Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/22/2010

This Irish government finally caved in to pressure and accepted a bailout from the Eurozone, with additional help from the British government. The decision caused some of the smaller Irish parties, including the Greens — who objected to the planned austerity measures — to withdraw from the governing coalition. This forced Prime Minister Brian Cowen to call new elections for January, although he will not resign until after the new budget has been approved.

In other news, the Cordoba Initiative — the group behind the Ground Zero Mosque, headed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf — has applied for a $5 million grant from the fund set up to help rebuild Manhattan after the 9-11 attacks.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, CSP, DF, DF2, Don Vito, Fjordman, Gaia, ICLA, Insubria, KGS, Kitman, Mary Abdelmassih, Nilk, Srdja Trifkovic, Swenglish Rantings, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

A Constitution for a Non-Existent People

I’ve often described the native inhabitants of Sweden as “persons of Swedish background”. This is not a joke — it’s an English translation of the official terminology employed by the Swedish state to describe the fair-skinned blue-eyed Swedish-speakers who made up all but a miniscule part of the Swedish population prior to 1970. What we used to call “Swedes” are now “persons of Swedish background”, just as Finns living in Sweden are “persons of Finnish background”, Somali immigrants are “persons of Somali background”, and so on.

This nomenclature is a deliberate attempt to subvert the basis of society itself by distorting the language to change the way Swedes think about themselves. The oligarchs who govern the European region formerly known as Sweden are certain that they have the moral justification and legal authority to create the perfect multicultural state. Singling out a specifically Swedish identity as essential to the culture and integral to the state is a sin against Multiculturalism, and must be suppressed. “Swedishness” itself is to be devalued and discounted.

To that end, the Swedish Parliament has voted to change the country’s constitution to reflect the new consensus. Since Parliament voted in favor of the change both before and after the latest general election, the revised constitution must now come into force in 2011. There is no going back.

To get an idea of the nature of the Brave New Constitution, we’ll take a look at a couple of media articles. First, from Stockholm News:

The Swedish constitution to be changed

The Swedish constitution will be changed next year. The final decision in the Riksdag will be made on Wednesday, but since almost 95 percent of the MPs will vote yes, it is only a formality.

To change the Swedish constitution you need two separate decisions in the Riksdag. Between the two decisions there need to be an election. However, since changes in the constitutions normally are the result of cross block border negotiations, it is difficult for the voters who are against the changes to do anything about it at the election that separates the two parliamentary votings.

All seven parties that had seats in the Riksdag last electoral period voted in favor of the changes in the first voting in June this year. Only the Sweden democrats, elected to parliament for the first time this September this year, will vote no in the second voting next week.

Some of the changes:

“Israel Is Fighting Our War”

Below is an interview with Geert Wilders from the Israeli newspaper Yedioth, published on November 19, 2010 (print edition only).

Many thanks to DarLink for translating it from the Hebrew:

“Israel is fighting our war”

Even a journalist from a friendly country such as Israel does not escape invasive hands of the security guards who protect Geert Wilders. At the entry point to the interview with Holland’s extreme politician, founder and leader of the anti-Islamic “Party for Freedom” [PVV], bodyguards do not hold back, and run extensive security checks. Time and again they recheck my identity, making sure that I possess nothing that could potentially turn into a weapon.

Wilders, on the other hand, looks disconnected from the security turmoil around him. It seems that he must be used to it. That’s the way it is if you are one of the most threatened persons in the world.

“To tell the truth, yes, I fear for my life,” he admits.

“I am just a man. The danger does not come only from Holland. It is outside too. There are very serious threats from various terror groups, and when one is aware of the extent of the danger, it is only human to think that something bad will happen. But I cannot allow these thoughts to affect my work. If I moderate my voice because of the threats, stop saying what is on my mind, or quit being a politician, those people will have used anti-democratic means, threats and murders to silence others. They will win. I am not going to let them”.

