SATURDAY NIGHT FISCHER Z, BOB SEGER.

New wave band Fischer Z with So Long. From the album Going Deaf for a living (1980). Fischer Z is a forgotten band now, and back in the day they never even broke really through in their homeland, the UK. But in western continental Europe there was a brief period in the early eighties when they were quite well known - they did have a string of hits there, a.o. The Worker, So Long, Marliese, You'll never find Brian here.




If singer and guitarist John Watts looks slightly weirdo to you, it may be because before he was a mental health care worker.


Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band with Main Street. From the album Night Moves (1976).





Golden Oldie, eh?


Sorry for the light blogging lately. Completely ruined when I get home. Others are doing real great jobs. Gates of Vienna. Pam Geller. Creeping Sharia. François Desouche. American Thinker. Townhall. The Brussels Journal. Het Vrije Volk. CDR Salamander. And so many, many others. Check 'em out.

But hey, don't let the islamonutters and crazy leftozoids steal the fun out of your life. Make sure to take a break now and then. Life's worth living. To the decent people among our readers: have a nice weekend.



MFBB.

LA PRIMAVERA (ANTONIO VIVALDI).

Never again say I'm a pessimist. It's the onset of winter, and this is La Primavera (Spring), the first of four violin concertos composed by Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678-1741). The four violin concertos, known as Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) are among the most popular and well-known baroque compositions.





Why post this now? Because I can.



MFBB.

OUTRAGE AT SPEAKER'S CORNER.

From the 'This makes my blood boil' category. Last Sunday, October 24 2010, Gates of Vienna had the scoop of an appalling story:

BREAKING NEWS: RABBI UNABLE TO SPEAK AT SPEAKER'S CORNER

The American rabbi Nachum Shifren is visiting England to meet with members of the English Defence League and express his solidarity with the European resistance to Islamization. See this post at ICLA for a video of a BBC news report featuring Rabbi Shifren. The report describes (in that well-known snarky BBC tone) the growing transatlantic cooperation among groups opposing Islamization.

This afternoon Rabbi Shifren was scheduled to address the crowd at Speakers’ Corner in London. I’ve just received a phone call from an EDL member at the scene, who reports that the rabbi was prevented from speaking by a group of Muslims who effectively occupied Speakers’ Corner.

The rabbi moved to a location a short distance away to give his speech, but was unable to address supporters at Speakers’ Corner itself.

Speakers’ Corner is the epicenter of the tradition of free speech in England. Up until now it has stood as a sanctuary, a sacred place in the heart of English civil liberties.

If you can’t speak out at Speakers’ Corner, then free speech in England is dead.

Originally there were several Speaker's Corners throughout London, and there are some others, far less known, in other countries: Australia, Singapore, The Netherlands (where it is called De Spreeksteen [the Speaking Stone - MFBB], Canada. But when people mention Speaker's Corner then THE Speaker's Corner is meant, the archetypical forum for anyone wishing to address not matter what subject. It's in the northeastern corner of London's Hyde Park, and it was established in the latter half of the nineteenth century after several workers and middle class organizations had adapted the habit of airing their political discontent there. Since then, it has become a place where you can utter no matter what opinion on no matter what subject. Historically, the most notable political speakers have almost always been socialists of socialist theorists (as anyone knows, rightwingers are always working): Karl Marx, Ben Tillet (socialist and trade union leader), Kwame Nkrumah (postcolonial afrosocialist dictator of Ghana, a self-described scientific socialist who ruined his country), William Morris (designer, socialist theorist), Vladimir Lenin etc etc.

Either way, Speaker's Corner is an ICON of Freedom of Speech. Naturally, it attracts its fair number of nutters, and though on any given day you may get to hear some really sensible talk on a variety of subjects, you're just as likely to run into a speech by some colossal nutter. Unfortunately, such was the case with yours truly upon visiting London in 1992, where I took some pics of the raconteurs du jour:






But all that has come to an end now. As Gates of Vienna notes,

If you can’t speak out at Speakers’ Corner, then free speech in England is dead.

Upon reading the GOV entry I became so enraged that I posted a comment about it on Belgium's top political blog, run by Luc Van Braekel. There's a fella commenter there, a lefty commenter. Moniker is "Tjerk" (he might just as well have omitted the first character). This was his reaction:

"Secondly (category: a half-truth is worse than a full-blooded lie) you say that a jewish rabbi was prevented from speaking at Speaker's Corner by muslims, but what you do not say is that it was a Californian rabbi who intended to address a throng hooligans from the English Defense League."

