SATURDAY NIGHT TOM PETTY, BROKEN BELLS, THE DOOBIE BROTHERS.

Tom Petty, without the Heartbreakers, in 1994 with You wreck me, from the album Wildflowers.




Because a.) I am SUCH a nice, deeply caring personality and b.) to stifle rumours that I am some kind of dinosaur who still hasn't gotten the news I should be dead 65 million years, here's Broken Balls with The High Road, from their 2009 debut album. To be honest, I liked Danger Mouse more in a previous career.





The Doobie Brothers with China Grove.





Goedenacht.


MFBB.

A BELATED HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

It is now official, Outlaw Mike just participated in his very first Thanksgiving Dinner.





Blurred but atmospheric snapshot of people helping themselves - or getting helped to - abundant decent food. Location: a "parochiaal centrum" in Gentbrugge, a suburb of Ghent. Just like idiots call Xmas "Winterval" nowadays, they would call a "parochiaal centrum" a "community center". Not bibi of course.


The guy with the blue sweater on the left, between the woman and the bearded guy serving food, was the fella who was nuts enough to invite me. Craig B. has been organizing Thanksgiving in Gentbrugge for eleven years. In a grey past, he was a sailor on the USS Mahan (guided missile destroyer DDG 42). Thanks to his efforts, and the efforts of a few acolytes - around 50 people had a very enjoyable evening. The food was ab-so-lu-te-ly delicious and if I say there was plenty of it, it's the understatement of the year.






Shot taken just before the attack. Guaranteed haram. Yum.


Hopping in at such an event often leads to interesting encounters. I happened to sit across an ex-Marine (1st Division, recon), who ended up in the Magical Kingdom of Belgium and now has his own welding enterprise here. Wish we had more immigrants like that.

I was a good boy. I did not once talk about politics. Or religion. Nor did I burp.

Nite all.



MFBB.

THE PRACTICE OF STONING IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN.

Via Dutch website GeenStijl, infosheets from an Amnesty International Report (from time to time, AI does something good still) on stoning in Iran.








It is true that Iran was just recently rebuffed when it tried to secure itself a seat on the executive board of (yet another) UN superagency, UN Women. But it should be remembered that Saudi Arabia, a big funder of UN Women, but barely more women-friendly than Iran, does have a seat. As a sidenote, Saudi Arabia's interest in this proliferation of UN agencies is probably yet one more sign that muslim countries seek to dominate the UN, which they do already to a large extent through the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Be that as it may, even if Iran is not represented in the Board of UN Women, it does have a seat in the Commission on the Status of Women - it obtained it in rather murky circumstances in April of this year, and it will retain this seat till 2014.

If you check out the website of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, you will find that its homepage boasts that it is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women."

Nice. Not. What a hoot.

We truly live in a mad world.


MFBB.

SINT-NIKLAAS, BELGIUM. SYRIAN REFUSES TO LISTEN TO FEMALE COP, BLOCKS ENTIRE TOWN CENTER AS A RESULT.

From the You GOT To Be Kidding Me Department: Syrian refuses to obey female police officer.

"Syrian ignores female agent's orders
Saturday 20 November 2010

On Thursday Mahmoud D. (40) from Sint-Niklaas had to give way on the busy crossroads of Bread Street and Van Britsomstreet in Sint-Niklaas to another car and this he refused. He drove onto the crossroads and stopped his car there. It was quarter past four: soon not only the crossroads was completely jammed, but also the entire town center.

'Because we did not even manage to get there with a patrol car, we sent an officer on foot' says Corps Chief Jack Van Peer. 'To be clear, that was a male officer, followed by a female one. The man [Mahmoud D. - MFBB] made it then abundantly clear that he did not follow instructions issued by females.'

For the police nothing else remained but to haul away the car, with Mahmoud D. still in it. 'But a truck too did not get to the crossroads' [of course you idiots, if even the smaller patrol car couldn't make it - MFBB]. 'So we sent backup to pull the man out of his car.'

The police busted a sidewindow, whereupon Mahmoud D. jumped out of the car and immediately wounded a female officer. The other officers overpowered the man and brought him, handcuffed, to the police precinct. 'Suddenly he had forgotten how to speak Flemish and he demanded an interpreter', says Jack Van Peer. He got one [! - MFBB] but that turned out to be a woman, 'against whom he refused to talk too.'

Mahmoud D. had a bad luck day. Police briefed the serving prosecutor of the Dendermonde Court. This turned out to be Marianne Bovyn, a woman, whom he refused to talk to just as well. She decided to confront the Syrian right away with an investigator and ordered his arrest. And so Mahmoud D. appeared before investigator Sabine De Leenheer, again a woman he deemed not worthy to look at. Madam De Leenheer applied Lady Justice's Law and had the Syrian locked up in Dendermonde jail."

Prepare for civil war.



MFBB.