He has reason to fear. His statements against Islam, his demands to stop immigration of Muslims to his country, the building of new mosques or wearing the veil in public — all that did the job. Although in Europe he is recognized as the most prominent leader of the anti-Islam movement, imams in the Muslim world have sentenced him to death. Terror groups promise to murder him — a man who until recently was an obscure politician with hardly any influence, but now, thanks only to his support, a new Dutch government was formed a few weeks ago.

Wilders says aloud what many Dutch and EU citizens probably think, and he pays a very heavy price for that. He lives under around-the-clock tight protection in a “safe house” provided by the Dutch government. He is the only parliamentary representative with an “unknown” home address.

“It is sad that while fighting for my country’s freedom I lost my own,” says Wilders in a special interview for Yedioth. “I have only freedom of speech and thought. Threats to my life prove that my arguments are just. I am sure that if I spoke with criticism about Christianity or Judaism, there would be no such radical response. There would be no demonstrations in Vatican. The Dutch flag would not be burnt. A million and a half people who voted for us in the last elections do not see me as a fascist or a racist.”

In two weeks Wilders is coming for a visit to Israel as a guest of a parliament member Ariel Eldad. He is invited to participate in a conference against the two-state solution.

“Israel is the lighthouse and the only democracy in this backward and dictatorial part of the world,” he proclaims. “Israel is very close to us, to our European identity. Israel fights our war.”

It Is Not About Color

Just a few days ago Dutch court decided not to punish a Muslim rapper who wrote in one of his songs that he is going to attack Wilders. “Geert, this is not a joke. Last night I had a dream about taking off your head,” the rapper sings and promises “Anyone who talks about Muslims will be killed.”

There are many rumors about Wilders’ way of life. They say that he does not sleep in the same place twice in a row, that he does not see his wife for months.

At first, six years ago, when the government did not have “safe houses”, “My wife and I stayed for a few months in a prison,” he says. “The cells we lived in had been previously occupied by two Libyan agents, responsible for “Pan Am” plane slaughter. We were not there as prisoners, but as protected personas. We also slept on military bases around Holland and military planes took us, if need be, to our meetings. It was insane. There were times when I had to put on a wig, a false mustache, and a pair of sunglasses to prevent others from recognizing me.”

Wilders stands out as a leader of anti-Islamic movement in Europe. Six years ago he left the Liberal Party [VVD] and founded an independent fraction. His party’s unpredicted success in last year’s elections to EU Parliament stunned the political arena.

Putting Harassment on the Map

During the last few months there have been a lot of news reports about the high incidence of sexual harassment against women in Egypt. This does not just involve catcalls and wolf whistles, but runs the gamut all the way up to groping and rape. Women who appear too “western” are particularly vulnerable.

The Egyptian authorities have downplayed the problem, insisting that it is being sensationalized and blown out of proportion. Now a new Egyptian blog called HarassMap has been set up to chronicle and map the incidence of harassment, in order to make official denial more difficult. The group behind it has devised a system for victims to report incidents and display them on a map.

Here’s their mission statement:

Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/21/2010

Last week’s explosion in a woodland near Loch Lomond in Scotland is almost certainly an indication that a terror attack in the UK is imminent, according to experts. A terror cell that has been trained to construct explosive devices would need a final live test before staging an attack, and a remote wooded area in Scotland would provide the ideal opportunity. Counterterrorism units are on high alert.

In other news, Ireland finally caved in and asked for a bailout from the EU. Britain is involved, in that it will guarantee part of the fund with sterling. All this while Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed doubts whether the euro can in fact survive this crisis.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, DF, Fjordman, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, KGS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

The Awakening of the French Nation

The French Defence League just sent out this communiqué to accompany their new video. They are demanding an end to the notorious French Muslim practice of occupying and blocking entire city streets during their prayers:

Warning to Muslims who believe that the public space can be invaded without consequences.

For a number of years, certain of you Muslim gentlemen dare to regularly occupy the public space for your prayers.

This occupation, as you well know, is illegal, and is, as we well know, a provocation and a demonstration of force designed to show your domination in certain parts of France and your contempt for our laws and the secular nature of our country.