So if you are a rabbi, from CA no less, and if you address EDL people, you have no right to speak. Hmmmm. This comment tells you in a heartbeat that The Netherlands, even though it has produced several contemporary Shining Knights in the defense of Freedom of Speech, is at the same time home to some of the worst politically correct apparatchicks, unfortunately often with far-reaching powers. Like I wrote a big higher up, The Netherlands has its own Speaker's Corner. It's called the Spreeksteen, and it's actually a monument commemorating the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was bestially murdered by a muslim. Check out this wiki entry:

In the Netherlands, there is a permanently designated speakers' corner called the Spreeksteen in Amsterdam. Lawfully, every person has the freedom of speech as a matter of right. In practice, there is considerable ambiguity which gives mayors and other authorities the semi-lawful powers to prevent or distort free speech. The 'Spreeksteen' is open for free speech 24-hours a day, and was established to allow complete free speech. The 'Spreeksteen' has been located in the Oosterpark in Amsterdam since May 5, 2005, and has been erected by a citizens action after the brutal murder of film-maker and columnist Theo van Gogh. Plans for bringing the Amsterdam Speakers' Corner online with a permanent camera and microphone are in a phase of installation. In the meantime the speakers are filmed with a hand-held camera.[8]

The Spreeksteen was involved in controversy when they allowed Michiel Smit, a extreme rightist, to speak on October 1, 2006. Antifascists used noise to prevent Smit from being heard (as is the longstanding tradition in the Netherlands when right wing people speak in public). René Danen, a former council member, threatened the Spreeksteen foundation with criminal prosecution if they let Smit speak again. Smit was scheduled to speak at the Spreeksteen again on November 5, 2006.

People ought to know that the REAL oppressors of Free Speech, the REAL tyrants... are basically always...


...LEFTISTS.


Americans should think about that come November 2.



MFBB.

PRESIDENT OBAMA, DIVIDER-IN-CHIEF.

There's a plethora of good subjects out there and actually I finally wanted to do some post about Europe's next big evolution, namely the ideological struggle that's getting almost imperceptible hotter by the day.

But with US Congressional elections now very close, I thought this one should be about some hateful comments made (again) by the US's president.

First of course, there was his address at a Boston fundraiser around October 18:

'And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.'

In other words, despite your many assurances and promises, you screwed up big time, as a result you have turned off an awful lot of people, but if subsequently they now seriously consider to vote Republican it's STILL because they do not understand your grandiose schemes. This in itself was almost a replay from the 2008 mantra about country idiots clinging to guns and religion. Yes, that's YOU, Joe in Austin, TX.


Then, in a radio interview aired last Monday, there was this:

In a radio interview that aired on Univision on Monday, Mr. Obama sought to assure Hispanics that he would push an immigration overhaul after the midterm elections, despite fierce Republican opposition.

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Referring specifically to Republicans such as Senator John McCain, who are stressing border security and supporting strict immigration laws like Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration measure, Mr. Obama said, “Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

Finally, this is what he said during a speech in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, also last Monday:

WOONSOCKET, R.I. – President Barack Obama attacked Republicans with gusto Monday as he plunged into a final week of midterm election campaigning, but his party's prognosis remained darkened by the feeble economy and his itinerary was designed largely to minimize losses.

...

In a little more than five hours in the state, Obama was booked for a factory tour and for a pair of fundraisers that party officials said would bring in $500,000.

He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

Republicans had driven the economy in a ditch huh? While they lost Congress, in, wait, was that in 06 already? And they 'gotta sit in the back'?

In short, we have here, in the space of one week, three separate occasions in which the President of the United States of America:

a.) willfully insults people who consider to vote for the other side as not being able to think straight
b.) tries to set up the US's Hispanics against white rightwing voting people - it's clear that he first and foremost means whites.
c.) tells those same people that, if he gets a chance to pursue his glorious career in remaking America, they can "sit in the back".

...And this from a guy who promised he would be a Uniter.

Like Bush or like him not, but have you ever, EVER, heard him use such derogatory terms about the people who opposed him? About that part of the US population that gave him the finger? EVER???


But here we have the self-proclaimed Agent of Change, who basically promised America the Garden of Eden, and who, with his cronies in charge in Congress for four years now, and he himself POTUS since almost two years, has nothing to show but 10% unemployment, a second trillion plus dollar budget deficit, a national debt soaring as never before, sluggish growth, and unseen poverty levels.


SHAME ON HIM. Either way, America's going to be stuck with Obama, alas, for yet another two years. But after that, I hope and pray this man of shadows, this basic Nonentity, spawn from a self-hating mother and a deluded marxist, and raised first in a madrassa and then in a culture of nepotism and irresponsibility, will disappear swiftly from the world stage, never to be heard of again.

I HOPE so.







MFBB.