SATURDAY NIGHT COLLECTIVE SOUL, THE WALKER BROTHERS.

Collective Soul with Where the river flows.




Rock/Grunge band from Stockbridge, Georgia.



The Walker Brothers with The Sun ain't gonna shine anymore.




From 1965, almost half a century old and still good.



Slaap wel.



MFBB.

BELGIAN F-16s TO OPERATE AGAINST ISLAMIC STATE FROM JORDAN.

Six F-16 fighter bombers took off from Florennes AFB this afternoon, to conduct bombing and strafing missions against Islamic State militants in Iraq. 120 ground personnel are following up:





The peculiar thing is that, since Belgium currently has a caretaker government, a vote in Parliament was needed to get the operation going. Indeed, following the May 25 elections, negotiations between center rightwing and centrist parties to form a workable coalition keep dragging on.

But as it was, the first two fighter-bombers hung already in the air as debate in the Kamer was still not over.

I consider myself a democratic person, but in this case, I couldn't care less whether the deployment followed the rules to the letter. It was a bygone conclusion anyway, since even before today's vote it was known that the mission had broad support - with the exception of some of the socialist fractions and virtually all of the greens.

VTM Nieuws this evening sported the following video:





At the moment of writing (Friday evening 11.15pm) the six jets are already on the Greek Air Force base of Araxos. From there they will tomorrow fly further to the Jordanian base of Mufaq Salti, whence they will conduct the bombing and strafing missions against Islamic State - but solely over Iraq, not in Syria.


That the Belgian Air Force is still capable of simultaneously conducting figher bomber operations in Afghanistan and over Iraq, albeit with small six-plane squadrons, is a miracle of sorts. After all, the Belgian military is operating on less than a shoestring budget - actually less than the widely reported figure of 1.3 per cent of GNP, courtesy the socialists and greens. For instance, vice PM Johan Vandelanotte (Flemish Socialists) last year made no secret of his wish to even further reduce the armed forces budget to around 0.75 per cent of GNP, while pushing the budget for Development Aid to 1.3 per cent - a net reversal of the respective envelopes usually dedicated to both portfolios. It is well known that leftists generally hate the military, with a possible exception when the military of the enemy is involved. It is equally well known - and researched and documented - that the so-called Development Aid is actually counterproductive, but let that be no problem for our moral betters: the important thing, as always, is that they feel good about themselves.

Anyway, one of the results of having to operate with minimal resources has been that the Belgian Army, Navy and Air Force have learned to do the most with the least. A reflection of this is found in the deployment of only 120 ground personnel to operate the six jets, whereas The Netherlands, which also sends six F-16s, have their contingent accompanied by 250 ground personnel, more than double the Belgian number! Not wanting to boast, but despite this the BAF is succeeding quite fine in achieving its objectives. Three years ago, another six of its jets operated from the Greek Air Force Base of Araxos against Gadhafi. In 448 missions over Libya, 365 bombs were released, and 97% of those hit the designated target, which translates in a hit percentage higher than any of the other seven countries which operated fighter aircraft in the region.

In Afghanistan, yet another six F-16s have been active in a combat role uninterruptedly since 2009, logging close to 20,000 flying hours thus far. Apart from some minor engagements between our ground troops and Taliban, the air operations have been the only 'hot' zone for the Belgian military in the War on Terror until now. But the pilots and their planes have done very well, and in the process amassed a wealth of experience. The following video shows two BAF F-16s refueling from a US KC135-tanker somewhere over AF:




Personally, I am a bit at a loss to assess the F-16 in any meaningful way. All my life I have heard it being described as a marvellous tactial fighter, but I don't recall any theater where they were actually able to prove it - for the simple reason they never have seemed to have had the 'luck' to meet a worthy adversary.

Which leaves the ground support role, recce mission etc. I'm not an expert, but I gather the F-16 boasts woefully few hardpoints for ordnance compared with other designs. And its 20mm cannon is, I assume, but a bleak contemporary compared to, say, and A-10's 30mm.

That said, I guess that when the lifetime of the F-16 is over, in the absence of fighter vs fighter engagements, this Late Cold War design will indeed be most favourably remembered for its pinpoint ground attack missions against well-defined tactical targets - buildings, AFVs, planes on the ground, small troop concentrations and so on. And in those cases where it was equipped with hi-tech pods - Lantirns or, even better, Panteras - the accuracy in this area of combat will have been exemplary, I have no doubt.

Let us hope our pilots operating from Jordan against ISIS from tomorrow on will be able to contribute to that reputation.


MFBB.

MEET AMANDA FIELDS OF THE FLORIDA GESTAPO.