These politico-cultural demonstrations are in defiance of our institutions and our culture, they put our territorial integrity under pressure with the aim of forcing the construction of mosques, which are often financed by the money of non-Muslims¹ who then find themselves victims of gigantic rackets in which our elected officials are complicit.

Muslim militias and certain Muslims totally illegally block the streets to non-Muslims, preventing the citizens and residents from circulating, returning home or leaving their houses and the mayors say nothing, the police say nothing, the State says nothing.

Thus it remains for the French Nation, to the citizens themselves to take over because all their representatives have spinelessly bent over in the face of intimidation.

The message sent out by the French nation to the “praying” is clear:

War on Christmas: The ‘C’ Word

Every year at about this time the controversy over the word “Christmas” begins anew. The battle in the United States usually concerns crèches on public property or carols in the schools, and is fought in the packed trenches of the federal court system by groups like the ACLU.

In the UK the argument is over the replacement of Christmas by “Winter Holiday”, “Winter Festival”, or — worst of all — “Winterval”. Our British correspondent JP has prepared a special report for this Christmas festive season.


War on Christmas: The ‘C’ Word
by JP

The story originates with the adoption by Birmingham City Council in 1997 and 1998 of the term ‘Winterval.’ While Winterval may have been laughed off the stage, the concept has metamorphosed, I believe, into the seemingly-innocuous Winter Festival — In a recent example, while the word ‘Christmas’ still appears in the main text, it has been displaced from the headline itself : “Elgin prepares for its winter festival.”

The ‘War on Christmas’ continues; it remains a question of being alert to how it manifests itself in the public square. For example, on my recent bus journeys down Oxford Street and Regent Street I have been paying attention to shop window displays: most big stores and companies continue to use the word ‘Christmas’ in their displays: Vodafone — Happy Christmas; Boots — Christmas Shop; Selfridges — Merry Christmas. However, most of the smaller stores, while including some form of Christmas display, avoid the word itself.

There is no Christmas at United Colors of Benetton. Or Apple either.

A couple of stores are notable for having no Christmas display whatsoever — United Colors of Benetton, Oxford Circus, and Apple, Regent Street. Perhaps these companies are too large to bother with quaint, local customs. Perhaps they are a bit slow off the mark (Christmas lights were switched on 4 November, Oxford Street and on 9 November, Regent Street) and will put up some decorations in due course, possibly December. Perhaps they are making a religio-political point of dubious taste, part of the process intended to “systematically erode Christianity from public view” (Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, 11 November 2006, BBC). Perhaps a boycott of these stores would be an appropriate response.

Below is a series of media items and local government announcements concerning the “Winter Festival”. They are presented in chronological order, beginning in 1998.

Example #1: Winterval gets frosty reception [9 November 1998]

Church leaders have clashed with a council over its decision to call Christmas festivities Winterval.

Birmingham City Council used the phrase to describe its programme of festive family events over Christmas and the New Year. The change is being made because city council officials hope to create a more multi-cultural atmosphere in keeping with the city’s mix of ethnic groups. But critics have attacked the move as political correctness gone mad and have accused council officials of trying to take the Christ out of Christmas.

‘Christianity censored’

Winterval has particularly exasperated the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Rev Mark Santer. In a message to all the churches and clergy in his diocese, he said: “I wonder what madness is in store for us this Christmas? “I confess I laughed out loud when our city council came out with Winterval as a way of not talking about Christmas. No doubt it was a well-meaning attempt not to offend, not to exclude, not to say anything at all.” The message continues: “Now it seems, the secular world, which expresses respect for all, is actually embarrassed by faith. Or perhaps it is Christianity which is censored.”

Political correctness

His views were shared by his colleague, the Archdeacon of Aston, the Ven John Barton. “It is a totally unnecessary example of political correctness to avoid sensitivities people simply do not have,” he said. A council spokeswoman defended the name. “Birmingham City Council wants people to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is the very heart of Winterval,” she said. “Far from not talking about Christmas the events within Winterval and the publicity material for it are covered in Christmas greetings and traditional images, including angels and carol singers.” She said the council had drawn attention to the city’s cathedral during the festival by placing Christmas lights in the trees around the building.

