<< COLUMN DRAGGED OUT OF AMBULANCE AND BEATEN ~ MAIN ~ DOWD ISN’T NECESSARY >>

DANISH GAINS

Christopher Hitchens:

A note of cheer to all those Slate readers who either attended the Solidarity With Denmark rally, or sent encouragement, or rallied round to buy Danish goods. I have today received a note from one of the Copenhagen editors who published the original cartoons, informing me that in the last quarter, Danish exports to the United States have increased by 17 percent and that, overall, the Danish economy has more than compensated for the results of the unjustified Muslim boycott. Let us keep this example in mind.

Via Jim Nolan. More—thanks to Tom Pechinski—on current Danish attitudes here.

UPDATE. More from Hitch.

Posted by Tim B. on 06/13/2006 at 11:21 AM
  1. Maybe this explains the turnaround too:
    http://tinyurl.com/gtq2o

    War toys rule!

    Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 13 at 11:29 AM • permalink

  2. I shop at Jysk!

    Posted by hollingshead on 2006 06 13 at 11:35 AM • permalink

  3. Freaking awesome. Maybe this will start a new marketing trend for businesses:

    “The Cadillac CTS… That Goat-Humper Mohammud Wouldn’t Have the Grapes To Drive a Car This Powerful.”

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 06 13 at 11:38 AM • permalink

  4. I’m buying way more Danish cheese.

    Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 06 13 at 12:37 PM • permalink

  5. I should thank the Islamo-fascists. Without their ridiculous rampaging windbaggedness, I never would have discovered the joy of Lurpak butter.

    Posted by James Waterton on 2006 06 13 at 12:39 PM • permalink

  6. 4.I’m buying way more Danish cheese.
    How about some Danish ham to go with it?

    Posted by lmassie on 2006 06 13 at 12:43 PM • permalink

  7. CNN is reporting that the recent Gaza beach bombing that killed a Palestinian family was not caused by an errant Israeli missile, but rather a landmine planted by Palestinian militants.  CNN reports:

    An explosion on a Gaza beach that killed seven people last week was caused by explosives planted there by Palestinian militants, not artillery fire from an Israeli navy gunboat, Israeli military sources said.

    The liberal media (a.k.a.The New York Times) and many historically anti-Israel countries such as France and Russia have harshly condemned Israel.  Hamas has used the false accusations to rallying the Palestinian people back into a bloody war against Israel.

    Posted by lmassie on 2006 06 13 at 12:48 PM • permalink

  8. Well, all right.  Go, Dansk!

    As for the Palestinians, what was that other thread about?  Cannibalism?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 06 13 at 01:06 PM • permalink

  9. Don’t send the letter to us!  Send the bleeping thing to al Jawhatsit!!

    Posted by yojimbo on 2006 06 13 at 01:18 PM • permalink

  10. It’s a real pleasure to learn that Denmark hasn’t suffered export setbacks.

    Even in Karachi, where I live at the moment,  supermarkets that initially banned Danish cheeses and Lurpak butter very quickly learned that they were loosing a lot of business. They are such hypocrits, aren’t they?

    Unfortunately Pakistan has censored all blogspot sites - and quite a lot of on-line newspapers that published the cartoons.

    They missed you site though, Tim..lol

    Posted by Lewana on 2006 06 13 at 01:42 PM • permalink

  11. #7 And the irony is that CNN, just after reporting that the Palis were responsible for the beach deaths (and without an apology from CNN for getting it wrong), then went onto report that the Palis were claiming that ambulance workers were wounded by a 2nd IDF strike at the same site as the one that killed the Pali rocket expert and his buddies in a van shortly before.

    Posted by andycanuck on 2006 06 13 at 01:56 PM • permalink

  12. As for the Palestinians, what was that other thread about?  Cannibalism?

    Nah, cannibals are at least killing with a plan. The Palestinians (yes, individual exceptions apply, void where prohibited, etc.) are just too much in love with senseless violence, and basically too stupid to live, it seems.

    Posted by PW on 2006 06 13 at 01:58 PM • permalink

  13. Re #7, I guess the Palis never of land mine signs.  Assuming that they can read, I mean.  Or care about protecting their own people.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 13 at 02:52 PM • permalink

  14. Palestinians use land mines? Ohhhhhhh, now they’re going to have to answer to Paul McCartney!

    Posted by Rob C. on 2006 06 13 at 03:06 PM • permalink

  15. I’ve got a recipe that calls for Havarti and ham. 

    Just doin’ my part to resist tyranny.

