SATURDAY NIGHT ASH, PEARL JAM, RUSH.

We keep staying in the nineties (this was the time when Mr. Ghost still wet his diapers). First a vid from UK band Ash, actually northern Irish; alternative rock. 'Oh yeah', a typical Britpop hit from their 1996 album 1977. Yes, that's 1977. The video is for swooning teens consumption but you'll have to live with that. Singer's Tim Wheeler.





Grunge hit Even Flow was, IIRC, the third single drawn from Pearl Jam's debut album Ten (1991). At the time I was never able to make out what exactly the singer, Eddie Vedder, was hollering about. That has now been found out:



It don't make much sense to me, but what can you expect from a guy hanging out with a lunatic like Sean Penn? Anyway, the guitar work is good.


And because I am such a kind-hearted character, here's Marathon, from the 1985 Rush album Power Windows.



When it came out, I though there's was almost too many synthesizers. Almost twenty-five years later, I can appreciate 'em more. Like good wine getting better.

That's all for today, nite. Tomorrow we start shooting again.


MFBB.

AIRBUS A400M MAIDEN FLIGHT.

The first Airbus A400M military airlifter took to the air on 11 December for a 3 hour 47 minute test flight. Takeoff was from the Seville airport in Spain where constructor EADS has a facility. This was the start of a testing programme scheduled to involve 4,370 flying hours.



The Belgian Air Force has ordered 7 of these to replace its ageing fleet of Herculeses. Theoretically it makes sence since, with capabilities roughly double that of the C 130, 7 would do as an equivalent to the original 15 Hercs - the A400M is powered by four Europrop International TP400D engines with 11,000 shaft horsepower. Personally, I'd rather see us buy 10, plus two C-17 Globemasters, but who am I to make recommendations. It will be a good thing for Germany too, with the Luftwaffe having ordered sixty or so. It will mark a quantum leap from their 'diminutive' C-160 Transalls.


MFBB.

DR. WALTER WILLIAMS ON THE MINIMUM WAGE LAW.

Very good Walter Williams column over at Townhall, 16 December:

COLLUSION AGAINST OUR YOUTH.

"I've grown somewhat weary writing about the devastating effects of minimum wage laws but The Wall Street Journal's "Black Youths Miss Out on Good Job News," (Dec. 4, 2009) warrants another try. Today's overall teenage (16-19) unemployment rate, at 25 percent, is the highest since World War II. Black teenage unemployment, at 50 percent, is also the highest since World War II.

How do you think the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton would explain the unemployment difference between black and white teens? You can bet the rent money they would say: It's racial discrimination. Let's investigate. Was racial discrimination in 1948 greater or less than racial discrimination today? In 1948, the unemployment rate for white 16-17 year olds was 10.2 percent while that for blacks was 9.4 percent. Among white 18-19 year-olds, unemployment was 9.4 percent and for blacks it was 10.5 percent. During that period, not only were the unemployment rates similar, black teenagers were either equally as active as whites in the labor force or more so.

According to the widely shared Jackson/Sharpton vision of the world, racial discrimination must have been less during the late 1940s than it is today. In fact, as early as 1900, blacks as a group were more active in the labor market, a statistic known in economics as labor force participation rate, than whites. This was true up until the late 1950s. Anyone with one ounce of brains would reject the argument that less racial discrimination accounts for the lower black teen unemployment rate and greater labor force participation during earlier periods..."

MFBB.

WANNA HEAR A MUEZZIN IN THE NETHERLANDS?

Simple. Click:



Reliable information can be obtained from the Dutch website Het Vrije Volk (The Free People):

The Netherlands have deteriorated to such an extent that today, in at least 16 mosques in 13 towns the muezzin calls the muslim faithful to prayer with loudspeakers. In Amersfoort from two mosques (Mevlana and El Fath mosques) on Fridays; in Apeldoorn (where a lunatic last year tried to ram a bus with the royal family with his Suzuki), from the Eyup Sultan mosque, twice a day. In Breda once a day. In Dongen, twice a day from the Isra Camii mosque. In Gorinchem every Friday, and in Heerenveen once a day. In Roosendaal from two mosques. In Rotterdam-Vlaardingen from the Ummet mosque on Friday, and in Rotterdam-Maassluis from the Yeni mosque on Friday too. Every day in Tilburg from the Suleymaniye-mosque, and in Veendam even thrice a day. In Zaandam from the Sultan Ahmet mosque on Friday, and in Zeist from the El Moslimen El Mathhakine mosque and the Eyep Sultan mosque.