Example #2: Welcome to Winterval [22 December 2000]

The Green Danger

Martin Bosma is a Dutch member of parliament for the PVV (Party for Freedom), and a close associate of Geert Wilders. Back in September, immediately prior to the start of Mr. Wilders’ trial, we reported that Mr. Bosma had just released a new book about Islam and the Left.

Below is an excerpt from De schijn-élite van de valse munters (“The Pseudo-Elite of the Counterfeiters”, Amsterdam, Bert Bakker 2010), taken from chapter 12, pp. 178-181. Many thanks to our Flemish correspondent VH for sending this translation:

According to the elite, Islam is a religion, and therefore we must have respect for it. All excesses are whitewashed by referring to religions that also had their little problems. But religion is at best a small part of the ideology. Islam aims primarily at worldly goals, such as the introduction of Sharia law and world domination through perpetual war. According the southern-Dutch [Flemish] Islam expert Dr. Urbain Vermeulen, Islam is only ten percent a religion. “The problem lies with the remaining 90 percent, Islamic law. As the proportion of Muslims in the population increases, they will increasingly seek to build their own legislation in addition to our own laws.” He finds himself pessimistic about the willingness of Muslims to adapt to European societies.^[30]

Then, what is Islam? When I studied in Paris, I found a book (notably in the library of the ‘Institute du Monde Arabe’) by Islamologist G.H. Bousquet. He describes Islam in “Le droit Musulman” as a dual totalitarian system, which not only strives for world domination, but also to control the lives of its followers down to the smallest detail.^[31]

Our own Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, the first Dutch expert on Islam and a professor at Leiden, came to the conclusion one hundred years ago that Islam has very far-reaching, essentially political, ambitions. “The control of the religious, social and political life of man in all aspects, the life of its followers without reservation and controlling the lives of ‘tolerated religions’ so that they will not form a threat to Islam.”^[32]

Is criticism of Islam based on new insights that recently have come to us? Are they the chimaera’s of populists looking for volatile electoral begat? Not quite. Hugo de Groot [Hugo Grotius], Dutch most renowned jurist, forerunner of the Enlightenment, founder of international human law and fighter against the intolerant state-religion, already knew it in 1622, one year after his famous escape in a bookcase. He then writes the poem “The refutation of the Mohammedist” containing the lines:

Islam as the Victor of Western Value-Relativism

As reported here a couple of weeks ago, the German author and journalist Michael Mannheimer gave a speech about the history of Islam on October 30 at the Amsterdam free speech rally. Mr. Mannheimer has kindly sent us an English translation by Maria Sander of one of his articles, which originally appeared at Politically Incorrect.


Islam as the Victor of Western Value-Relativism
By Michael Mannheimer

A Critical Discourse on Pure Tolerance

The clash of civilizations, the collision between cultures, forecast by Samuel P. Huntington, has long since become an obvious fact in modern-day Europe, finding its clearest expression in the confrontation of Islam with the remnants of European Christianity. This collision not only is echoed in the form of terrorist attacks but also as a bitter battle of ideals between two systems of values that could hardly be more opposed to each other, namely the archaic totalitarian value system of Islam and the one represented by post modern European Enlightenment.

In the wake of this quarrel, the world of Islam has already achieved considerable partial success, thanks to something we might call “value indifference coupled with blind tolerance” exhibited by European political elites, which has already lead to a process of disintegration of both Europe’s ethic-religious foundations and its sphere of rights. In the end Islam may well emerge as victorious should Europe fail to rethink its occidental Christian roots.

Value Universalism of Human Rights

For a long time it seemed that in the world at large questions and discussions concerning guidelines as to right and wrong conduct had principally been answered and thus concluded. Beginning with the Magna Carta, established in 1215, followed by the Bill of Rights in 1689 and later by the American and French Constitutions in 1788 and 1791, respectively, the codifying of modern concepts of values regarding right and wrong finally lead to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations as well as by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Final Act. The concepts of values expressed in those above-mentioned codes were considered universal and of unlimited validity for every human being, regardless of time, location and culture.

