Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.

With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed, mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden — measured in the hundreds of billions of euros — as sufferers become too unwell to work and personal relationships break down.

“Mental disorders have become Europe’s largest health challenge of the 21st century,” the study’s authors said.

At the same time, some big drug companies are backing away from investment in research on how the brain works and affects behavior, putting the onus on governments and health charities to stump up funding for neuroscience.

“The immense treatment gap … for mental disorders has to be closed,” said Hans Ulrich Wittchen, director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Germany’s Dresden University and the lead investigator on the European study.

“Those few receiving treatment do so with considerable delays of an average of several years and rarely with the appropriate, state-of-the-art therapies.”

Wittchen led a three-year study covering 30 European countries — the 27 European Union member states plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway — and a population of 514 million people.

Let’s not kid around. When you’d rather be on the dole than taking care of yourself, you’re nuts.  When you think the world owes you a living, you’ve definitely gone bonkers.  When you think the solution to keeping your government benefits is to import foreign workers who are hostile to your very way of life and basic beliefs, you’re crazy.  When you think it’s natural to  live like a dependent teenager up to the age of 40 or so, you’re positively certifiable.

Of course, the American elite, whether political, social or academic, seems to think that Europeans do almost everything better, and frequently compare the USA to Europe in a way they think is unfavorable to the USA.

I’m pretty sure, though, that only 19% of America is crazy.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 19% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president.

Proving, I think, that only half as many Americans are as crazy as Europeans.

A new abortion law went into effect in Spain this Monday, July 5, which raises abortion to the status of a civil right. Abortion was first legalized in Spain in 1985, but was permissible only under three circumstances:

1) To save the life of the mother.
2) In the case of rape and incest.
3) In the case of fetal abnormalities (http://www.clinicasabortos.com/aborto-legal.asp).

In February of this year, the PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) – Spain’s ruling party – succeeded in getting its new abortion law approved by Parliament. It was subsequently signed by both José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (Spanish Prime Minister and member of the PSOE) and Juan Carlos I (King of Spain). The new law codifies that women have the “right” to obtain abortions up to the 14th week of gestation, no questions asked.

Check the yellow pages of your USA phone book, and you’ll probably find abortion “clinics” offering abortions up to 24 or 26 weeks… no questions asked.

The debate surrounding the law had already struck a nerve with the Spanish people and spurred them into action even before anything had been approved. Grassroots pro-life organizations such as Hazte Oír (http://www.hazteoir.org/) and Derecho a Vivir (http://derechoavivir.org/) took Zapatero and the PSOE to task immediately, and organized a series of very successful demonstrations and ad campaigns to show the strength of the opposition to the liberalization of Spain’s abortion laws. The most famous of these was the demonstration on October 17, 2009 in Madrid, which brought approximately 1.5 million pro-life activists to the Spanish capital (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09101908.html).

Despite the massive show of public disapproval, the bill narrowly passed through Parliament, was signed and officially became law on Monday.

Spain, of course, is in the middle of demographic meltdown, because it simply isn’t replacing its population. So a commitment to higher rates of abortion, a sure outcome of the new law, is a commitment to acceleration of the death spiral, as well as encouraging murder of the most innocent.

Just to compare: in the USA, virtually any fetus can be killed anytime during the first two trimesters, in virtually any jurisdiction.  Some states have managed to limit “late-term” abortion to one degree or another, but the fact is that any woman who wants an abortion at almost any time in the pregnancy can get one, if she wants it badly enough to find a provider of such “services,” even if she has to go to another state to do it.

This is not a way in which the American Left wants to imitate European law, however…  since many European nations have laws more restrictive on abortion than the USA.

I’m not the only one who thinks Britain is doomed.

UPDATE:  Let’s be clear.  When you no longer have the right to the means for self-defense, the so called “right to self-defense” is meaningless.  When you no longer have the right to defend yourself and your family, you no longer have the right to live.  When you no longer have the right to live, you are a thing, a slave….  or just nothing, a cog in a social machine in which you are totally expendable.

Which is probably not a bad definition of a British citizen these days.

France’s top judicial body on Monday recognized the French government’s responsibility for the deportation of Jews during World War II, the clearest such recognition to date of the state’s role in the Holocaust.

