French police kill gunman responsible for school shooting

[Morch]

Finally demographics; I don't want to get too deeply into another potential diversion from the topic, suffice to say I've recently read 3.8 Muslim children are born per family as oppose to a European average of 1.3. In the UK 250,000 emigrate each year. I will save you the maths, save to say there is plenty of studies that contradict the figures in your links.

Not sure where you get your figures from (mine are below). Looks more like EU TFR (total fertility rate) of 1.6 and Muslim TFR in Europe currently 2.2 dropping to 2.0 by 2030.

So looks like JeanPierre is safe for a while yet.

Emigration from the UK also has collapsed since 2008 as people can't sell their houses for silly money anymore.

https://www.cia.gov/...ok/geos/ee.html

http://en.wikipedia....Islam_in_Europe

The main source of immigrants to the UK remains E.Europe and there are now more Poles than Irish and Indians put together. But I suppose to some people that's not too bad as the E.Europeans are suitably Christian, white and almost indigenous looking.

Whoops... perhaps if the Merah types bought more Thai whitening creams and traded in Allah for Asda everyone would be happy.

Here another almost back on topic thought...

How many people have died in Europe at the hands of Muslim extremists in the last 30 years?

Too bloody many!

Quite right. Yet....

Merah and his fellow Islamic jihadists/extremists, have murdered just under 300 people in Europe since 1982. The main incidents were the El Descano bombing, Spain,1985 (18 dead); 1995 Paris Metro bombings (8); 2004 Madrid train bombings (191); 2005 London bombings (52); and Merah's brutal spree 2012 (7).

By comparison during the same 30 year period 1227 people were murdered during the conflict in Northern Ireland, even though it officially ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 (1220 died 1982-1998).

Therefore over 4x as many people were murdered by socialist/catholic/"loyalist"/protestant extremists in 16 years compared to the number of people murdered by muslim extremists across Europe in 30 years. And that's very indigenous murderers not immigrants.

You could do a similar exercise comparing murders by Islamic extremists in N. America (including 11th Sept 2001) over the same 30 years, with the drug war in Mexico since 2006 for another cold dose of reality.

Thus the death of Merah, while a score for the good guys, needs to be put in context. Eurabia is never going to happen (the demographics guarantee that), the security services are going to be kept busy for decades to come, and if you speak Urdu, Farsi or Arabic you will have a well paid job for life.

If Merah and his jihadist-inclined ilk are really all about domination and taking control, please name me a single non-Muslim nation that has been been "captured" by jihadist/extremist muslims since the heyday of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th Century. If the Muslim population of Europe is set to peak at 8% in 2030 they are going to be pretty stretched to create Eurabia.

The big lesson out of the recent tragedy in SW France is that the likes of Merah are mercifully doomed to failure, but if people over-exaggerate the threat, major on the paranoia and resultant Islamophobia, and really create a Clash of Civilizations then that would be truly existential in its potential.

In a previous post you pointed out that some of the conflicts attributed to Radical Islam (or with Muslims as the responsible party) were actually more national (and a few other things other than religious) in nature. One might say that the Northern Ireland conflict may qualifies as a similar case, notwithstanding the religious aspect. Would you say the same of Muslim terrorist attacks taking place in Europe?

I think people are easier to accommodate the notion of having a prolonged conflict with a long time neighbor. Having people invited to your house take a swing at you or not going along with house rules...umm, no. Maybe that's a better reason as to why Polish immigrants are better received in the UK, rather than the plain old racism card.

Back to the NI example: not up to doing the math right now, but...how many people on both sides were taking part in conflicts related to deaths? Does it come out about the same per capita compared with the relevant Muslim population in Europe?

[Morch]

Also if Muslims constitute such an existential threat I'm surprised you chose to live in SE Asia given its Muslim population of 253million . Are the 4million Muslims in Thailand (not much less than found in France) going to take over Pattaya, Phuket and Bangkok?

The Muslims in Thailand aren't going to "take over Pattaya, Phuket and Bangkok" any time soon, no.

Then again, I'm guessing most of us posting live in Thailand, rather than Indonesia or Malaysia? And within Thailand, not based in the deep South? Wonder why is that.

[Morch]

It's not paranoia if they really are trying to kill you.

Actually it's classic paranoia when you think, "they really are trying to kill me", despite all the evidence (<300 killed in Europe in 30 years. Answer "they" are not very good at it, or they are not trying that hard).

Less than 10 Europeans a year on average for the last 30 years are killed by Islamic extremists. Over 2 million Europeans a year die of heart disease. Which would cause me the most concern?

Merah and his extremist ilk, or massive heart failure? The odds are that few of you have the former to worry about when it comes to cashing in your chips. But of course if you spend your life fretting about low-level threats you will probably become part of the statistics and that would, in part, help explain why Europeans are 200,000 times more likely to die of heart failure than via Muslim extremists like Merah?

Comparing such causes of death as road accidents and disease to terror actions might be rationally correct (can debate about that as well), but at least in people's perception they are not the same.

Disease and accidents aren't viewed as out to get you (well, at least until you drive in Thailand), terrorist attack are.Same thing with wars, btw, when it is dubbed "a war", the same things and worse are somehow easier to accept.

A better comaprison would be to check number of attacks/deaths associated with similar immigrant groups.

[Scott]

Off-topic posts have been deleted.

I have little tolerance for minimization of the killing of children. This occurred in France. It occurred recently.

Stay on topic or you will get a suspension.

[Steely Dan]

Comparing such causes of death as road accidents and disease to terror actions might be rationally correct (can debate about that as well), but at least in people's perception they are not the same.

Disease and accidents aren't viewed as out to get you (well, at least until you drive in Thailand), terrorist attack are.Same thing with wars, btw, when it is dubbed "a war", the same things and worse are somehow easier to accept.

A better comaprison would be to check number of attacks/deaths associated with similar immigrant groups.

Threat is always an abstract to a degree until it plays out. The same dynamics were to a degree happening to the Jewish population in 30's Europe, many chose to ignore the signs. As per the perception of relative threat from different groups perhaps the jail population relative to size of each minority may also be a factor.