    Posted by Achillea on 2006 06 13 at 03:22 PM • permalink

  16. “I have today received a note from one of the Copenhagen editors who published the original cartoons, informing me that in the last quarter, Danish exports to the United States have increased by 17 percent and that, overall, the Danish economy has more than compensated for the results of the unjustified Muslim boycott.”

    Is this just too funny or what? Maybe we should line up to ask muslims to boycott us….please…..me next

    Posted by JerryS on 2006 06 13 at 05:49 PM • permalink

  17. I was out shopping the other day and noticed that Lurpak butter has a decent position on the shelves where I’d never seen it before.

    Since today is shopping day, and butter is on the list, looks like Lurpak!

    (That was in a Safeway supermarket!)

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 06 13 at 06:09 PM • permalink

  18. Great stuff!
    Americans look after their mates.

    Posted by Brian on 2006 06 13 at 06:54 PM • permalink

  19. Dont you just love these muslims, has there ever been a more clueless bunch of f**kwits on the face of this planet, i mean with the exception of our own deluded and brainfried so called intelligentsia.

    Posted by phillip on 2006 06 13 at 07:10 PM • permalink

  20. P S; Lego Rockz!!

    Posted by phillip on 2006 06 13 at 07:12 PM • permalink

  21. #20 Phillip,
    Lego does indeed rock!, Iv’e been collecting it for about thirty years now and I am never going to stop. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to play with my TIE fighter( or maybe my vikings, the agony of choice!).

    Posted by Daniel San on 2006 06 13 at 07:42 PM • permalink

  22. I make a point of buying Lurpak at the supermarket, Danish blue cheese at the Vic market and Carlsberg beer at Dan Murphy’s.

    Posted by John B on 2006 06 13 at 08:33 PM • permalink

  23. Where is it written in the Koran that those who publish images of Danish cheese should not die?

    Time to take a stand.

    http://www.cheesesupply.com/popup_image.php?pID=178

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 06 13 at 10:04 PM • permalink

  24. #7 . I knew it !!  Israeli gunners would NEVER target a “Pali” family picknicking by the sea side!!

    Posted by Marky on 2006 06 13 at 10:33 PM • permalink

  25. I myself have bought a not-inconsiderable amount of Lego in the last year.  My two year old certainly approves of our political stand.

    Posted by Andrew on 2006 06 13 at 11:09 PM • permalink

  26. I cannot believe that Hitchens is still beating this poor, dead horse. Hitchens takes data, and then spins it to coincide with his fanciful beliefs. Hitchens’ portrayal of Saddam as a jihadist is absurd, while the allegation that al-Zarqawi belonged to al-Qaeda before 2004 is simply false.

    Hitchens correctly formulates a response to his own statement: Zarqawi wouldn’t have been in Iraq at all if not for the US invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, but characteristically, Hitchens provides his own misleading response, which is that al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war. Partially true, however, he was in Kurdistan and the bordering area of Iran, beyond the reach of Hussein. He only began operating outside of the Ansar al-Islam camp after the war. In fact, a final riposte would be to point out that the White House rejected proposed attacks on al-Zarqawi’s Ansar al-Islam camp in Khurmal, northern Kurdistan on 3 separate occasions before the war began.

    In this month’s Atlantic Magazine article about al-Zarqawi, a former high-level Jordanian intelligence official is quoted as stating: “We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself…And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam. Iran is quite a different matter. The Iranians had a policy: they want to control Iraq. And part of this policy has been to support Zarqawi tactically, but not strategically.”

    One of the problems with Hitchens is that he takes the same old canards and simply recycles them practically every week.

    Posted by Addamo on 2006 06 13 at 11:34 PM • permalink

  27. I knew it !!  Israeli gunners would NEVER target a “Pali” family picknicking by the sea side!!

    Damn right they wouldn’t.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 06 14 at 01:03 AM • permalink

  28. #26 Addamo

    -“the allegation that al-Zarqawi belonged to al-Qaeda before 2004 is simply false.”

    (1) In 1989, Zarqawi travelled to Afghanistan to join the insurgency against the Soviet invasion, but the Soviets were already leaving by the time he arrived. It is thought that he met and befriended Osama bin Laden while there.

