SATURDAY NIGHT THREE LETTER WORD BANDS.

Epic. 1989 hit by Faith No More. Faith No More originated in 1982 in San Francisco and mixed heavy metal, funk, progressive rock, hip hop, hardcore punk, thrash metal and more. Call me a nutter, but the band has always been sympathetic to me because of the lead singer's name, Mike Patton. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until Patton joined in the late eighties that the band gained prominence. Epic and its success was the first sign of his influence, but personally, FNM only registered on my radar after the album Angel Dust, which featured such hits as Midlife Crisis and A Small Victory. For some reason always liked the cover of Angel Dust.





FNM disbanded in 1998 or so, but they recently reunited and are currently even touring Europe.


The following song, "The official ironmen rally song", is from the Guided by Voices album Under the bushes under the stars" (1996). GBV was a US indie rock band formed in Dayton, Ohio in 1983. Its extremely volatile crew revolved around five core members, that is to say singer/songwriter Robert Pollard, guitarists Tobin Sprout and Mitch Mitchell, bassist Dan Toohey and drummer Kevin Fennell. What makes GBV so special is not their hits - they had few - but their sheer number of albums and songs, the fact that most songs are in the two-minute range even contributing to the proliferation of material. Having started in the early eighties, it's not surprising GBV sported influences from prog rock, psychedelic rock, punk and postpunk (although I would be hard pressed to tell you the difference between the latter two). Guided by Voices disbanded in 2004.




The video is cool.


MFBB.

PERSONS OF TOLERANCE AND DIVERSITY COME ACROSS VLAAMS BELANG ADS.

All across the European Union, elections for the European Parliament will be held between 4 and 7 June. About 375 million European citizens in the 27 member states will elect 736 MEP's for a five-year term. And slowly, billboards for advertising parties or candidates begin to appear in the streets.

Last Monday, I noticed a Vlaams Belang billboard in front of a house that always sports VB posters throughout the years, thus you can be sure the people living there are true members or sympathizers of my party.

The posters were left untouched for a staggering two days.

Then, this very morning, I noticed the champions of tolerance and diversity must have come across the VB ads:








The Vlaams Belang is unashamedly pro free market, pro life, anti gay marriage, anti gay adoption, pro family values, pro respect for our culture and judeo-christian heritage, and pro US.

In Europe, there are those for whom these are deadly sins. Herbert Marcuse would smirk.


MFBB.

THE BRUSSELS JOURNAL'S THOMAS LANDEN: "THE PURPOSE OF NATO IS TO PREPARE FOR WAR".

Over at The Brussels Journal, Thomas Landen had an excellent column last week regarding NATO's future. Some exerpts:

"... The new enemy of the West is ideological Islam. If NATO wants to be a useful instrument in defending the West against this enemy it needs to accept a new member state – Israel – and stop groveling to Turkey.

Last week, Bernard Kouchner, the powerful Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, announced that he is no longer in favor of admitting Turkey to the European Union. Mr. Kouchner changed his mind, he said, at the recent NATO summit in Strasbourg on April 4th. There, Ankara threatened to veto the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, as NATO’s new Secretary-General. The Turks objected to Mr. Rasmussen because in 2005 he defended the freedom of expression of Danish cartoonists who had depicted the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Turkey is governed by the AKP, a very popular Islamic party in Central and Eastern Anatolia. The AKP’s voters feel more strongly about the Islamic law which prohibits depicting the Muslim prophet than about basic Western values such as freedom of expression. These voters already feel “hurt” by the simple depiction of their prophet, which in Islam is blasphemy. The Turkish threats in Strasbourg jolted Mr. Kouchner into realizing what the future has in store for the European Union if Turkey becomes a member. “I was very shocked by the pressure that was brought on us,” Mr. Kouchner said. “Turkey’s evolution in, let’s say, a more religious direction, towards a less robust secularism, worries me.”

