A spectre haunting Europe

Soon the senescent secular Europe will be overrun by Muslim immigrants and the unassimilated progeny of their oppressed, veiled women. They'll move in, have as many babies as a renegade Mormon living on welfare in Moab, take the public dole, and spend every night plotting the violent downfall of the foolish system that makes their conspiratorial leisure possible.

Right?

Uh, no.

Slightly more than 4 per cent of Europe's population is “Muslim,” as defined by demographers (though about 80 per cent of these people are not religiously observant, so they are better defined as secular citizens who have escaped religious nations).

In our putrid excuse for a national conversation, every time some fearful trope turns out to be a bullshit lie, it came from the right-wing propaganda machine.

(h/t DougJ at Balloon Juice)

While we were building Hummers

... Europe was serious about green jobs.

Let's see. We shipped our manufacturing jobs to China for low wages. When we couldn't provide enough high-tech guest workers, we shipped our software jobs to India and anywhere else that would take them. We put religious taboos in the way of biotech, so that's happening in Europe and Asia. Our auto industry could be down to the Big One soon.

What we did was use the borrowed proceeds of China's industriousness to inflate a real estate bubble that we used to finance consumption. We pushed investment paper at each other like so many Big Macs. Now we're truly and thoroughly screwed.

And we still can't build a passive house.

Update: Bob Herbert says it better: "Stop being stupid."

Defense of Sarah Palin

Yep, stop the presses.

The Europeans are right overall about Wasilla's own vapid beauty queen. But this is just a condescending bit of culture-bound silliness:

Anybody with the money to own an SUV, hunt moose and drive a snowmobile has the money to travel.

In Alaska, there's a strong case that all these things are necessities, not luxuries. It's not as though Alaskans only have to slog through a little London fog in their SUVs. Maybe a few Europeans should visit the great white north. (Yes, maybe I should, too.)

Still quacking

Another overseas trip for the domestic audience:

The tour is meant to focus on leaving behind the bitterness over Iraq and setting a brighter tone for U.S.-European relations in the future.

And when I say domestic, I mean Laura.

Blue states and Europe

Paul Krugman makes the case for European economic parity with the U.S.

Furthermore, the American states that are the most similar to Europe in social welfare policies, taxation rates, regulation, and liberal outlook are the most successful states. We have more and better education, higher wages, more valuable real estate (a mixed blessing, true), and more innovation and entrepreneurship.

The market has spoken in political economy, and Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Oregon, and Washington, among others, are the best answer. A mixed economy performs better for more people than either a laissez-faire economy or a socialist economy. Deft regulation beats no regulation or heavy-handed regulation.

Thanksgiving

The Native Americans who mourn on Thanksgiving are missing the point, I think. Thanksgiving is a holiday of aspirations. No, the pleasant mythic story of a feast of cooperation at harvest time does not reflect the harsh, real history, but it reminds us of what gifts we have received and what gifts we should give. The history is in fact a goading reproach to European-Americans to remember the deeds of our forebears and to better them.

At least that's what I think, sated on turkey and every starch under the New England sky.