    (2) Jordanian and European intelligence agencies claim that Zarqawi formed the group Jund al-Sham in 1999 with $200,000 of start up money from Osama bin Laden.

    (3) In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

    Addamo - “al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war. Partially true, however, he was in Kurdistan and the bordering area of Iran, beyond the reach of Hussein.”

    (1) From ‘Khaleej Times’(19 May 2005):“The regime of Saddam Hussain rejected repeated requests from Jordan to hand over Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who now heads Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Jordanian king said in an interview published on Thursday.

    King Abdullah II told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat that Jordan exerted “big efforts” with Saddam’s government to extradite al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian sentenced to death at home for terrorist activities.

    “But our demands that the former regime hand him over were in vain,” Abdullah said.

    “We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring country, where he lived and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but they didn’t respond,” the king said.”

    That Saddam was playing footsie with Islamonuts, particularly of the Sunni Arab variety, is apparent and growing more so.

    Addamo - “the White House rejected proposed attacks on al-Zarqawi’s Ansar al-Islam camp in Khurmal, northern Kurdistan on 3 separate occasions before the war began.”

    (1) Former CIA official Michael Scheuer told reporters that the Bush Administration “had Mr. Zarqawi in his sights for almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn’t shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq.”

    Now on two counts, that WAS a mistake.

    Addamo - ” ‘The Iranians had a policy: they want to control Iraq. And part of this policy has been to support Zarqawi tactically, but not strategically.’”

    I find it difficult to believe that the late child molester was trucking with the hated Shiites - Iranian or otherwise.  A day before Zarqawi was killed, a U.S. strategic analysis site suggested that Zarqawi could have lost the trust of al-Qaeda due to his emphatic anti-Shia stance and the massacres of civilians allegedly committed in his name.

    I have lifted some of this from a well-sourced Wikipedia article - disputed, of course.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zarqawi#_note-molestation

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 06 14 at 03:15 AM • permalink

  29. FWIW, there’s more danish food on the shelves in Bahrain than there was before the boycott.

    Or I’m just noticing it.  That could be it.

    Posted by Kevin on 2006 06 14 at 03:25 AM • permalink

  30. Oh, and I didn’t make it to Safeway today so I shopped at Coles. In the dairy section, there was no Lurpak, but there were two new brands that were labelled: Danish Style butter.

    I laughed hard at that one, and you’ve got to give points to the opportunists out there. God bless capitalism.

    I didn’t buy either of them, however. I don’t know either of the producers, even if they are Australian based. Will have to grab some Lurpak after.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 06 14 at 04:40 AM • permalink

  31. The answer to islamic fascism is to empower Evangelical Christian Africa. Black Africa will do the rest.

    Posted by Astonished on 2006 06 14 at 05:50 AM • permalink

  32. I may have overstepped with the ‘child molester’ tag but it is thought that the Z-Man was jailed on sexual assault charges in Jordan in his late teens or early twenties.

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 06 14 at 05:52 AM • permalink

  33. #25 Andrew,
    Lego is for children?!.

    Posted by Daniel San on 2006 06 14 at 06:04 AM • permalink

  34. I’m yumming up Danish cheese and butter.  Islamonuts should ban more stuff, so’s I could try out new things.

    Posted by ushie on 2006 06 14 at 06:50 AM • permalink

  35. Addamo,

    There are lots of other links between Saddam and Al Quada as well. For instance Mohammed Atta’s meetings with the Iraqi Secret Police in Prague.

    Go ahead, post chapter and verse how the meetings never took place. Puhleeze. I will happily rip your arguments to shreds.

    The idea that a secular state would never ally with jihadis is just that, an idea. It proves nothing, and there are plenty of counter-examples of alliances between people whose interests allign only temporarily.

    Stalin allied with both Hitler and Roosevelt. He figured that he would slit their throats, and ours, later. To assert a negative, “a secular state would never ally with jihadists”, is to make an argument that will not withstand a counterexample.

    Posted by moptop on 2006 06 14 at 07:41 AM • permalink

  36. “The FBI has gathered evidence indicating that Atta was in Virginia
    Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank surveillance camera photo),
    and in Coral Springs, Florida on April 11, where he and Shehhi leased
    an apartment.On April 6, 9, 10, and 11,Atta’s cellular telephone was used
    numerous times to call various lodging establishments in Florida from
    cell sites within Florida.We cannot confirm that he placed those calls.
    But there are no U.S. records indicating that Atta departed the country
    during this period. Czech officials have reviewed their flight and bor=
    der records as well for any indication that Atta was in the Czech Repub=
    lic in April 2001, including records of anyone crossing the border who
    even looked Arab.They have also reviewed pictures from the area near
    the Iraqi embassy and have not discovered photos of anyone who looked
    like Atta.”