Couldn't believe this one either, but alas, it turned out to be true. Mark Steyn sketches the story with his usual wit - which can't take away the anger and unrest however:

"...I often joke with my hairdresser Amanda about the number of state permits she requires for the privilege of cutting my hair. As I point out on page 49 of After America (personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available, etc):

In the Fifties, one in twenty members of the workforce needed government permission in order to do his job. Today, it's one in three.

That's tyrannous - which is bad enough, albeit not unique to America: The entire developed world has massively expanded the hyper-regulatory state. But only in America does the Department of Paperwork command lethal force:

On August 19, 2010, two inspectors from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) visited the Strictly Skillz Barbershop in Orlando and found everything in order: All of the barbers working there were properly licensed, and all of the work stations complied with state regulations. Two days later, even though no violations had been discovered and even though the DBPR is authorized to conduct such inspections only once every two years, the inspectors called again, this time accompanied by "between eight and ten officers, including narcotics agents," who "rushed into" the barbershop "like [a] SWAT team." Some of them wore masks and bulletproof vests and had their guns drawn. Meanwhile, police cars blocked off the parking lot.

The officers ordered all the customers to leave, announcing that the shop was "closed down indefinitely." They handcuffed the owner, Brian Berry, and two barbers who rented chairs from him, then proceeded to search the work stations and a storage room. They demanded the barbers' driver's licenses and checked for outstanding warrants. One of the inspectors, Amanda Fields, asked for the same paperwork she had seen two days earlier, going through the motions of verifying (again) that the barbers were not cutting hair without a license (a second-degree misdemeanor). Finding no regulatory violations or contraband, the officers released Berry and the others after about an hour.

What sort of lunatic handcuffs a barber in order to check his license is valid? The gauleiter in question is Inspector Amanda Fields of Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation - and, in a sane world, she'd be the one in handcuffs. But, as far as I can tell, she still has her job. Judge Rosenbaum's opinion for the US 11th Circuit is unusually vivid:

It was a scene right out of a Hollywood movie. On August 21, 2010, after more than a month of planning, teams from the Orange County Sheriff's Office descended on multiple target locations. They blocked the entrances and exits to the parking lots so no one could leave and no one could enter. With some team members dressed in ballistic vests and masks, and with guns drawn, the deputies rushed into their target destinations, handcuffed the stunned occupants — and demanded to see their barbers' licenses. The Orange County Sheriff's Office was providing muscle for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation's administrative inspection of barbershops to discover licensing violations.

We first held nineteen years ago that conducting a run-of-the-mill administrative inspection as though it is a criminal raid, when no indication exists that safety will be threatened by the inspection, violates clearly established Fourth Amendment rights. See Swint v. City of Wadley , 51 F.3d 988 (11th Cir. 1995). We reaffirmed that principle in 2007 when we held that other deputies of the very same Orange County Sheriff's Office who participated in a similar warrantless criminal raid under the guise of executing an administrative inspection were not entitled to qualified immunity. See Bruce v. Beary , 498 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2007). Today,we repeat that same message once again. We hope that the third time will be the charm.

I would doubt it. Amanda Fields and her chums feel no shame about what they did - which is the real problem. If a constable does not instinctively understand that there is something wrong - and, indeed, profoundly wicked - about a "license inspection" that involves handcuffing the barber, he's unlikely to be unduly disturbed by the possibility of a judicial slapdown four years hence, assuming that the rubes he's cuffing are savvy enough to take it that far. For a sense of the esprit of the Florida regulatory environment, consider the words of one officer to barber Reginald Trammon:

When Trammon argued to one of the officers that he had done nothing wrong, the officer responded, " It's a pretty big book, I'm pretty sure I can find something in here to take you to jail for."

Indeed. As Laura Rosen Cohen comments:

Let's recap a few basics.

The police are YOUR employees.

Your employees are pointing loaded guns at you and raiding your homes in military style.

That's a problem.

Where's the so-called "party of small government" on this? Because, whatever else may be said about a regime that dispatches a Swat team to check barbering licenses, small government it's not. You can't complain about big, bloated, out-of-control government, and then make an exception when Hair Team Six wants to check Kelli-Sue's curling permit...."

Sorry, you bunch of macho bozos, but I fear you're PART OF THE PROBLEM.


Despite the steady crescendo of stories about misbehaving cops, we should not forget that doubtlessly, there are still tens of thousands of utterly decent law enforcement people around, who put their lives on the line for their fellow citizens in the truest sense of 'to protect and serve'. They deserve our highest praise. We should never make the mistake of lumping these gentle souls together with the above would-be rambos. Btw, I wonder how much of their bravado would remain when faced with REAL adversaries.