The Council of State found that the government of Nazi-occupied France at the time held the responsibility for deportations that led to anti-Semitic persecution

The decision released on Monday also found that the deportation had been compensated for since 1945, apparently ruling out any reparations for deportees or their families.
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Thousands of Jews were deported from France to Nazi death camps during the occupation. After the war, subsequent French governments took decades to acknowledge any role played by the collaborationist Vichy regime in the Holocaust.

Europe is busy bending over backwards to accommodate the Islamic immigrants (and second and third generations of same) that have been used to support European socialism, in the absence of a sufficient birthrate of traditional Europeans to keep the trains running and fund entitlements.

Can any objective observer believe that Europe is less likely to target Jews, or simply allow them to be targeted by Islamic anti-Semites, than it would have been if the slow Islamic invasion hadn’t occurred?  The facts belie any optimisim in the matter:  Jews are being targeted now, and the various states do little except public hand-wringing.

The virulent disdain in which the state of Israel is held by Europe is a mask for something uglier, and not so political as personal, I fear.

If I was a European Jew, I’d get outta Dodge now.  It’s 1933, and the clock is ticking.  A war is coming, not one that really involves Jews directly (being but a continuance of the siege of Vienna in 1683) , but one in which too many of them will be casualties of convenience, and contempt.

The British called – They want their guns back!

Will we make the same mistakes?  I’m not optimistic, given how the recent election went, with Democrats winning big by promising to do the very things the British now regret, from nationalized health care to gun restrictions masquerading as crime prevention.

You have to give Kadima <the ruling party that is almost certain to lose the next election> credit for loyalty: As the Bush administration was destroying any remaining credibility, and undermining its country’s interests, by abandoning a loyal and strategically important ally to Russia’s tender mercies, Israel’s ruling party decided it could not allow its American friends to shoulder the disgrace alone; it, too, should betray Georgia at the expense of its country’s interests. So the minute Russia invaded – just when Georgia needed arms most – Israel, which had hitherto been a prominent Georgian supplier, halted all arms shipments.

One might legitimately ask how this undermined the national interest. After all, Israel desperately needs Russian help on several crucial issues, ranging from Iran’s nuclear program to Hizbullah’s rearmament, and Israel needs Georgian help not at all. Moreover, Russia has made its unhappiness with arms sales to Georgia clear. Thus Kadima seemingly made the correct realpolitik choice.

The problem is that, according to government officials themselves, not only did the country receive no quid pro quo for halting the shipments, but Russia has repeatedly and explicitly declared that it will continue its anti-Israel policies regardless of whether or not Jerusalem sells arms to Georgia. Thus Israel gained nothing by betraying Georgia, while undermining two secondary but still significant interests.

Read it all, and hope that future US policy doesn’t reflect the same mistakes. The motto of the US Marines, “No better friend, no worse enemy”, ought to be true for any democracy supporting another democracy. There cannot be a good end for Russia to believe they can invade neighbors without serious repercussions.

The question is not, “What kind of risks are we willing to accept to defend Georgia’s sovereignty?” The question is, “What are we willing to do to stop Russia from retaking former territory of the Soviet Union, and getting a stranglehold on crucial oil pipelines? What are we willing to do to make sure Russia does not believe another Cold War is to its advantage?“

If we do nothing, or take only symbolic action with no real effect on Russia, this will not stop with Georgia.

It was all wrong, as are most beliefs in the vast impersonal forces that are held to determine human events. The great constant in man’s affairs is change, the direction of that change is determined by human actions, and many of the men and women who take those determinant actions are evil. Machiavelli is not the only sage who recognized it, but he put it nicely: “Man is more inclined to do evil than to do good.” Rational statecraft starts right there.

The American Founders knew it: recognizing man’s innate capacity for evil, they designed a system of checks and balances to thwart the accumulation of power by any group, lest the entire enterprise fall into wicked hands. They knew the battle for liberty would never end, Benjamin Franklin famously warned we would have to fight to keep our republic.

All of this wisdom has been dangerously undermined by the foolish notion that man is basically good, that all men are basically the same, and that all we need do is to permit history to take its preordained course. Are these not the tenets of contemporary education? Are our children not forbidden to criticize “others,” whether of different pigmentation or religion? Has debate on our university campuses not turned into the moral equivalent of the Inquisition? And it rests on the sands of a demonstrably false vision of man. We are not naturally inclined to do good. Quite the contrary; left to our own devices we produce genocide in Europe, Asia and Africa. And the evil spreads, eventually it threatens us, it kills our people here at home and it is straining to kill more of us. Ask the Georgians. Ask Middle Eastern Jews and Christians, or the Iranian, Iraqi or Syrian peoples.