This list is far from complete. According to chairman Driss Boujoufi of the Contact Organization Muslims and Authorities there are possibly "20 of the 450" who are doing it. An imam calling himself Anwar Mahfouz of the "Netherlands Islamic Society" in Amsterdam, says loudspeakers are used too in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Ridderkerk. His own mosque calls muslims to prayer with a sound system thrice a day: at 1.30pm, at 4pm and at 9pm. "Thus not at night. And we're doing it very modestly, 64 decibels". Furthermore there are plans to start with the practice in Leiden, from the Al-Hijra mosque. Also in Epe Vaassen. In Hoofddorp the faithful are called to prayer with light signals.

The Turkish suleymaniye mosque in Tilburg, South Netherlands. The mosque is named after a friendly turkish imam who always gave candy to christian schoolchil... erm, I mean after Suleyman the Magnificent, who waged war against christian countries all his life, conquering Rhodes, Belgrade and most of Hungary (and killing its king Louis in the process at the Battle of Mohacs). He also laid siege to Vienna in 1529 and again in 1532, with both attempts failing however. He was still sultan when his troops invaded Malta in 1565, a siege that also failed.

So, this is the nonsenical drivel a LOT of indigenous Dutchmen get blasted into their ears these days:


Allahoe Akbar (Allah is the greatest)

Allahoe Akbar (Allah is the greatest)

Allahoe Akbar (Allah is the greatest)

Allahoe Akbar (Allah is the greatest)

Ashado allaa ilaaha illALLAH (I testify that there is no god but allah)

Ashado allaa ilaaha illALLAH (I testify that there is no god but allah)

Ashado anna MoehammadarrasoelALLAH (I testify that mohammed is allah's messenger/prophet)

Ashado anna MoehammadarrasoelALLAH (I testify that mohammed is allah's messenger/prophet)

[WARNING: it seems that if you read the crap above loud, you automatically become a muslim - MFBB]

Hayya alassalaah (Haste you to the prayer)

Hayya alassalaah (Haste you to the prayer)

Hayya alalFalaah (Haste you to success)

Hayya alalFalaah (Haste you to success)

Allahoe Akbar (Allah is the greatest)

Allahoe Akbar (Allah is the greatest)

Laa ilaha illALLAH (There is no god but allah)



Wait, that's not all.

In Zeist, mayor R.G. Boekhoven stated literally that it was "childish to protest the calls for prayer". Mayor Boekhoven is from the socialist party PvdA. But, I suspect you suspected that already.

Vlaardingen's mayor T.P.J. Bruinsma (Vlaardingen is near Rotterdam, which as a whole is already 50% foreigners, mostly muslims, and which has a muslim mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb), has bluntly said that he "saw no reason to reject the requests of mosques to call the faithful to prayer with loudspeakers", this despite the fact that locals were heavily disappointed that the Ummet mosque had begun to use loudspeakers for the call to prayer.

T.P.J. Bruinsma is from the socialist party PvdA, one of The Netherlands's two major socialist parties (the other big one is the SP, the Socialistische Partij). But, I suspect you suspected that already.

By contrast, in Ridderkerk a church's locks were once glued closed to prevent the sounding of the clocks, and in Tilburg some culture relativists tried to silence the clocks of the Holy Margarita Maria Church. Former mayor Ruud Vreeman never showed any interest into this matter, saying instead that "the court should look into the matter". Town selectwoman for the Environment Marieke Moorman did show interest... by threatening to fine the priest for 5,000 EUR per "offense" [sounding the clocks - not kidding. MFBB]. Curiously though, or perhaps not so curiously, neither Vreeman nor Moorman think of the daily call for prayers from the huge Turkish Suleymaniye-mosque a little bit further on the Ringbaan-West as an "offense".

Both Vreeman and Moorman are from the socialist party PvdA. But, I suspect you suspected that already.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan...


MFBB.

WE HAVE TO GET RID OF THE IPCC.

Nothing new under the sun. As per usual, leftozoid assholes resort to silencing dissent, as Phelim McAleer, the guy of the Not Evil Just Wrong documentary debunking Gore's scam movie experienced a couple of days ago. Check out how, after McAleer asks a Professor Stephen Schneider of Stanford University about the manipulating of data at Phil Jones' CRU, first a dumb chick tries to rip McAleer's microphone away and then an armed security guard pushes him out of the conference.





Nothing new under the sun, as back in the time when Harold was still King of Britain (in many respects a saner age for the UK) temperatures were as high or even higher than today... without cars, factories, Copenhagen summits, airliners and shitloads of climate alarmists spouting shitloads of CO2 nonsense in the air.





A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.”


MFBB.