That said, this disturbing emergence of a part of the police apparatus that thinks it's okay to terrorize the citizenry, deserves immediate scrutiny from lawmakers, and measures should be taken to put a definitive halt to an evolution which can only end in a police state.

I have no use for democratic lawmakers. If anything, they probably fancy the idea of an almighty police apparatus which comes in handy to make the peasant population swallow their leftist dogmas - forcibly.

No, I actually expect a reaction from the Republican lawmakers. Excesses like this should galvanize the Party of Small Government and Respect for the Constitution - at least, that's how it ought to be - into a loud and immediate rebuke, followed by the appropriate measures. Sacking Amanda Fields pronto would be a good start.

But is it going to happen?

Republicans? Have you, apart from your voice, lost your balls also?



MFBB.

RECOMMENDED READS: "FRACKING IS SAFE."

A message perhaps a tad too optimistic - I'd rather put it as 'It's quite safe, and where it is not safe sloppy engineering is to blame'. Which sounds a lot more assuring than 'The traffic is not safe, and that's mostly because of sloppy driving'.

No one's gonna give up venturing on the streets for that ugly but unsurpassable truth.

So no one should give up fracking. Especially not when, apart from ensuring a steady energy supply for decades to come, it will in the same manner dry up the financial resources of those who finance international islamic terrorism and the spreading of wahhabi ideology - primarily Iran and Saudi Arabia.


Over at American Thinker, Jeffrey Folks convincingly makes the case for fracking:

"...The science is settled, as the climate change supporters like to say. Only this time, science confirms the safety of hydraulic fracturing. According to a new study published by the National Academy of Sciences, fracking is safe. End of discussion.

Funded by the National Science Foundation and Duke University, a team of scientists at Ohio State and other universities conducted extensive research into the purported link between groundwater pollution and fracking. (The full title of the report, available online, is “Noble Gases Identify the Mechanisms of Fugitive Gas Contamination in Drinking-Water Wells Overlying the Marcellus and Barnett Shales.”) In an examination of 130 wells, the researchers found that, when properly conducted, no groundwater or aquifer pollution resulted from the practice of fracking itself.

Among the 130 wells studied, the researchers found only a subset of cases, including seven in Pennsylvania and one in Texas, in which faulty well construction or cementing was to blame for the seepage of gases into groundwater. According to Professor Avner Bengosh of Duke University, “[t]hese results appear to rule out the migration of methane up into drinking water aquifers from depth because of horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing.” That is to say, in the rare cases where it occurs, gases are entering the water supply from outside the borehead as a result of faulty well construction or poor cementing, both of which are manageable problems.

In their research, the scientists subjected the fracked well sites to a newly developed process of “geochemical forensics” using noble gases to determine whether pollution in proximity to a drilling site is naturally occurring or associated with drilling. The process was also able to determine whether the release of gases resulted from fracking itself or from seepage around well casings – an uncommon and correctable problem. As Thomas Darrah, the lead scientist in the study, stated, “most of the issues we have identified can potentially be avoided by future improvements in well integrity.”




While the new report answers the most important question, proving beyond doubt that fracking itself does not cause gas to seep into the water supply, it does not address several other important questions. One of these is the frequency of contamination of water supplies by naturally occurring petroleum, methane, and other gases.

Natural pollution of this kind would seem to be extremely common, and in fact this natural process has been known for millennia. At sites where petroleum seeped to the surface, as in the vicinity of the 19th-century Drake oil field in Pennsylvania, Native Americans had made use of the oily substance as a lubricant for hundreds if not thousands of years. That oil, flowing naturally to the surface, was “contaminating” nearby streams and groundwater.

Similarly, at thousands of hot springs and other sites, methane and other gases, including ammonia and helium, are released naturally into the environment, as for example in Yellowstone National Park. The release of methane from the ocean floor is also a pervasive feature of the natural environment. In comparison with these widespread and perennial sources of methane contamination, the amount of gas released by faulty oil and gas wells is infinitesimal. It would be helpful if some future researcher provided more precise data, but the ratio of man-made to natural release of gases is certainly miniscule.

Even if the oil industry achieved a 100% safety record with the construction of casings and cementing of wells, or even if no drilling at all were to take place, vast amounts of methane and other “polluting” gases would seep into groundwater and aquifers as a result of natural processes. The same is true of deepwater drilling: enormous methane emissions take place all the time in the seabed. Earthquakes and volcanoes, both above ground and underwater, release huge quantities of gases into the environment on a regular basis. A study of a single quake that occurred in Pakistan in 1945 proved that the event had released 10 million cubic yards of gas over a period of seven decades, and that the fracture resulting from the quake continues to emit methane.