The basic debate needs to begin with a recognition that we have bought into a fable. Without that recognition, we will be incapable of designing the policies we need in order to survive this perilous moment.

As in so many matters, it boils down to theology…. or lack of it. If the Fall is taken seriously, and if human free will is taken seriously, there is no reasonable expectation that “good” can triumph due to human cleverness at constructing “just” social systems. The best we can do is devise systems that make it difficult to do too much evil too quickly, and that spread power sufficiently that no singularly evil person can destroy us. In the end, that’s the promise of republican democracy: things will never be perfect, but they will be manageable. The very worst excesses of our government have been in attempts to do good without taking into account the danger of abuse of the very power that is required to do “good”, or, to be more generous, to do good without considering newly created incentives that lead to unintended consequences.  Frequently, government based attempts to do good have presented unbearable temptations for government to abuse the power it claimed to “do good”.  Congress began spending the Social Security Trust Fund decades ago.  Was there ever a chance that a government which had the power to take your money and give it to someone else would not just spend it outright?

Connected to all of this is the desire to disconnect outcomes from behavior, that is, to provide rewards to people who have not earned them. While this may seem Christian on the surface, in the end it is a way of encouraging poor behavior, and so we get more of it.

This exists on the international stage, where our desire for peace can cause us to tolerate the intolerable, in the hope that if we don’t fight back too hard, maybe the bad behavior will be ameliorated on its own…. a forlorn hope, to say the least.  Right off hand, I don’t recall any dictators who’ve had attacks of conscience and changed their ways, if they thought they could get away with business as usual, meaning what’s yours is theirs, including your life.

We need leaders who are realists about humanity, not dreamers who think humanity is endlessly plastic if placed in a properly ordered society.  We need people who have that essential theological understanding of what human beings are.

First article

Second article

As this analysis makes clear, Obama employs just about every progressive-liberal cliche in the Left’s panoply of double-think and half-truth. He reveals himself to be exactly what objective measures say he is: the farthest Left senator in the United States Senate, and the farthest left nominee for President of the US in history. The main stream dinosaur media won’t report this, or do fair analyses of his speeches, preferring to talk about his tone and delivery, rather than his substance, such as it is.

Instead of holding Obama’s feet to the fire for ducking townhall style debates with John McCain, the media continue to swoon in abject worship at his hypnotic oratory…. when they aren’t throwing their underwear at the stage, like rock-star groupies everywhere. (Except for the French reporters, of course, who are reputed to “go commando”. I really don’t want to think about what they’re throwing at the stage.)

After all, we can’t force Obama to go off teleprompter… people might find out what he really thinks, and how well he thinks, neither of which is conducive to his being elected. Who knows, though: maybe a couple of extra-enthusiastic reporters’ boxers will accidentally land on the teleprompter, and Obama will have to speak off-script because the cameras are rolling.

I can hear it now: “America must cease acting only in its own self-interest and step up to its responsibilities to coordinate multilaterally with… with…. Fruit-Of-The-Loom… and…. and….. Joe Boxer….”

The march of the Big Brother state under Labour was highlighted last night as it was revealed that there are now 1,043 laws that give the authorities the power to enter a home or business.

Nearly half have been introduced since Labour came to power 11 years ago.

These laws include things like checking to see that your plants have a “plant passport”, that your hedge isn’t too high, to investigate whether illegal gambling is happening, to seize your refrigerator if it doesn’t have the correct energy rating, to search for “undeclared carbon dioxide” (no, I didn’t make that up), etc. It’s the nanny state in full flower.

Some 420 new powers of entry are the product of laws introduced since 1997. A further 16 are in laws due to be approved by Parliament in the next few weeks.

A recent study by the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank warned that the ‘proliferation and variety’ of such laws mean householders can no longer ‘realistically be aware’ of their rights and legal obligations.