The equality of all people before the law, regardless of faith, ethnic origin, age, colour or gender, the freedom of assembly, thought and speech as well as the inviolable dignity of the individual guaranteed by constitutional law were the cornerstones of a universal and indivisible system of values agreed to as part of the United Nations’ Charter on 26 June 1945 with a voting result of 48-0, however, eight nations abstained at the time: the Eastern Bloc, the USSR, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. I shall elaborate on this at a later stage.

The most important intellectual basis for these universal standards of human rights is derived from the contemplations of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant concerning the question of whether an ethical foundation valid for all human beings and for all times exists, and if so, how must it be formulated? Kant’s famous formulation, known as the “Categorical Imperative”, finally made its way into man’s history of legal and ethical understanding. In principle and until this day, Kant’s ethical formula shapes the UN’s foundation of a legal standard for conduct:

‘Act only in such a manner so that the maxim of your will could at the same time serve as a principle for universal legislation.’

Basically, Kant’s Categorical Imperative is a linguistic elaboration of the proverb ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you. ’

Hence, neither would a thief agree to theft becoming universal right, nor would a murderer suggest that murder become legally accepted, since the murderer would not want himself to be killed and the thief could not possibly want to be a victim of theft.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/20/2010

A “Swede” was killed when he perpetrated a suicide bombing in Iraq. Although the bomber has Swedish citizenship, he is of Tunisian origin, according to the news media. He left a widow and small children back in Sweden, but his wife says she is proud of him because be became a martyr.

The only part of the story (the version from the Stockholm News, that is) I don’t understand is this: “She [the wife] was told that her man had died over the telephone.” How does one die over the telephone? I’ve known telephone conversations to be infuriating or tedious, but never actually fatal.

In other news, 80% of the gypsy population in Serbia is unemployed. The report also says that only 15% of the Roma in Serbia have completed primary school.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DF, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, KGS, Mary Abdelmassih, McR, Nilk, Sean O’Brian, Steen, Takuan Seiyo, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

A Dissident in the Current Era

In a flashback to the opening of last month’s trial of Geert Wilders in Amsterdam, our Flemish correspondent VH has translated a portion of the plea (which seems similar to what we term an opening statement) by Mr. Wilders’ defense counsel, Bram Moszkowicz.


Part of the plea by Mr. Bram Moszkowicz in the Wilders Trial
Translated by VH

Mr. Chairman, members of the court, members of the prosecution, today, Mr. Chairman, I defend a dissident, and his name is Geert Wilders, and who’d have thought of this in 2010, in the Netherlands.

Since yesterday, Mr. Chairman, I have constantly had an image in my mind, and I cannot get rid of it, one that is somewhat characteristic of this process, and which also shows the absurdity of it.

The lawyers for the aggrieved parties took the floor; it was a motley crew, partly also deaf. Ms. Prakken suggests, as one of the speakers on behalf of the aggrieved parties, that Mr. Wilders had talked about ‘a tsunami of Muslims’, while she knows very well, or at least should know, or could have known, that my client spoke of a tsunami of Islamization. That is something quite different. But that is not at all I wanted to say at this point. All the lawyers for the aggrieved parties failed to follow the framework in which they were allowed to speak. Clearly that context has been outlined a number of times by your court. And then as recently as yesterday, a lawyer refuses to rise for judges in the Netherlands, and we, not I, permit his refusal.

The man took the floor and compared my client in passing to Hitler. Unlike me, my client Wilders believes that the man may say this. The lawyer I am talking about does not rise for the court, because he takes our system not to be his. At the same time, Mr. Chairman, members of the court, he does make an appeal to our system when it suits him, by wanting to make to use of the opportunity provided by our law to speak. The world upside down. See here the trial against Geert Wilders in a ‘nutshell’.