    911 Commision Report

    So they concluded the meetings never took place because Atta did not enter the country traveling under his own name, and he didn’t meet with the Iraqis at their embassy.

    The Czech official who claims that Attah was not there says “Why would he not travel under his own name, since he had not yet commited a crime?”

    One reason might be to cover involvement of the Iraqis in an operation where a heave military reaction by the US was likely to materialize.

    Posted by moptop on 2006 06 14 at 08:00 AM • permalink

  37. Hitchens’ portrayal of Saddam as a jihadist is absurd,” So Saddam could never ally with Al Quaeda, because Al Quaeda is not secular, and Saddam is, if I follow his logic.

    But he has no problem allying Zarqawi, who, if known for anything, is known for his hatred of the Shia, and with a strategy of brutal murder of Shia, and destruction of Shia holy sites, with Shia Iran.

    Iran is quite a different matter

    So which is it Adamo?

    Posted by moptop on 2006 06 14 at 08:40 AM • permalink

  38. moptop, right

    When scum have common enemies, why should they suddenly become particular?  There’s always the idea that the partner of convenience can be kept on ice until the proper time.  Think of Hitler and Stalin.

    On my earlier comment that Z Man was perhaps not a child molester, I meant that rather than ‘touching’ them, he preferred to kill them.  So that’s not bad then… 

    God, how can you touch bottom with these specimens?

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 06 14 at 09:38 AM • permalink

  39. And yet it was ‘secular’ Saddam who added Allah Akbar to the Iraqi flag in January ‘91.  Fancy that.

    Posted by Achillea on 2006 06 14 at 09:39 AM • permalink

  40. You were right on the first count, Inurbanus.  It’s reported that Zarqawi’s 16-year-old wife was in the house with him when the US bombed it.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 06 14 at 09:58 AM • permalink

  41. Love this from Hitch:

    “Furthermore, the Zarqawi elements appear [before the war] to have found it their duty to join with the Ansar al-Islam splinter group in Kurdistan, which for some reason thought it was the highest calling of jihad to murder Saddam’s main Kurdish enemies. But perhaps I have a suspicious mind.”

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 06 14 at 10:08 AM • permalink

  42. dave s,
    adammo said that was a “canard”, so that disproves it then. no counter evidence required. the only higher standard of proof would be if he had called you a name.

    Posted by moptop on 2006 06 14 at 10:21 AM • permalink

  43. Or a big “nuh-uhhhh!

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 06 14 at 02:58 PM • permalink

  44. ‘Canard’ also happens to be French for ‘duck.’ 

    Coincidence?  I think not.

    Posted by Achillea on 2006 06 14 at 03:25 PM • permalink

  45. RebeccaH

    How could they have been happy?  He was into Bach; she dug Wham. Always out of the house, she felt, somehow, that he was up to no good. Then, with the progress of her adolescence, his eyes began to wander.

    Seriously, I feel very sorry for this poor girl and her child. God knows how little choice she had in the matter.

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 06 14 at 08:02 PM • permalink

  46. Islamopsychos are now killing themselves in Gitmo to stoke condemnation from western leftoids. 

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19472055-7583,00.html

    Regrettably, they were not able to take others with them when they died.  Merely a part of the regime of deprivation and torture being practised at Gitmo.  Among so much else they are deprived of their right to asymmetrical political expression.  Amnesty International must request relief supplies of suicide belts.

    Posted by Inurbanus on 2006 06 14 at 08:40 PM • permalink

  47. ’Canard’ also happens to be French for ‘duck.’

    French Canardian?

    Posted by AlburyShifton on 2006 06 15 at 01:19 AM • permalink

  48. #24 Good boy Marky -we knew you’d come round.

    Posted by crash on 2006 06 15 at 09:11 AM • permalink

  49. Page 1 of 1 pages

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

Members:
Login | Register | Member List

Please note: you must use a real email address to register. You will be sent an account activation email. Clicking on the url in the email will automatically activate your account. Until you do so your account will be held in the "pending" list and you won't be able to log in. All accounts that are "pending" for more than one week will be deleted.