This made national news last year and this year Towne Market Mobil is looking to do the same thing.

But the reality is this “protest” is nothing more than a “look at me moment.” They want their 15 minutes of fame and want to look like they are doing something when in reality there is no impact…none…zero…nada!

The economist in the article has it right, “If a lot of people reduced their consumption of gas permanently, that would have an effect.” Barring this there really is no way to force fuel prices down in this fashion.

I know that the media and the lefties out there will point to the $11 billion profit of Exxon and but they ignore that the demand for the product has more to do with the price of gas than the profit margin of Exxon which is only around 10%...Microsoft’s profit margin is around 30% but I don’t hear anyone protesting that.

H/T to my by my brother-in-law, thanks BJ, and the Brussels Journal.

Pro-Hezbollah Group Will Demonstrate in Brussels on 9/11

It was a rather interesting read. The Arab-European League (AEL) is planning to hold a demonstration to counter the Danish-British-German organization SIOE (Stop the Islamisation of Europe) which has been banned from protesting.

The SIOE was to protest outside of European Union Buildings against the introduction of Sharia laws to Europe. The SIOE was told that their protest was a criminal act because it was intended to incite discrimination and hatred and the Socialist Mayor of Brussels, Thielemans, has since banned the protest.

Hmmm, but a group (AEL) that has called for the printing of comics that claim the holocaust did not occur and also held violent protests about a comic that depicted Muhammad has not been banned from protesting…very interesting.

The SIOE has meet with other issues on their road toward keeping religious zealots out of the European government when they decided to appeal Mayor Thielemans ban in court they were delayed while the courts decided which language the court should hear the appeal in. See article here:

Kafka in Brussels: Organizers Anti-Sharia Demo Have to Speak French

On August 29th the appeal ended in short order with the courts siding with the Mayor.

On September 4th the SIOE filed a civil suit against the Mayor hoping that this will put the Mayor into a position to allow them to protest or face monetary implications for banning the protest.

September 5th brought forward even more confusion when the German co-organizer of the SIOE demonstration called the whole think off because of the increasing amount of extremists interested in the demo. The German called the demo off due to security concerns.

This prompted an immediate response from the Danish and British co-organizers who immediately expelled the German from the SIOE group due to his unilateral decision to halt the demo.

So why would I spend the time to post all of this?

When anyone is afraid to stand against a group due to the potential of violence from a small segment of that group we have created a situation that will cause that group to gain more power. As that group gains power it will exert even more pressure to censure those that speak against them creating a never-ending cycle.

This is what we are seeing in areas of high Islamic concentration like the Netherlands. Islam itself is not the problem but the radicals inside the religion and those outside the religion that want to placate them are!

I do not see the SIOE as being the bad guys here. I think that their protest needs to be held just too simply point out that Sharia law is religion not law. If there are violent people at the SIOE they should be prosecuted but their voices should not be squelched any more than those of the AEL.