Magic Statistics

Britain, formerly famous as the home of those wonderful breakfasts of bacon, sausage, and haggis (the latter in Scotland only–pity!) , will have to adapt its culinary tastes if present trends continue: Pigs are on the way to being banned. It seems they offend Muslims, and we can't have that. I say, old chap, better to be pro-active in forestalling offence. Maybe we won't get bombed again. (Do you think?)

In a council (local government) office in the West Midlands, no more pigs are allowed. Well, not real pigs–there never were any of those in the office–but pictures, calendars, and novelty toys of pigs. "Councillor Mahbubur Rahman, a practising Muslim, backed the ban. He said: 'It’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs'". Sounds more like intolerance to me. But what do I know? I love bacon.

And then there's this. "Police here in central England seized a collection of porcelain pigs from a house's window sill after Muslims complained that they were offensive." This is seriously weird. Exactly what law was broken? What ever happened a man's home is his castle–or, in this case, pig sty?

The indispensable Mark Steyn weighs in, and he's much funnier than I:

A year and a half ago, I mentioned in this space the Florentine Boar, a famous piece of porcine statuary in Derby that the council had decided not to have repaired on the grounds that it would offend Muslims. Having just seen Looney Tunes: Back in Action, in which Porky Pig mentions en passant that Warner Bros has advised him to lose the stammer, I wondered if for the British release it might be easier just to lose the pig.

Seriously, this signals a complete loss of cultural self-confidence by the British governing authorities. Muslims who hate the West just because we exist will see this as a sign of surrender–of terminal weakness. If this madness isn't stopped, pork will be illegal before long. Britain is embracing dhimmitude with hardly a struggle.

Those Muslims must really hate this web page.

From Robert Spencer's Dhimmi Watch site, this definition of dhimmitude:

Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race.

More on the pig problem across the pond from Kathy Shaidle here, here, and here.

UPDATE: Joel of On the Other Foot reminds me that haggis is made from sheep. Thanks, Joel. I should have remembered that. So, haggis is still kosher to Muslims. (Hah!)

Mao Tse-tung, the man who led the Communist takeover of China in 1949 and governed the country for almost 30 years, "must rank as the greatest monster in human history". So says Keith Windschuttle, reviewing Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, in the current issue of The New Criterion.

Chang and Halliday calculate that over the course of his political career from 1920 to 1976, Mao was responsible for the deaths of 70 million Chinese. This is more than the total killings attributable to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin combined. The biggest single number of Chinese dead was the 38 million who perished in the famine of the four years from 1958 to 1961, during the so-called Great Leap Forward.

While Chinese were starving by the millions, Chairman Mao confiscated harvests and exported the food to Communist eastern Europe in trade for armaments.

Chang and Halliday also chronicle the stream of useful idiots who traveled to China to share tea with Mao and subsequently lionize the chairman in the West. Among them was Canada's own Pierre Elliott Trudeau, later to become philosopher-king-Prime Minister.

During the Great Leap Forward, a small number of Chinese escaped by swimming across to Hong Kong where they broke the news about the nationwide famine and the brutality of the regime. The press gave them little credence. Instead, the West was fed a steady diet of propaganda from respectable political leaders and writers who asserted the opposite. The future Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau visited in 1960 and wrote a starry-eyed, aptly titled book, Two Innocents in Red China, which said nothing about the famine. Britain's Field Marshal Montgomery visited in both 1960 and 1961 and asserted there was "no large-scale famine, only shortages in certain areas". He did not regard the shortages as Mao's fault and urged him to hang on to power: "China needs the chairman. You mustn’t abandon this ship." The United Nations was completely ineffectual. Its Food and Agricultural Organization made an inspection in 1959, declaring that food production had increased by 50 to 100 percent in the past five years: "China seems capable of feeding [its population] well." When the French socialist leader, François Mitterand, visited in 1961, Mao told him: "I repeat it, in order to be heard: There is no famine in China." Mitterand dutifully reported this assurance to a credulous world. At the same time, Mao enlisted three writers he knew he could trust–—Edgar Snow, Han Suyin, and Felix Greene–—to spread his message through articles, books, and a celebrated BBC television interview between a fawning Greene and Chou En-lai.

Read the whole thing.

Keith Windschuttle, maverick Australian historian, has his own website, which is definitely worth a look.

21 October will mark the 200th anniversary of the British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. On that day in 1805, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British Royal Navy crushed a larger combined fleet of French and Spanish naval vessels off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Admiral Nelson was commander of the 27 British vessels and Admiral Villeneuve commanded the 33 French and Spanish vessels. As they headed into battle, Nelson signaled the fleet: "England expects that every man will do his duty". Nelson had a radical plan: to divide his force and sail in two columns directly toward the enemy ships arranged in the usual broadside formation. This exposed British ships to direct fire and effectively eliminated their ability to respond. By use of this surprise tactic, Nelson hoped to slice through the Franco-Spanish line, split the enemy force, and allow his better-trained British soldiers to use their superior weaponry and sailing skills at close range.

The plan succeeded brilliantly: 18 French and Spanish ships were destroyed, while the Royal Navy did not lose a one. Casualties were similarly lop-sided: 7,000 French and Spanish sailors were killed, compared to only 1,700 British. However, Nelson himself was shot by a sniper in the fray; he died a few hours later, knowing he had won a great victory.

The Battle of Trafalgar put an end to Napoleon’s ambitions to invade and conquer England.

Trafalgar Square in London was built in 1840 to commemorate Nelson’s triumph. The square is dominated by a 44-metre column topped by a 6-metre statue of Nelson.

The anniversary isn’t for over two weeks, so why am I posting this today? Because in this morning’s London’s Daily Telegraph, I saw this very neat Shockwave animation of the battle. Check it out.