Fitna removed from LiveLeak

Yesterday LiveLeak showed the film Fitna in its site.

Today Michael VanderGalien tells me they have removed it due to death threats:

Official LiveLeak statement

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed comments from certain members of the British media that could directly affect the safety of some staff members, liveleak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.

This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.

Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one another’s culture.

We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

You can watch the statement here.

Gates of Vienna has a list of sites where you can watch the film. Atlas Shrugs and Jawa also have it.

UPDATE
Alfahosting (alfahosting.be) has also suspended Michael's PoliGazette's account and email.

Phyllis Chesler has more. Little Green Footballs has the video, too.
Don't miss The Psychotic Core (h/t Larwyn).



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Wretchard on terrorism, and the name of God

Richard Fernandez, Belmont Club's own Wretchard, was my podcast guest last Friday. Siggy co-hosted, and it was a most interesting podcast, as you would expect any conversation with them to be.

During our conversation, Richard raised a point on terrorism in South East Asia,

Terrorism in South East Asia is a little less deeply rooted in the culture of the area except insofar as it's rooted in the old traditions of piracy and banditry."

The conversation then led to the subject of failed societies. Siggy posts,

In fact, the terrorists aims are deliberately misrepresented- and that is in their interest and the interest of the those who appropriate those causes to serve their own ideologies. The terrorists and their supporters don’t want to see western values (i.e., democratic principles) and successes brought into the Muslim world because western values and successes are antithetical to the ideologies of terrorist and their supporters. Terror flourishes when societies fail. Introduce values that embrace individual freedoms and the freedoms that allow an individual to succeed, and support for terror vanishes.

The petri dish of terror is failure.

If the terrorists and their supporters and apologists really wanted to better the lives of hundreds of millions of oppressed people, they would use America western freedoms as models for success. Instead, terrorists and their supporters seek to destroy the freedoms that have authored success. They deliberately want to keep failed leaders and failed ideologies in place.

Are European societies surrendering themselves to failed ideologies? Today Richard has a post, The Nine Billionth Name of God, on the Dutch Catholic bishop who espouses the absurd notion that "people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding". Richard says,

And that in a way, perfectly describes what has transpired in the post-everything world of Europe. The names of God did not matter to the jaded intellectuals until the last. Allah is the nine billionth name of God. And now the stars, without the slightest fuss, are going out.

By failing to understand that what we call God does matter, Bishop Tiny Muskens (that is his real name) has handed the enemies of Western values - to use Siggy's words - the petri dish of terror.

What to do against terror? In the podcast, Richard said,

One of the best things we can do is simply stand up...because it creates a nucleus around which a resistance is in place.

We didn't discuss the Dutch bishop on Friday's podcast, but listen to why it is important to understand how failed societies beget terror here.

Update
Great minds think alike: As I was posting this, Siggy was pondering Evil, On Borrowed Time
Update 2
Professor Bainbridge:

Words matter. To a person of faith, no word matters more than the name of God.

Jeff Kouba of Truth v. The Machine calls it Another Surrender of Breda

More at Memeorandum.

Today on Blog Talk Radio: Pieter Dorsman

UPDATED: Listen to the podcast, and read Peaktalk's post

Holland has a population of 16 million, yet

In the first nine months of last year a record number of Dutch packed their bags with some 100,000 leaving the country, an increase of 12% on the previous year.

Pieter Dorsman of Peaktalk is my guest today at noon. We'll discuss this topic, Europe, and more. Join us!

The Dial In Number is (646) 652-2639
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This was a most interesting podcast. Siggy and Mary, both of which had been my guests, called in. I'll post more about it once the podcast is archived.
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Update: You can listen to the podcast
Pieter Dorsman posts,

It is important to understand that failed Muslim integration to a large extent has resulted from the long held belief that allowing different religious pillars to exist in The Netherlands would contribute to a solution like it had in the past for the Catholic-Protestant divide on which the nation was built. The problem is that a template for neutralizing religious tensions between a culturally and economically largely homogenous group has limited use to integrate a group that both ethnically and economically occupies a different and separate world. Add to that the fact that Catholic and Protestant structures have largely become defunct in one of Europe's most secular nations and you can picture the divergent tracks in Dutch society.

Secondly, following on caller Siggy's questions – check out his blog here – the EU has gone through very different stages. From an economic project to a political "counterweight to the US" effort and now that its sheer size makes it impossible to foster a single European identity, a rather uncertain future. Again, the years of a Franco-German axis setting a largely political agenda appear to have waned, but it is not unthinkable that a possible Merkel-Sarkozy alliance could breathe new life into it. They could however shift the attention towards more economic reform and growth, but that is hopeful speculation on my part.

Go read the rest of his post.

I hope to have Pieter as a guest again soon.

Next Monday on Blog Talk Radio

On Monday, April 9 at noon, my guest will be Pieter Dorsman of Peaktalk. We'll talk about his article Time to get out, and the Netherlands.