The bruhaha concerning Turkey's opposition to Mr. Rasmussen's candidacy for NATO Secretary General was "resolved" after a personal intervention by president Hussein. The president, on the photo seen during his recent visit to the Middle East, gave the Turks watertight guarantees that Mr. Rasmussen, should Turkey agree with him heading the alliance, would have a Turkish deputy. The significance of this compromise "brokered" by Hussein should not be underestimated. We have here an unwilling NATO member, shying away from its responsibilities in Afghanistan through God knows how many caveats, and which has threatened to block the alliance's functioning because.... Mr. Rasmussen refused to forbid the publication in Danish newspapers in 2005 of some stupid cartoons depicting the prophet muhammad. Hussein's demeanor was none other but appeasement in its worst form. Instead of backing up the Prime Minister of a sovereign democracy who a.) had at the time merely stated that Denmark had freedom of press, that b.) he was not in a position, even as PM, to forbid such publications, and that c.) if they wanted them removed they should take their actions to a Danish court... Hussein let Rasmussen stand in the cold and caved in to the Turks. Nor was that all. He downright advised the EU to accept Turkey as a member state, and furthermore proclaimed (Thomas Landen continues)...

"...in Istanbul that “The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans,” Europeans, who have seen a massive flow of Muslim immigration to their continent in the past decades, take an entirely different view. The Pew Center’s Global Attitude Polls indicate that citizens in EU countries with high percentages of Muslim immigrants adopt negative attitudes towards Muslims. These Europeans have noticed how their neighborhoods, cities and countries are losing their traditional European identity following the erosion of European values owing to the immigration of large numbers of Muslims with entirely different views of how people should behave and what liberties they should have.

“We are not at war with Islam,” Mr. Obama said in Istanbul. He seems to have forgotten that Europe and America were never at war with the Soviet Union either. Indeed, the purpose of NATO was to ensure peace and stability in Europe by maintaining a level of deterrent which refrained the Soviet Union from attacking NATO or one of its member states. NATO ensured that we were never at war with the Soviets by preparing itself for war against the Soviets. In doing so, NATO successfully preserved the freedoms of the West."

Taking into account the severe liability that an islamist-led Turkey has become for NATO, Landen then proceeds to some interesting conclusions:

"Today, ideological Islam has replaced Marxism as the main threat to the freedoms of the West. If sixty years after its foundation NATO wants to continue serving its purpose it needs to transform itself into an organization which can ensure that we will never be at war with Islam. NATO’s successful past shows that it can only serve this goal by preparing itself for war against Islam.

If NATO wants to continue serving its goal it should stand strong against every attempt at intimidation by ideological Islam. Instead of giving in to AKP threats it should forcefully reject them. If this means that Turkey leaves the organization, so be it. NATO should have shown Turkey the door in Strasbourg instead of giving in to the whims of the AKP."

To make up for the loss of an unreliable partner, Filip Dewinter, the most visible Vlaams Belang personality, has a very sound idea imho:

"As far as a membership of NATO is concerned, I have no problem at all with that, and I think it might even be very good when Israel joins NATO, because NATO defends freedoms and democratic values, characteristic of European civilization, and I have always said so and will repeat it again, that Israel is an outpost of the free West in Islamic-occupied territory."

Can't agree more.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT ALTERNATIVE ROCK.

Actually Sunday Afternoon Alternative Rock Before I Mow The Grass, but then my Option 3G Broadband modem sucked AGAIN big time yesterday in Germany. Back home now. First "Summer", good hit drawn from Buffalo Tom's 1995 album "Sleepy Eyed".



Guys are from Boston, MA. I seem to have the impression that after Taillights Fade in 1999, I saw their, well, taillights fade.


And we stay in the nineties with Filter's "Take a picture". I HATE live performances but was unable to find a studio version.



Seems to me, in real this guy can't sing. The guy in quesion is Richard Patrick (formerly Nine Inch Nails), lead vocals and guitar. One of Filter's founding members. Together with guitarist/programmer Brian Liesegang, Patrick founded Filter in 1993 in Cleveland, Ohio.


MFBB.