No kidding. Is it legal for my bed to be 1 meter off the floor? Or is the limit 90 centimeters? How much milk am I allowed to have in the house at one time? How often must I wash my sheets and towels? Is there a limit to the number of chairs I can have? Are my sox too long, or too short? Are my kitchen knives too sharp, too long or too pointy? Is my toothpaste an approved brand? Is it legal for the tube to be squeezed from the middle? These are important matters that the government really must address.

Householders can be fined up to £5,000 if they refuse entry or ‘obstruct’ an official.

In case you aren’t wired into British politics, the Labour Party is the LEFT leaning party in Britain. WAY left. Left of the left lane they drive in. And definitely gonna be “left behind”… or at least they ought to be “left behind”… by the electorate, that is.

Dear George,

Barack’s school theater troup is on a field trip. Isn’t he cute? Don’t you just LOVE the way he delivers speeches? Doesn’t he look GREAT up there? He sounds just like one of the grown-ups when he talks, as long as he stays on script.

He looked so adorable playing with the real soldiers. He could so totally play the role of president in a movie.

It’s pretty clear that improvisational theater will never be his thing, but hey, lots of fine actors just learn their lines and deliver them well, with suitable feeling and gesture.

Uncle Charlie, Uncle Brian and Aunt Katie are SO good with the video cameras: we’re all going to have some great home movies. Wasn’t it sweet of them to come along and video Barack’s trip for the rest of the family, and provide helpful narration of his better work? They’re so good at just getting his best performances on tape, and shooting from the best angles, and downplaying the awkward spots, or even just editing them out. We’ll have to have them over for dinner soon. It’s wonderful to have such fine people in the family.

Isn’t it cool how many of Barack’s friends came with him, and how much they help him get ready for each performance? It really is true that an actor isn’t much by himself, without all the little people backstage helping him out, doing his makeup, selecting wardrobe, helping him study his lines, and all that.

Not every kid gets to take an international tour at school expense, and only meet with the most famous people. I’m sure he’ll always cherish these moments, when he got to rub elbows with the real stars.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think our precocious Barack is having a kind of spiritual experience, feeling a oneness with the people he’s meeting, knowing that he’s really one of THEM, not so much a representative of his own family and school. That feeling of connecting with the audience and getting them to clap and cheer is what he lives for, and he knows he has the gift of making people laugh and cry. I have personally seen laughter turn to tears, in the audience at Barack’s more moving performances. It must really be wonderful to feel so good about yourself, and to know you have such power.

I think he’s probably going to INSIST that people back home treat him the same way from now on, and I’m sure his aunts and uncles will try to help him with that. They know lots of people in the business, and they’re obviously committed to helping him break in.

Barack has really learned how to deal with the critics, who just don’t have his talent. The critics keep blaming him for occasional bad scripts (as if they’re his fault!), even though he performs them flawlessly. And they keep confusing the real performances with his minor little improvisations along the side, and in interviews (when he gives one… He’s really too young to be put under such pressure). People can be so unkind. How can he possibly be expected to think of everything at once when people keep asking him hard questions, questions that other people have spent years thinking about and still aren’t totally sure of the answers? He needs time to think about it, just like anybody else. Trust is in such short supply these days.

After he gets back, once he’s got the audience in the palm of his hand, I think he’s going to raise ticket prices to something a lot more reasonable. He’ll probably give some free performances to the less fortunate, but those people who can afford it at all are really going to have to pony up to keep their season tickets. Or, I suppose, they could just give up and be poor… Then Barack will give them free performances, too. He says he has a way to make people pay for tickets even if they don’t want to attend the theater. I think that’s a good thing; people should support the arts, even if they don’t like them personally.

Also, his friends say (I suspect correctly) that he plans to see what he can do to keep less talented actors and critics from getting so much attention from the public. How can the public be expected to develop any real sense of taste when they’re constantly getting bombarded with unreasonable critics attacking the real stars? Barack plans to do something about that when he has a large enough audience and is in control of a lot more theatrical budgets. Some people just really shouldn’t be allowed on the stage at all. Or even in the theater.

Due to his popularity, I think he’s going to get to appoint the judges for the next talent contest. I’m sure he’ll pick judges with good taste, just like him. And that should help him shut up the unreasonable critics, too.

I hope this update finds you in good health and ready to fund the arts group that is supporting Barack’s next theatrical engagements.

Your friend,

Marko

marko@dailykossack.com