What humans add to natural emisions as a result of drilling is so minor as to be of little consequence. If some future study confirmed this fact, it would help to counter the myth that oil and gas drilling is polluting an otherwise pure land and sea environment. The reality is that wherever shale and other carbon-rich formations occur, natural leakage of petroleum and/or methane is inevitable. Oil and gas are naturally occurring features that are constantly interacting with the environment and entering the water supply through natural processes. As is so often the case, the idea that there once existed an environment free of all that modern intellectuals might consider unpleasant is simply a fantasy..."

You can find the link to the Ohio State University report here.





We reported on the anti-fracking craze over one year ago here. Some readers may recall our post on the anti-fracking movie Promised Land, starring Matt Damon. Promised land had been partly financed by a media company wholly owned by the United Arab Emirates, an OPEC member.

Even more damningly, and completely in line with the above assertions that natural emissions and contamination far outweigh "what humans add", we also posted a video in which Josh Fox, producer of the anti-fracking documentary Gasland, admitted that Pennsylvanians were able to light the water coming from their taps decades before fracking even started.

Now that the report by the Ohio State University scientists is out, I wonder if Matt Damon or Josh Fox will backtrack?

Count on it.

Not.



MFBB.

BELGIUM: ISLAMIC SUPREMACIST "LAWYER" ABDERRAHIM LAHLALI RESURFACES AGAIN, CLAIMING SYRIA FIGHTER FROM VILVOORDE SUFFERS FROM "BRAIN DAMAGE".

An article in De Standaard, Het Laatste Nieuws et al on Friday September 19, 2014:




Translation:

For the first time a Flemish Syriafighter has admitted to have executed someone. Last year, Hakim Elouassaki (22) from Vilvoorde shot a hostage through the head in Syria. "I had to."

In January 2013 Hakim Elouassaki fought in Syria in the ranks of the radical Jabhat al-Nusra movement , together with tens of members of Shariah4Belgium. At that time, no one talked yet about the barbaric Islamic State (IS). Three months later the twentysomething returned to Belgium, after having received a serious headwound from shrapnel.

Two weeks later he was arrested. The Antwerp Judiciary has been in the possession of incriminating wiretaps against Elouassaki since the facts. Indeed, from Syria he had placed a telephone call to his girlfriend in Vilvoorde to boast of his executing a kafir. "A bullet in the head. Bang." he said laughing. After his arrest Elouassaki minimized the conversation as "tough talk". Until two weeks ago, when he suddenly started confirming the execution. Although he claimed to have been forced to shoot the man, since his commanders had thrust the task upon him. His lawyer pleads this is by no means a confession. "The investigators have forced my client to admit it, while he suffers from serious health-related problems", says Abderrahim Lahlali. "I have asked a team of doctors to check out the brain damage my client suffers from".

Ah, Abderrahim Lahlali!!! We had some material on this closet islamic supremacist earlier on! See HERE.


Abderrahim Lahlali, who tripped over his feet to defend the dangerous criminal and Ueber-radical extremist muslim Abdelkader Belliraj, who murdered at least six people in Belgium between 1986 and 1989.

Abderrahim Lahlali, who rushed to the defense of the parents of Layla Hachichi, who, together with a koranic teacher, murdered their own daughter with boiling water because she had outed herself as a lesbian. Lahlali argued that Layla had accidently had burned herself while showering!

Abderrahim Lahlali, who was at the forefront of obstructing the guidelines for neutrality among Ghent city personnel, insisting that muslim females on the city payroll be allowed to wear their headscarves.

Abderrahim Lahlali, who eagerly presented himself as Rosea Lake's lawyer, when that Canadian artsy fartsy 'student' complained that Vlaams Belang leading lady Anke Van dermeersch had plagiarized her 'Judgments' photo.






And now we have here a bloke who wanted to play Rambo against the Syrian Army, murdered in cold blood some hapless unbeliever, CONFESSED THE CRIME no less, and lookie look who pops up! Abderrahim Lahlali, claiming his client did not mean what he said and ordering a platoon of doctors to determine the fella suffers from brain damage.

If it weren't all so utterly tragic, a man would heartily laugh at the grotesqueness of it all. But perhaps the biggest 'joke' of it all is that this scoundrel has managed to install himself among the 'respected', ahem, Christian Democrats in the city of Ronse, even appearing on the latest elecion lists.

You know what? I'm seriously starting to believe all muslims suffer from brain damage.

Fatally.



MFBB.