I have finally finished America Alone. I can’t believe it took me so long, but what can ya do. Regardless, it was pretty much super awesome. He talked more about Europe, how welfare states require higher birthrates, and since European birthrates are definitely not high enough to sustain the large chunks of welfare being handed out, they are relying on immigration to keep the system going. So influx of Muslims + decreasing “Westernized” inhabitants = decrease in Western culture and increase of Islamic culture. With me so far? Yeah, I’ll just let Steyn do the talking now. I wrote down most of the page numbers, but sometimes I forgot to:

“When I made my observation about multiple Mohammeds in the news, Merle Ricklefs, a professor at the National University of Singapore and South-East Asian Editor of the sixteen volume Encyclopedia of Islam, remarked sarcastically, ‘Deep thinking, indeed.’ Well, gosh, maybe it’s not terribly sophisticated.”
-pg 64

“Mohammed is

a) the most popular baby boys name in much of the Western world
b) the most common name of terrorists and murderers
c) the name of the most revered prophet of the West’s fastest growing religion”

-pg 65

“Oil isn’t the principle Saudi export, ideology is – petroleum merely bankrolls it.”

“When you’re up against a globablized ideology, you need to globalize your own, not hunker down in fortress America.”

“In the 1930’s there were plenty of ‘moderate Germans,’ but a fat load of good they did us or them.”

On apologetic Christianity: “There’s no market for a faith that has no faith in itself.”

Product of U.S Military presence in Europe = Europe has spent no money on its own defense.

“Men of intemperate mind can never be free; their passions forge their fetters.”
-Edmund Burke

“Stability is a fancy term to dignify inertia and complacency as sophistication.”

“Sir Richard Turnbull, high commissioner of Aden, remarked bleakly to Defense Secretary Denis Healy that the British Empire would be remembered for only two things – ‘the popularization of Association Football’ [soccer] and the term “f-ck off.” Instead of their bizarre self-flagellation, the British might usefully deploy the latter formulation toward those kinky Eurofetishists who think the future lies in liquidating English law, custom and parliamentary democracy within the conglomeration of failed nation states that make up the European Union.”
-pg 168

For what it is, Journey to the Center of the Earth isn’t horrendous. It’s entertaining enough – just don’t expect much plot or character development and you’ll be fine. I went mainly for the 3D DINOSAURS which were friggin’ sweet, but they might have caught the short end of finances ’cause the T-Rex only has like, a 3 minute spot. There was no Great Saurian Combat in the ocean, just some Great Saurian Fish Eating…which was not bad, but just not the same.

However, I did like how they acknowledged the original book and didn’t pretend this movie was a direct adaptation. There’s even a part where Brenden Fraser is reading out loud from the book as he is exploring with his nephew and guide (Hannah, as opposed to Hans – clever).

I have to say though, the landscape at the center of the earth was really well done. For the most part, it looked a lot like how I had pictured it.

They attempted in no way to explain the science, of course. They go to the center of the earth and back in like, 2 days, whereas in the book it took 6 months or something. It didn’t remotely care to explain how our explorer’s heads didn’t implode as they rapidly fell a billion feet below sea level or explode on their way up – but that wasn’t the point. The point was to see a lot of cool 3D stuff, which they succeeded at, I’d say. Although they could have cut a lot of the mine-car scene and given the Saurians more time….

Oh, and I wanted Brenden Fraser to get eaten by the end of it. Everyone’s one-liners were brutal, but his especially. I was rooting for the dinosaur that was chasing him….

Anyways, I give it 3/5.

There was this kid in Grade 8 that I had a mondo crush on who always had a Louis L’amour book in his hand. So, a few weeks ago I was at my friend’s cabin and what do I see on the shelf? A Louis L’amour book called Kid Rodelo. My friend let me borrow it, and since this past week was the Calgary Stampede, I figured it would be a great time to read a Western.

It was alright, but honestly kind of boring. It was a super short book, only 150 pages, so it felt like I was reading the script for some half-hour TV show. Basically Dan Rodelo used to be a gunfighter until he left that life behind and became an honest man. He then got accidentally caught up with an outlaw and served a year in jail for a robbery he never committed, and is now on his way across the desert to find the money that was buried and return it, clearing his name. No real plot twists or surprises, although Dan’s motives for finding the money are kept hidden till close to the end. And there’s a girl – whom Dan gets. Hooray!

So, now that I know what that kid in Grade 8 was always reading, I’m probably done my excursion into Louis L’amour books =P

So, let me just start off my saying that Mark Steyn is pretty much my hero. Oh, the Human Rights Council or whatever crazy group has dropped the lawsuit against him! Yeah, yeah!

Anyways, the book starts off with demography – birth rates and such. Basically, Canada and Europe’s ‘Western’ countries and communities have a significantly lower birthrate than that of Muslim countries and communities. The Muslim population is growing, and a high percentage of that population is under 17. Also, since most of Europe’s birth rate is so low, it means that the socialist system there is slowly collapsing because more people are retiring and receiving welfare than are working and putting money into the system. Welfare states require higher birthrates. Woot.

That’s the first part of the book in a nutshell. I’m about a third of the way through this book, so you’ll see more posts later. =) But here are some of the excerpts and notes I have so far:

“Nothing makes a citizen more selfish than socially equitable communitarianism: once a fellow’s enjoying the fruits of government health care and all the rest, he couldn’t give a hoot about the general societal interest;; he’s got his, and if it’s going to bankrupt the state a generation hence, well, as long as they can keep the checks coming till he’s dead, it’s fine by him.”

“These [social] programs would be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover them each month. They corrode the citizen’s sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree.”

Europe’s government becomes to the citizen what a pusher is to addict.

“I don’t think everything is about jihad. But I do think, as I said, that a good 90 percent of everything is about demography.”

“We’re the ones who will change you. Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.”

-Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar

“As clashes of civilization go, this one’s between two extremes: on the one hand, a world that has everything it needs to wage a decisive war – wealth, armies, industry, technology; on the other, a world that has nothing but pure ideology and plenty of believers. Everything else it requires can be picked up at Radio Shack: cell phones and laptops, which, along with ATM cards and some dime-store box-cutters, were all it took to pull off September 11.”

“Nobody wants to be unpleasant or judgmental, do they? What was it they said in the Cold War? Better dead than Red. We’re not like that anymore. Better screwed than rude.”

Ours is a “…present tense culture of complete self-absorption.”

“Appeasement is a vote to live in the present tense, to hold the comforts of the moment.”

What a hero. I’ll help Mark Steyn increase the birthrate anyday.

I’m kidding!