabia prediction, best represented by Mark Steyn. Peters is a retired military officer, an American and frequent media guest. Like Steyn, he is a hawk on Iraq, although somewhat less enthusiastic than he used to be. Peters writes:

THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.

And Europeans won't even need to re-write "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with an Islamist theme - real Muslims zealots provide Europe's bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe's Muslims. Europe hasn't broken free of its historical addictions - we're going to see Europe's history reprised on meth.

The year 1492 wasn't just big for Columbus. It's also when Spain expelled its culturally magnificent Jewish community en masse - to be followed shortly by the Moors, Muslims who had been on the Iberian Peninsula for more than 800 years.

Jews got the boot elsewhere in Europe, too - if they weren't just killed on the spot. When Shakespeare wrote "The Merchant of Venice," it's a safe bet he'd never met a Jew. The Chosen People were long-gone from Jolly Olde England.

From the French expulsion of the Huguenots right down to the last century's massive ethnic cleansings, Europeans have never been shy about showing "foreigners and subversives" the door.

And Europe's Muslims don't even have roots, by historical standards. For the Europeans, they're just the detritus of colonial history. When Europeans feel sufficiently provoked and threatened - a few serious terrorist attacks could do it - Europe's Muslims will be lucky just to be deported.

Is he right? Is the berserker Viking lurking in the breasts of socialist Europe?

No, he's not.

With all due respect to Peters, Europe's historical penchant for massive violence was an environmental consequence, not a genetic one, and Europe's environment is profoundly different than it was a century ago. There simply are no political and cultural creches for violence on the level Peters predicts.

Yesterday, Dave Mark posted the rhetorical question of whether the Germans are cowards. The Speigel article Dave comments on doesn't so much as try to disabuse the notion than defend cowardice as a sensible approach.

Of course individual Europeans may have a personal affinity for violence, but violence on the scale required for a genocide requires a culture willing to justify the acts of violence of their government and that simply doesn't exist anymore. Europe will first have to recreate it and I there is strong resistance to doing so (to their credit?). Moreover, they don't have much time--the Muslims are well ahead of the curve when it comes to creating a culture of hate.

Ironically, what may save Europe is what contributed to the problem in the first place--the lack of assimilation. The Europeans still hold all the levers of power, so should they decide to repress the Muslims, they would actually have the means to do it, but I very much doubt they could overcome 50 years of indoctrination in the virtues of dialogue and compromise.

Finally, Peters ignores the bête noire of the issue--the demographic problem. Even if Europe deports or kills its Muslim population, it still exists in a demographic death spiral. It is the reason the Muslims are there in the first place.

In the final analysis, I don't believe in the coming genocide, but rather in the on-going suicide of Europe.

UPDATE Powerline also notes the Peters column, and thanks to blogger-elite clout, gets Mark Steyn to comment:

I don’t know whether Mr Peters is referring to my book, because, as usual when this particular columnist comes out swinging, he prefers to confront unnamed generalized opponents: thus, he refers to “a rash of pop pundits” predicting Europe will become Eurabia. Dismissing with airy condescension “a rash” of anonymities means you avoid having to deal with specific arguments.

Had he read America Alone, for example, he would know that I do, indeed, foresee a revival of Fascism in Europe. He concludes: “All predictions of Europe going gently into that good night are surreal.” Which of us predicted anything about “going gently”? As I write on page 105 of my book: “It’s true that there are many European populations reluctant to go happily into the long Eurabian night.” What I point out, though, is that, even if you’re hot for a new Holocaust, demography tells. There are no Hitlers to hand. When Mr Peters cites the success of Jean Marie Le Pen’s National Front, he overlooks not only Le Pen’s recent overtures to Muslims but also the fact that M Le Pen is pushing 80. As a general rule, when 600 octogenarians are up against 200 teenagers, bet on the teens. In five or ten years’ time, who precisely is going to organize mass deportations from French cities in which the native/Muslim youth-population ratio is already – right now - 55/45?