In Florence in 1632, Mr. Chairman, members of the court, the book Idelologo by Galileo Galilei appeared. A polemical treatise in which the geocentric view, current within the Catholic Church, was more or less made ridiculous. That was contrary to all opinion, and did not go unnoticed. Galileo had to justify himself to the clergy, and renounce his ideas. Rehabilitation followed much later.

Wilders does not compare himself with Galileo, but does reflect on him. Someone who goes against the prevailing doctrine. Someone who does not let himself be gagged by religious institutions and conventions. A dissident in the current era as Galileo was a dissident in his own. Someone with a different view.

Even so, the ideas of Galileo could not be curbed. Some things you cannot hold back. Even after his conviction, as the perhaps apocryphal story goes, Galileo said, ‘eppur si muove’. Which means ‘and yet it moves’.

The case against Galileo should not have proceeded. Galileo based his argument on empirical material, and that went against the prevailing dogma.

The ESW Defense File

Below are the contents of the document file that will be used by the defense in the trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff:


The book that enjoys the central place of honor in the photo is ’Umdat al-salik wa ’uddat al-nasik, or The reliance of the traveller and tools of the worshipper. It is commonly referred to as Reliance of the Traveller when cited in English.

This particular version is the Revised Edition (published 1991, revised 1994) and is “The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law ’Umdat al-Salik by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 769/1368) in Arabic with Facing English Text, Commentary, and Appendices”, edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. The publisher is listed as amana publications in Beltsville, Maryland.

It is considered an authoritative source on Sunni Islamic law, because it is certified as such by Al-Azhar University in Cairo. There is no higher authority on Sunni Islamic doctrine than Al-Azhar; it is the closest equivalent to the Vatican that can be found in Islam.

So whatever you find in Reliance of the Traveller is definitive Islamic law. No Sunni Muslim jurist would argue against anything cited there.

And, as we will soon discover, everything that “denigrates religious teachings” in Elisabeth’s seminar can be supported by one or more passages in al-Misri’s treatise. From beating your wife to excising your daughter’s genitalia: it’s all in there.

However, this still may not be an adequate defense for quoting and referring to it. It has been well-established in a number of jurisdictions — including several in the West — that a non-Muslim who quotes the Koran accurately can still be convicted of “hate speech”. This aligns with the definition of Islamic slander (also to be found in Reliance) which considers anything that insults Islam, whether true or false, to be defamation.

Live-Blogging the Trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

Like the trial of Geert Wilders, next week’s trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff will be a historic milestone in the resistance to the Islamization of Europe — or a tombstone for European civil liberties, if Elisabeth is convicted.

The first hearing in Elisabeth’s case will take place in the Vienna court on November 23rd, starting at 9:00am CET (3:00am EST). In collaboration with Europe News, Tundra Tabloids, and the Save Free Speech website, I will be live-blogging the event as early as I can manage to get up that morning.

The reporting team will aim to decipher exactly what the offense is that Elisabeth has been charged with. It is expected that the entire audio recording from the FPÖ seminars will be played in court, permitting the prosecutor to explain in detail what cannot be permitted to be said, and why the religiousness of Islamic teachings makes it so.

The defense, for its part, can be expected to document the accuracy and truthfulness of what was said, thus focusing on the core problem: Is it illegal to speak the truth about Islam?

Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/19/2010

As reported last night in the news feed, an Australian woman who was wearing a burka when she committed the offense she was charged with — bringing a false charge against a police officer — used the burka as her defense: how could the prosecution prove that she was in fact the same burka-clad woman who committed the crime?

As it turned out, the magistrate who heard her case was a sensible man. The signature on her affidavit matched the signature of the woman whose driver’s license was presented at the time of the traffic stop. He found her guilty and has sentenced her to six months in jail.

The woman is appealing — although not in the eyes of most Australians, obviously.

In other news, China is experiencing its worst inflation in a number of years, with the price of food and fuel increasing at an annual rate of 10%. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has announced that the government will take measures to contain inflation, and his words sent Asian stock markets tumbling.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to 4symbols, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, CSP, DF, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, James, Nick, Nilk, Srdja Trifkovic, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.