As I’ve said innumerable times, the native European population is split three ways: some will leave, as the Dutch (and certain French) are already doing; some will shrug and go along with the Islamization of the continent, as the ever-accelerating number of conversions suggests; and so the ones left to embrace Fascism will be a minority of an aging population. It will be bloody and messy, as I write in America Alone, but it will not alter the final outcome. If you don’t breed, you can’t influence the future. And furthermore a disinclination to breed is a good sign you don’t care much about the future. That’s why the Spaniards, who fought a brutal bloody civil war for their country in the 1930s, folded instantly after those Madrid bombings. When you’ve demographically checked out of the future, why fight for it?

Ralph Peters is late to this debate. If he’s going to join the discussion, he might do better to tackle the facts. But that would require him to acknowledge real specifics rather than “a rash of pop pundits”. You’ll notice that his column and mine differ not just in their approach to worldviews but in their approach to argument: mine cites four specific persons, their actions and assertions; his boldly batters anonymous generalizations. I know which I regard as more effective.

Steyn seems a little perturbed to have a dissenter, but his argument is good--demographics trump whatever aggressive tendancies Europeans may deign to display.

Greg Prince sent me this in my email. As a rider, I can relate to endos, but this is a bigger get-off than even I'm accustomed to.

No--not a French version of '24', but rather a French version of CNN, BBC Worldnews or SkyNews (Fox).

For France, and apparently a lot of other nations--the lack of a global 24 hour news channel is a serious deficit, explaining the poverty of French influence in geopolitical affairs.

Iran and China are now also thinking about getting into the game.

Conceived in the run up to the Iraq war out of Jacques Chirac's frustration that France could not match U.S. media influence, the channel has been in development for years, planned for simulcasting in French, English and Arabic. As of this writing, the English feed was not working.

France 24 has an ambitious agenda:

France 24 wants "to show opinion leaders worldwide what they are not supposed to see, know or understand about all aspects of international news". This animated promo video shows sheds some light on what this may mean. French politics have always sympathized with the antiglobalist movement (or altermondialistes, as they are called in France) which they see as an ally against the dominance of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and as a support for their rather Colbertist views on trade and competition.

With a fraction of the budget of its competitors, France 24 isn't planning better reporting, just a presentation of run-of-the-mill news with a socialist elan (the reference to Colbertism is simply the French colloquialism for protectionism. There is a considerably irony that France's current economic policy is named after a seventeenth century finance minister...) As the reporter notes, the reality of France 24 is that it wants you to know somethings but not others. For example, it wants you to know about American financing of the Ukraine's orange revolution, but not about French petroleum giant Total's activities in Burma.

I am watching the French feed as I write this--it has that very antiseptic European media look--a very clean studio with very clean screen graphics. The main studio looks a lot like an iPod click wheel. As of this writing the English and Arabic feeds are not working.

One thing that, in my view at least, France 24 has going for it is the French style of news reporting. I have been watching now, for several minutes, a discussion about Hugo Chavez, his reelection and the implications for Venezuela and the region. You would simply never see a discussion of this length and depth on an "Anglo-saxon" broadcast network--its more like a podcast than a traditional television segment. Nobody is trying to interrupt anyone either. I note that one of the panelists is a U.S. World News Report reporter, and his French is pretty damn good. He just made a good point too--Chavez talks like a socialist, but lives like a capitalist, which the interviewer thought was pretty funny.

Obviously, France 24 is going to have to bring up its English feed if it really wants a global reach. The question remains--will it matter? The Germans and Canadians have English-language channels on our cable and satellite networks and I seriously question if anyone actually watches them. In fact I just checked and apparently my provider no longer carries them.

Have a channel is not the same as having people watch it, as anyone with a blog knows all too well. Ultimately Chirac probably got the cart before the horse--the Anglo-saxon domination of the media is the result of its geopolitical influence, not the author of it...

UPDATE: Lots of interesting comment on the France 24 blog. People looking for jobs, one guy very upset that France 24 may displace TV5MONDE (an international francophone collaborative effort), more job applications, disgust over the executive salaries (envy and socialism go hand in hand...).

And Far Away provides a Jordanian perspective on France 24.